Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 50: Granular Matter and Granular Dynamics II

DY 50.7: Talk

Thursday, March 19, 2020, 11:30–11:45, ZEU 160

Dunes of frozen methane sand on Pluto — •Eric Josef Ribeiro Parteli — Department of Geosciences, University of Cologne

Sand dunes, which require a supply of granular particles at the surface and a boundary layer of sufficient efficacy to enable transport of these particles by fluid forces, have been detected in surprising locations of our solar system, including Mars, Venus and Saturn's moon Titan. Continuum simulations of wind-blown sand transport have been pushing forward our understanding of dune physics on Earth and these extra-terrestrial environments. In this talk I will report the discovery of dunes on Pluto, where the atmosphere is 100,000 times less dense than the Earth's. While terrestrial dunes consist of quartz grains, Pluto dunes are made of methane ice grains. I will present insights about the formative wind regime, particle size of Pluto dunes and the characteristics of sediment transport on Pluto from numerical simulations, which I developed in the framework of a collaboration with the New Horizons Science Team. Moreover, I will present challenging open questions about dune physics, and discuss how dune modeling will help us to improve climate simulations and our understanding of sediment landscape dynamics on Earth and extra-terrestrial environments.