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The formation of double ridges on Europa is poorly understood. Here the authors analyze airborne radar observations of an analog feature on the Greenland Ice Sheet to show that the refreezing of shallow water sills may produce such ridges.

The origin of the dichotomy between the lunar nearside and farside is unclear. Analysis of spectral reflectance data from the Kaguya lunar orbiter indicates a systematic difference in the degree of differentiation in the oldest lunar crustal terrains, linking the lunar dichotomy to crystallization of the magma ocean.

Observations are reported of a permanent, asymmetric dust cloud around the Moon, caused by impacts of high-speed cometary dust particles on eccentric orbits, as opposed to particles of asteroidal origin following near-circular paths striking the Moon at lower speeds.

The Chang’e-4 rover observed a small crater formed less than one million years ago, finding glassy materials with spectral characteristics similar to those of carbonaceous chondrites that are identified as remnants of the original impactor that have not yet been affected by weathering processes.

The nearside and farside of the Moon are compositionally distinct. The detection of low-calcium pyroxene around large impact basins suggests that the huge Procellarum basin on the nearside may be an ancient impact structure and a relic scar of the violent collision that produced the lunar dichotomy.

A report providing improved limits on the indigenous volatile contents of the most primitive basalts in the Moon, the lunar volcanic glasses. The best estimate of the pre-eruptive water content of the lunar volcanic glasses is 745 p.p.m. water, with a minimum of 260 p.p.m., indicating that the bulk Moon might not be entirely depleted in highly volatile elements, including water.

A reanalysis of Kepler and Hubble data with Bayesian inference and a photodynamical model shows that the two exomoon candidates around Kepler-1625 b and Kepler-1708 b have a substantially lower probability to be actual detections than previous analyses suggest.

Water has been detected on the lunar surface and attributed to delivery by impacts and the solar wind to a dry early Moon. Spectroscopic detections of water in lunar anorthosites from the Apollo collection suggest that a significant amount of water is indigenous to the Moon.

The Moon’s isotopic composition is uncannily similar to Earth’s. This may be the signature of a magma ocean on Earth at the time of the Moon-forming giant impact, according to numerical simulations.

A 4.8σ exomoon candidate is found around gas giant Kepler-1708 b, which orbits at 1.6 au around its star. It is the only candidate from a dedicated survey that analysed 70 cool giant exoplanets discovered by Kepler. Kepler-1708 b-i has a radius of 2.6 Earth radii and orbits its planet at 12 planetary radii.

An experiment reveals that micrometre-sized superconducting circuits follow the laws of quantum mechanics, and thus defy common experience of how macroscopic objects should behave.

It has long been thought that the lunar highland crust was formed by the crystallization and floatation of plagioclase from a global magma ocean, but the exact mechanism by which such a crust formed remains debated. Data from the Japanese SELENE spacecraft are now used to produce a clear and high spatial resolution view of the composition of the lunar crust. The existence of widely distributed crustal rocks with compositions approaching 100 per cent (by volume) plagioclase is revealed.

Hubble Space Telescope observations of the seventh inner moon of Neptune, Hippocamp, show that it is smaller than the other six, orbits near Proteus and probably originates from a fragment of Proteus.

The Moon has a tenuous exosphere and dust-sized particles have been detected. Analysis of spectral observations by the LADEE spacecraft suggests that the Moon also has a spatially and temporally variable exosphere of nanodust particles.

Innovative use of medieval musings about the Moon has revealed that volcanic eruptions coincided with abrupt, global-scale cooling events. The approach is exciting from the perspective of climate scientists and historians alike.

Volcanic deposits on the Moon are almost entirely composed of basaltic lava flows that make up the dark and extensive mare plains. High-resolution images and compositional data now reveal rare, non-mare volcanism on the Moon's farside.

In response to concerns raised by the Navajo Nation on treating the Moon as a grave, NASA has a unique opportunity to advance the conversation with Indigenous communities regarding how we interact with space environments, and who gets to decide.

The global geological map of Saturn’s moon Titan, created using radar observations from Cassini, shows a clear latitudinal dependence, with young dune fields dominant at the equator, plains at mid-latitudes and lakes and old dissected terrains at the poles. Titan’s geomorphology is controlled mostly by climate and topography.

Basalt clasts returned by Chang’e-6 suggest a lunar farside mantle potential temperature that is approximately 100 °C cooler than the nearside mantle, according to a petrologic study combined with thermobarometric modelling and remote sensing data.

In-situ surface temperature as high as 335 K are recorded by Chandra’s surface thermophysical experiment (ChaSTE) on a sunward-facing slope and demonstrate the influence of topography on local metre-scale temperatures at high lunar latitudes.

Following almost three decades of some certainty over how the Moon was formed, new geochemical measurements have thrown the planetary science community back into doubt. We are either modelling the wrong process, or modelling the process wrong.

Chang’E-5 lunar soils show unusually fast growth of solar wind–damaged rims compared with Chang’E-6 and Apollo samples, potentially pointing to local conditions that enhance solar wind effects on the Moon.

Theory has it that the Moon grew within a disk of material splashed out of the Earth by a body the size of Mars. According to new calculations, however, the impacting body was at least twice that size. There are probably very many terrestrial planets in our Galaxy, yet the implication of this and other simulations is that fewer of them than previously expected have Moon-sized satellites.

We argue that the next leap in lunar exploration must focus beneath the surface, seeking natural cavities as potential shelters for human habitation. Lunar exploration is transitioning from brief visits to long-term presence, raising the urgent need for protection against harsh surface conditions. We propose that subsurface lava tubes and impact-formed cavities could serve as ready-made safe havens, providing radiation shielding and thermal stability. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology, deployed from rovers and orbiters, offers a means to detect and map these hidden structures on a global scale. We highlight recent research led by Chinese lunar missions from Chang’E-3’s first in-situ radar profiling to new data from Chang’E-4’s far-side rover, which revealed layered regolith and even a ~3 m void just beneath the Moon’s surface. We further discuss a novel “blind inversion” radar analysis method developed by Ding and colleagues to infer subsurface voids from limited data. In this perspective, we emphasize that a concerted effort to perform global radar sounding of the Moon’s subsurface is crucial for identifying stable underground habitats. Therefore, we advocate for a global-scale orbital penetrating radar mission to comprehensively map subsurface structures across the Moon. Such natural shelters could drastically lower the cost and risk of establishing a human base on the Moon, accelerating humanity’s march towards a permanent off-Earth presence.

Numerical simulations reveal that the transfer of ions from Earth’s atmosphere to the Moon is efficient only in the sustained presence of a geomagnetic field, suggesting that lunar soils may record the histories of the atmosphere, solar wind, and geodynamo.

A large number of N-body simulations of the giant-impact phase of planet formation, combined with the measured concentrations of highly siderophile elements in Earth’s mantle, reveal that the Moon must have formed at least 40 million years after the condensation of the first solids of the Solar System.

The first magma on the Moon formed by decompression melting of orthopyroxene-dominated mantle rocks facilitated by density-driven mantle overturn, according to petrographic modelling and observations of lunar highland samples from the Chang’e-5 mission

Analyses of Chang’e-6 samples from the lunar farside reveal high water contents and low δD values, with comparisons to other lunar samples suggesting that solar-wind-implanted surface water varies with latitude and regolith maturity.

Vast, ancient impact basins scattered mantle materials across the lunar surface. We review lunar evolution models to identify candidate mantle lithologies, then assess orbital observations to evalutae the current distribution of these materials and implications for fundamental planetary processes.

This study finds that the Moon accreted from an initially liquid-rich silicate disk and that rocky and icy exoplanets whose radii are smaller than 1.6 Earth radii are ideal candidates for hosting large exomoons.

Jupiter’s radiation belt exhibits complex electron distributions shaped by wave–particle interactions and moon absorption. Here, the authors identify an electron slot region and quantify its formation driven by whistler waves via Juno mission data and simulations.

Observations of the shape, topography, crustal thickness and surface composition of the South Pole–Aitken impact basin on the Moon suggest a southward impact trajectory and the excavation of a discontinuous remnant magma ocean from beneath the crust.