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After an initial period of activity, the formation of stars in the Galactic Centre has remained dormant for billions of years. The hibernation ended by a star-formation episode that could be due to the Milky Way interacting with other galaxies.
The Parker Solar Probe spacecraft completed the first two of its 24 scheduled orbits around the Sun on 18 June 2019, making history by flying halfway between Mercury and the Sun.
After George Gamow first proposed the idea of a hot Big Bang in 1948, it took 15 years for the burgeoning cosmology community to recognize his contribution for what it was.
A pair of seminal papers developed key numerical methods and made the first predictions for the non-linear evolution of cold dark matter, ushering in the era of hierarchical cosmology and modern computational galaxy formation.
After 41 years of travel, the Voyager 2 spacecraft joins its twin in interstellar space. A suite of papers report Voyager 2’s experience of its transition through the heliosheath and heliopause to what lies beyond.
The Crab Nebula, formed from a supernova recorded in 1054 ad, is the brightest object in the TeV (teraelectronvolt) gamma-ray sky. Measuring the extension of the gamma-ray nebula helps us to understand particle acceleration and interaction at the highest photon energies.
Accretion onto neutron stars can generate photon luminosities well in excess of the Eddington limit. Now it has been shown that it can also produce outflows with similar mechanical power, requiring a rethink of the interaction between accretion flows and neutron star magnetospheres.
For years, much of our understanding of the formation of circumstellar aromatic molecules has been based on laboratory flame studies. Now, results acquired using a novel experimental technique suggest that circumstellar aromatics might not be formed under the conditions we thought they were.
Large-scale structures can probe the laws of gravity at scales that they have not yet been tested at, but these tests demand accurate modelling of complex galaxy formation processes in competing gravitational theories.
The peculiar carbon isotopic compositions of carbonates in the Tagish Lake meteorite suggest that D-type asteroids accreted in the outer part of the protoplanetary disk — beyond 10 au — before being dispersed sunwards to the main asteroid belt.
Present-day Mars is thought to be unsuitable for life as we know it. However, a thin coating of silica aerogel on the Martian surface may be enough to induce local, potentially habitable subsurface environments.
A substantial population of previously unknown massive dusty galaxies during the first two billion years after the Big Bang have been identified with submillimetre observations. They may solve some outstanding puzzles related to the formation and evolution of most massive galaxies in the Universe today.
Most binary Kuiper belt objects orbit each other in the same direction as their orbit around the Sun. New computer simulations show that such orbits may be a fingerprint of planetesimal formation from collapsing clumps of pebbles.
Careful measurements taken over 15 years have revealed a new planetary companion to the famous young star, Beta Pictoris, thereby unveiling one of the most massive extrasolar planetary systems yet discovered.
Astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility have discovered two white dwarfs orbiting each other every 6.9 minutes. But there is nothing transient about the gravitational waves emitted from this binary: the stars will produce persistent ripples in spacetime for millennia.
On its way to Jupiter in 1990, the Galileo spacecraft searched for signs of life on Earth, providing a set of control experiments that continue to inform our quest to detect extraterrestrial life.
Two landmark papers in the 1970s contributed strongly to establishing the importance of galaxy interactions and mergers in the formation and evolution of galaxies, using only gravity, and the ensuing dynamical friction.
Multivariate analysis of infrared hyperspectral images of the Saturnian satellite Titan reveals widespread ice-rich terrains in the tropics. They are related to a variety of contemporary or past geological processes.
Multi-technique analyses of a stardust grain from a CO nova outburst show that carbon- and oxygen-rich phases co-condensed in the stellar ejecta, confirming previous spectroscopy observations.
