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The discovery of giant X-ray bubbles above and below the centre of the Milky Way confirms that the central supermassive black hole was once more than 100 million times brighter than its current state.
Radio observations from the Low Frequency Radio Array suggest that magnetic fields in high-redshift clusters are of similar strength as their local counterparts. This finding implies that magnetic fields evolve differently than predicted by cosmological simulations.
On a magnetar’s surface, magnetic fields can create permanent sunspot-like structures. Accounting for heat diffusion and magnetic evolution in a magnetar’s crust in the latest simulations improves agreement with observations.
Comparing microphysical models of aerosol production to Hubble Space Telescope transit spectra reveals a surprisingly simple transition between atmospheres with hydrocarbon hazes, silicate clouds and clear skies.
A starburst galaxy from the peak epoch of cosmic star-formation history is found to have a significant ionizing ultraviolet emission. This finding will help better constrain the process of reionization in the early Universe.
The Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx teams have unexpectedly found bright boulders on their respective dark asteroids, Ryugu and Bennu, which provide solid clues about the composition and origin of impacting bodies in their formation history.
The upper atmospheres of all the giant planets are hotter than models predict. Analysis of Cassini Grand Finale observations of Saturn provide evidence that heat generated by the aurora is responsible.
A periodic gamma-ray signal detected from the micro-quasar SS 433 cannot be associated with its jet. Instead, a new mechanism capable of channelling most of SS 433’s kinetic power to large distances is needed to explain the observations.
A Galactic wind blowing from the Milky Way nucleus has swept up a few hundred clouds of atomic gas. New observations reveal dense molecular cores in two of these clouds, indicating a high loss rate of interstellar gas from the Galactic centre.
Far-infrared polarimetric observations reveal the small-scale magnetic field structure within dense gas filaments. Gravity-induced gas flows in filaments supports a scenario in which gravitational collapse and star cluster formation occur even in the presence of relatively strong magnetic fields.
Secondary gas disks around main sequence stars may regenerate planetary atmospheres, potentially transforming desiccated rocky worlds into gas-enveloped sub-Neptunes that feature high metallicities and enhanced atmospheric C/O ratios.
Long believed to be a primitive body, Ceres is now an ocean world with deep brines at a regional and potentially global scale. Further studies at Ceres’s conditions and — above all — a follow-up mission are needed to study its evolution and potential habitability.
The LIGO/Virgo collaboration recently announced the detection of an unusual compact binary merger including either the most massive neutron star or the least massive black hole known. The formation path of such a binary system is still up for debate.
A map of the helium abundance across much of the solar corona will allow us to connect in situ solar wind measurements to their sources and improve our understanding of the origins of the solar wind.
The measure of Titan’s incredibly large migration speed away from Saturn reveals that tidal dissipation depends on the orbital frequency. This new paradigm has many implications for the internal structure of Saturn and the history of its satellite system.
The discovery of four bright fast radio bursts with accurate localization on the sky and association with nearby galaxies enabled a statistical estimate of the baryon content in the intergalactic medium and intervening galaxy halos by measuring the amount of ionized gas towards these sources.
The detection of a ring galaxy at a redshift of z = 2.2, potentially a product of a past collision with a companion galaxy, provides new insights on ring formation and the evolution of disk galaxies in the early Universe.
The cosmic origin of the heaviest elements in the periodic table remains a mystery. Estimates of the physical locations of element-producing events within small galaxies that formed in the early Universe are now providing new clues.
The Curiosity rover is unveiling the persistence of habitable environments more than three-billion years ago at Gale crater, Mars. New analyses of Gale’s ancient sediments show that chemical processing of organic material occurred on a liquid-water rich and freezing early Mars.
