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The unusual radar properties of icy satellites appear to be correlated and distributed along a spectrum of values. Only modelling including the coherent backscatter opposition effect can reproduce this behaviour.
The returned samples from Hayabusa2 show that C-type asteroid Ryugu experienced various steps of mineralogical alteration within only 1–2 million years after accretion.
Models for night sky brightness are used to characterize sites for astronomical observatories, but in the presence of artificial light pollution, certain assumptions regarding aerosol shapes mean that the estimates are systematically underestimated, particularly at low altitudes.
The brightness at the tip of the red giant branch in the Magellanic Clouds sets the scale of the Universe and has been debated. Here a number of samples are drawn from across the Clouds and composited, providing sub-per-cent level agreement and measurements consistent with independent geometric constraints.
A nested orbit-to-ground approach for microbial landscape patterns at different scales, tested in the high Andes, provides a machine learning-based search tool for detecting biosignatures on terrestrial planets.
Laboratory measurements reveal highly efficient formation of H2 at temperatures up to 250 K on a carbonaceous surface. This process should lead to a high rate of H2 formation on the surfaces of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in both nearby and high-redshift galaxies, bolstering the contribution of H2 to the cooling of warmer gas.
A four-arm spiral pattern in the accretion disk around an accreting high-mass protostar has been resolved using VLBI observations of methanol masers. These observations provide evidence for a link between disk accretion, disk instability and episodic growth of a protostar.
The large, low-albedo asteroids in the main belt between 3.0 au and 3.4 au share spectral characteristics and history with Ceres. Accreted in different parts of the outer Solar System, they might have been implanted into the main belt by the dynamic upheaval created by the giant planets’ instability.
Mapping the 158 μm line of ionized carbon within the Cygnus region with the SOFIA observatory provides evidence for dynamic interactions between molecular clouds and their atomic envelopes, which trace out the assembly process of cloud complexes.
Hydrocarbons containing five-membered rings have recently been detected in the cold Taurus Molecular Cloud. Here the authors show that the reaction involving ortho-benzyne and the methyl radical plays a critical role in the bottom-up formation of these complex hydrocarbons.
A study of the emission variability of roughly 5,000 of the brightest quasars supports the presence of an optically thick yet geometrically thin accretion disk, and may provide a means of measuring the size and inclination of the disk.
A state-of-the-art machine-learning method combs a 480-h-long dataset of 820 nearby stars from the SETI Breakthrough Listen project, reducing the number of interesting signals by two orders of magnitude. Further visual inspection identifies eight promising signals of interest from different stars that warrant further observations.
A few missing photons in Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observations lead to robust neutron star mass measurements in eclipsing millisecond pulsar binaries, ruling out an ultra-massive pulsar in the original Black Widow system.
Using JWST, the molecules seen in planetary atmospheres can be traced back to their cold origins in ices formed in dense interstellar clouds, before the onset of star formation, revealing that chemical diversity and complexity is achieved early.
Analysis of a large galaxy sample shows that black hole activity is greater in galaxies in which the stellar and gas kinematics are misaligned. This observation suggests that the misalignment, driven by external gas accretion, fuels the central supermassive black holes.
A miniaturized instrument comprising a pulsed UV laser system and an Orbitrap analyser enables the characterization of the organic content and chemical composition of planetary materials, supporting the science objectives of future planetary missions.
Combined analysis of Chang’e-3 in situ measurements and Chang’e-5 laboratory samples, with an updated chronology from Chang’e-5 data, reconstructed the relation between age and composition of young lunar mare basalts. Results indicate persistent volcanism 2 Gyr ago, indicative of the presence of a heat source at the time.
A planetary origin model that forms exoplanets from a narrow ring of silicate material at a stellocentric distance of 1 au is able to explain the physical properties of super-Earths and reproduce the ‘peas in a pod’ pattern of uniformity within planetary architecture.
An abrupt slow-down in a magnetar’s rotation rate (a ‘glitch’) may be related to the subsequent emission of three radio bursts (resembling fast radio bursts) and a month-long episode of pulsed radio emission.
The aqueous activity responsible for carbonate formation on Ryugu happened much earlier—less than 1.8 million years after CAI formation—than estimates (4–6 Myr) from carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Ryugu’s parent body either was smaller than ∼20 km in diameter or was disrupted before reaching the high temperatures required.