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Bilobate comet morphology and internal structure controlled by shear deformation
Jorda, L.; Lamy, P. L.; Lara, L. M. +45 more
Bilobate comets—small icy bodies with two distinct lobes—are a common configuration among comets, but the factors shaping these bodies are largely unknown. Cometary nuclei, the solid centres of comets, erode by ice sublimation when they are sufficiently close to the Sun, but the importance of a comet's internal structure on its erosion is unclear.…
Widespread distribution of OH/H2O on the lunar surface inferred from spectral data
Edwards, Christopher S.; Bandfield, Joshua L.; Poston, Michael J. +1 more
Remote-sensing data from lunar orbiters have revealed spectral features consistent with the presence of OH or H2O on the lunar surface. Analyses of data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper spectrometer onboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft have suggested that OH/H2O is recycled on diurnal timescales and persists only at high latit…
Author Correction: Atmospheric mountain wave generation on Venus and its influence on the solid planet's rotation rate
Lebonnois, S.; Navarro, T.; Schubert, G.
In the version of this Article originally published, a statement regarding past measurements of the length of day and rotation rate of Venus was potentially misleading. The original statement has now been replaced in the online versions of this Article, to acknowledge that neither Magellan nor Venus Express measured an instantaneous rotation rate.
Remote detection of widespread indigenous water in lunar pyroclastic deposits
Milliken, Ralph E.; Li, Shuai
Laboratory analyses of lunar samples provide a direct means to identify indigenous volatiles and have been used to argue for the presence of Earth-like water content in the lunar interior. Some volatile elements, however, have been interpreted as evidence for a bulk lunar mantle that is dry. Here we demonstrate that, for a number of lunar pyroclas…
Snow precipitation on Mars driven by cloud-induced night-time convection
Montmessin, Franck; Hinson, David P.; Forget, François +4 more
Although it contains less water vapour than Earth's atmosphere, the Martian atmosphere hosts clouds. These clouds, composed of water-ice particles, influence the global transport of water vapour and the seasonal variations of ice deposits. However, the influence of water-ice clouds on local weather is unclear: it is thought that Martian clouds are…
Timing of water plume eruptions on Enceladus explained by interior viscosity structure
Nimmo, Francis; Porco, Carolyn; Čadek, Ondřej +3 more
At the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, eruptions of water vapour and ice emanate from warm tectonic ridges. Observations in the infrared and visible spectra have shown an orbital modulation of the plume brightness, which suggests that the eruption activity is influenced by tidal forces. However, the observed activity seems to be delayed…
Groundwater activity on Mars and implications for a deep biosphere
Michalski, Joseph R.; Niles, Paul B.; Cuadros, Javier +3 more
By the time eukaryotic life or photosynthesis evolved on Earth, the martian surface had become extremely inhospitable, but the subsurface of Mars could potentially have contained a vast microbial biosphere. Crustal fluids may have welled up from the subsurface to alter and cement surface sediments, potentially preserving clues to subsurface habita…
Variations of sulphur dioxide at the cloud top of Venus's dynamic atmosphere
Montmessin, Franck; Bertaux, Jean-Loup; Marcq, Emmanuel +1 more
Sulphur dioxide is a million times more abundant in the atmosphere of Venus than that of Earth, possibly as a result of volcanism on Venus within the past billion years. A tenfold decrease in sulphur dioxide column density above Venus's clouds measured by the Pioneer Venus spacecraft during the 1970s and 1980s has been interpreted as decline follo…
Transport-driven formation of a polar ozone layer on Mars
Montmessin, Franck; Lefèvre, Franck
Since the seasonal and spatial distribution of ozone on Mars was detected by the ultraviolet spectrometer onboard the spacecraft Mariner 7, our understanding has evolved considerably thanks to parallel efforts in observations and modelling. At low-to-mid latitudes, martian ozone is distributed vertically in two main layers, a near-surface layer an…
A chaotic long-lived vortex at the southern pole of Venus
Hueso, R.; Sánchez-Lavega, A.; Drossart, P. +3 more
Polar vortices are common in the atmospheres of rapidly rotating planets. On Earth and Mars, vortices are generated by surface temperature gradients and their strength is modulated by the seasonal insolation cycle. Slowly rotating Venus lacks pronounced seasonal forcing, but vortices are known to occur at both poles, in an atmosphere that rotates …