Monthly Notices is one of the three largest general primary astronomical research publications. It is an international journal, published by the Royal Astronomical Society. This article 1 describes its publication policy and practice.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

A Viking Lander 1 image was modeled as mixtures of reflectance spectra of palagonite dust, gray andesitelike rock, and a coarse rocklike soil. The rocks are covered to varying degrees by dust but otherwise appear unweathered. Rocklike soil occurs as lag deposits in deflation zones around stones and on top of a drift and as a layer in a trench dug by the lander. This soil probably is derived from the rocks by wind abrasion and/or spallation. Dust is the major component of the soil and covers most of the surface. The dust is unrelated spectrally to the rock but is equivalent to the global-scale dust observed telescopically. A new method was developed to model a multispectral image as mixtures of end-member spectra and to compare image spectra directly with laboratory reference spectra. The method for the first time uses shade and secondary illumination effects as spectral end-members; thus the effects of topography and illumination on all scales can be isolated or removed. The image was calibrated absolutely from the laboratory spectra, in close agreement with direct calibrations. The method has broad applications to interpreting multispectral images, including satellite images.

Spectral mixture modeling - A new analysis of rock and soil types at the Viking Lander 1 site. [on Mars]

John M Wallace and Peter V Hobbs London: Academic 1977 pp xvii + 467 price £12.80 This is a comprehensive textbook for undergraduate courses in atmospheric physics. It contains general physical meteorology (atmospheric hydrostatics, cloud physics, radioactive transfer and thermodynamics), some selected topics of special interest (aerosol physics, aeronomy and physical climatology) and dynamic meteorology describing and interpreting large scale atmospheric motions.

Atmospheric Science: An Introductory Survey

In the giant impact theory, the Moon formed from debris ejected into an Earth-orbiting disk by the collision of a large planet with the early Earth. Prior impact simulations predict that much of the disk material originates from the colliding planet. However, Earth and the Moon have essentially identical oxygen isotope compositions. This has been a challenge for the impact theory, because the impactor’s composition would have likely differed from that of Earth. We simulated impacts involving larger impactors than previously considered. We show that these can produce a disk with the same composition as the planet’s mantle, consistent with Earth-Moon compositional similarities. Such impacts require subsequent removal of angular momentum from the Earth-Moon system through a resonance with the Sun as recently proposed.

Forming a Moon with an Earth-like composition via a Giant Impact

THE origin of Pluto's unusual orbit—the most eccentric and inclined of all the planets—remains a mystery. The orbits of Pluto and Neptune overlap, but close approaches of these two planets are prevented by the existence of a resonance condition1: Pluto's orbital period is exactly 3/2 that of Neptune, which ensures that the conjunctions always occur near Pluto's aphelion. Long-term orbit integrations2–5 have uncovered other subtle resonances and near-resonances, and indicate that Pluto's orbit is chaotic yet remains macroscopically stable over billion-year timescales. A suggestion4 that the orbit may have evolved purely by chaotic dynamics appears unlikely in light of recent orbital stability studies6, unless one appeals to a well-timed collision to place Pluto in its stable orbit19. Here I show that Pluto could have acquired its current orbit during the late stages of planetary accretion, when the jovian planets underwent significant orbital migration as a result of encounters with residual planetesimals7. As Neptune moved outwards, a small body like Pluto in an initially circular orbit could have been captured into the 3:2 resonance, following which its orbital eccentricity would rise rapidly to its current Neptune-crossing value.

The Origin of Pluto's Peculiar Orbit

Over the past three decades, we have witnessed one of the great revolutions in our understanding of the cosmos - the dawn of the Exoplanet Era. Where once we knew of just one planetary system (the Solar system), we now know of thousands, with new systems being announced on a weekly basis. Of the thousands of planetary systems we have found to date, however, there is only one that we can study up-close and personal - the Solar system. 
In this review, we describe our current understanding of the Solar system for the exoplanetary science community - with a focus on the processes thought to have shaped the system we see today. In section one, we introduce the Solar system as a single well studied example of the many planetary systems now observed. In section two, we describe the Solar system's small body populations as we know them today - from the two hundred and five known planetary satellites to the various populations of small bodies that serve as a reminder of the system's formation and early evolution. In section three, we consider our current knowledge of the Solar system's planets, as physical bodies. In section four, we discuss the research that has been carried out into the Solar system's formation and evolution, with a focus on the information gleaned as a result of detailed studies of the system's small body populations. In section five, we discuss our current knowledge of planetary systems beyond our own - both in terms of the planets they host, and in terms of the debris that we observe orbiting their host stars. 
As we learn ever more about the diversity and ubiquity of other planetary systems, our Solar system will remain the key touchstone that facilitates our understanding and modelling of those newly found systems, and we finish section five with a discussion of the future surveys that will further expand that knowledge.

Solar System Physics for Exoplanet Research

Over the past three decades, we have witnessed one of the great revolutions in our understanding of the cosmos — the dawn of the Exoplanet Era. Where once we knew of just one planetary system (the solar system), we now know of thousands, with new systems being announced on a weekly basis. Of the thousands of planetary systems we have found to date, however, there is only one that we can study up-close and personal—the solar system. In this review, we describe our current understanding of the solar system for the exoplanetary science community — with a focus on the processes thought to have shaped the system we see today. In section one, we introduce the solar system as a single well studied example of the many planetary systems now observed. In section two, we describe the solar systemʼs small body populations as we know them today—from the two hundred and five known planetary satellites to the various populations of small bodies that serve as a reminder of the systemʼs formation and early evolution. In section three, we consider our current knowledge of the solar systemʼs planets, as physical bodies. In section four we discuss the research that has been carried out into the solar systemʼs formation and evolution, with a focus on the information gleaned as a result of detailed studies of the systemʼs small body populations. In section five, we discuss our current knowledge of planetary systems beyond our own — both in terms of the planets they host, and in terms of the debris that we observe orbiting their host stars. As we learn ever more about the diversity and ubiquity of other planetary systems, our solar system will remain the key touchstone that facilitates our understanding and modeling of those newly found systems, and we finish section five with a discussion of the future surveys that will further expand that knowledge.

H. E. Maynard-Casely

Papers

Solar System Physics for Exoplanet Research

Solar System Physics for Exoplanet Research