Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Ten stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud exhibit very low elemental abundances, suggesting that they have experienced enrichment by the earliest generations of stars only. These stars provide a window into a distant region of the high-redshift universe.
A joint analysis of the diffuse γ-ray and neutrino emissions in the Galaxy shows that there is a non-negligible leptonic component in the diffuse γ-ray emission below 100 TeV that is contributed by pulsar halos.
The successful impact of NASA’s DART on Dimorphos, the moon of asteroid Didymos, has been analysed using advanced numerical simulations. The results reveal the asteroid’s low surface cohesion and rubble-pile structure, similar to what has been observed on asteroids Ryugu and Bennu.
JWST detections of Si, C and Fe absorption lines in a bright z = 9.31 galaxy with a two-component clump structure suggest that mergers contributed to the rapid build-up of mass and chemical enrichment soon after the Big Bang.
Water molecules in Europa’s icy surface are split into hydrogen and oxygen by charged particle bombardment. NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew near Europa and constrained the production of oxygen in Europa’s surface ice, thus providing only a narrow range to support habitability in its subsurface ocean.
Spectrally and spatially resolved ALMA observations of water vapour in the inner regions of the famous planet-forming disk around HL Tauri pave the way towards an observational characterization of planet formation at the water snowline.
Cosmic dust contains all the elements needed for life but has previously been considered too rare to have acted as a ‘fertilizer’ for prebiotic chemistry. Now, using a combination of astrophysical and geological models, it is revealed that cosmic dust could have gently accumulated on the surface of early Earth in sufficient quantities to promote the chemical reactions that led to first life.
Numerical simulations of the DART impact on asteroid Didymos’s moon Dimorphos highlight its rubble-pile nature with a low bulk density and boulder volume fraction. These results indicate that Dimorphos formed from reaccumulated material shed from Didymos via rotation or impact.
The hydroxyl radical OH has been detected in a planet-forming disk exposed to ultraviolet radiation and in a rovibrationally excited state. These JWST observations, when coupled with quantum calculations, reveal the ongoing photodissociation of water and its reformation in the gas phase.
Kepler-1625b-I and Kepler-1708b-I are the most noteworthy exomoon candidates to date. A new analysis of the available data comes to a different conclusion.
Volker Springel created the original GADGET code more than 25 years ago. Now it supports some of the largest simulations in astrophysics, and is being developed to do vastly more.
Twenty years ago, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars. Over the next 15 years, they showed us a planet that was warmer and wetter — and capable of sustaining life — that we now take as read.
The SuperBIT telescope spent more than a month being carried through the stratosphere by a scientific balloon, imaging space from above 99.5% of the Earth’s atmosphere.
According to astrophysical and geological models, cosmic dust rich in bioessential elements could have accumulated on the surface of early Earth in arid environments (such as glaciers), potentially helping to foster the chemical origins of life.