Planetary science articles from across Nature Portfolio

The IAU’s first fully online symposium brought researchers together from around the globe to discuss technosignatures. Upcoming all-sky surveys, exoplanet missions and tools to search data archives offer new directions for the field.

Modelling of the thermal and magnetic evolution of Neptune’s moon Triton indicates that it might possess an as-yet-undetected magnetic field, generated by a dynamo in its metallic core. If this field does indeed exist, it could complicate efforts to search for a sub-surface ocean on Triton using magnetic induction.

The lack of chlorine in the atmosphere of Venus can be explained by its initial concentration in surface water followed by sequestration in evaporite salts and eventual incorporation into erupted lavas, according to experiments and numerical modelling

Meteorites record catastrophic collisions in the first 10 Myr of the Solar System. Here, the authors show that sweeping secular resonances driven by gas dissipation can trigger these collisions, a mechanism likely ubiquitous in protoplanetary disks.

Acropora mortality has steadily risen since 1860 and mortality peaks are associated with El Niño events, cyclones, flooding, regional climate patterns, and long-term water quality decline, according to uranium-thorium dating of dead coral skeletons

Krypton and xenon in lunar farside soils are derived from solar wind and suggest deeper penetration because the solar wind is not slowed by Earth’s magnetosphere. This contrasts with the nearside, according to noble gas analyses of soil samples collected by the Chang’e-6 mission.

A celestial body thought to be an ordinary space rock turns out to have a comet-like tail.

Deep-sea drilling ships, sea-floor sensors and repurposed Internet cables are helping scientists to study the last unmapped area on Earth.

Erythrulose, which has four carbon atoms, is the most complex sugar spotted beyond our Solar System.

The IAU’s first fully online symposium brought researchers together from around the globe to discuss technosignatures. Upcoming all-sky surveys, exoplanet missions and tools to search data archives offer new directions for the field.

Two gas giants circling the same star are among the least dense planets ever found.