Related papers: Water on The Moon, I. Historical Overview

Post-Noachian Martian paleochannels indicate the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars after about 3.5 Gya (Irwin et al., 2015; Palucis et al., 2016). In order to explore the effects of variations in CO$_{2}$ partial pressure and…

It is still unknown how much water has escaped from Mars during its history. Hydrogen escape from Mars's atmosphere probably played a major role in drying the planet, but present-day Hloss rates (about 3x10^26 atoms per second on average)…

Earthshine is the dominant source of natural illumination on the surface of the Moon during lunar night, and at locations within permanently shadowed regions that never receive direct sunlight. As such, earthshine may enable the exploration…

The amount and distribution of water on the lunar surface are related to the input and production of water by solar wind and meteoroid bombardment, balanced by photodestruction and mobility across the surface. Using the Stratospheric…

Mars has a thin (6 mbar) CO2 atmosphere currently. There is strong evidence for paleolakes and rivers formed by warm climates on Mars, including after 3.5 billion years (Ga) ago, which indicates that a CO2 atmosphere thick enough to permit…

The Earth-Moon system is unusual in several respects. The Moon is roughly 1/4 the radius of the Earth - a larger satellite-to-planet size ratio than all known satellites other than Pluto's Charon. The Moon has a tiny core, perhaps with only…

We create the first quantitative model for the early lunar atmosphere, coupled with a magma ocean crystallization model. Immediately after formation, the moon's surface was subject to a radiative environment that included contributions from…

Early Mars may have had a warmer and denser atmosphere allowing for the presence of liquid water on the surface. However, climate model studies have not been able to reproduce these conditions even with a CO2 atmosphere of several bars.…

Earth is unusual in bearing life, and in having a large moon. A number of authors have suggested a possible connection between the two, e.g. through lunar stabilisation of the earth's obliquity, or through the effects of the oceanic tides.…

Polarization during a lunar eclipse is a forgotten mystery. Coyne & Pellicori (1970) reported the detection of significant polarization during the lunar eclipse on 1968 April 13. Multiple scattering during the first transmission through the…

In this short note we discuss the case of the thought experiments on water-filled telescopes and their realizations during 18th and 19th century. The story of those instruments shows that the scientific progress occurs in a curious way,…

Space weathering is an important surface process occurring on the Moon and other airless bodies, especially those that have no magnetic field. The optical effects of the Moon's space weathering have been largely investigated in the…

Earth has had oceans for nearly four billion years and Mars had lakes and rivers 3.5-3.8 billion years ago. However, it is still unknown whether water has ever condensed on the surface of Venus because the planet - now completely dry - has…

Early Mars had rivers, but the cause of Mars' wet-to-dry transition remains unknown. Past climate on Mars can be probed using the spatial distribution of climate-sensitive landforms. We analyzed global databases of water-worked landforms…

Given the renewed scientific interest in lunar exploration missions, complete understanding of lunar near surface environment and its exosphere under different conditions is of paramount importance. Lunar exosphere has been extensively…

The evidence for abundant liquid water on early Mars despite the faint young Sun is a long-standing problem in planetary research. Here we present new ab initio spectroscopic and line-by-line climate calculations of the warming potential of…

Ptolemy's model of the Moon's motion implied that its distance varies by nearly a factor of two, implying that its angular size should also vary by nearly a factor of two. We present an analysis of 100 naked eye observations of the Moon's…

Venus currently rotates slowly, with its spin controlled by solid-body and atmospheric thermal tides. However, conditions may have been far different 4 billion years ago, when the Sun was fainter and most of the carbon within Venus could…

Venus's climatic history provides powerful constraint on the location of the inner-edge of the liquid-water habitable zone. However, two very different histories of water on Venus have been proposed: one where Venus had a temperate climate…

Geological evidence suggests liquid water near the Earth's surface as early as 4.4 billion years ago when the faint young Sun only radiated about 70% of its modern power output. At this point, the Earth should have been a global snowball if…