Inner planets articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • Letter |

    The volatile-rich eruptions required to produce the lunar volcanic glasses are at odds with a volatile-poor Moon. Analyses of the glasses suggest that there was enough of the volatile element carbon in the parent magmas to drive the eruptions.

    • Diane T. Wetzel
    • , Erik H. Hauri
    •  & Malcolm J. Rutherford

  • Letter |

    NASA’s Curiosity rover detected light-toned rocks along its traverse on Mars. Geochemical data suggest that the rocks represent a diversity of silica-rich magmatic rock types that may be analogous to Earth’s early continental crust.

    • V. Sautter
    • , M. J. Toplis
    •  & J. J. Wray

  • Editorial |

    Research on the Solar System's planets has moved beyond fly-by science. Long-term observations of planetary bodies can yield insights as the days, seasons and years pass.

  • Letter |

    Liquid water on equatorial Mars is inconsistent with large-scale climatic conditions. Humidity and temperature measurements by the Curiosity rover support the formation of subsurface liquid brines by hydration of perchlorates during the night.

    • F. Javier Martín-Torres
    • , María-Paz Zorzano
    •  & David Vaniman

  • Letter |

    Mercury’s surface is darker than expected given its low iron content. The delivery of cometary carbon to Mercury in micrometeorite impacts may explain the planet’s globally low reflectance.

    • Megan Bruck Syal
    • , Peter H. Schultz
    •  & Miriam A. Riner

  • News & Views |

    Pinpointing when Earth's core formed depends on the extent of metal–silicate equilibration in the mantle. Vaporization and recondensation of impacting planetesimal cores during accretion may reconcile disparate lines of evidence.

    • William W. Anderson

  • Letter |

    Evidence for liquid water on the ancient Martian surface is at odds with a presumably cold climate. Aerosol modelling shows that warming by sulphur-bearing gases during episodes of volcanism could have supported liquid water for decades.

    • Itay Halevy
    •  & James W. Head III

  • Letter |

    The majority of basaltic volcanism on the Moon occurred more than 3 billion years ago. Small mounded formations on the lunar nearside may be products of basaltic eruptions less than 100 million years ago, suggesting a long decline of magmatic activity.

    • S. E. Braden
    • , J. D. Stopar
    •  & H. Hiesinger

  • Letter |

    Unlike the other terrestrial planets, Mercury has a relatively thin silicate mantle. Numerical and statistical models suggest that Mercury and other metallic planetary bodies could be survivors of accretion that had their mantles stripped in collisions with larger impactors.

    • E. Asphaug
    •  & A. Reufer

  • Editorial |

    Over the past six years an increasingly complex view of water inside and on the surface of the Moon has emerged. Lunar water has moistened sticky questions, and so renewed lunar exploration efforts are needed to deepen our knowledge of the Earth–Moon system.

  • Commentary |

    As well as being a milestone in technology, the Chang'e lunar exploration programme establishes China as a contributor to space science. With much still to learn about the Moon, fieldwork beyond Earth's orbit must be an international effort.

    • Long Xiao

  • Review Article |

    The discovery of water in lunar samples in 2008 challenged the notion that the Moon's interior had lost all its volatiles. Since then, analyses of the water concentrations and isotopic compositions in lunar samples taken together suggest that the Moon is heterogeneously wet, which may lend clues to its origin.

    • Katharine L. Robinson
    •  & G. Jeffrey Taylor

  • Letter |

    An active core dynamo may have operated on the early Moon. Extraction of palaeomagnetic pole positions on the Moon from magnetic anomalies measured by the Lunar Prospector and Kaguya orbiters suggests that the ancient lunar dynamo experienced reversals and an ancient reorientation of the Moon rotated the geographic locations of the poles.

    • Futoshi Takahashi
    • , Hideo Tsunakawa
    •  & Masaki Matsushima

  • News & Views |

    A dense early atmosphere has been invoked to explain the strong greenhouse effect inferred for early Mars. Yet an analysis of the smallest impact craters suggests that the atmospheric pressure on Mars 3.6 billion years ago was surprisingly low.

    • Sanjoy M. Som

  • Letter |

    The martian atmosphere has progressively thinned, allowing increasingly smaller meteorites to survive unscathed and impact the surface. The distribution of small craters in ancient river deposits on Mars suggests an atmospheric pressure less than that needed to warm the martian surface above freezing 3.5 billion years ago, when rivers presumably flowed.

    • Edwin S. Kite
    • , Jean-Pierre Williams
    •  & Oded Aharonson

  • News & Views |

    As Mercury's interior cools and its massive iron core freezes, its surface feels the squeeze. A comprehensive global census of compressional deformation features indicates that Mercury has shrunk by at least 5 km in radius over the past 4 billion years.

    • William B. McKinnon

  • Article |

    Observations of compressional structures on Mercury have fallen short of accommodating the global contraction that is required owing to cooling of the planet's interior. Mapping of folds and faults across Mercury's surface using MESSENGER spacecraft images reveals deformation consistent with a planet that has contracted radially as much as seven kilometres over its history.

    • Paul K. Byrne
    • , Christian Klimczak
    •  & Steven A. Hauck, II

  • Research Highlights |

    • Tamara Goldin

  • Article |

    Dark streaks that appear on the surface of Mars during warm seasons have been observed at the mid-latitudes and tentatively attributed to the flow of briny water. Imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter over multiple Mars years suggests that these seasonally active features are also present in equatorial regions, where liquid surface water is not expected.

    • Alfred S. McEwen
    • , Colin M. Dundas
    •  & Nicolas Thomas

  • Letter |

    In many planetary atmospheres, including that of Earth, the base of the stratosphere—the tropopause—occurs at an atmospheric pressure of 0.1 bar. A physically based model demonstrates that the pressure-dependence of transparency to infrared radiation leads to a common tropopause pressure that is probably applicable to many planetary bodies with thick atmospheres.

    • T. D. Robinson
    •  & D. C. Catling

  • News & Views |

    Following almost three decades of some certainty over how the Moon was formed, new geochemical measurements have thrown the planetary science community back into doubt. We are either modelling the wrong process, or modelling the process wrong.

    • Linda T. Elkins-Tanton

  • Article |

    Ancient valleys suggest a warm early Mars where liquid water flowed, but a greenhouse effect strong enough to offset a dim early Sun has been difficult to explain. Climate simulations suggest that sufficient concentrations of the greenhouse gases CO2 and H2 — outgassed during volcanic eruptions — could have warmed Mars above water’s freezing point.

    • Ramses M. Ramirez
    • , Ravi Kopparapu
    •  & James F. Kasting

  • Letter |

    Felsic rocks have not been identified on Mars, a planet that lacks plate tectonics to drive the magmatic processes that lead to evolved silica-rich melts. Spectral observations by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that felsic lithologies occur at multiple localities on Mars and suggest prolonged magmatic activity on ancient Mars.

    • James J. Wray
    • , Sarah T. Hansen
    •  & Mark S. Ghiorso

  • Letter |

    The formation of the silicate mineral anorthosite is thought to require magmatic processes that are not expected on Mars because of its predominately mafic terrains. Localized spectral detections by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are consistent with anorthosite, suggestive of ancient intrusive igneous processes similar to those active on Earth.

    • J. Carter
    •  & F. Poulet

  • Research Highlights |

    • Tamara Goldin

  • Letter |

    Spectral observations from the Mars Express spacecraft have revealed an ozone layer that forms at night in south polar Mars. Data analysis and climate models suggest that poleward transport of oxygen and seasonal changes in hydrogen radicals explain the ozone layer’s presence in the southern hemisphere, and its absence in the north.

    • Franck Montmessin
    •  & Franck Lefèvre

  • Letter |

    Little is known about the structure of possible mantle materials of extra-solar super-Earths with interior pressures of up to 1,000 GPa. Dynamic X-ray diffraction measurements of ramp-compressed magnesium oxide, an important component of Earth’s mantle, show a solid–solid state transition at about 600 GPa, with a high-pressure structure that is stable up to 900 GPa.

    • F. Coppari
    • , R. F. Smith
    •  & T. S Duffy

  • News & Views |

    Phosphorus is an important element for biogeochemical development. According to a set of experiments, martian phosphate minerals dissolve more quickly than terrestrial ones, possibly providing nutrients in aqueous environments for early martian life.

    • Matthew Pasek

  • Letter |

    Phosphate is thought to be a chemical nutrient essential for life, but the low solubility of phosphate minerals means that abiogenesis on Earth had to overcome the hurdle of phosphate-limited environments. Dissolution experiments of phosphate minerals commonly found on Mars suggest that phosphate may have been more readily available in early martian environments.

    • C. T. Adcock
    • , E. M. Hausrath
    •  & P. M. Forster

  • Letter |

    The remote detection of surface water indigenous to the Moon has proved difficult because of alternative sources, such as the solar wind. Spectroscopic observations of hydroxyl-bearing materials in Bullialdus Crater by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft are consistent with indigenous magmatic water that was excavated by impact from the lunar interior.

    • R. Klima
    • , J. Cahill
    •  & D. Lawrence

  • Letter |

    Earth’s crust formed from melted mantle, yet the earliest record of this process is recorded only in crustal rocks. Isotopic dating of mantle rocks in the Ujaragssuit Nunât intrusion, southwest Greenland, identify melting events that occurred up to 4.36 Gyr ago, providing a mantle record of ancient melting to complement the crustal record.

    • Judith A. Coggon
    • , Ambre Luguet
    •  & Peter W. U. Appel

  • Article |

    As a moist atmosphere warms, it will reach a limit after which it is unable to radiate incoming solar radiation back to space, and a runaway greenhouse will occur. Calculations suggest that this limit is lower than previously thought and, for a water-saturated atmosphere, a runaway greenhouse can occur under present-day solar radiation.

    • Colin Goldblatt
    • , Tyler D. Robinson
    •  & David Crisp

  • Research Highlights |

    • Tamara Goldin

  • Editorial |

    Melt rocks returned from the Moon date to a narrow interval of lunar bombardment about 4 billion years ago. There is now evidence to show that this so-called Late Heavy Bombardment spanned the entire Solar System.

  • Commentary |

    Planetary protection policies aim to guard Solar System bodies from biological contamination from spacecraft. Costly efforts to sterilize Mars spacecraft need to be re-evaluated, as they are unnecessarily inhibiting a more ambitious agenda to search for extant life on Mars.

    • Alberto G. Fairén
    •  & Dirk Schulze-Makuch

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