Sylvain Bouley

Instrumental methods for professional and amateur collaborations in planetary astronomy

Amateur contributions to professional publications have increased exponentially over the last decades in the field of planetary astronomy. Here we review the different domains of the field in which collaborations between professional and amateur astronomers are effective and regularly lead to scientific publications.We discuss the instruments, detectors, software and methodologies typically used by amateur astronomers to collect the scientific data in the different domains of interest. Amateur contributions to the monitoring of planets and interplanetary matter, characterization of asteroids and comets, as well as the determination of the physical properties of Kuiper Belt Objects and exoplanets are discussed.

Late Tharsis formation and implications for early Mars

The Tharsis region is the largest volcanic complex on Mars and in the Solar System. Young lava flows cover its surface (from the Amazonian period, less than 3 billion years ago) but its growth started during the Noachian era (more than 3.7 billion years ago). Its position has induced a reorientation of the planet with respect to its spin axis (true polar wander, TPW), which is responsible for the present equatorial position of the volcanic province. It has been suggested that the Tharsis load on the lithosphere influenced the orientation of the Noachian/Early Hesperian (more than 3.5 billion years ago) valley networks and therefore that most of the topography of Tharsis was completed before fluvial incision. Here we calculate the rotational figure of Mars (that is, its equilibrium shape) and its surface topography before Tharsis formed, when the spin axis of the planet was controlled by the difference in elevation between the northern and southern hemispheres (hemispheric dichotomy). We show that the observed directions of valley networks are also consistent with topographic gradients in this configuration and thus do not require the presence of the Tharsis load. Furthermore, the distribution of the valleys along a small circle tilted with respect to the equator is found to correspond to a southern-hemisphere latitudinal band in the pre-TPW geographical frame. Preferential accumulation of ice or water in a south tropical band is predicted by climate model simulations of early Mars applied to the pre-TPW topography. A late growth of Tharsis, contemporaneous with valley incision, has several implications for the early geological history of Mars, including the existence of glacial environments near the locations of the pre-TPW poles of rotation, and a possible link between volcanic outgassing from Tharsis and the stability of liquid water at the surface of Mars.

Modeling tsunami propagation and the emplacement of thumbprint terrain in an early Mars ocean

The identification of lobate debris deposits in Arabia Terra, along the proposed paleoshoreline of a former northern ocean, has renewed questions about the existence and stability of ocean-sized body of water in the early geologic history of Mars. The potential occurrence of impact-generated tsunamis in a northern ocean was investigated by comparing the geomorphologic characteristics of the Martian deposits with the predictions of well-validated terrestrial models (scaled to Mars) of tsunami wave height, propagation direction, runup elevation, and distance for three potential sea levels. Our modeling suggests several potential impact craters ~30–50 km in diameter as the source of the tsunami events. Within the complex topography of flat-floored valleys and plateaus along the dichotomy boundary, the interference of the multiple reflected and refracted waves that are observed in the simulation may explain the origin of the arcuate pattern that characterizes the thumbprint terrain.

Age dates of valley network drainage basins and subbasins within Sabae and Arabia Terrae, Mars

The precise timing of valley network drainage basin formation is critical to understanding the history of water and climate on Mars. To determine whether there are any variations in ages within separate drainage basins and subbasins that may reflect local or regional variations in climate or resetting from resurfacing (e.g., impact ejecta or lava flows), we dated 27 basins and subbasins in Sabaea and Arabia Terrae. The age-dating basin technique we employed allowed sufficient precision to give accurate ages and shows that fluvial activity within the basins and subbasins ceased at approximately the same time around the Early Hesperian/Late Hesperian transition. Our results support the hypothesis that valley networks formed during a unique “fluvial optimum” that may have shut off gradually because of a global climate change that affected all areas simultaneously on Mars.

Level-Set Based Algorithm for Automatic Feature Extraction on 3D Meshes: Application to Crater Detection on Mars

The knowledge of the origin and development of all bodies in the solar system begins with understanding the geologic history and evolution of the universe. The only approach for dating celestial body surfaces is by the analysis of the crater impact density and size. In order to facilitate this process, automatic approaches have been proposed for the impact craters detection. In this article, we propose a novel approach for detecting craters’ rims. The developed method is based on a study of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) geometry, represented as a 3D triangulated mesh. We use curvature analysis, in combination with a fast local quantization method to automatically detect the craters’ rims with artificial neural network. The validation of the method is performed on Barlow’s database.