New simulations suggest that subsurface oceans on icy moons with small natural Rossby numbers may be dominated by rotational effects.
orbits & rotations
Posted inFeatures
Tidally Locked and Loaded with Questions
Tidally locked planets always present the same face to their host stars. What does this mean for their potential to support life?
Posted inNews
Peculiar Planets Prefer Perpendicular Paths
Some exoplanets orbit their stars from pole to pole instead of across the equator. Why do they do that?
Posted inNews
Fifteen Years of Radar Reveal Venus’s Most Basic Facts
Venus’s heavy atmosphere tugs the planet’s surface enough to change the length of its day by up to 21 minutes.
Posted inNews
Martian Meteorites Shed Light on Solar System’s Early Dynamics
Chemical compositions of rocks from Mars indicate that the earliest orbits of Jupiter and Saturn were more circular than they are today.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Energetic Neutral Atom Emissions from Jupiter, Io, and Europa
The first Jovian off-equator Energetic Neutral Atom viewings reveal distinct emissions from Jupiter and the orbits of Io and Europa: Energetic particle injections surprisingly occur inside Io’s orbit.
Posted inNews
Sunburned Surface Reveals Asteroid Formation and Orbital Secrets
Thanks to spectacular high-resolution images from Hayabusa2, scientists can now better estimate how and when the asteroid Ryugu formed, how its orbit has changed over time, and what its surface looks like.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Atmospheric Drag Alters Satellite Orbits
A new modeling study shows how the density of the thermosphere influences the paths of satellites in low Earth orbit.
Posted inOpinions
When Does Weather Become Climate?
Flexible definitions of the word “climate” may impede policy discussions on climate change. Closing apparent gaps between “climate” and “weather” may help reduce the ambiguity.
Posted inNews
New Proof That Accretion Disks Align with Their Black Holes
In the most detailed and highest-resolution black hole simulation to date, an international team of researchers showed the Bardeen-Petterson effect for the first time.