Networks of valleys provide puzzling hints of running water on the surface of the Red Planet. New research suggests that some tributaries could have formed from icy sheets thousands of meters thick.
planetary evolution
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Sorting Minerals Differently Could Usher a New Era for Mineralogy
Grouping minerals by how they were formed yields insights into our planet’s evolution across billions of years.
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Flipping the Sequence of Martian Formation
Analysis of the Chassigny meteorite suggests the planet acquired most of its interior volatiles from meteorites, not from the solar nebula.
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Krypton Isotopes Provide New Clues to Planets’ Pasts
To trace how crucial ingredients for life arrived at Earth, scientists track noble gases. Now, improved methods are drawing new clues from krypton, the most cryptic of noble gases.
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Giant Planet’s Formation Caught in Action
Astronomers took a direct image of a massive protoplanet embedded in a protoplanetary disk. The system provides strong evidence for an as-yet-unconfirmed theory of planet formation.
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The Possible Evolution of an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
Scientific sleuths explore data gathered trillions of kilometers away and put forth different, and often conflicting, ideas to reconstruct the gaseous envelope on a distant rocky exoplanet, GJ 1132 b.
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Gap in Exoplanet Size Shifts with Age
Smaller planets are scarcer in younger systems and larger planets are lacking in older systems, according to new research that analyzed hundreds of exoplanets.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Is Atmospheric Oxygen a Planetary Signature for Life?
While some Earth-like worlds can generate significant O2 only by biology, “waterworlds” and “desert worlds” can build up O2 even without life because of chemical changes from atmosphere loss to space.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Decoding the Age of the Ice at Mars’s North Pole
Exposure to sunlight creates telltale patterns in the polar ice cap that change over time, potentially providing insight into the climatic history of the Red Planet.
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A Longer-Lived Magnetic Field for Mars
New research indicates Mars’s dynamo may have been active for millions of years longer than previously thought.