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Hemispheric Tectonics on super-Earth LHS 3844b by Meier, Tobias G.; Bower, Dan J.; Lichtenberg, Tim; Tackley, Paul J.; Demory, Brice-Olivier is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Hemispheric Tectonics on super-Earth LHS 3844b about?

The tectonic regime of rocky planets fundamentally influences their long-term evolution and cycling of volatiles between interior and atmosphere. Earth is the only known planet with active plate tectonics, but observations of exoplanets may deliver insights into the diversity of tectonic regimes beyond the solar system. Observations of the thermal phase curve of super-Earth LHS 3844b reveal a solid surface and lack of a substantial atmosphere, with a temperature contrast between the substellar and antistellar point of around 1000 K. Here, we use these constraints on the planet's surface to constrain the interior dynamics and tectonic regimes of LHS 3844b using numerical models of interior flow. We investigate the style of interior convection by assessing how upwellings and downwellings are organized and how tectonic regimes manifest. We discover three viable convective regimes with a mobile surface: (1) spatially uniform distribution of upwellings and downwellings, (2) prominent downwelling on the dayside and upwellings on the nightside, and (3) prominent downwelling on the nightside and upwellings on the dayside. Hemispheric tectonics is observed for regimes (2) and (3) as a direc

Author

Meier, Tobias G.; Bower, Dan J.; Lichtenberg, Tim; Tackley, Paul J.; Demory, Brice-Olivier

Published

2021

Language

EN