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An exoplanet as hot as a star challenges our understanding of how planets evolve under extreme conditions. Observations with the CARMENES spectrograph provide clues about the atmospheric properties of this outstanding planet.
Recent polarization measurements of the stellar-mass black hole in Cygnus X-1 reveal an extended corona in the inner parts of the accretion flow and open the path for a new era in high-energy astrophysics.
The Juno spacecraft has detected unprecedented numbers of ‘whistlers’ and ‘sferics’ in its orbits around Jupiter, both indications of high lightning flash rates in the atmosphere of the gas giant planet.
Supermassive binary black holes are thought to lie at the centres of merging galaxies. The blazar OJ 287 is the poster child of such systems, showing strong and periodic variability across the electromagnetic spectrum. A new study questions the physical origin of this variability.
Observations of two sequences of blue stragglers in a young, sparse star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud re-opens the debate about the dominant formation mechanism of these anomalous stars.
Recently, large integral-field spectroscopic studies of galaxies have greatly increased our knowledge of their structure and evolution. A new analysis of such data reveals a relationship between the age and the intrinsic — three-dimensional — shape of galaxies.
Hydrogen sulfide gas is detected above Uranus’s main cloud deck, confirming the prevalence of H2S ice particles as the main cloud component and a strongly unbalanced nitrogen/sulfur ratio in the planet's deep atmosphere.
The discovery of a prominent spectral absorption line in X-rays in an ultra-luminous X-ray source is perhaps indicative of the presence of very intense magnetic fields and hints to a magnetar as its power source.
Gravitational lensing is becoming increasingly important to the study of distant galaxies and dark matter. Two groups have recently detected transient events emanating from far-away lensed galaxies, apparently due to extreme magnification of individual stars.
Using evolving observing strategies and technologies we are catching supernovae closer and closer to the ‘b’ of the ‘bang’, thus unveiling new types of explosion mechanism that have not been studied in depth before.
A peak in the infrared phase curve occurring after eclipse suggests a westward shift in the dayside hotspot of hot giant exoplanet CoRoT-2b, calling into question our understanding of atmospheric dynamics on hot gas giants.
A new geochemical study shows that short-lived warm and wet episodes during a globally cold early Mars could have formed the clay deposits detected on the Martian surface. This model can reconcile climate models with mineralogical and geomorphological evidence.
One of the astrophysical sources that gives rise to the mysterious transients known as fast radio bursts is embedded in a highly magnetized environment, such as the vicinity of an accreting massive black hole or the birth nebula of a highly magnetized neutron star.
Observations and thermal models of the first interstellar visitor 1I/‘Oumuamua show that ices could have survived a long interstellar journey, suggesting the possibility that ‘Oumuamua could be a comet.
