The development of plate tectonics and life on Earth provided avenues for mineral evolution that did not occur on Mars, resulting in relatively limited mineral diversity on the Red Planet.
planetary evolution
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Astronomers May Have Spotted the Birth of a Planet
Lumps of dust are spiraling around a young star 5,000 light-years away. They could be Jupiter-like planets in the making.
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A Planet Is Dramatically Losing Its Atmosphere
Helium that was once part of the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet HAT-P-32b is being ripped away and forming two giant streamers of gas several million kilometers long.
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What Methane Jets Might Tell Us About Enceladus
Plumes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus are dumping methane into space—fast. Something must be resupplying the organic compound.
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Saturn’s Shiny Rings May Be Pretty Young
The rings are fairly shiny despite being bombarded by dust, indicating that they haven’t been around for very long.
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Molten Meteorites Didn’t Deliver Earth’s Water
A new study has ruled out large, once-molten meteorites called achondrites as sources of Earth’s water.
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Hydrogen May Push Some Exoplanets off a Cliff
High-pressure reactions of hydrogen and iron could explain gaps in the distribution of exoplanets.
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Marauding Moons Spell Disaster for Some Planets
In solar systems beyond our own, some moons might eventually collide with their host planets, new simulations suggest.
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Quaoar’s Ring Defies Gravity
The dwarf planet’s ring makes astronomers question whether a long-held theory about ring and moon formation needs tweaking.
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Complex Organic Ices Discovered in a Star-Forming Cloud
The presence of complex organic molecules such as methanol, ethanol, and acetaldehyde in a molecular cloud suggests that these and simpler ices might be available to planetary systems right from the start.