Triton (moon)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(moon)

 

Triton

Voyager 2 photomosaic of Triton's sub-Neptunian hemisphere
Discovery
Discovered by	William Lassell
Discovery date	October 10, 1846
Designations
Designation	Neptune I
Pronunciation	/ˈtraɪtən/
Named after	Τρίτων Trītōn
Adjectives	Tritonian (/traɪˈtoʊniən/)
Orbital characteristics
Semi-major axis	354,759 km
Eccentricity	0.000016
Orbital period (sidereal)	5.876854 d (retrograde)
Average orbital speed	4.39 km/s
Inclination	129.812° (to the ecliptic) 156.885° (to Neptune's equator) 129.608° (to Neptune's orbit)
Satellite of	Neptune
Physical characteristics
Mean radius	1,353.4±0.9 km (0.2122 REarth)
Surface area	23,018,000 km2
Volume	10,384,000,000 km3
Mass	(2.1390±0.0028)×1022 kg (0.00359 Earths)
Mean density	2.061 g/cm3
Surface gravity	0.779 m/s2 (0.0794 g) (0.48 Moons)
Escape velocity	1.455 km/s
Synodic rotation period	synchronous
Sidereal rotation period	5 d, 21 h, 2 min, 53 s
Axial tilt	0
Albedo	0.76
Temperature	38 K (−235.2 °C)
Apparent magnitude	13.47
Absolute magnitude (H)	−1.2
Atmosphere
Surface pressure	1.4 to 1.9 Pa (1.38×10−5 to 1.88×10−5 atm)
Composition by volume	nitrogen; methane traces

Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune, and was the first Neptunian moon to be discovered, on October 11, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, an orbit in the direction opposite to its planet's rotation. Because of its retrograde orbit and composition similar to Pluto, Triton is thought to have been a dwarf planet, captured from the Kuiper belt.

At 2,710 kilometers (1,680 mi) in diameter, it is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System, the only satellite of Neptune massive enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, the second-largest planetary moon in relation to its primary (after Earth's Moon), and larger than Pluto. Triton is one of the few moons in the Solar System known to be geologically active (the others being Jupiter's Io and Europa, and Saturn's Enceladus and Titan). As a consequence, its surface is relatively young, with few obvious impact craters. Intricate cryovolcanic and tectonic terrains suggest a complex geological history. Triton has a surface of mostly frozen nitrogen, a mostly water-ice crust, an icy mantle and a substantial core of rock and metal. The core makes up two-thirds of its total mass. The mean density is 2.061 g/cm³, reflecting a composition of approximately 15–35% water ice.

During its 1989 flyby of Triton, Voyager 2 found surface temperatures of 38 K (−235 °C) and also discovered active geysers erupting sublimated nitrogen gas, contributing to a tenuous nitrogen atmosphere less than 1⁄70,000 the pressure of Earth's atmosphere at sea level. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to have visited Triton. As the probe was only able to study about 40% of the moon's surface, future missions (dubbed "Trident") have been proposed to NASA via their Discovery Program to revisit the Neptune system with a focus on Triton.

Discovery and naming

William Lassell, the discoverer of Triton

Triton was discovered by British astronomer William Lassell on October 10, 1846, just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune. When John Herschel received news of Neptune's discovery, he wrote to Lassell suggesting he search for possible moons. Lassell discovered Triton eight days later. Lassell also claimed for a period to have discovered rings. Although Neptune was later confirmed to have rings, they are so faint and dark that it is not plausible he saw them. A brewer by trade, Lassell spotted Triton with his self-built 61 cm (24 in) aperture metal mirror reflecting telescope (also known as the "two-foot" reflector). This telescope was donated to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in the 1880s, but was eventually dismantled.

Triton is named after the Greek sea god Triton (Τρίτων), the son of Poseidon (the Greek god corresponding to the Roman Neptune). The name was first proposed by Camille Flammarion in his 1880 book Astronomie Populaire, and was officially adopted many decades later. Until the discovery of the second moon Nereid in 1949, Triton was commonly referred to as "the satellite of Neptune". Lassell did not name his discovery; he later successfully suggested the name Hyperion, previously chosen by John Herschel, for the eighth moon of Saturn when he discovered it.

Orbit and rotation

The orbit of Triton (red) is opposite in direction and tilted −23° compared to a typical moon's orbit (green) in the plane of Neptune's equator.

Triton is unique among all large moons in the Solar System for its retrograde orbit around its planet (i.e. it orbits in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation). Most of the outer irregular moons of Jupiter and Saturn also have retrograde orbits, as do some of Uranus's outer moons. However, these moons are all much more distant from their primaries, and are small in comparison; the largest of them (Phoebe) has only 8% of the diameter (and 0.03% of the mass) of Triton.

Triton's orbit is associated with two tilts, the obliquity of Neptune's rotation to Neptune's orbit, 30°, and the inclination of Triton's orbit to Neptune's rotation, 157° (an inclination over 90° indicates retrograde motion). Triton's orbit precesses forward relative to Neptune's rotation with a period of about 678 Earth years (4.1 Neptunian years), making its Neptune-orbit-relative inclination vary between 127° and 173°. That inclination is currently 130°; Triton's orbit is now near its maximum departure from coplanarity with Neptune's.

Triton's rotation is tidally locked to be synchronous with its orbit around Neptune: it keeps one face oriented toward the planet at all times. Its equator is almost exactly aligned with its orbital plane. At present, Triton's rotational axis is about 40° from Neptune's orbital plane, and hence as Neptune orbits the Sun, Triton's polar regions take turns facing the Sun, resulting in seasonal changes as one pole, then the other moves into the sunlight. Such changes were observed in 2010.

Triton's revolution around Neptune has become a nearly perfect circle with an eccentricity of almost zero. Viscoelastic damping from tides alone is not thought to be capable of circularizing Triton's orbit in the time since the origin of the system, and gas drag from a prograde debris disc is likely to have played a substantial role. Tidal interactions also cause Triton's orbit, which is already closer to Neptune than the Moon is to Earth, to gradually decay further; predictions are that 3.6 billion years from now, Triton will pass within Neptune's Roche limit. This will result in either a collision with Neptune's atmosphere or the breakup of Triton, forming a new ring system similar to that found around Saturn.

Capture

The Kuiper belt (green), in the Solar System's outskirts, is where Triton is thought to have originated.

The current understanding of moons in retrograde orbits means they cannot form in the same region of the solar nebula as the planets they orbit. Therefore Triton must have been captured from elsewhere in the solar system. Astrophysicists believe it might have originated in the Kuiper belt, a ring of small icy objects extending from just inside the orbit of Neptune to about 50 AU from the Sun. Thought to be the point of origin for the majority of short-period comets observed from Earth, the belt is also home to several large, planet-like bodies including Pluto, which is now recognized as the largest in a population of Kuiper belt objects (the plutinos) locked in resonant orbits with Neptune. Triton is only slightly larger than Pluto and is nearly identical in composition, which has led to the hypothesis that the two share a common origin.

The proposed capture of Triton may explain several features of the Neptunian system, including the extremely eccentric orbit of Neptune's moon Nereid and the scarcity of moons as compared to the other giant planets. Triton's initially eccentric orbit would have intersected the orbits of irregular moons and disrupted those of smaller regular moons, dispersing them through gravitational interactions.

Triton's eccentric post-capture orbit would have also resulted in tidal heating of its interior, which could have kept Triton fluid for a billion years; this inference is supported by evidence of differentiation in Triton's interior. This source of internal heat disappeared following tidal locking and circularization of the orbit.

Two types of mechanisms have been proposed for Triton's capture. To be gravitationally captured by a planet, a passing body must lose sufficient energy to be slowed down to a speed less than that required to escape. An early theory of how Triton may have been slowed was by collision with another object, either one that happened to be passing by Neptune (which is unlikely), or a moon or proto-moon in orbit around Neptune (which is more likely). A more recent hypothesis suggests that, before its capture, Triton was part of a binary system. When this binary encountered Neptune, it interacted in such a way that the binary dissociated, with one portion of the binary expelled, and the other, Triton, becoming bound to Neptune. This event is more likely for more massive companions. This hypothesis is supported by several lines of evidence, including binaries being very common among the large Kuiper belt objects. The event was brief but gentle, saving Triton from collisional disruption. Events like this may have been common during the formation of Neptune, or later when it migrated outward.

However, simulations in 2017 showed that after Triton's capture, and before its orbital eccentricity decreased, it probably did collide with at least one other moon, and caused collisions between other moons.

Physical characteristics

Triton dominates the Neptunian moon system, with over 99.5% of its total mass. This imbalance may reflect the elimination of many of Neptune's original satellites following Triton's capture.

 

Triton (lower left) compared to the Moon (upper left) and Earth (right), to scale

Triton is the seventh-largest moon and sixteenth-largest object in the Solar System and is modestly larger than the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris. It is also the largest retrograde moon in the solar system. It comprises more than 99.5% of all the mass known to orbit Neptune, including the planet's rings and thirteen other known moons, and is also more massive than all known moons in the Solar System smaller than itself combined. Also, with a diameter 5.5% that of Neptune, it is the largest moon of a gas giant relative to its planet in terms of diameter, although Titan is bigger relative to Saturn in terms of mass (the ratio of Triton's mass to that of Neptune is approximately 1:4788). It has a radius, density (2.061 g/cm³), temperature and chemical composition similar to that of Pluto.

Triton's surface is covered with a transparent layer of annealed frozen nitrogen. Only 40% of Triton's surface has been observed and studied, but it may be entirely covered in such a thin sheet of nitrogen ice. Like Pluto's, Triton's crust consists of 55% nitrogen ice with other ices mixed in. Water ice comprises 15–35% and frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) the remaining 10–20%. Trace ices include 0.1% methane and 0.05% carbon monoxide. There could also be ammonia ice on the surface, as there are indications of ammonia dihydrate in the lithosphere. Triton's mean density implies that it probably consists of about 30–45% water ice (including relatively small amounts of volatile ices), with the remainder being rocky material. Triton's surface area is 23 million km², which is 4.5% of Earth, or 15.5% of Earth's land area. Triton has an unusually high albedo, reflecting 60–95% of the sunlight that reaches it, and it has changed only slightly since the first observations. By comparison, the Moon reflects only 11%. Triton's reddish color is thought to be the result of methane ice, which is converted to tholins under exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

Because Triton's surface indicates a long history of melting, models of its interior posit that Triton is differentiated, like Earth, into a solid core, a mantle and a crust. Water, the most abundant volatile in the Solar System, comprises Triton's mantle, enveloping a core of rock and metal. There is enough rock in Triton's interior for radioactive decay to maintain a liquid subsurface ocean to this day, similar to what is thought to exist beneath the surface of Europa and several other icy outer Solar System worlds. This is not thought to be adequate to power convection in Triton's icy crust. However, the strong obliquity tides are believed to generate enough additional heat to accomplish this and produce the observed signs of recent surface geological activity. The black material ejected is suspected to contain organic compounds, and if liquid water is present on Triton, it has been speculated that this could make it habitable for some form of life.

Atmosphere

Main article: Atmosphere of Triton

 

Artist's impression of Triton, showing its tenuous atmosphere just over the limb.

Triton has a tenuous nitrogen atmosphere, with trace amounts of carbon monoxide and small amounts of methane near its surface. Like Pluto's atmosphere, the atmosphere of Triton is thought to have resulted from the evaporation of nitrogen from its surface. Its surface temperature is at least 35.6 K (−237.6 °C) because Triton's nitrogen ice is in the warmer, hexagonal crystalline state, and the phase transition between hexagonal and cubic nitrogen ice occurs at that temperature. An upper limit in the low 40s (K) can be set from vapor pressure equilibrium with nitrogen gas in Triton's atmosphere. This is colder than Pluto's average equilibrium temperature of 44 K (−229.2 °C). Triton's surface atmospheric pressure is only about 1.4–1.9 Pa (0.014–0.019 mbar).

Clouds observed above Triton's limb by Voyager 2.

Turbulence at Triton's surface creates a troposphere (a "weather region") rising to an altitude of 8 km. Streaks on Triton's surface left by geyser plumes suggest that the troposphere is driven by seasonal winds capable of moving material over a micrometer in size. Unlike other atmospheres, Triton's lacks a stratosphere and instead has a thermosphere from altitudes of 8 to 950 km and an exosphere above that. The temperature of Triton's upper atmosphere, at 95±5 K, is higher than that at its surface, due to heat absorbed from solar radiation and Neptune's magnetosphere. A haze permeates most of Triton's troposphere, thought to be composed largely of hydrocarbons and nitriles created by the action of sunlight on methane. Triton's atmosphere also has clouds of condensed nitrogen that lie between 1 and 3 km from its surface.

In 1997, observations from Earth were made of Triton's limb as it passed in front of stars. These observations indicated the presence of a denser atmosphere than was deduced from Voyager 2 data. Other observations have shown an increase in temperature by 5% from 1989 to 1998. These observations indicated Triton was approaching an unusually warm southern hemisphere summer season that happens only once every few hundred years. Theories for this warming include a change of frost patterns on Triton's surface and a change in ice albedo, which would allow more heat to be absorbed. Another theory argues that temperature changes are a result of the deposition of dark, red material from geological processes. Because Triton's Bond albedo is among the highest in the Solar System, it is sensitive to small variations in spectral albedo.

Surface features

Interpretative geomorphological map of Triton

All detailed knowledge of the surface of Triton was acquired from a distance of 40,000 km by the Voyager 2 spacecraft during a single encounter in 1989. The 40% of Triton's surface imaged by Voyager 2 revealed blocky outcrops, ridges, troughs, furrows, hollows, plateaus, icy plains and a few craters. Triton is relatively flat; its observed topography never varies beyond a kilometer. The impact craters observed are concentrated almost entirely in Triton's leading hemisphere. Analysis of crater density and distribution has suggested that in geological terms, Triton's surface is extremely young, with regions varying from an estimated 50 million years old to just an estimated 6 million years old. Fifty-five percent of Triton's surface is covered with frozen nitrogen, with water ice comprising 15–35% and frozen CO₂ forming the remaining 10–20%. The surface shows deposits of tholins, organic chemical compounds that may be precursors to the origin of life.

Cryovolcanism

Further information: Cryovolcano

One of the largest cryovolcanic features found on Triton is Leviathan Patera, a caldera-like feature roughly 100 km in diameter seen near the equator. Surrounding this caldera is a volcanic dome that stretches for roughly 2,000 km along its longest axis, indicating that Leviathan is the second largest volcano in the solar system by area, after Alba Mons. This feature is also connected to two enormous cryolava lakes seen northwest of the caldera. Because the cryolava on Triton is believed to be primarily water ice with some ammonia, these lakes would qualify as stable bodies of surface liquid water while they were molten. This is the first place such bodies have been found apart from Earth, and Triton is the only icy body known to feature cryolava lakes, although similar cryomagmatic extrusions can be seen on Ariel, Ganymede, Charon, and Titan.

The Voyager 2 probe in 1989 observed a handful of geyser-like eruptions of nitrogen gas and entrained dust from beneath the surface of Triton in plumes up to 8 km high. Triton is thus, along with Earth, Io, Europa and Enceladus, one of the few bodies in the Solar System on which active eruptions of some sort have been observed. The best-observed examples are named Hili and Mahilani (after a Zulu water sprite and a Tongan sea spirit, respectively).

All the geysers observed were located between 50° and 57°S, the part of Triton's surface close to the subsolar point. This indicates that solar heating, although very weak at Triton's great distance from the Sun, plays a crucial role. It is thought that the surface of Triton probably consists of a translucent layer of frozen nitrogen overlying a darker substrate, which creates a kind of "solid greenhouse effect". Solar radiation passes through the thin surface ice sheet, slowly heating and vaporizing subsurface nitrogen until enough gas pressure accumulates for it to erupt through the crust. A temperature increase of just 4 K above the ambient surface temperature of 37 K could drive eruptions to the heights observed. Although commonly termed "cryovolcanic", this nitrogen plume activity is distinct from Triton's larger-scale cryovolcanic eruptions, as well as volcanic processes on other worlds, which are powered by internal heat. CO₂ geysers on Mars are thought to erupt from its south polar cap each spring in the same way as Triton's geysers.

Each eruption of a Triton geyser may last up to a year, driven by the sublimation of about 100 million m³ (3.5 billion cu ft) of nitrogen ice over this interval; dust entrained may be deposited up to 150 km downwind in visible streaks, and perhaps much farther in more diffuse deposits. Voyager 2's images of Triton's southern hemisphere show many such streaks of dark material. Between 1977 and the Voyager 2 flyby in 1989, Triton shifted from a reddish color, similar to Pluto, to a far paler hue, suggesting that lighter nitrogen frosts had covered older reddish material. The eruption of volatiles from Triton's equator and their deposition at the poles may redistribute enough mass over 10,000 years to cause polar wander.

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  Close up of the volcanic province of Leviathan Patera, the caldera in the center of the image. Several pit chains extend radially from the caldera to the right of the image, while the smaller of the two cryolava lakes is seen to the upper left. Just off-screen to the lower left is a fault zone aligned radially with the caldera, indicating a close connection between the tectonics and volcanology of this geologic unit.

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  Dark streaks across Triton's south polar cap surface, thought to be dust deposits left by eruptions of nitrogen geysers

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  Two large cryolava lakes on Triton, seen west of Leviathan Patera. Combined, they are nearly the size of Kraken Mare on Titan. These features are unusually crater free, indicating they are young and were recently molten.

Polar cap, plains and ridges

Triton's bright south polar cap above a region of cantaloupe terrain

Triton's south polar region is covered by a highly reflective cap of frozen nitrogen and methane sprinkled by impact craters and openings of geysers. Little is known about the north pole because it was on the night side during the Voyager 2 encounter, but it is thought that Triton must also have a north polar ice cap.

The high plains found on Triton's eastern hemisphere, such as Cipango Planum, cover over and blot out older features, and are therefore almost certainly the result of icy lava washing over the previous landscape. The plains are dotted with pits, such as Leviathan Patera, which are probably the vents from which this lava emerged. The composition of the lava is unknown, although a mixture of ammonia and water is suspected.

Four roughly circular "walled plains" have been identified on Triton. They are the flattest regions so far discovered, with a variance in altitude of less than 200 m. They are thought to have formed from the eruption of icy lava. The plains near Triton's eastern limb are dotted with black spots, the maculae. Some maculae are simple dark spots with diffuse boundaries, and others comprise a dark central patch surrounded by a white halo with sharp boundaries. The maculae typically have diameters of about 100 km and widths of the halos of between 20 and 30 km.

There are extensive ridges and valleys in complex patterns across Triton's surface, probably the result of freeze–thaw cycles. Many also appear to be tectonic and may result from an extension or strike-slip faulting. There are long double ridges of ice with central troughs bearing a strong resemblance to Europan lineae (although they have a larger scale), and which may have a similar origin, possibly shear heating from strike-slip motion along faults caused by diurnal tidal stresses experienced before Triton's orbit was fully circularized. These faults with parallel ridges expelled from the interior cross complex terrain with valleys in the equatorial region. The ridges and furrows, or sulci, such as Yasu Sulci, Ho Sulci, and Lo Sulci, are thought to be of intermediate age in Triton's geological history, and in many cases to have formed concurrently. They tend to be clustered in groups or "packets".

Cantaloupe terrain

Cantaloupe terrain viewed from 130,000 km by Voyager 2, with crosscutting Europa-like double ridges. Slidr Sulci (vertical) and Tano Sulci form the prominent "X".

Triton's western hemisphere consists of a strange series of fissures and depressions known as "cantaloupe terrain" because it resembles the skin of a cantaloupe melon. Although it has few craters, it is thought that this is the oldest terrain on Triton. It probably covers much of Triton's western half.

Cantaloupe terrain, which is mostly dirty water ice, is only known to exist on Triton. It contains depressions 30–40 km in diameter. The depressions (cavi) are probably not impact craters because they are all of the similar size and have smooth curves. The leading hypothesis for their formation is diapirism, the rising of "lumps" of less dense material through a stratum of denser material. Alternative hypotheses include formation by collapses, or by flooding caused by cryovolcanism.

Impact craters

Tuonela Planitia (left) and Ruach Planitia (center) are two of Triton's cryovolcanic "walled plains". The paucity of craters is evidence of extensive, relatively recent, geologic activity.

Due to constant erasure and modification by ongoing geological activity, impact craters on Triton's surface are relatively rare. A census of Triton's craters imaged by Voyager 2 found only 179 that were incontestably of impact origin, compared with 835 observed for Uranus's moon Miranda, which has only three percent of Triton's surface area. The largest crater observed on Triton thought to have been created by an impact is a 27-kilometer-diameter (17 mi) feature called Mazomba. Although larger craters have been observed, they are generally thought to be volcanic.

The few impact craters on Triton are almost all concentrated in the leading hemisphere—that facing the direction of the orbital motion—with the majority concentrated around the equator between 30° and 70° longitude, resulting from material swept up from orbit around Neptune. Because it orbits with one side permanently facing the planet, astronomers expect that Triton should have fewer impacts on its trailing hemisphere, due to impacts on the leading hemisphere being more frequent and more violent. Voyager 2 imaged only 40% of Triton's surface, so this remains uncertain. However, the observed cratering asymmetry exceeds what can be explained based on the impactor populations, and implies a younger surface age for the crater-free regions (≤ 6 million years old) than for the cratered regions (≤ 50 million years old).

Observation and exploration

NASA illustration detailing the studies of the proposed Trident mission

 

Neptune (top) and Triton (bottom) three days after flyby of Voyager 2

The orbital properties of Triton were already determined with high accuracy in the 19th century. It was found to have a retrograde orbit, at a very high angle of inclination to the plane of Neptune's orbit. The first detailed observations of Triton were not made until 1930. Little was known about the satellite until Voyager 2 flew by in 1989.

Before the flyby of Voyager 2, astronomers suspected that Triton might have liquid nitrogen seas and a nitrogen/methane atmosphere with a density as much as 30% that of Earth. Like the famous overestimates of the atmospheric density of Mars, this proved incorrect. As with Mars, a denser atmosphere is postulated for its early history.

The first attempt to measure the diameter of Triton was made by Gerard Kuiper in 1954. He obtained a value of 3,800 km. Subsequent measurement attempts arrived at values ranging from 2,500 to 6,000 km, or from slightly smaller than the Moon (3,474.2 km) to nearly half the diameter of Earth. Data from the approach of Voyager 2 to Neptune on August 25, 1989, led to a more accurate estimate of Triton's diameter (2,706 km).

In the 1990s, various observations from Earth were made of the limb of Triton using the occultation of nearby stars, which indicated the presence of an atmosphere and an exotic surface. Observations in late 1997 suggest that Triton is heating up and the atmosphere has become significantly denser since Voyager 2 flew past in 1989.

New concepts for missions to the Neptune system to be conducted in the 2010s were proposed by NASA scientists on numerous occasions over the last decades. All of them identified Triton as being a prime target and a separate Triton lander comparable to the Huygens probe for Titan was frequently included in those plans. No efforts aimed at Neptune and Triton went beyond the proposal phase and NASA's funding for missions to the outer Solar System is currently focused on the Jupiter and Saturn systems. A proposed lander mission to Triton, called Triton Hopper, would mine nitrogen ice from the surface of Triton and process it to be used as a propellant for a small rocket, enabling it to fly or 'hop' across the surface. Another concept, involving a flyby, was formally proposed in 2019 as part of NASA's Discovery Program under the name Trident. Neptune Odyssey is a mission concept for a Neptune orbiter with a focus on Triton being studied as a possible large strategic science mission by NASA that would launch in 2033 and arrive at the Neptune system in 2049.

Atmospheric escape

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape 

Atmospheric escape is the loss of planetary atmospheric gases to outer space. A number of different mechanisms can be responsible for atmospheric escape; these processes can be divided into thermal escape, non-thermal (or suprathermal) escape, and impact erosion. The relative importance of each loss process depends on the planet's escape velocity, its atmosphere composition, and its distance from its star. Escape occurs when molecular kinetic energy overcomes gravitational energy; in other words, a molecule can escape when it is moving faster than the escape velocity of its planet. Categorizing the rate of atmospheric escape in exoplanets is necessary to determining whether an atmosphere persists, and so the exoplanet's habitability and likelihood of life.

Thermal escape mechanisms

Thermal escape occurs if the molecular velocity due to thermal energy is sufficiently high. Thermal escape happens at all scales, from the molecular level (Jeans escape) to bulk atmospheric outflow (hydrodynamic escape).

A visualization of Jeans escape. Temperature defines a range of molecular energy. Above the exobase, molecules with enough energy escape, while in the lower atmosphere, molecules are trapped by collisions with other molecules.

Jeans escape

One classical thermal escape mechanism is Jeans escape, named after British astronomer Sir James Jeans, who first described this process of atmospheric loss. In a quantity of gas, the average velocity of any one molecule is measured by the gas's temperature, but the velocities of individual molecules change as they collide with one another, gaining and losing kinetic energy. The variation in kinetic energy among the molecules is described by the Maxwell distribution. The kinetic energy (${\displaystyle E_{kin}}$), mass (${\displaystyle m}$), and velocity (${\displaystyle v}$) of a molecule are related by ${\displaystyle E_{\mathit{k}\mathit{i}\mathit{n}}=\frac{1}{2}m{v}^2}$. Individual molecules in the high tail of the distribution (where a few particles have much higher speeds than the average) may reach escape velocity and leave the atmosphere, provided they can escape before undergoing another collision; this happens predominantly in the exosphere, where the mean free path is comparable in length to the pressure scale height. The number of particles able to escape depends on the molecular concentration at the exobase, which is limited by diffusion through the thermosphere.

Three factors strongly contribute to the relative importance of Jeans escape: mass of the molecule, escape velocity of the planet, and heating of the upper atmosphere by radiation from the parent star. Heavier molecules are less likely to escape because they move slower than lighter molecules at the same temperature. This is why hydrogen escapes from an atmosphere more easily than carbon dioxide. Second, a planet with a larger mass tends to have more gravity, so the escape velocity tends to be greater, and fewer particles will gain the energy required to escape. This is why the gas giant planets still retain significant amounts of hydrogen, which escape more readily from Earth's atmosphere. Finally, the distance a planet orbits from a star also plays a part; a close planet has a hotter atmosphere, with higher velocities and hence, a greater likelihood of escape. A distant body has a cooler atmosphere, with lower velocities, and less chance of escape.

A visualization of hydrodynamic escape. At some level in the atmosphere, the bulk gas will be heated and begin to expand. As the gas expands, it accelerates and escapes the atmosphere. In this process, lighter, faster molecules drag heavier, slower molecules out of the atmosphere.

Hydrodynamic escape

See also: hydrodynamic escape

An atmosphere with high pressure and temperature can also undergo hydrodynamic escape. In this case, a large amount of thermal energy, usually through extreme ultraviolet radiation, is absorbed by the atmosphere. As molecules are heated, they expand upwards and are further accelerated until they reach escape velocity. In this process, lighter molecules can drag heavier molecules with them through collisions as a larger quantity of gas escapes. Hydrodynamic escape has been observed for exoplanets close to their host star, including the hot Jupiter HD 209458b.

Non-thermal (suprathermal) escape

Escape can also occur due to non-thermal interactions. Most of these processes occur due to photochemistry or charged particle (ion) interactions.

Photochemical escape

In the upper atmosphere, high energy ultraviolet photons can react more readily with molecules. Photodissociation can break a molecule into smaller components and provide enough energy for those components to escape. Photoionization produces ions, which can get trapped in the planet's magnetosphere or undergo dissociative recombination. In the first case, these ions may undergo escape mechanisms described below. In the second case, the ion recombines with an electron, releases energy, and can escape.

Sputtering escape

Excess kinetic energy from the solar wind can impart sufficient energy to eject atmospheric particles, similar to sputtering from a solid surface. This type of interaction is more pronounced in the absence of a planetary magnetosphere, as the electrically charged solar wind is deflected by magnetic fields, which mitigates the loss of atmosphere.

The fast ion captures an electron from a slow neutral in a charge exchange collision. The new, fast neutral can escape the atmosphere, and the new, slow ion is trapped on magnetic field lines.

Charge exchange escape

Ions in the solar wind or magnetosphere can charge exchange with molecules in the upper atmosphere. A fast-moving ion can capture the electron from a slow atmospheric neutral, creating a fast neutral and a slow ion. The slow ion is trapped on the magnetic field lines, but the fast neutral can escape.

Polar wind escape

See also: Polar wind

Atmospheric molecules can also escape from the polar regions on a planet with a magnetosphere, due to the polar wind. Near the poles of a magnetosphere, the magnetic field lines are open, allowing a pathway for ions in the atmosphere to exhaust into space.

Atmospheric escape from impact erosion is concentrated in a cone (red dash-dotted line) centered at the impact site. The angle of this cone increases with impact energy to eject a maximum of all the atmosphere above a tangent plane (orange dotted line).

Impact erosion

The impact of a large meteoroid can lead to the loss of atmosphere. If a collision is sufficiently energetic, it is possible for ejecta, including atmospheric molecules, to reach escape velocity.

In order to have a significant effect on atmospheric escape, the radius of the impacting body must be larger than the scale height. The projectile can impart momentum, and thereby facilitate escape of the atmosphere, in three main ways: (a) the meteoroid heats and accelerates the gas it encounters as it travels through the atmosphere, (b) solid ejecta from the impact crater heat atmospheric particles through drag as they are ejected, and (c) the impact creates vapor which expands away from the surface. In the first case, the heated gas can escape in a manner similar to hydrodynamic escape, albeit on a more localized scale. Most of the escape from impact erosion occurs due to the third case. The maximum atmosphere that can be ejected is above a plane tangent to the impact site.

Dominant atmospheric escape and loss processes in the Solar System

Earth

Atmospheric escape of hydrogen on Earth is due to charge exchange escape (~60–90%), Jeans escape (~10–40%), and polar wind escape (~10–15%), currently losing about 3 kg/s of hydrogen. The Earth additionally loses approximately 50 g/s of helium primarily through polar wind escape. Escape of other atmospheric constituents is much smaller. A Japanese research team in 2017 found evidence of a small number of oxygen ions on the moon that came from the Earth.

In 1 billion years, the Sun will be 10% brighter than it is now, making it hot enough for Earth to lose enough hydrogen to space to cause it to lose all of its water (See Future of Earth#Loss of oceans).

Venus

Recent models indicate that hydrogen escape on Venus is almost entirely due to suprathermal mechanisms, primarily photochemical reactions and charge exchange with the solar wind. Oxygen escape is dominated by charge exchange and sputtering escape. Venus Express measured the effect of coronal mass ejections on the rate of atmospheric escape of Venus, and researchers found a factor of 1.9 increase in escape rate during periods of increased coronal mass ejections compared with calmer space weather.

Mars

Primordial Mars also suffered from the cumulative effects of multiple small impact erosion events, and recent observations with MAVEN suggest that 66% of the ³⁶Ar in the Martian atmosphere has been lost over the last 4 billion years due to suprathermal escape, and the amount of CO₂ lost over the same time period is around 0.5 bar or more.

The MAVEN mission has also explored the current rate of atmospheric escape of Mars. Jeans escape plays an important role in the continued escape of hydrogen on Mars, contributing to a loss rate that varies between 160 - 1800 g/s. Jeans escape of hydrogen can be significantly modulated by lower atmospheric processes, such as gravity waves, convection, and dust storms. Oxygen loss is dominated by suprathermal methods: photochemical (~1300 g/s), charge exchange (~130 g/s), and sputtering (~80 g/s) escape combine for a total loss rate of ~1500 g/s. Other heavy atoms, such as carbon and nitrogen, are primarily lost due to photochemical reactions and interactions with the solar wind.

Titan and Io

Saturn's moon Titan and Jupiter's moon Io have atmospheres and are subject to atmospheric loss processes. They have no magnetic fields of their own, but orbit planets with powerful magnetic fields, which protects a given moon from the solar wind when its orbit is within the bow shock. However Titan spends roughly half of its transit time outside of the bow-shock, subjected to unimpeded solar winds. The kinetic energy gained from pick-up and sputtering associated with the solar winds increases thermal escape throughout the transit of Titan, causing neutral hydrogen to escape. The escaped hydrogen maintains an orbit following in the wake of Titan, creating a neutral hydrogen torus around Saturn. Io, in its transit around Jupiter, encounters a plasma cloud. Interaction with the plasma cloud induces sputtering, kicking off sodium particles. The interaction produces a stationary banana-shaped charged sodium cloud along a part of the orbit of Io.

Observations of exoplanet atmospheric escape

Studies of exoplanets have measured atmospheric escape as a means of determining atmospheric composition and habitability. The most common method is Lyman-alpha line absorption. Much as exoplanets are discovered using the dimming of a distant star's brightness (transit), looking specifically at wavelengths corresponding to hydrogen absorption describes the amount of hydrogen present in a sphere around the exoplanet. This method indicates that the hot Jupiters HD209458b and HD189733b and Hot Neptune GJ436b are experiencing significant atmospheric escape.

In 2018 it was discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope that atmospheric escape can also be measured with the 1083 nm Helium triplet. This wavelength is much more accessible from ground-based high-resolution spectrographs, when compared to the ultraviolet Lyman-alpha lines. The wavelength around the helium triplet has also the advantage that it is not severely affected by interstellar absorption, which is an issue for Lyman-alpha. Helium has on the other hand the disadvantage that it requires knowledge about the hydrogen-helium ratio to model the mass-loss of the atmosphere. Helium escape was measured around many giant exoplanets, including WASP-107b, WASP-69b and HD 189733b. It has also been detected around some mini-Neptunes, such as TOI-560b.

Other atmospheric loss mechanisms

See also: Carbon sequestration

Sequestration is not a form of escape from the planet, but a loss of molecules from the atmosphere and into the planet. It occurs on Earth when water vapor condenses to form rain or glacial ice, when carbon dioxide is sequestered in sediments or cycled through the oceans, or when rocks are oxidized (for example, by increasing the oxidation states of ferric rocks from Fe²⁺ to Fe³⁺). Gases can also be sequestered by adsorption, where fine particles in the regolith capture gas which adheres to the surface particles.

Atmosphere

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere

 

The planet Mars has an atmosphere composed of thin layers of gases.

 

The atmospheric gases around Earth scatter blue light (shorter wavelengths) more than light toward the red end (longer wavelengths) of the visible spectrum; thus, a blue glow over the horizon is seen when observing Earth from outer space.

 

A diagram of the layers of Earth's atmosphere

An atmosphere (from Ancient Greek ἀτμός (atmós) 'vapour, steam', and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere') is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere is the outer region of a star, which includes the layers above the opaque photosphere; stars of low temperature might have outer atmospheres containing compound molecules.

The atmosphere of Earth is composed of nitrogen (78 %), oxygen (21 %), argon (0.9 %), carbon dioxide (0.04 %) and trace gases. Most organisms use oxygen for respiration; lightning and bacteria perform nitrogen fixation to produce ammonia that is used to make nucleotides and amino acids; plants, algae, and cyanobacteria use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. The layered composition of the atmosphere minimises the harmful effects of sunlight, ultraviolet radiation, solar wind, and cosmic rays to protect organisms from genetic damage. The current composition of the atmosphere of the Earth is the product of billions of years of biochemical modification of the paleoatmosphere by living organisms.

Composition

The initial gaseous composition of an atmosphere is determined by the chemistry and temperature of the local solar nebula from which a planet is formed, and the subsequent escape of some gases from the interior of the atmosphere proper. The original atmosphere of the planets originated from a rotating disc of gases, which collapsed onto itself and then divided into a series of spaced rings of gas and matter that, which later condensed to form the planets of the Solar System. The atmospheres of the planets Venus and Mars are principally composed of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, argon and oxygen.

The composition of Earth's atmosphere is determined by the by-products of the life that it sustains. Dry air (mixture of gases) from Earth's atmosphere contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and traces of hydrogen, helium, and other "noble" gases (by volume), but generally a variable amount of water vapor is also present, on average about 1% at sea level.^[5]

The low temperatures and higher gravity of the Solar System's giant planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune—allow them more readily to retain gases with low molecular masses. These planets have hydrogen–helium atmospheres, with trace amounts of more complex compounds.

Two satellites of the outer planets possess significant atmospheres. Titan, a moon of Saturn, and Triton, a moon of Neptune, have atmospheres mainly of nitrogen. When in the part of its orbit closest to the Sun, Pluto has an atmosphere of nitrogen and methane similar to Triton's, but these gases are frozen when it is farther from the Sun.

Other bodies within the Solar System have extremely thin atmospheres not in equilibrium. These include the Moon (sodium gas), Mercury (sodium gas), Europa (oxygen), Io (sulfur), and Enceladus (water vapor).

The first exoplanet whose atmospheric composition was determined is HD 209458b, a gas giant with a close orbit around a star in the constellation Pegasus. Its atmosphere is heated to temperatures over 1,000 K, and is steadily escaping into space. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and sulfur have been detected in the planet's inflated atmosphere.

Structure of atmosphere

Earth

The atmosphere of Earth is composed of layers with different properties, such as specific gaseous composition, temperature, and pressure.

The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere. This extends from the planetary surface to the bottom of the stratosphere. The troposphere contains 75–80 % of the mass of the atmosphere, and is the atmospheric layer wherein the weather occurs; the height of the troposphere varies between 17 km at the equator and 7.0 km at the poles.

The stratosphere extends from the top of the troposphere to the bottom of the mesosphere, and contains the ozone layer, at an altitude between 15 km and 35 km. It is the atmospheric layer that absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation that Earth receives from the Sun.

The mesosphere ranges from 50 km to 85 km, and is the layer wherein most meteors are incinerated before reaching the surface.

The thermosphere extends from an altitude of 85 km to the base of the exosphere at 690 km and contains the ionosphere, where solar radiation ionizes the atmosphere. The density of the ionosphere is greater at short distances from the planetary surface in the daytime and decreases as the ionosphere rises at night-time, thereby allowing a greater range of radio frequencies to travel greater distances.

The exosphere begins at 690 to 1,000 km from the surface, and extends to roughly 10,000 km, where it interacts with the magnetosphere of Earth.

Pressure

Main article: Atmospheric pressure

Atmospheric pressure is the force (per unit-area) perpendicular to a unit-area of planetary surface, as determined by the weight of the vertical column of atmospheric gases. In said atmospheric model, the atmospheric pressure, the weight of the mass of the gas, decreases at high altitude because of the diminishing mass of the gas above the point of barometric measurement. The units of air pressure are based upon the standard atmosphere (atm), which is 101,325 Pa (equivalent to 760 Torr or 14.696 psi). The height at which the atmospheric pressure declines by a factor of e (an irrational number equal to 2.71828) is called the scale height (H). For an atmosphere of uniform temperature, the scale height is proportional to the atmospheric temperature, and is inversely proportional to the product of the mean molecular mass of dry air, and the local acceleration of gravity at the point of barometric measurement.

Escape

Main article: Atmospheric escape

Surface gravity differs significantly among the planets. For example, the large gravitational force of the giant planet Jupiter retains light gases such as hydrogen and helium that escape from objects with lower gravity. Secondly, the distance from the Sun determines the energy available to heat atmospheric gas to the point where some fraction of its molecules' thermal motion exceed the planet's escape velocity, allowing those to escape a planet's gravitational grasp. Thus, distant and cold Titan, Triton, and Pluto are able to retain their atmospheres despite their relatively low gravities.

Since a collection of gas molecules may be moving at a wide range of velocities, there will always be some fast enough to produce a slow leakage of gas into space. Lighter molecules move faster than heavier ones with the same thermal kinetic energy, and so gases of low molecular weight are lost more rapidly than those of high molecular weight. It is thought that Venus and Mars may have lost much of their water when, after being photodissociated into hydrogen and oxygen by solar ultraviolet radiation, the hydrogen escaped. Earth's magnetic field helps to prevent this, as, normally, the solar wind would greatly enhance the escape of hydrogen. However, over the past 3 billion years Earth may have lost gases through the magnetic polar regions due to auroral activity, including a net 2 % of its atmospheric oxygen. The net effect, taking the most important escape processes into account, is that an intrinsic magnetic field does not protect a planet from atmospheric escape and that for some magnetizations the presence of a magnetic field works to increase the escape rate.

Other mechanisms that can cause atmosphere depletion are solar wind-induced sputtering, impact erosion, weathering, and sequestration—sometimes referred to as "freezing out"—into the regolith and polar caps.

Terrain

Atmospheres have dramatic effects on the surfaces of rocky bodies. Objects that have no atmosphere, or that have only an exosphere, have terrain that is covered in craters. Without an atmosphere, the planet has no protection from meteoroids, and all of them collide with the surface as meteorites and create craters.

Most meteoroids burn up as meteors before hitting a planet's surface. When meteoroids do impact, the effects are often erased by the action of wind.

Wind erosion is a significant factor in shaping the terrain of rocky planets with atmospheres, and over time can erase the effects of both craters and volcanoes. In addition, since liquids can not exist without pressure, an atmosphere allows liquid to be present at the surface, resulting in lakes, rivers and oceans. Earth and Titan are known to have liquids at their surface and terrain on the planet suggests that Mars had liquid on its surface in the past.

Atmospheres in the Solar System

Graphs of escape velocity against surface temperature of some Solar System objects showing which gases are retained. The objects are drawn to scale, and their data points are at the black dots in the middle.

• Atmosphere of the Sun
• Atmosphere of Mercury
• Atmosphere of Venus
• Atmosphere of Earth
  • Atmosphere of the Moon
• Atmosphere of Mars
• Atmosphere of Ceres
• Atmosphere of Jupiter
  • Atmosphere of Io
  • Atmosphere of Callisto
  • Atmosphere of Europa
  • Atmosphere of Ganymede
• Atmosphere of Saturn
  • Atmosphere of Titan
  • Atmosphere of Enceladus
• Atmosphere of Uranus
  • Atmosphere of Titania
• Atmosphere of Neptune
  • Atmosphere of Triton
• Atmosphere of Pluto

Outside the Solar System

Main article: Extraterrestrial atmosphere

• Atmosphere of HD 209458 b

Circulation

Main article: Atmospheric circulation

The circulation of the atmosphere occurs due to thermal differences when convection becomes a more efficient transporter of heat than thermal radiation. On planets where the primary heat source is solar radiation, excess heat in the tropics is transported to higher latitudes. When a planet generates a significant amount of heat internally, such as is the case for Jupiter, convection in the atmosphere can transport thermal energy from the higher temperature interior up to the surface.

Importance

From the perspective of a planetary geologist, the atmosphere acts to shape a planetary surface. Wind picks up dust and other particles which, when they collide with the terrain, erode the relief and leave deposits (eolian processes). Frost and precipitations, which depend on the atmospheric composition, also influence the relief. Climate changes can influence a planet's geological history. Conversely, studying the surface of the Earth leads to an understanding of the atmosphere and climate of other planets.

For a meteorologist, the composition of the Earth's atmosphere is a factor affecting the climate and its variations.

For a biologist or paleontologist, the Earth's atmospheric composition is closely dependent on the appearance of the life and its evolution.

Adaptive optics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_optics 

 

The wavefront of an aberrated image (left) can be measured using a wavefront sensor (center) and then corrected for using a deformable mirror (right).

Adaptive optics (AO) is a technique of precisely deforming a mirror in order to compensate light distortion. It is used in astronomical telescopes and laser communication systems to remove the effects of atmospheric distortion, in microscopy, optical fabrication and in retinal imaging systems to reduce optical aberrations. Adaptive optics works by measuring the distortions in a wavefront and compensating for them with a device that corrects those errors such as a deformable mirror or a liquid crystal array.

Adaptive optics should not be confused with active optics, which works on a longer timescale to correct the primary mirror geometry.

Other methods can achieve resolving power exceeding the limit imposed by atmospheric distortion, such as speckle imaging, aperture synthesis, and lucky imaging, or by moving outside the atmosphere with space telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

History

Adaptive thin shell mirror.

Adaptive optics was first envisioned by Horace W. Babcock in 1953, and was also considered in science fiction, as in Poul Anderson's novel Tau Zero (1970), but it did not come into common usage until advances in computer technology during the 1990s made the technique practical.

Some of the initial development work on adaptive optics was done by the US military during the Cold War and was intended for use in tracking Soviet satellites.

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) deformable mirrors and magnetics concept deformable mirrors are currently the most widely used technology in wavefront shaping applications for adaptive optics given their versatility, stroke, maturity of technology, and the high resolution wavefront correction that they afford.

Tip–tilt correction

The simplest form of adaptive optics is tip–tilt correction, which corresponds to correction of the tilts of the wavefront in two dimensions (equivalent to correction of the position offsets for the image). This is performed using a rapidly moving tip–tilt mirror that makes small rotations around two of its axes. A significant fraction of the aberration introduced by the atmosphere can be removed in this way.

Tip–tilt mirrors are effectively segmented mirrors having only one segment which can tip and tilt, rather than having an array of multiple segments that can tip and tilt independently. Due to the relative simplicity of such mirrors and having a large stroke, meaning they have large correcting power, most AO systems use these, first, to correct low order aberrations. Higher order aberrations may then be corrected with deformable mirrors.

In astronomy

Atmospheric seeing

Further information: Astronomical seeing

 

Negative images of a star through a telescope. The left-hand panel shows the slow-motion movie of a star when the adaptive optics system is switched off. The right-hand panel shows the slow motion movie of the same star when the AO system is switched on.

When light from a star or another astronomical object enters the Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric turbulence (introduced, for example, by different temperature layers and different wind speeds interacting) can distort and move the image in various ways. Visual images produced by any telescope larger than approximately 20 centimetres (0.20 m; 7.9 in) are blurred by these distortions.

Wavefront sensing and correction

An adaptive optics system tries to correct these distortions, using a wavefront sensor which takes some of the astronomical light, a deformable mirror that lies in the optical path, and a computer that receives input from the detector. The wavefront sensor measures the distortions the atmosphere has introduced on the timescale of a few milliseconds; the computer calculates the optimal mirror shape to correct the distortions and the surface of the deformable mirror is reshaped accordingly. For example, an 8–10-metre (800–1,000 cm; 310–390 in) telescope (like the VLT or Keck) can produce AO-corrected images with an angular resolution of 30–60 milliarcsecond (mas) resolution at infrared wavelengths, while the resolution without correction is of the order of 1 arcsecond.

In order to perform adaptive optics correction, the shape of the incoming wavefronts must be measured as a function of position in the telescope aperture plane. Typically the circular telescope aperture is split up into an array of pixels in a wavefront sensor, either using an array of small lenslets (a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor), or using a curvature or pyramid sensor which operates on images of the telescope aperture. The mean wavefront perturbation in each pixel is calculated. This pixelated map of the wavefronts is fed into the deformable mirror and used to correct the wavefront errors introduced by the atmosphere. It is not necessary for the shape or size of the astronomical object to be known – even Solar System objects which are not point-like can be used in a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor, and time-varying structure on the surface of the Sun is commonly used for adaptive optics at solar telescopes. The deformable mirror corrects incoming light so that the images appear sharp.

Using guide stars

Natural guide stars

Because a science target is often too faint to be used as a reference star for measuring the shape of the optical wavefronts, a nearby brighter guide star can be used instead. The light from the science target has passed through approximately the same atmospheric turbulence as the reference star's light and so its image is also corrected, although generally to a lower accuracy.

The necessity of a reference star means that an adaptive optics system cannot work everywhere on the sky, but only where a guide star of sufficient luminosity (for current systems, about magnitude 12–15) can be found very near to the object of the observation. This severely limits the application of the technique for astronomical observations. Another major limitation is the small field of view over which the adaptive optics correction is good. As the angular distance from the guide star increases, the image quality degrades. A technique known as "multiconjugate adaptive optics" uses several deformable mirrors to achieve a greater field of view.

Artificial guide stars

A laser beam directed toward the centre of the Milky Way. This laser beam can then be used as a guide star for the AO.

An alternative is the use of a laser beam to generate a reference light source (a laser guide star, LGS) in the atmosphere. There are two kinds of LGSs: Rayleigh guide stars and sodium guide stars. Rayleigh guide stars work by propagating a laser, usually at near ultraviolet wavelengths, and detecting the backscatter from air at altitudes between 15–25 km (49,000–82,000 ft). Sodium guide stars use laser light at 589 nm to resonantly excite sodium atoms higher in the mesosphere and thermosphere, which then appear to "glow". The LGS can then be used as a wavefront reference in the same way as a natural guide star – except that (much fainter) natural reference stars are still required for image position (tip/tilt) information. The lasers are often pulsed, with measurement of the atmosphere being limited to a window occurring a few microseconds after the pulse has been launched. This allows the system to ignore most scattered light at ground level; only light which has travelled for several microseconds high up into the atmosphere and back is actually detected.

In retinal imaging

Illustration of a (simplified) adaptive optics system. The light first hits a tip–tilt (TT) mirror and then a deformable mirror (DM) which corrects the wavefront. Part of the light is tapped off by a beamsplitter (BS) to the wavefront sensor and the control hardware which sends updated signals to the DM and TT mirrors.

Ocular aberrations are distortions in the wavefront passing through the pupil of the eye. These optical aberrations diminish the quality of the image formed on the retina, sometimes necessitating the wearing of spectacles or contact lenses. In the case of retinal imaging, light passing out of the eye carries similar wavefront distortions, leading to an inability to resolve the microscopic structure (cells and capillaries) of the retina. Spectacles and contact lenses correct "low-order aberrations", such as defocus and astigmatism, which tend to be stable in humans for long periods of time (months or years). While correction of these is sufficient for normal visual functioning, it is generally insufficient to achieve microscopic resolution. Additionally, "high-order aberrations", such as coma, spherical aberration, and trefoil, must also be corrected in order to achieve microscopic resolution. High-order aberrations, unlike low-order, are not stable over time, and may change over time scales of 0.1s to 0.01s. The correction of these aberrations requires continuous, high-frequency measurement and compensation.

Measurement of ocular aberrations

Ocular aberrations are generally measured using a wavefront sensor, and the most commonly used type of wavefront sensor is the Shack–Hartmann. Ocular aberrations are caused by spatial phase nonuniformities in the wavefront exiting the eye. In a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, these are measured by placing a two-dimensional array of small lenses (lenslets) in a pupil plane conjugate to the eye's pupil, and a CCD chip at the back focal plane of the lenslets. The lenslets cause spots to be focused onto the CCD chip, and the positions of these spots are calculated using a centroiding algorithm. The positions of these spots are compared with the positions of reference spots, and the displacements between the two are used to determine the local curvature of the wavefront allowing one to numerically reconstruct the wavefront information—an estimate of the phase nonuniformities causing aberration.

Correction of ocular aberrations

Once the local phase errors in the wavefront are known, they can be corrected by placing a phase modulator such as a deformable mirror at yet another plane in the system conjugate to the eye's pupil. The phase errors can be used to reconstruct the wavefront, which can then be used to control the deformable mirror. Alternatively, the local phase errors can be used directly to calculate the deformable mirror instructions.

Open loop vs. closed loop operation

If the wavefront error is measured before it has been corrected by the wavefront corrector, then operation is said to be "open loop".

If the wavefront error is measured after it has been corrected by the wavefront corrector, then operation is said to be "closed loop". In the latter case then the wavefront errors measured will be small, and errors in the measurement and correction are more likely to be removed. Closed loop correction is the norm.

Applications

Adaptive optics was first applied to flood-illumination retinal imaging to produce images of single cones in the living human eye. It has also been used in conjunction with scanning laser ophthalmoscopy to produce (also in living human eyes) the first images of retinal microvasculature and associated blood flow and retinal pigment epithelium cells in addition to single cones. Combined with optical coherence tomography, adaptive optics has allowed the first three-dimensional images of living cone photoreceptors to be collected.

In microscopy

A deformable mirror can be used to correct wavefront errors in an astronomical telescope.

In microscopy, adaptive optics is used to correct for sample-induced aberrations. The required wavefront correction is either measured directly using wavefront sensor or estimated by using sensorless AO techniques.

Other uses

GRAAL is a ground layer adaptive optics instrument assisted by lasers.

Besides its use for improving nighttime astronomical imaging and retinal imaging, adaptive optics technology has also been used in other settings. Adaptive optics is used for solar astronomy at observatories such as the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, Dunn Solar Telescope, and Big Bear Solar Observatory. It is also expected to play a military role by allowing ground-based and airborne laser weapons to reach and destroy targets at a distance including satellites in orbit. The Missile Defense Agency Airborne Laser program is the principal example of this.

Adaptive optics has been used to enhance the performance of classical and quantum free-space optical communication systems, and to control the spatial output of optical fibers.

Medical applications include imaging of the retina, where it has been combined with optical coherence tomography. Also the development of Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) has enabled correcting for the aberrations of the wavefront that is reflected from the human retina and to take diffraction limited images of the human rods and cones. Development of an Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope (ASOM) was announced by Thorlabs in April 2007. Adaptive and active optics are also being developed for use in glasses to achieve better than 20/20 vision, initially for military applications.

After propagation of a wavefront, parts of it may overlap leading to interference and preventing adaptive optics from correcting it. Propagation of a curved wavefront always leads to amplitude variation. This needs to be considered if a good beam profile is to be achieved in laser applications. In material processing using lasers, adjustments can be made on the fly to allow for variation of focus-depth during piercing for changes in focal length across the working surface. Beam width can also be adjusted to switch between piercing and cutting mode. This eliminates the need for optic of the laser head to be switched, cutting down on overall processing time for more dynamic modifications.

Adaptive optics, especially wavefront-coding spatial light modulators, are frequently used in optical trapping applications to multiplex and dynamically reconfigure laser foci that are used to micro-manipulate biological specimens.

Beam stabilization

A rather simple example is the stabilization of the position and direction of laser beam between modules in a large free space optical communication system. Fourier optics is used to control both direction and position. The actual beam is measured by photo diodes. This signal is fed into analog-to-digital converters and then a microcontroller which runs a PID controller algorithm. The controller then drives digital-to-analog converters which drive stepper motors attached to mirror mounts.

If the beam is to be centered onto 4-quadrant diodes, no analog-to-digital converter is needed. Operational amplifiers are sufficient.