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Accretion is the process that dictates the mass, and therefore final fate, of a forming star. Now, it seems that the number of stars forming in a system can affect and even induce accretion throughout the star-formation process.
It has been generally thought that small icy bodies in the outer Solar System were chemically inactive due to its coldness. Laboratory experiments change this view by showing that water–rock interactions occur even in ice–rock mixtures.
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.
