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An outstanding discrepancy between observations and models of stellar limb darkening is resolved here by the inclusion of stellar surface magnetism in models. This will enable an improved characterization of transiting exoplanets.
The Vesta anorthosite meteorite discovery suggests Vesta experienced a lunar magma ocean-like process. Anorthite formed during magma crystallization could have floated to the surface of Vesta, creating a primary anorthositic crust.
Radio pulses from a rare, radio-loud magnetar, XTE J1810−197, are seen to have undergone a conversion in their polarization state. This change can be linked to the magnetar’s magnetic field geometry, and has commonalities with an effect also seen in fast radio bursts.
A state-of-the-art simulation reveals that the long-lasting 10 MK plasma in solar active regions can be heated by magnetic reconnections driven by continuous flux emergence that repeatedly deposit impulsive heating into the coronal plasma.
A radio-loud magnetar, XTE J1810–197, has been observed to precess shortly after an X-ray outburst. The precession decayed over the subsequent few months, which probably rules out freely precessing magnetars as the source of the fast radio bursts.
Micrometeorite impacts are an important process in forming several Ti oxides, including rutile (TiO2) and new Ti minerals (trigonal Ti2O and triclinic Ti2O). These Ti oxides can alter the photocatalytic properties and reflectance spectra of regolith on the Moon and other airless planetary bodies in the Solar System.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A dynamical model using the spatially resolved kinematics of galaxies in the CALIFA survey shows that galaxy assembly depends on both the stellar mass and the dynamical mass (which includes stars plus dark matter).
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.