While most planetary bow shocks are controlled by the solar wind, at Mars the solar EUV flux is equally important.
solar system
Posted inNews
Planetary Low Tide May Force Regular Sunspot Sync Ups
A regular alignment of the planets—no, it’s not pseudoscience—makes a strong enough tug to regulate the Sun’s 11- and 22-year cycles.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
No Underground Magma Ocean on Jupiter’s Fiery Moon?
A new study suggests alternative explanations for Io’s unusual magnetic field.
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New Tiny Moon of Neptune Discovered
The moon’s size and orbit point to it being the remnant of a collision with Neptune’s moon Proteus.
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New Horizons Spacecraft to Reach Farthest Body in Solar System Yet
The flyby of Ultima Thule on New Year’s Day will give us our first glimpse of a mysterious Kuiper Belt object.
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Ten New Moons Discovered Around Jupiter
The newly plotted moons of Jupiter include one “oddball” that orbits in the wrong direction and may be the remnant of a head-on collision.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Anatomy of a Flux Rope Hurtling Through the Solar System
Pancaking and erosion can explain a lot of the structural change in magnetic flux ropes as they fly evolve during their supersonic flight through the inner solar system.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Fast CMEs Continue to Decelerate in the Outer Heliosphere
Most fast coronal mass ejections will be decelerated into ambient solar wind quickly in the inner heliosphere, but some of them continue the deceleration with an even larger amplitude beyond 1 AU.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
History of Water on Mars’s Surface Is Longer Than We Thought
Curiosity’s two-step heating experiment of mudstone at Gale crater reveals minerals that formed in the presence of water less than 3 billion years ago.
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Four Planetary Landscapes That Scientists Can’t Explain
These are just a handful of the hundreds of mysterious features across our solar neighborhood that beg to be studied closer.