Featured
-
-
News |
Astronomers victimized colleagues — and put historic Swedish department in turmoil
Investigations at Lund University found the high-ranking pair guilty of bullying, but staff members say stronger action is needed to repair the damage.
- Alexandra Witze
-
News Explainer |
How three missions to Venus could solve the planet’s biggest mysteries
A renewed focus on our planetary neighbour could help to answer major questions about its atmosphere and geology.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
-
Research Highlight |
Why a gargantuan star blinked
Astronomers watch as a star is nearly totally blotted out, perhaps by a disk of material surrounding another star.
-
Article |
A dusty veil shading Betelgeuse during its Great Dimming
The southern hemisphere of Betelgeuse during its Great Dimming was an order of magnitude darker than usual, owing to a cool patch on the photosphere and associated dust formation.
- M. Montargès
- , E. Cannon
- & W. Danchi
-
News & Views |
Great Dimming of Betelgeuse explained
Observations suggest that an unexpected dimming of the massive star Betelgeuse resulted from dust forming over a cold patch in the star’s southern hemisphere. This finding improves our understanding of such massive stars.
- Emily M. Levesque
-
News |
Why the supergiant star Betelgeuse went mysteriously dim last year
High-resolution images suggest the star spewed out so much dust that its brightness dropped by two-thirds in 2020.
- Davide Castelvecchi
-
News Round-Up |
China’s vaccination surge, fast radio bursts and the dominant Alpha variant
The latest science news, in brief.
-
Book Review |
Katherine Johnson’s memoir charts her bold trajectory to NASA and beyond
Mathematician overcame the gravitational pulls of gender and racial discrimination to play a key part in the space race.
- Ainissa Ramirez
-
News |
Flurry of photos capture China’s Zhurong rover on surface of Mars
Aerial images boast a level of detail that could help the rover navigate to features of scientific interest.
- Smriti Mallapaty
-
News |
Mysterious fast radio bursts come in two distinct flavours
A trove of new detections suggests that the bursts could be the result of at least two separate astrophysical phenomena.
- Davide Castelvecchi
-
Article |
Anisotropic satellite galaxy quenching modulated by black hole activity
An analysis of archival data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey finds that star-forming satellite galaxies are relatively more common along the minor axis of central galaxies owing to the effect of black hole feedback.
- Ignacio Martín-Navarro
- , Annalisa Pillepich
- & Volker Springel
-
News Round-Up |
COVID nasal spray, dark-matter map and a variant’s rise
The latest science news, in brief.
-
Where I Work |
Fly me to the Moon
Loredana Bessone instructs astronauts on living in space, walking on the Moon’s surface and choosing rock samples for analysis.
- Virginia Gewin
-
News & Views |
Hunting the strongest accelerators in our Galaxy
Twelve candidates for the most powerful astrophysical particle accelerators in the Milky Way have been detected. This advance will help to uncover the nature of these exotic objects.
- Petra Huentemeyer
-
News |
The most detailed 3D map of the Universe ever made
Cosmologists have unveiled a trove of fresh data, but the measurements do not settle earlier questions about the Universe’s unexpected smoothness.
- Davide Castelvecchi
-
Article |
Evidence of hydrogen−helium immiscibility at Jupiter-interior conditions
Hydrogen and helium mixtures can be compressed to the extreme temperature and pressure conditions found in the interior of Jupiter and Saturn, and the immiscibility revealed supports models of Jupiter that invoke a layered interior.
- S. Brygoo
- , P. Loubeyre
- & G. W. Collins
-
Book Review |
A physicist goes in search of our origins
CERN experimentalist offers sweeping history of the Universe, in science and culture.
- Andrea Taroni
-
News |
China’s Mars rover returns first images — scientists say the view is promising
Images snapped from Zhurong’s cameras hint at a wide, flat landscape in Mars’s northern hemisphere that’s ripe for exploration.
- Smriti Mallapaty
-
News & Views |
Iron and nickel vapours are present in most comets
The detection of iron and nickel vapours in a broad range of Solar System comets, and of nickel vapour in a comet from outside the Solar System, provides a glimpse into the organic chemistry of young planetary systems.
- Dennis Bodewits
- & Steven J. Bromley
-
Article |
Iron and nickel atoms in cometary atmospheres even far from the Sun
High-resolution ultraviolet and optical spectra of a large sample of comets show that Fe i and Ni i lines are ubiquitous, even when the comets are far from the Sun.
- J. Manfroid
- , D. Hutsemékers
- & E. Jehin
-
Article |
Gaseous atomic nickel in the coma of interstellar comet 2I/Borisov
Atomic nickel vapour is found in the cold coma of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov at a distance of 2.3 astronomical units, equivalent to an equilibrium temperature of 180 kelvin.
- Piotr Guzik
- & Michał Drahus
-
Perspective |
The data-driven future of high-energy-density physics
This Perspective discusses how high-energy-density physics could tap the potential of AI-inspired algorithms for extracting relevant information and how data-driven automatic control routines may be used for optimizing high-repetition-rate experiments.
- Peter W. Hatfield
- , Jim A. Gaffney
- & Ben Williams
-
Article |
Ultrahigh-energy photons up to 1.4 petaelectronvolts from 12 γ-ray Galactic sources
Observations of γ-rays with energies up to 1.4 PeV find that 12 sources in the Galaxy are PeVatrons, one of which is the Crab Nebula.
- Zhen Cao
- , F. A. Aharonian
- & X. Zuo
-
News |
China has landed its first rover on Mars — here’s what happens next
The Zhurong landing was the biggest test yet of China’s deep-space exploration capabilities. Within days, the rover could start to make geological discoveries.
- Smriti Mallapaty
-
Research Highlight |
Voyager 1 captures faint ripples in the stuff between the stars
The first spacecraft to visit interstellar space has now become the first to make continuous measurements of waves in that remote realm.
-
News & Views |
Black hole jets bent by magnetic fields
The large-scale impact of magnetic fields on galaxy clusters has been unclear. Images from the MeerKAT radio telescope suggest that such fields can bend jets of particles ejected from massive black holes in galaxy clusters.
- Joydeep Bagchi
-
Article |
Jets from MRC 0600-399 bent by magnetic fields in the cluster Abell 3376
Radio observations of the cluster Abell 3376, combined with numerical modelling, attribute the bent jets associated with the second-brightest galaxy in the cluster to an ordered magnetic field at the discontinuity.
- James O. Chibueze
- , Haruka Sakemi
- & Tsutomu T. Takeuchi
-
Article
| Open AccessX-ray quasi-periodic eruptions from two previously quiescent galaxies
X-ray quasi-periodic eruptions are detected from two previously inactive galaxies, with observations suggesting that the very-high-amplitude X-ray bursts may arise from an orbiting compact object.
- R. Arcodia
- , A. Merloni
- & A. Schwope
-
Research Highlight |
Dim stars that have failed at fusion are masters of spin
Three brown dwarfs whirl on their axes at a dizzying rate that might be close to the celestial speed limit for these bodies.
-
Article |
All-sky dynamical response of the Galactic halo to the Large Magellanic Cloud
The detection of structure in the distribution of giant stars in the outer Galactic halo shows the substantial global impact of the Magellanic clouds on our Galaxy.
- Charlie Conroy
- , Rohan P. Naidu
- & Benjamin D. Johnson
-
Article |
High-entropy ejecta plumes in Cassiopeia A from neutrino-driven convection
The abundances of stable Ti and Cr relative to Fe observed in the Cassiopeia A core-collapse supernova remnant reveal that Ti and Cr must have formed in neutrino-driven plumes that helped to drive the explosion.
- Toshiki Sato
- , Keiichi Maeda
- & John P. Hughes
-
Nature Video |
Flying a helicopter on Mars: NASA's Ingenuity
First powered flight on another planet opens the door for a new era of exploration.
- Dan Fox
-
Research Highlight |
Wiggly signal hints of an aurora on a planet far from the Solar System
A vast radio observatory on Earth detects signals similar to those generated by the aurora on Jupiter.
-
News Round-Up |
Sputnik V, a host of coronavirus mutations and a rocket stack
The latest science news, in brief.
-
Article |
Dynamics of large effusive eruptions driven by caldera collapse
A model for eruptions resulting in caldera collapse reconciles observations of quasi-periodic stick–slip events along annular faults and the large erupted volumes characteristic of such events, highlighting the role of topography-generated pressures.
- Alberto Roman
- & Paul Lundgren
-
Article |
Five carbon- and nitrogen-bearing species in a hot giant planet’s atmosphere
The signatures of water, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, methane, ammonia and acetylene are observed in the transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter HD 209458b, with abundance ratios suggesting a super-solar carbon-to-oxygen ratio.
- Paolo Giacobbe
- , Matteo Brogi
- & Andrea Tozzi
-
Research Highlight |
Baby stars make it in a tough part of the Galaxy
Star formation might be more resilient than astronomers had thought.
-
Research Highlight |
Faint galaxies light up the dark web filling the cosmos
Dim, distant collections of stars hint at the early evolution of the Universe.
-
Nature Podcast |
Network of world’s most accurate clocks paves way to redefine time
A web of three optical atomic clocks show incredibly accurate measurements of time, and the trailblazing astronomer who found hints of dark matter.
- Shamini Bundell
- & Nick Petrić Howe
-
Book Review |
Vera Rubin, astronomer extraordinaire — a new biography
She confirmed dark matter, probed spiral galaxies and fought inequality
- Alison Abbott
-
Nature Podcast |
The AI that argues back
A computer that can participate in live debates against human opponents.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
-
Research Highlight |
A resident’s guide to avoiding lethal blasts from the Galaxy
Astronomers map out the most benign environments for life in the Milky Way over the past 13 billion years.
-
News |
Record number of asteroids seen whizzing past Earth in 2020
Despite pandemic disruption, astronomers detected thousands of previously unknown near-Earth asteroids last year.
- Alexandra Witze
-
News & Views |
Giant ice cube hints at the existence of cosmic antineutrinos
Evidence of a rare neutrino-interaction process called the Glashow resonance has been observed by a detector buried deep in the Antarctic ice — opening up a way to probe neutrino formation in astrophysical sources.
- Carla Distefano
-
Article |
Detection of a particle shower at the Glashow resonance with IceCube
A particle shower detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the very high energy of the Glashow resonance demonstrates its potential for the study of high-energy particle physics and astrophysics.
- M. G. Aartsen
- , R. Abbasi
- & M. Zöcklein
-
Research Highlight |
X-rays expose a clue to the mystery of the missing neutron star
Astronomers might have spotted the long-sought debris of a famous stellar explosion.
-
Research Highlight |
The first known space hurricane pours electron ‘rain’
Earth’s upper atmosphere cooks up a storm.
-
Nature Podcast |
Audio long-read: Thundercloud Project tackles a gamma-ray mystery
Researchers in Japan are trying to understand why thunderstorms fire out bursts of powerful radiation.
- Elizabeth Gibney
- & Benjamin Thompson
-
Editorial |
The world’s largest radio telescope should open its skies to all
The Square Kilometre Array must invite the best ideas from around the globe to help it probe astronomy’s deepest questions.