The Minerals (ISSN: 2075-163X) editorial team is pleased to announce the launch of a new Section—“Mineralogy Beyond Earth”.

This Section aims to publish high-quality research that advances the understanding of the formation, evolution, distribution, and significance of minerals with origins beyond the boundaries of Earth. By focusing on extraterrestrial mineralogy, this Section seeks to:

• Highlight how extraterrestrial minerals record the history of planetary bodies (e.g., planets, moons, asteroids, comets) and the early solar system;
• Facilitate the exchange of insights on mineralogical processes unique to non-Earth environments (e.g., low-gravity crystallization, extreme temperature/pressure regimes, interactions with exotic volatiles like methane or ammonia);
• Support the translation of extraterrestrial mineralogy research into practical applications, such as resource utilization in space exploration and the interpretation of data from planetary missions (e.g., rovers, orbiters, sample return missions);
• Complement Minerals’s existing focus on Earth-based mineralogy by expanding its scope to a global (solar system-wide and beyond) context, thereby attracting a broader community of researchers and enhancing the journal’s interdisciplinary impact.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Extraterrestrial mineralogy;
• Planetary minerals;
• Lunar mineralogy;
• Mars mineralogy;
• Asteroid mineralogy;
• Cometary minerals;
• Pre-solar minerals;
• Protoplanetary disk minerals;
• Europa minerals;
• Impact metamorphism (extraterrestrial);
• Hydrothermal minerals (non-Earth);
• In situ resource utilization (ISRU);
• Planetary remote sensing (mineralogical);
• Sample return missions (mineral analysis);
• Comparative mineralogy;
• Astromineralogy;
• Solar system mineral evolution;
• Mineralogy of extrasolar planets;
• Meteorites.

We are currently recruiting Editorial Board Members (EBMs) and Guest Editors for this Section. If you are an active researcher in this field and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please contact us at minerals@mdpi.com. For further information on the journal’s Sections, please click here.

Minerals Editorial Office