Astronomy and astrophysics articles from across Nature Portfolio

A magnetic halo featuring coherent magnetized ridges several kiloparsecs above and below the Galactic Disk, and a gamma-ray counterpart, are revealed. They probably arise from outflows that are driven by star-forming regions in the Galactic Disk, 3–5 kiloparsecs from the Galactic Centre.

JWST has opened a window on exoplanet imaging by observing the planet ε Indi Ab directly. The planet’s existence had been inferred, but its age and temperature made the discovery difficult to confirm — until now.

A powerful telescope array has imaged the surface of a star called R Doradus. The observations will help astronomers to understand the fluid dynamics of evolved giant stars — a type of star that the Sun will eventually become.

Many rocky planets formed with large, H2-rich atmospheres. Here, the authors show that the loss of these primary atmospheres from temperate planets such as TRAPPIST-1e typically leaves behind secondary atmospheres and habitable surface conditions.

Beneath the superficial diversity and complexity of galaxy morphology in our local Universe, galaxies show underlying simplicity and have universally bimodal distributions of normalized specific angular momentum of stars, revealed by MaNGA observations.

The landscape of potential hills and valleys in the Universe can be discerned by the motion of galaxies towards mass concentrations and away from voids. Space can be segmented into ‘basins of attraction’, which are now mapped with the aid of 56,000 galaxy velocities.

The Square Kilometre Array will take longer to expand further into eight African nations than originally planned.

An algorithm that detects streaks of light in telescope images could help to counter a growing threat to astronomy.

A magnetic halo featuring coherent magnetized ridges several kiloparsecs above and below the Galactic Disk, and a gamma-ray counterpart, are revealed. They probably arise from outflows that are driven by star-forming regions in the Galactic Disk, 3–5 kiloparsecs from the Galactic Centre.

JWST has opened a window on exoplanet imaging by observing the planet ε Indi Ab directly. The planet’s existence had been inferred, but its age and temperature made the discovery difficult to confirm — until now.

Experiment shows that, in a worst-case scenario, humanity could use a nuclear explosion to save the planet from a deadly impact.

Adam Carnall’s BAGPIPES code grew out of necessity and has since developed into a widely used tool for fitting the spectra and photometry of galaxies, especially in the JWST era.