Featured
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Letter |
Penitentes as the origin of the bladed terrain of Tartarus Dorsa on Pluto
Simulations of Pluto suggest that the sharp ridges in the Tartarus Dorsa region of Pluto are penitentes that formed over the past tens of millions of years.
- John E. Moores
- , Christina L. Smith
- & Scott D. Guzewich
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News |
Solar System’s biggest asteroid is an ancient ocean world
NASA spacecraft finds that Ceres is full of water.
- Alexandra Witze
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News Q&A |
NASA science chief: ‘I have no worries about the resilience of this country’
Thomas Zurbuchen on the agency’s Earth-science programmes and the transition to a new president.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Europe’s first Mars rover gets funding — despite crash of test craft
But the European Space Agency's participation in a mission to deflect an asteroid moon is now cancelled.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Rock core from dinosaur-killing impact reveals how enormous craters form
Drilling into Mexico’s Chicxulub basin also finds shattered rock where underground life could thrive.
- Alexandra Witze
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Letter |
Reorientation of Sputnik Planitia implies a subsurface ocean on Pluto
To explain the position of the Sputnik Planitia basin on Pluto, the feature would need to have formed via impact and Pluto would need to have a subsurface ocean.
- F. Nimmo
- , D. P. Hamilton
- & K. E. Smith
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Letter |
Reorientation and faulting of Pluto due to volatile loading within Sputnik Planitia
The location of Sputnik Planitia on Pluto is shown to result from volatiles sequestered within the basin forcing the reorientation of the dwarf planet, as supported by the planet-wide fault network.
- James T. Keane
- , Isamu Matsuyama
- & Jordan K. Steckloff
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News |
Icy heart could be key to Pluto’s strange geology
NASA’s New Horizons mission plumbs complex interplay between the dwarf planet's surface and its sky.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Astronomers spot distant world in Solar System’s far reaches
The enigmatic object travels an orbit that reaches well beyond Pluto.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Meteorites pummel the Moon far more than expected
Hundreds of fresh impact craters hint at possible dangers for future lunar bases.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Mission accomplished: Rosetta crashes into comet
Craft sends back wealth of images in 19-kilometre descent.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Rosetta crashes into comet: Live from the Nature studio
Follow's Rosetta's descent to the surface of comet 67-P after more than a decade in space.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Comet crash: a guide to Rosetta’s big finale
Spacecraft will strive to the end to capture best-ever comet images during descent.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Letter |
Observed glacier and volatile distribution on Pluto from atmosphere–topography processes
Simulations of the levels of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide over thousands of years confirm the existence of a nitrogen glacier in Sputnik Planitia, Pluto’s deepest basin.
- Tanguy Bertrand
- & François Forget
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News |
Detailed map shows Milky Way is bigger than we thought
First results from Gaia probe also seem to solve old controversy over Pleiades cluster.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Letter |
The formation of Charon’s red poles from seasonally cold-trapped volatiles
The unusual dark red coloration of Charon’s northern polar cap is shown to be produced from hydrocarbons that are cold-trapped from Pluto’s escaping atmosphere during winter.
- W. M. Grundy
- , D. P. Cruikshank
- & A. M. Zangari
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News |
Milky Way mapper: 6 ways the Gaia spacecraft will change astronomy
European mission will shed light on hidden asteroids, the Universe’s expansion and exoplanets.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Research Highlights |
Carbon monoxide in large-star disks
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Letter |
High-molecular-weight organic matter in the particles of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
The COSIMA mass spectrometer on the Rosetta spacecraft has analysed the solid organic matter found in dust particles emitted by comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko; this matter is similar to the insoluble organic matter extracted from carbonaceous chondrites such as the Murchison meteorite, but is perhaps more primitive.
- Nicolas Fray
- , Anaïs Bardyn
- & Martin Hilchenbach
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News |
Photos reveal location of lost comet lander Philae
Pinpointing lander’s cold resting place on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko will be a boon to researchers.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
OSIRIS-REx spacecraft blazes trail for asteroid miners
Retrieval of a space-rock sample would be proof of concept for mining metals and water.
- Ramin Skibba
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News |
Giant ice volcano spotted on dwarf planet Ceres
Images from Dawn spacecraft reveal signs of complex geology that created the dome-shaped Ahuna Mons.
- Ramin Skibba
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News & Views |
Cometary dust under the microscope
The Rosetta spacecraft made history by successfully orbiting a comet. Data from the craft now reveal the structure of the comet's dust particles, shedding light on the processes that form planetary systems. See Letter p.73
- Ludmilla Kolokolova
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Letter |
Aggregate dust particles at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
dust particles at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko confirm that the particles are aggregates of smaller, elongated grains even at the smallest sizes examined.
- Mark S. Bentley
- , Roland Schmied
- & Ove Havnes
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News |
Obama’s science legacy: a space race stalls
A crewed trip to Mars is still decades away.
- Alexandra Witze
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Research Highlights |
Gentle birth of a comet
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Letter |
A partially differentiated interior for (1) Ceres deduced from its gravity field and shape
Gravity and shape measurements for Ceres obtained from the Dawn spacecraft mission show that it is in hydrostatic equilibrium with its inferred normalized mean moment of inertia of 0.37, suggesting that Ceres has a rocky chondritic core overlaid by a volatile-rich icy shell.
- R. S. Park
- , A. S. Konopliv
- & F. Preusker
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News |
Philae comet lander goes quiet for good
European Space Agency switches off radio communications with popular space probe.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Letter |
Origin and implications of non-radial Imbrium Sculpture on the Moon
The widespread rimmed grooves, lineations and elongate craters extending from the Imbrium impact basin on the Moon, termed the Imbrium Sculpture, includes a non-radial component that is used to infer that the Imbrium impactor was the size of a proto-planet—about half the diameter of Vesta.
- Peter H. Schultz
- & David A. Crawford
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News |
CubeSats set for deep space — if they can hitch a ride
Shoebox-sized craft face a wait to be propelled beyond Earth’s orbit.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Letter |
Bright carbonate deposits as evidence of aqueous alteration on (1) Ceres
High-resolution near-infrared observations of the Occator bright areas on the dwarf planet Ceres suggest that the bright material is mostly made up of endogenous sodium carbonate.
- M. C. De Sanctis
- , A. Raponi
- & C. T. Russell
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News |
France launches massive meteor-spotting network
Tracking space rocks that reach Earth will give insight into the early Solar System.
- Traci Watson
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Letter |
Convection in a volatile nitrogen-ice-rich layer drives Pluto’s geological vigour
The volatile-ice-filled basin informally named Sputnik Planum is central to Pluto’s geological activity; this ice layer is organized into cells or polygons, and it is now shown that convective overturn in a several-kilometre-thick layer of solid nitrogen can explain both the presence of the cells and their great width.
- William B. McKinnon
- , Francis Nimmo
- & K. E. Smith
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Letter |
Fission and reconfiguration of bilobate comets as revealed by 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
A modelling study of the bilobate nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko reveals that it has spun much faster in the past, but that its chaotically changing spin rate has so far prevented it from splitting; eventually the two lobes will separate, but they will be unable to escape each other and will ultimately merge again—a situation that seems to be common among cometary nuclei.
- Masatoshi Hirabayashi
- , Daniel J. Scheeres
- & Timothy Bowling
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News |
Geologists to drill into heart of dinosaur-killing impact
Quest aims to uncover secrets of big craters across the Solar System.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Weird and wonderful Pluto spills its secrets
Data from NASA’s New Horizons mission begin to reveal the stories behind the dwarf planet's complex geology.
- Jeff Hecht
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Letter |
Super-catastrophic disruption of asteroids at small perihelion distances
By comparing asteroid detections and a near-Earth-object model the deficit of objects near the Sun is shown to arise from the breakup of most asteroids, especially low-albedo ones, at distances of a few tens of solar radii from the Sun.
- Mikael Granvik
- , Alessandro Morbidelli
- & Patrick Michel
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Letter |
A homogeneous nucleus for comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from its gravity field
The precise mass, bulk density, porosity and internal structure of the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko are calculated, on the basis of its gravity field, showing it to be dusty, homogeneous, low-density and highly porous.
- M. Pätzold
- , T. Andert
- & F. Scholten
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News |
Evidence grows for giant planet on fringes of Solar System
Gravitational signature hints at massive object that orbits the Sun every 20,000 years.
- Alexandra Witze
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Letter |
Exposed water ice on the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
Using infrared wavelengths, micrometre-sized water-ice grains have been identified on the nucleus (which is mostly coated in a dark material) of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
- G. Filacchione
- , M. C. De Sanctis
- & G. Peter
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News |
Mysterious bright spots on Ceres are probably salt
Ice also transforms to water vapour in the dwarf planet’s craters, creating an enigmatic haze.
- Alexandra Witze
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Letter |
Sublimation in bright spots on (1) Ceres
The dwarf planet (1) Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt, is found to have localized bright areas on its surface; particularly interesting is a bright pit on the floor of the crater Occator that exhibits what is likely to be water ice sublimation, producing crater-bound haze clouds with a diurnal rhythm.
- A. Nathues
- , M. Hoffmann
- & J.-B. Vincent
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Letter |
Ammoniated phyllosilicates with a likely outer Solar System origin on (1) Ceres
Infrared spectra of (1) Ceres acquired at distances of 82,000 to 4,300 kilometres from the surface indicate widespread ammoniated phyllosilicates; the presence of ammonia suggests that material from the outer Solar System was incorporated into Ceres.
- M. C. De Sanctis
- , E. Ammannito
- & C. T. Russell
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News & Views |
How the Solar System didn't form
Standard planet-formation models have been unable to reconstruct the distributions of the Solar System's small, rocky planets and asteroids in the same simulation. A new analysis suggests that it cannot be done.
- Kleomenis Tsiganis
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News |
Researchers rendezvous with falling space debris
Jet affords observations of WT1190F as object plummets through Earth's atmosphere.
- Traci Watson
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News |
Volcanic rock hints at source of Earth’s water
Hydrogen isotopes suggest that some water was present when the planet formed.
- Chris Cesare
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News |
Astronomers spy most distant Solar System object ever
Newfound world could belong to rare group of distant dwellers far beyond Pluto.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Icy volcanoes may dot Pluto's surface
New Horizons mission spots a pair of mountains with deep pits at their centres.
- Alexandra Witze