These are just a handful of the hundreds of mysterious features across our solar neighborhood that beg to be studied closer.
Mars
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Where Did the Water Go on Mars?
Primordial solar storm conditions are believed to have significantly enhanced the loss of water and other atmospheric volatiles in Mars’ history.
Posted inEditors' Vox
A Rover’s Eye View of Moving Martian Dunes
A new special issue of JGR: Planets presents findings on sand motion, morphology, and mineralogy from the Curiosity rover’s traverse of the active Bagnold dune field in Gale crater.
Posted inAGU News
Malin Receives 2017 Whipple Award
Michael C. Malin will receive the 2017 Whipple Award at the 2017 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, to be held 11–15 December in New Orleans, La. The award recognizes “an individual who has made an outstanding contribution in the field of planetary science.”
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Angles of Plasma Ropes near Mars Point to Different Origins
Variation in the orientation of flux rope features in Mars’s magnetotail suggests that some of them form on the planet’s Sun-facing side and travel to the night side.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Curiosity Spies Shifting Sands on Mars
Images from the rover’s pioneering encounter with sand dunes on Mars constrain wind speeds required to move sand in the thin Martian atmosphere.
Posted inNews
Scientists, Policy Makers Push for Mars Exploration
At a recent forum, Sen. Ted Cruz also announced a Senate hearing to revisit the half-century-old Outer Space Treaty, and he warned about potential military threats to the nation’s satellites.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Insights into the Habitability of Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover explored the Kimberley region of Mars to search for signs that the planet was once habitable.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Spacecraft Returns Its First Data on Martian Solar Irradiance
Scientists demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of the mathematical model used to calculate solar irradiance using measurements from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN).
Posted inScience Updates
Mars Polar Intrigue Spurs Multidisciplinary Collaboration
Sixth International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration; Reykjavík, Iceland; 5–9 September 2016