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The biggest black holes in the Universe were in place soon after the Big Bang. Explaining how they formed so rapidly is a daunting challenge, but the latest simulations give clues to how this may have occurred.
The Sun is a magnetically active rotating star. Simultaneous observations with the STEREO and SDO space missions reveal solar analogues of planetary Rossby waves that will help forecast space weather.
Dante Lauretta, Principal Investigator of the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission, discusses his experience with designing Xtronaut, a space-themed board game for the whole family.
Neil Gehrels passed away on 6 February 2017. A pioneer of observational high-energy astrophysics, he was an exceptional leader, scholar, colleague and friend.
Twenty-five years ago, the detection of the first extrasolar planets opened up an area of research that has fascinated both researchers and the general public alike.
The scientific aims of the European Space Agency's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory are considerably extended because of its unique capability to identify electromagnetic counterparts to sources of gravitational waves and ultra-high-energy neutrinos.
The discovery of several Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) with anomalous properties (they are blue-coloured, whereas KBOs of the same type are red, and they are all binaries) gives constraints on formation processes in the outermost region of the Solar System.
Global-scale Rossby waves develop in planets’ atmospheres and influence their weather. Now, similar waves, driven by magnetism, are unambiguously detected on the Sun. They can possibly help the forecasting of solar activity and related space weather.
Magnetic energy powers explosive flares on the Sun. Now, observations of unprecedented resolution identify the precursors of such flares in the lower solar atmosphere. These findings will help to constrain theoretical models of flare formation.
A bright outburst of activity from the nucleus of comet 67P, observed by Rosetta in July 2015, is traced back to a cliff that partially collapsed at the same time as the outburst, establishing a link between the two events. The collapse has also exposed the fresh ice present under the surface.
The abundance of Be and V isotopes in calcium–aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs), the oldest solids in the Solar System, shows that CAIs were irradiated by a gradual flux of radiation from solar flares when the Sun was young and more energetic, for a short time (300 yr) and at close distance (≈0.1 au).
Cassini’s RADAR has surveyed a region close to Enceladus’s ‘tiger stripes’. It finds a temperate subsurface with warm cracks, indicating that the moon’s icy crust is only a few kilometres thick at these points. A dormant crack hints at episodic geological activity.