News & Views

The Sun’s surface hosts varying magnetic activities and rotation rates (from equator to pole), and unique solar weather. Now, a combination of ground and space observations has unveiled a previously undetected magnetized plasma current.

A protoplanet seen forming at some distance from its star provides evidence for planet formation via gravitational instability, a mechanism previously invoked for being responsible for the fully formed gas giant planets at large separations seen by direct imaging.

An individual star at extremely high redshift is observed due to gravitational lensing by a foreground galaxy cluster, magnifying it by a factor of over a thousand.

Conflicting methodologies for estimating the CO₂ intensity of the space sector are beginning to emerge because of a lack of publicly available data, resulting in extensive variations that undermine the credibility of reported results.

Six out of the eight planets of the Solar System have moons, which are inextricably linked to the planets’ formation. Finding moons of exoplanets is a new way to explore their origins.

Oxygen is the building block of key species in planetary atmospheres and a potential life indicator. Ground-based spectroscopy is now used to detect oxygen on an ultra-hot Jupiter and to prove departure from thermochemical equilibrium.

Supra-arcade downflows (SADs) are dark, turbulent flows that appear in the Sun’s corona during a solar flare, which have defied explanation for over two decades. A three-dimensional simulation can finally explain the origins of these plasma downflows.

A new model demonstrates how the formation of annular structures in a protoplanetary disk can later produce planetary systems that reproduce both the orbital architecture and meteoritic isotope trends observed in our Solar System.

A new model for the origin of the Solar System proposes planet building blocks formed fast from material that was transported outwards to cooler regions. It claims to be consistent with the properties of ancient meteorites.

The first robotically obtained samples of a carbonaceous asteroid have been safely returned to Earth. A non-destructive first-look analysis shows that asteroid Ryugu may be a CI chondrite with interesting variations.

The accretion history of main belt asteroid Vesta is unknown. A new model shows Vesta may have accreted materials from the terrestrial planet region.

Unlocking the internal secrets of a β Cephei star with a state-of-the-art polarimeter may open up a greater understanding of whether a massive star eventually explodes in a supernova or collapses directly to a black hole.

The limits on late accretion and its associated water delivery to potential habitable planets are derived by examining the dynamical stability of the resonance-bound TRAPPIST-1 system.

A simulated hybrid emission model to mimic the morphology of the jet launching region of M87 reproduces the observed shape of the innermost jet and favours a high spin of the central black hole.

A fluorine abundance measurement in a high-redshift galaxy demonstrates an early, quick rise in chemical enrichment of the Universe. The presence of fluorine at this early epoch also reveals a unique early source of the element.

Radio images from the Low Frequency Array have revealed complex, filamentary radio emission around a radio galaxy undergoing multiple episodes of radio outbursts, showcasing the importance of magnetic fields for the survival of radio filaments far from the radio core.

Cosmological simulation TNG50 reveals that a recently discovered population of isolated but non-star-forming ultra-diffuse galaxies may have been gas-rich satellites of much more massive galaxies in the distant past.

Recent observations show that some galaxies exist that have already run out of fuel only a few billion years after the Big Bang, challenging the current view on how galaxies form and evolve in a cold dark-matter-dominated Universe.