News Feature |
Featured
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Editorial |
Desirable partners
US refusal to collaborate with China on space science is short-sighted and misguided, from both a scientific and a pragmatic standpoint.
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News & Views |
Europa awakening
Brines percolating in the icy crust of Jupiter's moon Europa may be responsible for the satellite's enigmatic chaotic terrains. A new model predicts that one such terrain is currently forming over shallow subsurface water. See Letter p.502
- Laszlo P. Keszthelyi
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Letter |
Active formation of ‘chaos terrain’ over shallow subsurface water on Europa
- B. E. Schmidt
- , D. D. Blankenship
- & P. M. Schenk
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News |
Russia gets the red planet blues
Phobos probe failure puts planetary comeback in doubt.
- Eric Hand
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News & Views |
Ancient lunar dynamo
The differential rotation between the Moon's core and mantle may have powered the ancient lunar dynamo, either continuously over several hundred million years or intermittently after large impacts. See Letters p.212 & p.215
- Dominique Jault
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Letter |
A long-lived lunar dynamo driven by continuous mechanical stirring
- C. A. Dwyer
- , D. J. Stevenson
- & F. Nimmo
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News |
Russia takes aim at Phobos
Mission to Martian moon is the country's first interplanetary attempt since 1996.
- Eric Hand
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News |
Astronomers gear up for asteroid fly-by
An unusually close near-Earth asteroid gets observers excited.
- Eugenie Samuel Reich
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Review Article |
Subsurface water and clay mineral formation during the early history of Mars
- Bethany L. Ehlmann
- , John F. Mustard
- & Yves Langevin
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News & Views |
Eris under scrutiny
A stellar occultation by the dwarf planet Eris provides a new estimate of its size. It also reveals a surprisingly bright planetary surface, which could indicate the relatively recent condensation of a putative atmosphere. See Letter p.493
- Amanda Gulbis
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Letter |
Mixed aromatic–aliphatic organic nanoparticles as carriers of unidentified infrared emission features
- Sun Kwok
- & Yong Zhang
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Letter |
A Pluto-like radius and a high albedo for the dwarf planet Eris from an occultation
- B. Sicardy
- , J. L. Ortiz
- & H. Hernández-Toledo
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News |
Europe looks to Russia after NASA falls short on ExoMars
The US agency's shrinking budget and growing space-telescope costs are squeezing other projects.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
Comets take pole position as water bearers
Matching chemical signatures indicate that Kuiper comets brought water to Earth.
- Ron Cowen
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Letter |
Ocean-like water in the Jupiter-family comet 103P/Hartley 2
- Paul Hartogh
- , Dariusz C. Lis
- & Geoffrey A. Blake
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News |
Saturn's moon has never-ending winter
Millions of years of snowfall on Enceladus boost promise of subsurface ocean.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
Close-ups reveal a weirder Mercury
MESSENGER spacecraft results challenge theories about the planet's early history.
- Ron Cowen
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News & Views |
Earth's patchy late veneer
A 'late veneer' of meteoritic material, added after Earth's core had formed, may be the source of our noble metals. Its absence from some parts of Earth's mantle will now force a rethink about this late accretion. See Letter p.195
- Thorsten Kleine
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News |
Venus scientists fear neglect
Researchers say that infrequent visits are hindering studies of the nearest planet.
- Eric Hand
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News |
Asteroid visit finds familiar dust
Samples from 25143 Itokawa show it has similar make-up to most meteorites on Earth.
- Richard A. Lovett
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Feature |
Commercial space flight: Scientists in space
Adventure-seeking researchers could benefit from NASA's exit from manned space flight.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Letter |
Chronological evidence that the Moon is either young or did not have a global magma ocean
- Lars E. Borg
- , James N. Connelly
- & Richard W. Carlson
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News |
Close-up of Vesta poses puzzle
Astronomers keen to look into strange hole on second-largest asteroid.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
Dark streaks guide search for life on Mars
Seasonal features could be seeping brines.
- Eric Hand
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News & Views |
Making mountains out of a moon
The Moon's cratered surface preserves the record of impacts that occurred during the late stages of its accretion. New simulations show that a collision with a companion moon may have formed the lunar farside highlands. See Letter p.69
- Maria T. Zuber
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News |
Early Earth may have had two moons
Collision with lost second satellite would explain Moon's asymmetry.
- Richard Lovett
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News |
Closing in on Jupiter's past
NASA's Juno mission aims to reveal how the Solar System's largest planet was formed.
- Eric Hand
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News |
NASA picks Mars landing site
Curiosity rover will explore Gale Crater, which may hold clues to past habitability.
- Eric Hand
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News |
Dawn nears Vesta
Mission poised to explore the Solar System's largest asteroids in detail.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
Neptune begins to give up its secrets
Scientists have discovered how fast the Solar System's outermost planet rotates, but it still holds many mysteries.
- Richard A. Lovett
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Research Highlights |
Nuclear network detects fireball
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News & Views |
Storm-clouds brooding on towering heights
Springtime on Saturn came in with a bang last December, when a massive storm erupted in its north temperate zone. This rare event has been observed in unprecedented detail from the ground and from space. See Letters p.71 & p.75
- Peter Read
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Letter |
Deep winds beneath Saturn’s upper clouds from a seasonal long-lived planetary-scale storm
- A. Sánchez-Lavega
- , T. del Río-Gaztelurrutia
- & K. Yunoki
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News |
Gale Crater on target to become next Mars landing site
Scientists recommend destination for roving science laboratory 'Curiosity'.
- Eric Hand
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Letter |
A salt-water reservoir as the source of a compositionally stratified plume on Enceladus
- F. Postberg
- , J. Schmidt
- & R. Srama
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Letter |
A low mass for Mars from Jupiter’s early gas-driven migration
- Kevin J. Walsh
- , Alessandro Morbidelli
- & Avi M. Mandell
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News |
Enceladus named sweetest spot for alien life
Saturn's icy moon has all the key ingredients, scientists say.
- Richard A. Lovett
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Research Highlights |
Carbon monoxide on Pluto
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News & Views |
Building a planet in record time
It seems that Mars had grown to near its present size by 2 million to 4 million years after the Solar System began to form. Such rapid growth explains why the planet is much smaller than Earth and Venus. See Letter p.489
- Alan Brandon
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Letter |
Hf–W–Th evidence for rapid growth of Mars and its status as a planetary embryo
- N. Dauphas
- & A. Pourmand
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News |
Evidence mounts for liquid water on Enceladus
Liquid camp winning out despite mixed signals.
- Richard A. Lovett
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News & Views |
Bound and unbound planets abound
Two teams searching for extrasolar planets have jointly discovered a new population of objects: ten Jupiter-mass planets far from their host stars, or perhaps even floating freely through the Milky Way. See Letter p.349
- Joachim Wambsganss
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News |
So many lonely planets with no star to guide them
Our Galaxy may be full of worlds without a sun to call their own.
- Nadia Drake
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