Related papers: Earth and Mars interior structures set by re-melti…
The composition of an atmosphere has integrated the geological history of the entire planetary body. However, the long-term evolutions of the atmospheres of the terrestrial planets are not well documented. For Earth, there were until…
Nominally anhydrous minerals in rocky planet mantles can sequester oceans of water as a whole, giving a constraint on bulk water inventories. Here we predict mantle water capacities from the thermodynamically-limited solubility of water in…
The pathway to forming the iron-rich planet Mercury remains mysterious. Mercury's core makes up 70% of the planetary mass, which implies a significant enrichment of iron relative to silicates, while its mantle is strongly depleted in…
Chondrites, the building blocks of the terrestrial planets, have mass and atomic proportions of oxygen, iron, magnesium, and silicon totaling $\geq$90\% and variable Mg/Si ($\sim$25\%), Fe/Si (factor of $\geq$2), and Fe/O (factor of…
Isotopic anomalies provide a means of probing the materials responsible for the formation of terrestrial planets. By analyzing new iron isotopic anomaly data from Martian meteorites and drawing insights from published data for O, Ca, Ti,…
Astronomers have discovered a handful of exoplanets with rocky bulk compositions but orbiting so close to their host star that the surface of the planet must be at least partially molten. It is expected that the dayside of such "lava…
Combining isotopic constraints from meteorite data with dynamical models of planet formation proves to be advantageous in identifying the best model for terrestrial planet formation. Prior studies have shown that the probability of…
Stably stratified layers are present in stellar interiors (radiative zones) as well as planetary interiors - recent observations and theoretical studies of the Earth's magnetic field seem to indicate the presence of a thin, stably…
Global climate evolution models for habitable earthlike planets do not consider the effect of ocean salinity on land ice formation through the hydrological cycle. We consider two categories of such planets: planets with deep oceans, but…
The composition of the lower mantle $-$ comprising 56% of Earth's volume $-$ remains poorly constrained. Among the major elements, Mg/Si ratios ranging from $\sim$0.9$-$1.1, such as in rocky solar-system building blocks (or chondrites), to…
The migration of U and Th inside a planet is controlled by its oxidation state imposed by the volatile composition. In the deep interior of a planet, an absence of oxidative volatiles will cause U and Th to stay in a state of metal or low…
Recently, I showed that the "standard model" of solar system formation is wrong,yielding the contradiction of terrestrial planets having insufficiently massive cores, and showed instead the consistency of Eucken's 1944 concept of planets…
Remote sensing data from orbiter missions have proposed that ground ice may currently exist on Mars, although the volume is still uncertain. Recent analyses of Martian meteorites have suggested that the water reservoirs have at least three…
One in every two atoms in the Earth, Mars, and the Moon is oxygen; it is the third most abundant element in the solar system. The oxygen isotopic compositions of the terrestrial planets are different from those of the Sun and demonstrate…
Rocky planetesimals in the early solar system melted internally and evolved chemically due to radiogenic heating from Al-26. Here we quantify the parametric controls on magma genesis and transport using a coupled petrological and fluid…
I present here a new, indivisible planetary science paradigm, a wholly self-consistent vision of the nature of matter in the Solar System, and dynamics and energy sources of planets. Massive-core planets formed by condensing and raining-out…
Despite its importance to questions of lunar origin, the chemical composition of the Moon is not precisely known. In recent years, however, the isotopic composition of lunar samples has been determined to high precision and found to be…
We examine the history of the loss and replenishment of the Martian atmosphere using elemental and isotopic compositions of nitrogen and noble gases. The evolution of the atmosphere is calculated by taking into consideration various…
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…
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…