The Causes of Regional Sea-level Change: since 1993

As a result of climate change, sea level is changing all over the world at unprecedented rates. Sea-level change can have significant impacts on coastal communities, infrastructure and global economy, as most of the major cities are located near to or at the coast. Rising sea levels can lead to, for instance, more severe and more frequent...

Are the Moons of Jupiter Unique?: Thermochemical Disk Modeling of Moon Formation

The practice of astronomy is in many ways an intrinsically introspective endeavour. A significant fraction of astronomical motivation is derived from the desire to understand whether a habitable planet such as the Earth is a unique object, and, by extension, whether the inhabitants of the Earth themselves collectively represent a unique...

Tidal Dynamics of Moons with Fluid Layers: From Ice to Lava Worlds

In the last fifty years, the spacemissions Voyager, Galileo, Cassini-Huygens and Juno explored the moons of the outer Solar System and revealed a wide spectrum of worlds. While some of these worlds are barren, others are among the most geologically active of the Solar System. The innermost Jovian moon, Io, showcases spectacular volcanic activity...

Understanding Sea-Level Change Using Global and Regional Models

The sea level is changing around the world due to a combination of complex processes, such as changes in ocean density and circulation, the melt of ice sheets and glaciers, terrestrial water storage and vertical land motion. Projections of how much and how fast sea level will change are crucial information for adaptation planning. At the basis...

The Curious Case of Io - Connections Between Interior Structure, Tidal Heating and Volcanism

Io's spectacular and unique appearance is characterised by its yellowish surface, colourful lava deposits, and black calderas. The reason for this appearance is extensive tidal heating in the moon's interior. Caught in the Laplace resonance with the Galilean moons Ganymede and Europa, Io is the most tidally heated and volcanically active world...

Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE) for radio occultation studies: A Venus Express test case

The thesis that you are about to read deals with the implementation of a technique to study atmospheres of planets or moons in the Solar System. We use radio telescopes on Earth to track spacecraft that are orbiting planets, and use the signal the spacecraft emits, as it crosses the planet’s atmosphere, to investigate its physical...

Rotational dynamics of viscoelastic planetary bodies

Gravity Field Constraints on the Upper Mantle of Northwestern Europe

In the last decade, the gravity field of the Earth has been observed with increased coverage due to dedicated satellite missions, which resulted in higher resolution and more accurate global gravity field models than were previously available. These models make it possible to study large scale processes such as solid Earth deformation after...

Rotational Dynamics of Icy Satellites: Tidal response and forced longitudinal librations at the surface of a viscoelastic Europa

The icy satellites of the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn are among the most interesting celestial bodies in our Solar System. The interpretation of various remote sensing observations performed by the Voyager, Galileo and Cassini-Huygens missions strongly suggests that many icy satellites harbor a subsurface water ocean underneath the ice...

Interplanetary laser ranging: Analysis for implementation in planetary science missions

Measurements of the motion of natural (and artificial) bodies in the solar system provide key input on their interior structre and properties. Currently, the most accurate measurements of solar system dynamics are performed using radiometric tracking systems on planetary missions, providing range measurement with an accuracy in the order of 1 m....

Shallow-earth rheology from glacial isostasy and satellite gravity: A sensitivity analysis for GOCE

In recent years, satellite gravity missions have been launched that probe the earth's long- to mediumwavelength (1000 - 500 km) gravity field. The upcoming ESA satellite gravity mission GOCE is predicted to measure the gravity field with an accuracy of a few centimeters at spatial scales of 100 km. Such a high-resolution gravity field contains...