Venus’s rotation axis is not where it should be – but atmospheric torques, not mantle convection, are likely responsible.
Francis Nimmo
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Evidence for a Wobbly Venus?
The orientation of wind-blown impact deposits on Venus is not consistent with modeled wind directions, suggesting Venus’s rotation axis may have changed.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Gas Giants with Fuzzy Cores
New measurements of Jupiter and Saturn show that both planets have dense cores that are gradational (fuzzy) and large, rather than small and compact.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Preparing to Meet a Metal-Rich Asteroid
The recently launched ‘Psyche’ mission will explore the eponymous asteroid and determine whether it is a fragment of a planetary core or a primordial, metal-rich body.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
A Wider and Deeper View of Jupiter’s Jets
The mid-latitude jets on Jupiter are driven by turbulence that arises, in part, from deep cells, consistent with Juno microwave and gravity observations.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Young Ponds on Mars
A detailed study of evaporite (chloride) deposits on Mars shows that small bodies of surface water persisted until about 2.5 Ga, more recently than previously thought.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
A Deep-Space Origin for Volatile-Rich Asteroids
Spectral data and modeling suggest that volatile-rich main-belt asteroids initially formed at much greater distances from the Sun (>10 AU).