Related papers: Auroras on Mars: from Discovery to New Development…
Mars lacks a global magnetic field, and instead possesses small-scale crustal magnetic fields, making its magnetic environment fundamentally different from intrinsic magnetospheres like those of Earth or Saturn. Here we report the discovery…
The present Martian climate is characterized by a cold and dry environment with a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxides (CO2). In such conditions, the planetary climate and habitability are determined by the distribution of CO2 between…
Stellar coronal activity has been shown to persist into the low-mass star regime, down to late M-dwarf spectral types. However, there is now an accumulation of evidence suggesting that at the end of the main sequence there is a transition…
Wind is the process that connects Mars' climate system. Measurements of Mars atmospheric winds from orbit would dramatically advance our understanding of Mars and help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Multiple instrument…
The atmospheres of exoplanets reveal all their properties beyond mass, radius, and orbit. Based on bulk densities, we know that exoplanets larger than 1.5 Earth radii must have gaseous envelopes, hence atmospheres. We discuss contemporary…
The climate of Mars likely evolved from a warmer, wetter early state to the cold, arid current state. However, no solutions for this evolution have previously been found to satisfy the observed geological features and isotopic measurements…
Space weather observations and modeling at Mars have begun but they must be significantly increased to support the future of Human Exploration on the Red Planet. A comprehensive space weather understanding of a planet without a global…
Solar system bodies that lack a significant atmosphere and significant internal magnetic fields, such as the Moon and asteroids, have been considered as passive absorbers of the solar wind. However, ion observations near the Moon by the…
We study the interaction of three solar wind structures, two stream interaction regions and one interplanetary coronal mass ejection, with Mars' plasma environment during 20-27 November 2007. This period corresponds to the solar minimum…
Planets reflect and linearly polarize the radiation that they receive from their host stars. The emergent polarization is sensitive to aspects of the planet atmosphere such as the gas composition and the occurrence of condensates and their…
Jupiter and Saturn have extended, nearly toroidal atmospheres composed of material ejected from their moons or rings. Here we suggest that similar atmospheres must exist around giant extrasolar planets and might be observable in a transit…
The time variations of spectral properties of dark martian surface features are investigated using the OMEGA near-IR dataset. The analyzed period covers two Mars years, spanning from early 2004 to early 2008 (includes the 2007 global dust…
We are of the opinion that several anomalies in the atmosphere of Venus provide evidence of yet-unknown processes and systems that are out of equilibrium. The investigation of these anomalies on Venus should be open to the wide range of…
The InSight mission, featuring continuous high-frequency high-sensitivity pressure measurements, is in ideal position to study the active atmospheric turbulence of Mars. Data acquired during 1.25 Martian year allows us to study the seasonal…
Although mass and energy in Jupiter's magnetosphere mostly come from the innermost Galilean moon Io's volcanic activities, solar wind perturbations can play crucial roles in releasing the magnetospheric energy and powering aurorae in…
We observed Io's optical aurora in eclipse on six nights between 2022 and 2024 using Keck I/HIRES. Spectra revealed 13 new auroral emissions not identified previously, tripling the total number of optical emissions lines detected at Io.…
The most remarkable feature of the ultraviolet auroras at Jupiter is the ever present and almost continuous curtain of bright emissions centered on each magnetic pole and called the main emissions. According to the classical theory, it…
Spectroscopic observations at extreme and far ultraviolet wavelengths have revealed systematic upflows in the solar transition region and corona. These upflows are best seen in the network structures of the quiet Sun and coronal holes,…
Neutron stars are fascinating astrophysical objects immersed in strong gravitational and electromagnetic fields, at the edge of our current theories. These stars manifest themselves mostly as pulsars, emitting a timely very stable and…
We investigated 634 crater clusters on Mars detected between 2007 and 2021, which represent more than half of all impacts discovered in this period. Crater clusters form when meteoroids in the 10 kg to 10 ton mass range break-up in Mars'…