Special Topic of Planetary Exploration
Published May 2011
Mars is the planet that has received the most attention in the past 10 years, in part because astrobiologists interested in the origin of life in our solar system have adopted the policy of "follow the water," and Mars had abundant surface water in the past. Two Mars Exploration Rovers have produced a wealth of information on the surface geology. The rover Opportunity has functioned for seven years, or 25 times longer than its planned mission.
The features of this Special Topic outlined above represent distinct slices of citation data. By approaching citation data from multiple angles, we can observe trends and anomalies across categories—leading to more rich and nuanced stories behind the data.
The baseline time span for this database is (publication years) January 1, 2001-March 18, 2011. This analysis was created using the Web of Science® from Clarivate. The resulting database contained 9,400 (10 years) and 2,416 (2 years) papers; 17,195 authors; 97 nations; 1,574 journals; and 3,761 institutions. See additional information below in the overview & methodology sections.
Topic Overview
CASSINI SPACECRAFT
The fully assembled Cassini
spacecraft as it appeared
Feb. 14, 1997 in JPL's spacecraft
assembly facility in Pasadena, CA.
AC Creator: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Credit:
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Collection.
The exploration of planets, moons, and asteroids in the solar system has accelerated sharply in the past decade thanks to several highly successful space missions. A flotilla of exploration rovers, landers, and atmospheric probes has enormously increased our understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system and its constituent bodies.
The successful design and operation of planetary exploration spacecraft, together with their on-board instrumentation and imaging capabilities, has been a key driver in the expansion of planetary science.
Within the solar system, Mars is the top target of opportunity, and that will remain the situation in the decades to come. Although rather few astrobiologists confidently expect that Mars still harbors living organisms, the search for fossil evidence of life in the geological past is more encouraging. All recent missions have addressed whether life ever existed on Mars, and that theme will continue for the next two decades.
In order to know if Mars was ever suitable for life, robotic exploration and remote sensing are devoted to recovering the history of water on Mars. This is a means of finding out if the Martian environment in the past was conducive to the emergence of life. This policy of "following the water" will continue with the next generation of rovers and the first sample return missions.
Saturn and its large moon Titan were explored by the Cassini-Huygens orbiter and probe that arrived in 2005. The Cassini mission in the Saturnian system has been so successful that it has been extended to encompass further fly-bys of Titan.
It should be noted that this analysis focused on orbiters; a future Special Topics analysis will focus on landers.
INTERVIEWs MENU
Read interviews, first-person essays, profiles, and other features about people in a wide variety of fields, along with information on journals & institutions in the topic of Planetary Exploration. All of the author comments below are also listed in the site-wide Author Commentaries listings (available by month/year or alphabetically).
NOVEMBER 2011
Andrew
Coates on the Plasma Environments of the Planets
In our Special Topics analysis on
Planetary Exploration, the work of Professor Andrew J. Coates
ranks at #2 by papers and #6 by cites, based on 160 papers
published over the past decade and cited a total of 2,343 times.
In
Essential Science IndicatorsSM from
Clarivate,
Coates has several Highly Cited Papers in the fields of Space Science
and Geosciences. In this interview, he talks with
ScienceWatch.com about his highly cited work.
OCTOBER 2011
Athena
Coustenis Discusses Her Work on Saturn’s Moon Titan
Our Special Topics analysis of papers
on planetary exploration, published 2001–2011, ranks the
work of Dr. Athena Coustenis at #9 by total cites and #13 by cites
per paper, based on 72 papers that have received 1,945 total
citations. Five of these papers are among the top 20 papers over
the past decade or the past two years. In this interview,
Coustenis discusses the highlights of her special interest, Titan,
with ScienceWatch.com correspondent Simon Mitton.
SEPTEMBER 2011
Stamatios
Krimigis on Exploring the Heliosphere
Our Special Topics analysis on
planetary exploration ranks the work of Professor Stamatios (Tom)
Krimigis at #9 by total papers and #16 by total cites, based on
112 papers that have received 1,605 total citations in the past
decade. Two of these papers appear on the top 20 lists in the
analysis as well. In this interview, ScienceWatch.com
astronomy correspondent Simon Mitton talks with him about his work
in heliospheric physics.
AUGUST 2011
Jonathan
Lunine on Missions to Saturn & Jupiter
Our Special Topics analysis on
Planetary Exploration research over the past decade shows that the
work of Dr. Jonathan Lunine ranks at #3 by total cites and #7 by
number of papers, based on 122 papers cited a total of 2,806
times.
In
Essential Science IndicatorsSM from
Thomson
Reuters, Lunine's record includes several Highly Cited Papers
in the field of Space Science, Physics, and Geosciences. In this
interview, he talks with ScienceWatch.com about his highly
cited work in planetary exploration.
JULY 2011
Ralph
Lorenz Talks About Exploring Titan
In our Special Topics analysis on
Planetary Exploration over the past decade, the work of Dr. Ralph
Lorenz ranks at #3 by numbers of papers and #10 by total cites,
based on 145 papers cited a total of 1,866 times during the
analysis period. According to the
Web of Knowledge® from
Clarivate,
his record for the period of January 1, 2001 to June 4, 2011 includes
274 original articles, reviews, and proceedings papers cited a total of
2,246 times. In this interview, we talk with Lorenz about his highly
cited research regarding planetary exploration.
JUNE 2011
C.T.
Russell on the Magnetism of Planetary Exploration
Our Special Topics analysis on
Planetary Exploration shows that the work of Dr. C.T. Russell
ranks at #6 by number of papers and #18 by total cites, based on
124 papers cited 1,554 times. His current record in
Essential Science IndicatorsSM from
Thomson
Reuters includes 208 papers cited a total of 2,767 times
between January 1, 2001 and February 28, 2011. In this interview,
ScienceWatch.com talks with Russell about his highly cited
research.
Thresholds
Once the database was in place, it was used to generate list of authors, journals, institutions, and nations. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper*. The paper thresholds and corresponding percentages used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper, and total papers respectively are as follows:
| Entity | Authors | Institutions | Journals | Nations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thresholds | 29 | 104 | 5 | 7 |
| Percentage: | 1% | 1% | 50% | 50% |
| *Unless otherwise specified, all rankings have a >= 5 paper threshold for all measures. | ||||
Methodology
The baseline time span for this database is (publication years) January 1, 2001-March 18, 2011. This analysis was created using the Web of Science® from Clarivate. The resulting database contained 9,400 (10 years) and 2,416 (2 years) papers; 17,195 authors; 97 nations; 1,574 journals; and 3,761 institutions. See additional information below in the overview & methodology sections.
Keywords
In this analysis, Special Topics examines the literature on these various spacecraft and missions over the past decade and over the past two years.
To construct the data pool, the following search strings were employed in titles, abstracts, and keywords sections of original articles, reviews, and proceedings papers published in the Web of Science® database from Clarivate from January 1, 2001 to March 18, 2011: "planetary explor*" OR "planetary probe*" OR Cassini OR Huygens OR Saturn OR Titan OR Akatsuki OR "Venus Climate Orbiter" OR "Planet C" OR "Venus Express" OR Voyager* OR (Mars AND "Mars Express" OR "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" OR "2001 Mars Odyssey") OR (Pluto AND "New Horizons") OR (Ceres AND Dawn) OR ("MErcury Surface Space ENvironment GEochemistry and Ranging" OR "MESSENGER Mission" AND Mercury) OR (Venus AND planet*).
Note: Due to the lack of core papers on this subject, there is not a Research Front Map to accompany the Special Topic of Planetary Exploration.
Pictures and Featured Images
A Russian Cosmonaut Sergey Volkov tries
on a space suit during a training exercise
at the Star City training centre outside
Moscow March 30, 2011.
REUTERS/Sergei Remezov.
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Featured head image: Spacecraft Hubble: Hubble Floating Free (2002). Photo from NASA IMAGES and HUBBLESITE.