Planetary Science
- Planetary Science
Martian moon probably pretty porous
Phobos may be a mass of rocky rubble, not a captured asteroid.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Gravity lows mark burial sites of ancient tectonic plates
Dips in Earth's gravitational field are tied to 'slab graveyards'
By Sid Perkins - Planetary Science
Warmth in the dark age
Lower reflectivity kept Earth from freezing under a fainter young sun.
By Sid Perkins - Planetary Science
Signs of giant comet impacts found in cores
An uptick in ammonium may be evidence of a 50-billion-ton strike at the end of the ice age.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Irrigation draining California groundwater at ‘unsustainable’ pace
The GRACE satellites have tracked water movement from the Central Valley since 2003.
By Sid Perkins - Planetary Science
Pluto’s cloud components verified
Newly analyzed observations suggest that particles are tiny spherules of frozen nitrogen and carbon monoxide.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Deep hole spotted on moon
The feature may be a ‘skylight’ in an underground lava tube.
By Sid Perkins - Planetary Science
Mercury, As Never Seen Before: MESSENGER visits innermost planet
The first spacecraft to visit Mercury in 33 years imaged 25 percent of the crater-pocked surface that had never before been seen close-up.
By Ron Cowen - Ecosystems
Windy with a chance of weevils
Scientists have traced the reappearance of cotton pests in west-central Texas to a tropical storm.
By Sid Perkins - Planetary Science
Award named for late Science News writer
Jonathan Eberhart's name lives on in a new planetary-sciences award.
By Janet Raloff - Space
Water on the moon: How much?
Ron Cowen reports from the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Measuring citations: Calculations can vary widely
Depending on how citation tallies will be used, it may pay to cherry pick the appropriate counting house.
By Janet Raloff