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Space interferometry reveals the hidden and filamentary internal structure of the relativistic jet in 3C 279 at microarcsecond angular resolution. These details challenge previous assumptions on the morphology and radio variability of blazars.
Using NASA’s Juno mission measurements, researchers obtain a new high-precision map of Jupiter’s gravity field and confirm that the planet’s observed strong east–west jet streams penetrate inwards in a direction parallel to the planet’s spin axis.
New northern aurora emissions on Uranus in the infrared spectrum are detected after a 30-year search. The emissions, observed close to equinox, are most likely caused by the 88% increase in upper atmosphere column density.
A rare perfect alignment between two galaxies in the young Universe has been captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The further (z ≈ 3) galaxy is curved into an Einstein ring due to the bending of space around the nearer (z ≈ 2) galaxy, which is massive and compact—representative of the pristine core of a present-day galaxy.
The repeating fast radio burst (FRB) source FRB 20121102A emits ultra-FRBs that last for only microseconds. These bursts are thousands of times shorter than typical for such astronomical radio flashes and indicate that there is a population of FRBs that has been missed previously.
James Webb Space Telescope observations of Jupiter have unveiled the presence of a narrow and intense atmospheric jet in the equator of the planet near the tropopause. The jet’s speed of 500 km h−1 doubles the speed of the lower clouds. This new jet aligns with temperature and wind oscillations in Jupiter’s stratosphere.
A South China Sea expedition in 2021 identified a 3.5-km-deep site close to the Equator for a next-generation neutrino telescope: TRIDENT. A large array of advanced detectors will be arrayed on the seabed to probe fundamental physics and explore the extreme Universe.
The H.E.S.S. gamma-ray observatory has observed gamma rays with energies of at least 20 TeV from a pulsar, an energy regime that is hard to reconcile with the existing theories of gamma-ray production for such objects.
A statistical study of the ~2.7 µm hydration band in the Ryugu samples shows that Ryugu’s immediate subsurface has not been exposed to space weathering and that even the pristine CI chondrites exhibit terrestrial contamination, making the Hayabusa2 samples a reference for primitive water abundance in carbonaceous asteroids.
A large-scale analysis of quasars reveals that on average, the intrinsic brightness is uniform from the optical to the extreme ultraviolet and is less than expected in the extreme ultraviolet, suggesting prevalent winds that affect black hole growth.
A purpose-built instrument to detect the faint emission lines of the Lyman-α forest provides evidence of filaments that connect galaxies and trace the cosmic web.
Galaxies that formed during the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang have physical properties that deviate from later galaxies, due to substantial gas infall from the intergalactic medium that dilutes the observed chemical enrichment.
Han, Conroy and Hernquist propose a solution to an old problem: the origin of the warp in the Galactic disk. Adopting a dark halo model that is tilted with respect to the disk, the authors reproduce the warp and flare of the disk in the observed direction and magnitude.
The interstellar chemistry of carbon atoms is crucial to chemical complexity in the Universe. This experimental work suggests that C-atom reactions on interstellar ice surfaces contribute to C–C bond formation and chemical evolution towards complex organic species.
In our Solar System, whistler-mode chorus waves had been confirmed for all magnetized planets except Mercury. Finally, the first and second Mercury flybys in 2021 and 2022 by the BepiColombo/Mio spacecraft revealed chorus waves in the dawn sector.
Measurements of the abundance of nearside lunar surface water at various positions of the Moon during the crossing of Earth’s magnetotail bring evidence of the existence of processes of water formation linked to the plasma sheet.
Archival X-ray data reveal quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) in binary systems on timescales of several hours to several months. The discovery of QPEs in Swift J0230 data with periods of weeks may help bridge the gap in our understanding of their origins and timescales.
Alfvén wave turbulence can power the atmospheres of solar-like stars. Here the authors estimate the effective outer scale of the turbulence at the base of corona. This scale is key in determining energy deposition and is found to be comparable to supergranulation scales.
The warm Earth-sized planet LHS 475 b is validated and characterized with two transits observed by the JWST. The absence of evident spectroscopic features excludes a substantial hydrogen envelope and indicates that LHS 475 b has either little or no atmosphere or an optically thick cloud deck at high altitudes.
The visible–near-infrared spectrum of the dark spot that appeared on Neptune in 2018 indicates the presence of material that makes the aerosol layer at 5 bar darker at visible wavelengths. Such material can come from deeper layers via upwelling or by sublimation of H2S ice that reveals the darker condensation nuclei.
