Rings and moons articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • News & Views |

    The Moon’s primordial solidification is believed to have produced a layer of dense ilmenite cumulates beneath the crust. Remnants of this layer have now been detected under the lunar nearside.

    • Peter B. James

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rotational deceleration has increased daylength on Earth, potentially linking the increased burial of organic carbon by cyanobacterial mats and planetary oxygenation, according to experiments and modelling of Precambrian benthic ecosystems.

    • J. M. Klatt
    • , A. Chennu
    •  & G. J. Dick

  • Article |

    Enceladus’s interior ocean could sustain a pole-to-equator overturning circulation, which might mean its bulk salinity is greater than that estimated from plume sampling by Cassini, according to numerical simulations.

    • Ana H. Lobo
    • , Andrew F. Thompson
    •  & Saikiran Tharimena

  • Article |

    High-precision measurements suggest that the Earth and Moon have distinct oxygen isotope compositions. This implies distinct oxygen isotopic compositions of the proto-Earth and its impactor that were not fully homogenized by the Moon-forming impact.

    • Erick J. Cano
    • , Zachary D. Sharp
    •  & Charles K. Shearer

  • Editorial |

    The geological similarities between icy and rocky worlds invite comparison and cross-fertilization of knowledge.

  • Article |

    Some lake basins in the polar regions of Titan may be craters from nitrogen vapour explosions due to past warming, according to analysis of their morphology in comparison to terrestrial explosion craters from magma–water interaction.

    • Giuseppe Mitri
    • , Jonathan I. Lunine
    •  & Valerio Poggiali

  • Article |

    The Moon formed around 50 Myr after the Solar System, suggests a lunar silicate Hf/W ratio higher than that of Earth, from high-precision compositional analysis of lunar rock samples.

    • Maxwell M. Thiemens
    • , Peter Sprung
    •  & Carsten Münker

  • News & Views |

    The Moon’s isotopic composition is uncannily similar to Earth’s. This may be the signature of a magma ocean on Earth at the time of the Moon-forming giant impact, according to numerical simulations.

    • H. Jay Melosh

  • Article |

    Moon formation by a giant impact ejecting material from a magma ocean on Earth reconciles geochemical and dynamical constraints on its formation, according to numerical simulations.

    • Natsuki Hosono
    • , Shun-ichiro Karato
    •  & Takayuki R. Saitoh

  • News & Views |

    Flotation of aerosols as a film on the hydrocarbon lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan may explain the lakes’ stillness, and could influence the atmospheric hydrocarbon cycle.

    • Isabelle Couturier-Tamburelli

  • Article |

    Organic aerosols that sediment from Titan’s atmosphere may float, form a film and damp waves on Titan’s seas, according to computations. This damping effect could explain the observed smoothness of Titan’s seas.

    • Daniel Cordier
    •  & Nathalie Carrasco

  • Review Article |

    The Cassini mission revealed the complex workings of Titan’s methane-based hydrologic cycle over a range of timescales, providing a potential window into the future of Earth and its water cycle.

    • Alexander G. Hayes
    • , Ralph D. Lorenz
    •  & Jonathan I. Lunine

  • Comment |

    The exploration of ocean worlds in the outer Solar System offers the opportunity to search for an independent origin of life, and also to advance our capabilities for exploring and understanding life in Earth’s oceans.

    • Kevin Peter Hand
    •  & Christopher R. German

  • News & Views |

    In our own solar system, Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold and Earth is just right. Simulations show that making an icy planet habitable is not as simple as melting its ice: many icy bodies swing from too cold to too hot, bypassing just right.

    • Andrew P. Ingersoll

  • Article |

    Frictional charging of granular materials may readily occur on Saturn’s moon Titan. Laboratory experiments under Titan-like conditions suggest that the resulting electrostatic forces are strong enough to affect sand transport on Titan.

    • J. S. Méndez Harper
    • , G. D. McDonald
    •  & J. J. Wray

  • News & Views |

    The twin isotopic signatures of the Moon and Earth are difficult to explain by a single giant impact. Impact simulations suggest that making the Moon by a combination of multiple, smaller moonlet-forming impacts may work better.

    • Gareth S. Collins

  • Article |

    A giant impact has been proposed as being responsible for forming the Moon, but scenarios that match existing constraints are improbable. Numerical modelling now suggests that instead a series of smaller and more common impacts can explain the Earth–Moon system.

    • Raluca Rufu
    • , Oded Aharonson
    •  & Hagai B. Perets

  • Letter |

    The Moon has a tenuous exosphere and dust-sized particles have been detected. Analysis of spectral observations by the LADEE spacecraft suggests that the Moon also has a spatially and temporally variable exosphere of nanodust particles.

    • D. H. Wooden
    • , A. M. Cook
    •  & M. Shirley

  • News & Views |

    The two small satellites of Mars are thought to have accreted from a debris disk formed in a giant impact. Simulations suggest the moons were shepherded into formation by the dynamical influence of one or more short-lived massive inner moons.

    • Erik Asphaug

  • Commentary |

    After more than a decade exploring Saturn and its moons, the Cassini mission is in its closing act. Cassini's last year is an encore performance stuffed with science, including a final plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.

    • Scott G. Edgington
    •  & Linda J. Spilker

  • Letter |

    The high relief on Jupiter’s moon Io has been linked to compression due to global subsidence. Simulations show that Io’s mountains may form along thrust faults that initiate at the lithosphere’s base where the compressive stresses are highest.

    • Michael T. Bland
    •  & William B. McKinnon

  • Perspective |

    The moon Phobos will eventually either disintegrate to form a ring or crash into Mars. Observational constraints and geotechnical considerations suggest that Phobos will partially break apart into a ring, with stronger fragments impacting Mars.

    • Benjamin A. Black
    •  & Tushar Mittal

  • News & Views |

    Compared to Earth, the Moon is depleted in volatile species like water, sodium and potassium. Simulations suggest that much of the Moon formed from hot, volatile-poor melt in a disk of debris after initially amassing cooler, volatile-rich melt.

    • Steve Desch

  • News & Views |

    Saturn's F ring is chaperoned on both sides by the tiny moons Prometheus and Pandora. Numerical simulations show that this celestial ballet can result from the collision of two aggregates that evolved out of Saturn's main rings.

    • Aurélien Crida

  • 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.

  • News & Views |

    Titan's equatorial dunes seem to move in the opposite direction to the prevailing easterly winds. Infrequent methane storms at Titan's low latitudes may briefly couple surface winds to fast westerlies above, dominating the net movement of sand.

    • Claire Newman

Browse broader subjects

Browse Rings and moons across other nature.com journals