The nightside ionosphere, at latitudes away from the auroral zone, should have very little charged particle density, but it doesn’t. A new comprehensive study of satellite data explains why.
Editors’ Highlights
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Stocking a Proper Buffet for a Megadiverse Smorgasbord
Mexico’s megadiverse biota challenge observation network design for efficient sampling, but novel methods can provide guidance and tests of representativeness.
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Peeling Back the Layers of the Climate of Mars
A new study ties layers in the polar deposits of Mars to changes in climate driven by orbital variations, constraining accumulation rates and further deciphering the climate history of the Red Planet.
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Salinity from Space Improves El Niño Forecasts
Assimilating satellite observations of ocean surface salinity significantly improves coupled model forecasts of El Niño.
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Finessing Granular Flows
Granular flows are important in geophysics to the pyroclastic flow, debris flow, and avalanches. Understanding their complex and rich physics is therefore important in simulating their dynamics.
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Air-Sea Exchanges from a Wave-Following Platform
Data obtained from a wave-following platform are used to calibrate coefficients and multiple parameterizations of air-sea fluxes in swell conditions.
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Solar Properties Rival for Control of Mars’s Bow Shock
While most planetary bow shocks are controlled by the solar wind, at Mars the solar EUV flux is equally important.
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Red and Green Aurora Stop and Go for Different Reasons
Green-line arc is found to be embedded within large-scale upward field aligned currents while red-line-only arc is found to be associated with low-energy precipitation bursts.
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Laboratory Study Probes Triggering Mechanisms of Earthquakes
A new experimental technique traces the state of a shearing fault gouge and shows for the first time how friction of a fault surface can change as a function of varying normal stress.
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Extending the Envelope for Known Safe Locations in Space
When unattached electrons collide with spacecraft, the build-up of electric charge can cause malfunctions, but recent observations model near-Earth regions that are likely safe zones.