Featured
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News |
NASA ‘fist bumps’ an asteroid to reveal Solar System’s secrets
OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully executes a nail-biting manoeuvre to scoop up rock samples from the asteroid Bennu and send them back to Earth.
- Alexandra Witze
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News & Views |
Key ingredient of galaxy formation measured
Measurements of faint radio emission from distant galaxies have revealed the nature of the gases that drove the epoch of peak galaxy formation — and also suggest why star-formation rates have since declined.
- Chris L. Carilli
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Article |
H i 21-centimetre emission from an ensemble of galaxies at an average redshift of one
Emission from atomic hydrogen at a wavelength of 21 centimetres had been observed from galaxies at a maximum redshift of 0.4, but is now reported at a redshift of about 1.
- Aditya Chowdhury
- , Nissim Kanekar
- & K. S. Dwarakanath
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Nature Podcast |
Audio long-read: What animals really think
New techniques are allowing greater insight into the brain activity underlying animal's drives and desires.
- Alison Abbott
- & Benjamin Thompson
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News & Views |
Early onset of planet formation observed in a nascent star system
Narrow rings and gaps have been seen in a particularly young disk of dust and gas around a nascent star, using the world’s most powerful radio telescope. The finding provides a potential glimpse of the earliest stages of planet formation.
- Patrick Sheehan
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Research Highlight |
The odd couple: how a pair of mismatched black holes formed
A merger between two black holes of vastly different masses might have stemmed from a relationship between two unequal stars.
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News |
Life on Venus? Scientists hunt for the truth
Interest in Earth’s hellish neighbour explodes after the detection of phosphine, a potential marker of life.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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Article |
Graphene-based Josephson junction microwave bolometer
An ultimately thin microwave bolometric sensor based on a superconductor–graphene–superconductor Josephson junction with monolayer graphene has a sensitivity approaching the fundamental limit imposed by intrinsic thermal fluctuations.
- Gil-Ho Lee
- , Dmitri K. Efetov
- & Kin Chung Fong
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News |
The first-ever image of a black hole is now a movie
Pictures created from old observations show the void’s stormy evolution over the past decade.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News & Views |
Planet discovered transiting a dead star
Evidence has been found of a planet circling the smouldering remains of a dead star in a tight orbit. The discovery raises the question of how the planet survived the star’s death throes — and whether other planets also orbit the remains.
- Steven Parsons
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Article |
A giant planet candidate transiting a white dwarf
A giant planet candidate roughly the size of Jupiter but more than 14 times as massive is observed by TESS and other instruments to be transiting the white dwarf star WD 1856+534.
- Andrew Vanderburg
- , Saul A. Rappaport
- & Liang Yu
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Research Highlight |
Gigantic clusters of galaxies pose a new dark-matter puzzle
The Hubble Space Telescope shows that galactic ‘lenses’ of the invisible material are more common than computer models of galaxy clumping predict.
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Article |
The Magellanic Corona as the key to the formation of the Magellanic Stream
Embedding the Magellanic Clouds in a corona of ionized gas allows the gaseous Magellanic Stream to be modelled accurately.
- S. Lucchini
- , E. D’Onghia
- & E. Zweibel
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Article |
Universal structure of dark matter haloes over a mass range of 20 orders of magnitude
Simulations of formation of dark matter haloes ranging in size from Earth mass to clusters of galaxies find a universal halo density structure spanning 20 orders of magnitude in mass.
- J. Wang
- , S. Bose
- & S. D. M. White
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News |
‘It’s mindboggling!’: astronomers detect most powerful black-hole collision yet
Gravitational-wave detections suggest merging black holes fell into ‘forbidden’ range of masses.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News Round-Up |
Where polio remains, harmful satellites and a research crackdown
The latest science news, in brief.
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News |
How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images
Most detailed report yet about the impact of giant satellite clusters says damage to observations is unavoidable — and offers mitigation strategies.
- Alexandra Witze
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Article |
A measure of the size of the magnetospheric accretion region in TW Hydrae
The size of the inner disk of the T Tauri star TW Hydrae is determined using optical long-baseline interferometric observations, indicating that hydrogen emission comes from a region approximately 3.5 stellar radii across.
- R. Garcia Lopez
- , A. Natta
- & G. Zins
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Article |
Cold gas in the Milky Way’s nuclear wind
Observations of a cold molecular gas associated with the atomic hydrogen outflow from the centre of our Galaxy indicate that this gas has a surprisingly high mass but unclear origin.
- Enrico M. Di Teodoro
- , N. M. McClure-Griffiths
- & Lucia Armillotta
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News Round-Up |
COVID-19 immunity, scorching temperatures and telescope accident
The latest science news, in brief.
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Book Review |
Crunch, rip, freeze or decay — how will the Universe end?
Astrophysicist Katie Mack’s book explores all the ways the cosmos could destroy itself.
- Ramin Skibba
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Nature Podcast |
Audio long-read: Pluto’s dark side is overflowing with secrets
Images sent back by the New Horizons spacecraft reveal much about this mysterious dwarf planet’s far side and hint at the existence of a subterranean ocean.
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Article |
Small lightning flashes from shallow electrical storms on Jupiter
Small lightning flashes detected on Jupiter by Juno have shallow origins above the 2-bar level of Jupiter’s atmosphere where temperatures are too low for liquid water to exist.
- Heidi N. Becker
- , James W. Alexander
- & Paul G. Steffes
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Technology Feature |
Migrating big astronomy data to the cloud
Six lessons from astronomy’s embrace of cloud computing.
- Charles Q. Choi
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Article |
Night-time measurements of astronomical seeing at Dome A in Antarctica
The night-time seeing (the extent to which a star’s light is blurred by the atmosphere) at Dome A, the highest part on the Antarctic plateau, can be as good as 0.13 arcseconds above a height of only 8 metres.
- Bin Ma
- , Zhaohui Shang
- & Peng Jiang
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News & Views |
The Phoenix stellar stream rose from the ashes of an ancient star cluster
Observations of a star system called the Phoenix stellar stream offer the first evidence of vanished star clusters that had extremely low levels of heavy elements. Their remnants might cast light on the early assembly of the Milky Way.
- J. M. Diederik Kruijssen
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News Feature |
Pluto’s dark side spills its secrets — including hints of a hidden ocean
Images of the dwarf planet’s far side are revealing possible signs of liquid water, mysterious shards of ice and new theories for the frigid world’s birth.
- Shannon Hall
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News Round-Up |
Closest Sun shot, methane rising and a Plan S development
The latest science news, in brief.
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Nature Podcast |
When did people arrive in the Americas? New evidence stokes debate
New evidence may push back the date on human arrival to the Americas, and an examination of science’s flaws.
- Nick Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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News |
Mystery over Universe’s expansion deepens with fresh data
A long-awaited map of the Big Bang’s afterglow fails to settle a debate over how fast the Universe is expanding.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Book Review |
The many roads to the red planet — a memoir
As three nations prepare to send spacecraft to Mars, a planetary scientist offers her personal tour of those who led the way. By Alexandra Witze
- Alexandra Witze
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News Round-Up |
Astronomers unveil epic X-ray map of the Universe
The latest science news, in brief.
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Article |
Asymmetric mass ratios for bright double neutron-star mergers
Pulsar timing measurements show a mass ratio of about 0.8 for the double neutron-star system PSR J1913+1102, and population synthesis models indicate that such asymmetric systems represent 2–30% of merging binaries.
- R. D. Ferdman
- , P. C. C. Freire
- & J. van Leeuwen
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Where I Work |
Gearing up for a ‘monumental’ mission to Mars
Engineer and roboticist Zach Ousnamer is helping to prepare NASA’s Perseverance rover for its launch to the red planet.
- Amber Dance
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News Round-Up |
Ebola outbreak ends and a quiet star is found to host planets
The latest science news, in brief.
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Article |
A remnant planetary core in the hot-Neptune desert
Observations of TOI-849b reveal a radius smaller than Neptune’s but a large mass of about 40 Earth masses, indicating that the planet is the remnant core of a gas giant.
- David J. Armstrong
- , Théo A. Lopez
- & Zhuchang Zhan
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Article |
A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii
A transiting planet with a period of about 8.5 days and a radius 0.4 times that of Jupiter is reported within the debris disk around the star AU Microscopii.
- Peter Plavchan
- , Thomas Barclay
- & Perri Zilberman
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News |
Neutrinos reveal final secret of Sun’s nuclear fusion
Detection of particles produced by the Sun’s core supports long-held theory about how our star is powered.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News Round-Up |
Twitter’s saddest fortnight and bizarre quantum matter in space
The latest science news, in brief.
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News & Views |
Unexpected emission pattern adds to the enigma of fast radio bursts
Observations of millisecond-long radio bursts from beyond the Milky Way have revealed a repeat pattern with a roughly 16-day period — a finding that adds to the enigma of the origin of these bursts.
- Bing Zhang
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Article |
Resolving acceleration to very high energies along the jet of Centaurus A
Observations of the radio galaxy Centaurus A at teraelectronvolt energies resolve its large-scale jet and favour electron synchrotron processes as the source of its X-ray emission.
- H. Abdalla
- , R. Adam
- & N. Żywucka
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Article |
Periodic activity from a fast radio burst source
A periodicity of roughly 16 days is detected for the fast radio burst 180916.J0158+65, suggesting that the burst arises from a periodically modulated mechanism instead of a cataclysmic or sporadic process.
- M. Amiri
- , B. C. Andersen
- & A. V. Zwaniga
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Nature Podcast |
Podcast: Enigmatic neutron stars may soon give up their secrets
After decades of speculation, researchers are closing in on what lies beneath the surface of a neutron star.
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News |
Pluto probe offers eye-popping view of neighbouring star Proxima Centauri
NASA’s New Horizons mission measures the distances of two stars from the outer reaches of the Solar System.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News |
Astronomers spot first fast radio burst in the Milky Way
The nearby burst came from a magnetized star — and provides a close-up view of one of astronomy’s biggest puzzles.
- Alexandra Witze
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Editorial |
SpaceX’s astronaut launch is a boost for the International Space Station
NASA’s partnership with SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk should recognize the global nature of space exploration and research.
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Career Column |
NASA’s isolation experts: Lockdown lessons from space
Scientists at the US agency offer advice about remote working, social isolation and quarantine.
- Brian Owens
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Nature Podcast |
Podcast: Super-efficient catalyst boosts hopes for hydrogen fuel
Hear the latest from the world of science, with Nick Howe and Shamini Bundell.