Planetary science articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • 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 |

    Liquid water may lurk beneath the frozen surfaces of Jupiter's moon Europa and other icy worlds. Extending ocean science beyond Earth, planetary oceanographers are linking Europa's ocean dynamics to its enigmatic surface geology.

    • Jason Goodman

  • Letter |

    On Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, enigmatic chaos terrain—where the icy crust is cut by a jumble of ridges and cracks—occurs most commonly at lower latitudes. Simulations of convection in the ocean underlying Europa’s icy crust suggest that ocean dynamics can control an enhanced flow of heat to Europa’s equatorial surface, and hence geological activity.

    • K. M. Soderlund
    • , B. E. Schmidt
    •  & D. D. Blankenship

  • Editorial |

    The Chelyabinsk fireball highlighted the threat of asteroids and comets. But actually, for life on Earth, impacts may have once played the role of hero.

  • 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

  • News & Views |

    The surface of Mars is dominated by basalt that has undergone little magmatic evolution. However, minerals now identified in some ancient terrains suggest that extensive magma processing and intrusive volcanism were not uncommon on the red planet.

    • Briony Horgan

  • 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

  • Letter |

    The pressures and temperatures experienced by material flung from craters following impact events are expected to preclude survival of organics. The preservation of biomarkers in impact glass from the Darwin crater in Tasmania suggests that organic matter can survive in the distal products of meteorite impact.

    • Kieren Torres Howard
    • , Melanie J. Bailey
    •  & Sasha Verchovsky

  • 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

  • Commentary |

    Geological and biological processes have eliminated all but the faintest traces of our earliest ancestors on Earth. To understand the origin of life, we must investigate other planets — but we can find what we seek only if we do not contaminate them with Earth life first.

    • Catharine A. Conley
    •  & John D. Rummel

  • 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

  • Letter |

    Great White Spot—a rare planet-encircling storm—raged on Saturn in 2010–2011. Analyses of high-resolution spacecraft imagery and numerical modelling reveal a dynamic storm head powered by sustained convection in the zonal flow of Saturn’s atmosphere.

    • E. García-Melendo
    • , R. Hueso
    •  & J. F. Sanz-Requena

  • News & Views |

    Patches of deposits containing unusual mafic minerals are observed in and around some large lunar impact craters. Numerical simulations suggest that in the slowest of these impacts, asteroidal material, alien to the Moon, could have survived.

    • Erik Asphaug

  • Letter |

    Unusual minerals observed in lunar craters were thought to originate from beneath the Moon’s surface. Numerical simulations show that rather than being vaporized, much of the impactor material can survive in the crater, implying that the unusual minerals come from the impactor and may not be indigenous to the Moon.

    • Z. Yue
    • , B. C. Johnson
    •  & Y. Liu

  • Letter |

    Saturn is brighter than expected for a gas giant of its age. Calculations of Saturn’s thermal evolution show that the presence of layered convection in Saturn’s interior—much like that observed in the Earth’s oceans—would have slowed the planet’s cooling and may explain Saturn’s anomalous luminosity.

    • Jérémy Leconte
    •  & Gilles Chabrier

  • Article |

    Lunar samples suggest that the inner Solar System was bombarded by asteroids about 4 Gyr ago. Radiometric ages of meteorites suggest an unusual number of high-velocity asteroids at this time, consistent with a dynamical origin of the bombardment in which the asteroids were pushed by outer planet migration onto highly eccentric orbits.

    • S. Marchi
    • , W. F. Bottke
    •  & C. T. Russell

  • Letter |

    A whirling vortex has been observed in the atmosphere at the south pole of Venus. Cloud motions tracked by the Venus Express spacecraft suggest that the south polar vortex is long-lived, erratic and baroclinic in character.

    • I. Garate-Lopez
    • , R. Hueso
    •  & P. Drossart

  • News & Views |

    The presence of water in lunar volcanic rocks has been attributed to delivery after the Moon formed. Water detected in rocks from the ancient lunar highlands suggests that the Moon already contained water early in its history, and poses more challenges for the giant impact theory of Moon formation.

    • Erik H. Hauri

  • Letter |

    Water has been detected on the lunar surface and attributed to delivery by impacts and the solar wind to a dry early Moon. Spectroscopic detections of water in lunar anorthosites from the Apollo collection suggest that a significant amount of water is indigenous to the Moon.

    • Hejiu Hui
    • , Anne H. Peslier
    •  & Clive R. Neal

  • Editorial |

    Extrasolar planet research is booming. We welcome submissions with links to the geosciences.

  • Commentary |

    The dawn of exoplanet discovery has unearthed a rich tapestry of planets different from anything encountered in the Solar System. Geoscientists can and should be in the vanguard of investigating what is out there in the Universe.

    • Raymond T. Pierrehumbert

  • Article |

    The subsurface of Mars could potentially have contained a vast microbial biosphere. An evaluation of the possibility of groundwater upwelling, which might provide clues to subsurface habitability, reveals evidence in the deep McLaughlin crater for clays and carbonates that probably formed in an alkaline, groundwater-fed lacustrine setting.

    • Joseph R. Michalski
    • , Javier Cuadros
    •  & Shawn P. Wright

  • Letter |

    Diogenite meteorites are thought to represent mantle rocks that formed as cumulates in magma chambers on 4 Vesta or a similar differentiated asteroid. Microstructural analysis of olivine grains from a diogenite meteorite show that the preferred orientation of their crystal lattice was formed through plastic deformation, indicating dynamic, planet-like processes in its parent body.

    • B. J. Tkalcec
    • , G. J. Golabek
    •  & F. E. Brenker

  • Feature |

    The last five years have seen a boom in exploration of the Solar System. Barbara Cohen explains that the biggest gains have been right here on Earth.

    • Barbara Cohen

  • News & Views |

    Thirty years ago, the spacecraft Pioneer Venus observed the peak and decline of sulphur dioxide levels above Venus's clouds. Similar observations by Venus Express reveal a surprisingly variable venusian atmosphere.

    • Larry W. Esposito

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Planetary science across other nature.com journals