Planetary Science Institute

Wavelength Requirements for Life Detection via Reflected Light Spectroscopy of Rocky Exoplanets

Searching for signs of life is a primary goal of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). However, merely detecting oxygen, methane, or other widely discussed biosignatures is insufficient evidence for a biosphere. In parallel with biosignature detection, exoplanet life detection...

The distribution and origin of Mercury’s crustal magnetization

Mercury is the only planet other than Earth to possess both a global magnetic field that arises from a core dynamo, and a crustal magnetic field that arises from magnetized rocks. Crustal fields provide unique records of a planet’s interior state and evolution because magnetizati...

Ryugu and Bennu preserve primordial isotopic heterogeneity absent from the meteorite record

Ivuna-type (CI) carbonaceous chondrites are commonly used as proxies for the composition of the planet-forming disk because their chemical abundances resemble those of the solar photosphere. However, their isotopic uniformity may reflect pervasive alteration and isotopic averagin...

A joint geophysical-geochemical deep-mantle zoning map beneath East Africa and the Indian Ocean

Geochemical signatures of hotspot lavas suggest that their mantle sources are compositionally distinct, but their source locations remain elusive. Mapping hotspots to their deep origins is complicated by the presence of interconnected, low–seismic velocity networks in the mantle,...

Near-total loss of buttressing stresses observed on Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica

Ice shelves, the floating extensions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, provide critical buttressing stresses that resist the seaward flow of ice and help set the position of the grounding line, where the ice goes afloat. As buttressing stresses are diminished by thinning or fracturing...

Evidence for heavy iron isotopic enrichment at Earth’s core-mantle boundary

Ocean island basalts exhibit heavier and more variable iron isotopic compositions (δ56Fe) than mid-ocean ridge basalts, but the origin of these signatures remains unresolved. Here we investigate whether Fe-rich ultralow-velocity zones at the core-mantle boundary can provide a dee...

Mineralogy and thermobarometry of marbles: constraints on retrogression and hydrothermal imprint in a polymetamorphic terrane (Făgăraș Unit, Southern Carpathians, Romania)

Abstract This thermobarometry study employs calcite-dolomite solvus thermometry and thermodynamic pseudosections applied to marbles in the Făgăraș Unit, the uppermost unit of the Variscan metamorphic basement of the Alpine Supragetic units, Central Southern Carpathians. The marbl...

Selection in the City: The Supply of Trees to Baltimore’s Urban Forest

Domestic selection creates the assemblages of organisms found in human-dominated environments, and urban forestry is a useful illustration of this process in action. In this study, we aim to understand how the process of domestic selection influences the nursery supply chain of t...