Research articles

A black hole at the centre of a quasar at a redshift of z = 4 is accreting the mass of the Sun every day. The quasar’s extreme luminosity is equivalent to 50,000 times that of the Milky Way. Its broad-line region should be resolvable observationally and will provide an important test for broad-line region size–luminosity relationships.

A dynamo mechanism similar to that in the Sun can produce the large-scale magnetic field that is needed to drive the relativistic outflows (and short gamma-ray burst) from binary neutron star mergers, according to a numerical relativity simulation.

The Eridania region of Mars bears various topographic and geomorphologic signatures of extensive volcanotectonic episodes and diverse volcanism that happened 3.5–4 billion years ago, indicative of vertical crustal recycling similar to Archaean Earth.

By day 1,041 after explosion, SN Ia-CSM 2018evt had produced an estimated 0.01 solar masses of dust in the cold, dense shell behind the supernova ejecta–circumstellar medium interaction, ranking it as one of the most prolific dust-producing supernovae ever recorded.

A very uncommon detached binary system with a 20.5-min orbital period has been discovered to harbour a carbon–oxygen white dwarf star and a low-mass subdwarf B star with a seven-Earth radius that traces the theoretical limit of binary evolution predicted 20 years ago.

A prominent under-density in the observed radius distribution separates small exoplanets in two categories. The study demonstrates, through planet formation and evolution simulations, that the larger planets, whose composition has been disputed, may be water-rich planets migrating towards the star, where they become steam worlds.

While turbulent dissipation is prevalent in astrophysics, the processes that convert turbulent energy into heat are often unclear. This study shows that plasma waves are fundamental to heating the solar wind and similar turbulent astrophysical systems.

A comparison of observations and simulations of satellite galaxies around massive galaxy groups reveals significant differences, including correlated motions of pairs of satellite galaxies, which challenge the standard model of cosmology.

Chemical disequilibrium is a known biosignature, and it is important to determine the conditions for its remote detection. A thermodynamical model coupled with atmospheric retrieval shows that a disequilibrium can be inferred for a Proterozoic Earth-like exoplanet in reflected light at a high O₂/CH₄ abundance case and signal-to-noise ratio of 50.

A combination of JWST/NIRCam observations and magnetohydrodynamic simulations indicates that frequent mergers with close companions give rise to bursty star formation and hence the unexpectedly high Lyman-α emission detected from early galaxies.

This Article provides evidence for apatite in a ferroan anorthosite clast in a lunar meteorite, allowing direct measurement of the volatile systematics of the primary products of the lunar magma ocean and the earliest lunar crust.

High spatial resolution ALMA observations reveal a group of gravitationally bound quintuple, quadruple, triple and binary protostellar systems in the early stages of formation in a high-mass protocluster. This finding provides a direct measurement of the multiplicity of high-mass star formation.

Multiwavelength observations of a galactic nucleus exhibit quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions (QPEs) that repeat every 22 days, a timescale intermediate between those of other QPEs and so-called repeating nuclear transients. The eruptions are likely to be driven by the interaction between an orbiting body and a central massive black hole.

Fe/Ni and Fe/Co ratios in iron meteorites indicate that the earliest inner Solar System planetesimals were oxidized and water-bearing, having formed beyond the point at which water condensed in the solar protoplanetary disk.

High-energy radiation originating in the wind termination shock of young star clusters has been observed, without contamination from other sources such as supernovae. This adds the winds of star clusters to the list of cosmic-ray accelerators within the Galaxy.

Cold ice-covered dust grains grow during their journey from the interstellar medium to protoplanetary disks. JWST observations show that this growth begins before the protostellar phase and provide quantitative insights into the grain growth process.

Experiments using high-intensity X-ray pulses incident on high-pressure hydrocarbons suggest that diamond formation can occur at shallower depths in icy planets and may play a role in the internal convection that generates their magnetic fields.

Chemical abundances derived from infrared nebular lines reveal strongly depressed metallicities in interacting galaxies, suggesting that in luminous infrared galaxies chemical enrichment and stellar-mass growth take place through mergers, which drive these galaxies out of equilibrium.