Age data for certain classes of meteorite have made it possible to gain new findings on the origin of small water-rich astronomical bodies in the early solar system. These so-called […]
The Jupiter-Saturn chaotic excitation (JSCE) scenario proposes that the protoplanetary disk was dynamically excited and depleted beyond ~1-1.5 au in a few Myr, offering a new and plausible explanation for […]
A fleeting visit of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Venus has revealed surprising insights into how gases are stripped away from the upper layers of the planet’s atmosphere.
Scientists from the Planetary Science Institute have uncovered evidence of potential salt glaciers on Mercury, opening a new frontier in astrobiology by revealing a volatile environment that might echo habitability […]
Mercury can be categorized as either an endmember or an outlier planet due to its unusually large iron core, constituting approximately 70% of its total mass. The origin of this […]
A striking feature of the surface of Mercury is the low-reflectance material (LRM), areas exhibiting 20-30% lower average reflectance that are often associated with impact craters, especially the ejecta and […]
The MERTIS (MErcury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer) instrument onboard the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission will provide mid-infrared data, which will be crucial to characterize the surface mineralogy of Mercury.
Placing the architecture of the Solar System within the broader context of planetary architectures is one of the primary topics of interest within planetary science. Exoplanet discoveries have revealed a […]
Radar and spacecraft observations show the permanently shadowed regions around Mercury’s North Pole to contain water ice and complex organic material. One possible source of this material are impacts by […]
New research raises the possibility that some parts of Mercury’s subsurface, and those of similar planets in the galaxy, once could have been capable of fostering prebiotic chemistry, and perhaps […]
