Explore the vast range of titles available.

Two thirds of the surface of our planet are covered by water and are still poorly instrumented, which has prevented the earth science community from addressing numerous key scientific questions. The potential to leverage the existing fiber optic seafloor telecom cables that criss-cross the oceans, by using them as dense arrays of seismo-acoustic sensors, remains to be evaluated. Here, we report Distributed Acoustic Sensing measurements on a 41.5 km-long telecom cable that is deployed offshore Toulon, France. Our observations demonstrate the capability to monitor with unprecedented details the ocean-solid earth interactions from the coast to the abyssal plain, in addition to regional seismicity (e.g., a magnitude 1.9 micro-earthquake located 100 km away) with signal characteristics comparable to those of a coastal seismic station. Existing fibers beneath the world’s oceans can in principle be used as seismic sensors, but the full potential of this possibility has yet to be explored. Here, the authors demonstrate the feasibility of distributed acoustic sensing in a coastal fiber as a sensor for earthquakes and wave phenomena.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Aeolus satellite mission is the first Doppler wind lidar in space, operating in orbit for more than 4 years since August 2018 and providing global wind profiling throughout the entire troposphere and the lower stratosphere. The Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) in southern France and the Observatoire de Physique de l'Atmosphère de La Réunion (OPAR) are equipped with ground-based Doppler Rayleigh–Mie lidars, which operate on similar principles to the Aeolus lidar and are among essential instruments within the ESA Aeolus calibration and validation (cal/val) program. This study presents the validation results of the L2B Rayleigh clear horizontal line-of-sight (HLOS) winds from September 2018 to January 2022. The point-by-point validation exercise relies on a series of validation campaigns at both observatories: AboVE (Aeolus Validation Experiment), held in September 2019 and June 2021 at OPAR and in January 2019 and December 2021 at OHP. The campaigns involved time-coordinated lidar acquisitions and radiosonde ascents collocated with the nearest Aeolus overpasses. During AboVE-2, Aeolus was operated in a campaign mode with an extended range bin setting allowing inter-comparisons up to 28.7 km. We show that this setting suffers from larger random error in the uppermost bins, exceeding the estimated error, due to lack of backscatter at high altitudes. To evaluate the long-term evolution in Aeolus wind product quality, twice-daily routine Météo-France radiosondes and regular lidar observations were used at both sites. This study evaluates the long-term evolution of the satellite performance along with punctual collocation analyses. On average, we find a systematic error (bias) of −0.92 and −0.79 m s−1 and a random error (scaled MAD) of 6.49 and 5.37 m s−1 for lidar and radiosondes, respectively.

The VIRTIS (Visible, Infrared and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) instrument on board the Rosetta spacecraft has provided evidence of carbon-bearing compounds on the nucleus of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The very low reflectance of the nucleus (normal albedo of 0.060 ± 0.003 at 0.55 micrometers), the spectral slopes in visible and infrared ranges (5 to 25 and 1.5 to 5% kÅ −1 ), and the broad absorption feature in the 2.9-to-3.6–micrometer range present across the entire illuminated surface are compatible with opaque minerals associated with nonvolatile organic macromolecular materials: a complex mixture of various types of carbon-hydrogen and/or oxygen-hydrogen chemical groups, with little contribution of nitrogen-hydrogen groups. In active areas, the changes in spectral slope and absorption feature width may suggest small amounts of water-ice. However, no ice-rich patches are observed, indicating a generally dehydrated nature for the surface currently illuminated by the Sun.

Using infrared wavelengths, micrometre-sized water-ice grains have been identified on the nucleus (which is mostly coated in a dark material) of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Water ice on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko Until now there has been little evidence for the presence of large regions of exposed water ice on the surfaces of comets, despite the fact that water is the major constituent of cometary nuclei. Here Gianrico Filacchione et al . report the identification at infrared wavelengths of water ice in the form of millimetre-sized grains on two debris falls in the Imhotep region of the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, based on data from the VIRTIS imaging spectrometer onboard ESA's Rosetta probe. The ice is exposed on the walls of elevated structures and at the base of the walls, and is best explained by grain growth by vapour diffusion in ice-rich layers, or by sintering. As a consequence of these processes, the nucleus can develop an extended and complex layering in which the outer dehydrated crust is superimposed on water ice enriched layers. Although water vapour is the main species observed in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko 1 , 2 and water is the major constituent of cometary nuclei 3 , 4 , limited evidence for exposed water-ice regions on the surface of the nucleus has been found so far 5 , 6 . The absence of large regions of exposed water ice seems a common finding on the surfaces of many of the comets observed so far 7 , 8 , 9 . The nucleus of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko appears to be fairly uniformly coated with dark, dehydrated, refractory and organic-rich material 10 . Here we report the identification at infrared wavelengths of water ice on two debris falls in the Imhotep region of the nucleus. The ice has been exposed on the walls of elevated structures and at the base of the walls. A quantitative derivation of the abundance of ice in these regions indicates the presence of millimetre-sized pure water-ice grains, considerably larger than in all previous observations 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 . Although micrometre-sized water-ice grains are the usual result of vapour recondensation in ice-free layers 6 , the occurrence of millimetre-sized grains of pure ice as observed in the Imhotep debris falls is best explained by grain growth by vapour diffusion in ice-rich layers, or by sintering. As a consequence of these processes, the nucleus can develop an extended and complex coating in which the outer dehydrated crust 10 is superimposed on layers enriched in water ice. The stratigraphy observed on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko 11 , 12 is therefore the result of evolutionary processes affecting the uppermost metres of the nucleus and does not necessarily require a global layering to have occurred at the time of the comet’s formation.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is one of the most abundant species in cometary nuclei, but because of its high volatility, CO₂ ice is generally only found beneath the surface. We report the infrared spectroscopic identification of a CO₂ ice-rich surface area located in the Anhur region of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Spectral modeling shows that about 0.1% of the 80- by 60-meter area is CO₂ ice. This exposed ice was observed a short time after the comet exited local winter; following the increased illumination. the CO₂ ice completely disappeared over about 3 weeks. We estimate the mass of the sublimated CO₂ ice and the depth of the eroded surface layer. We interpret the presence of CO₂ ice as the result of the extreme seasonal changes induced by the rotation and orbit of the comet.

We describe two of the nodes of the European Multi-disciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) which are closely connected to the two sites of the KM3NeT infrastructure: EMSO-Antares in the West Ligurian sea and the EMSO Western Ionian Sea Node. We present the general characteristics and objectives of both nodes and illustrate their capabilities with some illustrative results.

High-frequency internal wave motions of periods down to 20 min have been observed in a yearlong record from the deep Western Mediterranean, mainly in vertical currents. The observations were made using the ANTARES neutrino telescope infrastructure. One line of the telescope is instrumented with environmental monitoring devices, and in particular with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler that was used to measure currents around 2,200 m. Such high-frequency internal waves are commonly observed much closer to the sea surface where the vertical density stratification is more stable than in the deep sea. In this paper, they are supported by the relatively large stratification following newly formed dense water. During the severe winters of 2005 and 2006, deep dense-water formation occurred in the Ligurian subbasin. Its collapse and spread over the sea floor across the basin remained detectable for at least 3 years as deduced from the present yearlong current record, which is from 2008. The observed high-frequency internal waves match the occasional density stratification observed in ∼1-m-thin layers using previous shipborne conductivity–temperature–depth measurements. Such layers and waves are relatively unusual in the deep Mediterranean, where commonly several hundreds-of-meters-thick near-homogeneous layers dominate. Such thick near-homogeneous layers provide about a half-decade narrow internal wave band around the inertial frequency ( f ). In contrast, the presently observed vertical currents occasionally show a “small-scale” internal wave band that is on average 1.5 decades wide, associated with thin-layer stratification. In spite of its relatively large width, this band still shows variance peaking near f rather than near the large-scale buoyancy frequency N (= 2.3–4.5 f ) and this variance is found to increase with increasing N .

Atmospheric neutrinos are produced during cascades initiated by the interaction of primary cosmic rays with air nuclei. In this paper, a measurement of the atmospheric ₊ ₑnergy spectrum in the energy range 0.1 - 200 TeV is presented, using data collected by the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope from 2008 to 2011. Overall, the measured flux is 25% higher than predicted by the conventional neutrino flux, and compatible with the measurements reported in ice. The flux is compatible with a single power-law dependence with spectral index _(m)eas=3.58 0.12. With the present statistics the contribution of prompt neutrinos cannot be established.

The VIRTIS (Visible, Infrared and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) instrument on board the Rosetta spacecraft has provided evidence of carbon-bearing compounds on the nucleus of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The very low reflectance of the nucleus (normal albedo of 0.060 ± 0.003 at 0.55 micrometers), the spectral slopes in visible and infrared ranges (5 to 25 and 1.5 to 5% kÅ(-1)), and the broad absorption feature in the 2.9-to-3.6-micrometer range present across the entire illuminated surface are compatible with opaque minerals associated with nonvolatile organic macromolecular materials: a complex mixture of various types of carbon-hydrogen and/or oxygen-hydrogen chemical groups, with little contribution of nitrogen-hydrogen groups. In active areas, the changes in spectral slope and absorption feature width may suggest small amounts of water-ice. However, no ice-rich patches are observed, indicating a generally dehydrated nature for the surface currently illuminated by the Sun.