Research articles

High spatial resolution ALMA observations reveal a group of gravitationally bound quintuple, quadruple, triple and binary protostellar systems in the early stages of formation in a high-mass protocluster. This finding provides a direct measurement of the multiplicity of high-mass star formation.

Multiwavelength observations of a galactic nucleus exhibit quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions (QPEs) that repeat every 22 days, a timescale intermediate between those of other QPEs and so-called repeating nuclear transients. The eruptions are likely to be driven by the interaction between an orbiting body and a central massive black hole.

Fe/Ni and Fe/Co ratios in iron meteorites indicate that the earliest inner Solar System planetesimals were oxidized and water-bearing, having formed beyond the point at which water condensed in the solar protoplanetary disk.

High-energy radiation originating in the wind termination shock of young star clusters has been observed, without contamination from other sources such as supernovae. This adds the winds of star clusters to the list of cosmic-ray accelerators within the Galaxy.

Cold ice-covered dust grains grow during their journey from the interstellar medium to protoplanetary disks. JWST observations show that this growth begins before the protostellar phase and provide quantitative insights into the grain growth process.

Experiments using high-intensity X-ray pulses incident on high-pressure hydrocarbons suggest that diamond formation can occur at shallower depths in icy planets and may play a role in the internal convection that generates their magnetic fields.

Chemical abundances derived from infrared nebular lines reveal strongly depressed metallicities in interacting galaxies, suggesting that in luminous infrared galaxies chemical enrichment and stellar-mass growth take place through mergers, which drive these galaxies out of equilibrium.

Nuclear experiments become the latest ‘messenger’ to help with unravelling the mysteries of neutron stars. Combining information from astronomical observations and laboratory experiments reveals how nucleons interact in both nuclei and stars.

Researchers have detected the elusive dark matter component of cosmic filaments near the Coma galaxy cluster using gravitational lensing. This supports the idea that galaxy clusters grow at the intersection of cosmic filaments, shedding light on the structure of our universe.

A hyperactive fast radio burst source has been observed for thousands of hours using relatively small telescopes. The energy distribution of the brightest bursts detected suggests a possible link between repeating and apparently non-repeating burst sources.

The dark surface of Mercury can be explained by <1 wt% of microcrystalline graphite and similar amounts of Fe⁰. Low-reflectance materials may be secondary crust and carbon was not completely drained from the mantle during early differentiation.

When stars like our Sun die, they expel their outer layers in a dramatic stellar wind. This study of an unusual chemical signature in one particular stellar wind reveals that the signature is due to the presence of a binary system whose components had a close approach around 200 years ago.

An information-theory-inspired re-analysis of Cassini mass spectrometry data reveals the presence of HCN and partially oxidized organics within the plume of Enceladus. Ongoing redox chemistry may create a habitable environment.

A reanalysis of Kepler and Hubble data with Bayesian inference and a photodynamical model shows that the two exomoon candidates around Kepler-1625 b and Kepler-1708 b have a substantially lower probability to be actual detections than previous analyses suggest.

Iron nitride (Fe₄N) is detected on magnetite particles within the Ryugu sample returned by Hayabusa2. It is probably the product of impacts of nitrogen-rich dust from the outer Solar System on the surface of Ryugu, indicative of a flux of N-rich dust in the inner Solar System.

ALMA observations show the streams of molecular gas blown from the centre of a galaxy by the energy released by an active supermassive black hole are falling back onto the black hole, making sure it stays active.

The observation by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory of high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic plane indicates that the Milky Way is deficient in neutrinos, most probably because it has not hosted an active source for the past few tens of kiloyears.

The reported optical properties of organic hazes produced in water-rich exoplanet atmospheres differ from those in nitrogen-rich atmospheres. Such differences have a detectable effect on the spectra, impacting interpretation of JWST observations.

This work identifies a period structure in the radio emission of magnetars that can be observed in all classes of radio-emitting rotating neutron stars, regardless of their evolutionary history, their power source or their magnetic field strength.

This work finds a systematic offset of 5.5 ± 1.1 Myr between estimates of the ages of stars made with two popular techniques: isochronal fitting and dynamical traceback. This offset is proposed to represent the time a young star remains bound to its parental cloud before dispersing and could help to improve stellar evolutionary models.