Farewell

Abstract

My term as Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research‐Planets comes to an end with this issue. While it might seem useful for me to take stock of the state of the journal after having served for four years, I am not going to. Rather, it is much more appropriate for the planetary science community as a whole to do so. Certainly there has been a lot of discussion during my term as Editor as to whether the journal should exist. Questions have been raised both philosophically based on the nature of planetary science and its relation to other geophysical fields, and programmatically based on the number of papers that are published, their quality, and the role of the journal in planetary science. It is appropriate for any community to continually take stock of its journals, as well as of its societies and especially of its relevance; it is fundamentally important that it not be afraid to take whatever actions are appropriate for the future of the field.