News & Views |
Featured
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Article |
Melting curve of superionic ammonia at planetary interior conditions
Laser-driven shock compression experiments yield the melting curve of the superionic phase of ammonia at conditions relevant to the interiors of Uranus and Neptune.
- J.-A. Hernandez
- , M. Bethkenhagen
- & A. Ravasio
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News & Views |
Lunar modulations
Tides not only affect ocean dynamics but also influence the Earth’s magnetosphere. Satellite observations have now revealed evidence of tidal effects in the Earth’s plasmasphere correlated with Moon phases.
- Balázs Heilig
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Letter
| Open AccessEvidence for lunar tide effects in Earth’s plasmasphere
Lunar tides affect Earth’s oceans and its geomagnetic field. Multisatellite observations demonstrate that they also impact the plasmasphere.
- Chao Xiao
- , Fei He
- & Zhao Zhang
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News & Views |
From storms to cyclones at Jupiter’s poles
The atmospheres of most planets in our Solar System have a single large cyclonic vortex at each of their poles. Jupiter with its polygonal cyclones surrounding a single one, however, falls out of line, owing to an energy transfer to larger scales.
- Agustín Sánchez-Lavega
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Article
| Open AccessMoist convection drives an upscale energy transfer at Jovian high latitudes
Infrared images of Jupiter taken by the Juno spacecraft reveal an energy transfer driven by moist convection. This mechanism is expected to enhance heat transfer, which might also be relevant to Earth’s atmosphere.
- Lia Siegelman
- , Patrice Klein
- & Giuseppe Sindoni
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News & Views |
Hot black ices
At high pressure and temperature, water forms two crystalline phases, known as hot ‘black’ ices due to their partial opaqueness. A detailed characterization of these phases may explain magnetic field formation in giant icy planets like Neptune.
- Simone Anzellini
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Article |
Structure and properties of two superionic ice phases
Measurements of the phase diagram of water reveal first-order phase transitions to face- and body-centred cubic superionic ice phases. The former is suggested to be present in the interior of ice giant planets.
- Vitali B. Prakapenka
- , Nicholas Holtgrewe
- & Alexander F. Goncharov
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Article |
Phase behaviours of superionic water at planetary conditions
Superionic water is believed to exist in the interior of ice giant planets. By combining machine learning and free-energy methods, the phase behaviours of water at the extreme pressures and temperatures prevalent in such planets are predicted.
- Bingqing Cheng
- , Mandy Bethkenhagen
- & Sebastien Hamel
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Article |
Remote determination of the shape of Jupiter’s vortices from laboratory experiments
Laboratory experiments reproduce the three-dimensional pancake-like shape of Jupiter’s vortices. The thickness of the Great Red Spot is predicted, awaiting comparison with NASA’s Juno mission.
- Daphné Lemasquerier
- , Giulio Facchini
- & Michael Le Bars
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News & Views |
Charge on collision
Planets are assembled from the ground up, beginning with millimetre-sized interstellar dust grains. Microgravity experiments suggest that centimetre-sized dust aggregates form from these smaller grains via collisional charging.
- Katherine Follette
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Article |
Electrical charging overcomes the bouncing barrier in planet formation
In our understanding of planetary formation, it is still unclear how millimetre-sized dust grains grow into centimetre-sized aggregates. Microgravity experiments now show that electrical charging of the grains leads to the formation of larger clumps.
- Tobias Steinpilz
- , Kolja Joeris
- & Gerhard Wurm
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Measure for Measure |
To the Sun and beyond
Tell Bartolo Luque and Fernando Ballesteros how far the Sun is from the Earth, and they will tell you the size of the Universe.
- Bartolo Luque
- & Fernando J. Ballesteros
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Editorial |
Earthly powers
A careful analysis of data obtained from the IceCube telescope in Antarctica shows that atmospheric neutrinos can be used as a tomographic probe of the Earth.
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News & Views |
Made visible by the invisible
Using data from the IceCube telescope, a study presents the first attempt at obtaining geophysical information about Earth’s internal structure from the flux of neutrinos that pass through it.
- Véronique Van Elewyck
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Letter |
Neutrino tomography of Earth
Geophysical properties of the Earth’s interior have been inferred by looking at the absorption of neutrinos as they pass through our planet.
- Andrea Donini
- , Sergio Palomares-Ruiz
- & Jordi Salvado
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Article |
Aeolian sand sorting and megaripple formation
Wind-mediated ripples form on a centimetre scale in sand, and in dunes on a scale spanning tens of metres, but patterns on intermediate scales are rare. A theory now fills the gap by predicting megaripples, which resemble structures seen on Mars.
- Marc Lämmel
- , Anne Meiwald
- & Klaus Kroy
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Letter
| Open AccessAttractive force on atoms due to blackbody radiation
The effect of blackbody radiation is expected to be very weak. The acceleration due to the attractive optical forces from blackbody radiation is measured in an atom interferometer and, surprisingly, it dominates gravity and radiation pressure
- Philipp Haslinger
- , Matt Jaffe
- & Holger Müller
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Article |
Forward and inverse kinetic energy cascades in Jupiter’s turbulent weather layer
The Jovian atmosphere is highly turbulent due to processes happening on a wide range of length scales. Cassini spacecraft data now suggest the presence of kinetic energy cascades over different length scales — a likely origin of Jupiter’s turbulence.
- Roland M. B. Young
- & Peter L. Read
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Letter |
In situ observations of waves in Venus’s polar lower thermosphere with Venus Express aerobraking
The final stage of the Venus Express mission involved aerobraking — or deceleration by atmospheric drag — through the upper atmosphere above the northern pole of Venus. Concurrent measurements revealed two kinds of waves.
- Ingo C. F. Müller-Wodarg
- , Sean Bruinsma
- & Håkan Svedhem
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Letter |
Short-lived 244Pu points to compact binary mergers as sites for heavy r-process nucleosynthesis
Stars could produce our heavy elements through a rapid neutron-capture process during a supernova or merger of binary stars, but which is it? A study of 244Pu reveals that a rare event with a high yield is more likely, favouring mergers.
- Kenta Hotokezaka
- , Tsvi Piran
- & Michael Paul
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Letter |
Cassini in situ observations of long-duration magnetic reconnection in Saturn’s magnetotail
Cassini’s encounter with Saturn’s magnetotail — the long magnetosphere region stretching into space — has revealed that plasma exits the magnetosphere through long-duration magnetic reconnection, which ejects ten times more mass than estimated.
- C. S. Arridge
- , J. P. Eastwood
- & M. K. Dougherty
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Editorial |
More space
As we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, there is plenty to look back on and even more to look forward to.
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Commentary |
Exploring the dwarf planets
This year, NASA's Dawn and New Horizons rendezvoused with Ceres and Pluto, respectively. These worlds, despite their modest sizes, have much to teach us about the accretion of the Solar System and its dynamical evolution.
- William B. McKinnon
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News & Views |
Charges dropped
Granular charging can create some spectacular interactions, but gravity obscures our ability to observe and understand them. A neat desktop experiment circumvents this problem, shining a light on granular clustering — and perhaps even planet formation.
- Frank Spahn
- & Martin Seiβ
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News & Views |
When the dust has settled
The Rosetta orbiter following Comet 67P has captured not only the public imagination but also actual dust grains from the comet's nucleus, revealing their composition, morphology and strength.
- David Jewitt
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Editorial |
Rosetta awakes
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has begun the next phase of its ambitious mission to land a probe on the nucleus of a comet, and ride with the comet towards the Sun.
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News & Views |
Subsurface air flow on Mars
When the atmospheric surface pressure is just right, a temperature difference can drive a continuous flow of rarefied gas through the soil matrix — a previously unrecognized process on Mars.
- Norbert Schörghofer
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Letter |
The martian soil as a planetary gas pump
Microgravity experiments on a dust bed in a ‘drop tower’ set-up reveal the ability of martian soil to act as an efficient gas pump when heated by the Sun.
- Caroline de Beule
- , Gerhard Wurm
- & Jens Teiser
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