Featured
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News |
‘Incredible’ asteroid sample ferried to Earth is rich in the building blocks of life
Samples of asteroid Bennu delivered by the OSIRIS-REx mission contain carbon, water and other ingredients from the primordial Solar System.
- Alexandra Witze
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Nature Podcast |
Gene edits move pig organs closer to human transplantation
Monkeys with CRISPR-edited pig kidneys survive for more than a year, and why our brains struggle to count more than four objects.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Shamini Bundell
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News |
‘Immense relief’: Universe-mapping Euclid telescope fixes problem that threatened mission
The European Space Agency says a software patch restored stability to its new cosmic mapper — but slower operations could extend the mission.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Nature Podcast |
Astronomers are worried by a satellite brighter than most stars
Researchers determined the telecommunications satellite was periodically brighter than 99% of stars, and powerful X-rays have uncovered an ancient trilobite’s last meal.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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News |
Huge new satellite outshines nearly every star in the sky
At times, the enormous telecommunications spacecraft is brighter than some of the most iconic stars visible from Earth.
- Shannon Hall
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Article
| Open AccessThe high optical brightness of the BlueWalker 3 satellite
We report the outcome of an international optical observation campaign of a prototype constellation satellite, AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3, which features a 64.3 m2 phased-array antenna and a launch vehicle adaptor.
- Sangeetha Nandakumar
- , Siegfried Eggl
- & Mario Soto
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News & Views |
Interstellar shocks unveil the material around new stars
Astronomers have obtained spectacular images of an interstellar jet launched from a newly forming star. Careful comparison with archival data offers a fresh take on the chemistry of the environment that surrounds it.
- Joel Green
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Article |
Precessing jet nozzle connecting to a spinning black hole in M87
This study analyses radio observations of the jet in galaxy M87, from which the existence of a spinning black hole that induces Lense–Thirring precession of a misaligned accretion disk is inferred.
- Yuzhu Cui
- , Kazuhiro Hada
- & Weiye Zhong
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Nature Podcast |
This isn’t the Nature Podcast — how deepfakes are distorting reality
The rise of AI-generated fakes, evidence of the earliest-known wooden structure, and how NASA’s OSIRIS-REx brought asteroid samples back to Earth.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Benjamin Thompson
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News |
China’s powerful new telescope will search for exploding stars
The Wide Field Survey Telescope is the largest facility of its kind in the Northern Hemisphere.
- Gemma Conroy
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News |
A new era for Arecibo: legendary observatory begins next phase
The US National Science Foundation announces plan to use the historic site for biology and computer science education.
- Anil Oza
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News |
Special delivery! Biggest-ever haul of asteroid dust and rock returns to Earth
Samples collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission excite scientists with their potential to reveal secrets of the Solar System.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
How worlds are born: JWST reveals exotic chemistry of planetary nurseries
The telescope is delivering a cascade of insights about the ‘protoplanetary’ disks where planets take shape.
- Alexandra Witze
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World View |
Bringing space rocks back to Earth could answer some of life’s biggest questions
Safe delivery of samples from an asteroid on 24 September will be the start of a global scientific journey — but similar missions need support.
- Meenakshi Wadhwa
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News Q&A |
UFO sightings: how NASA can bring science to the debate
An astrophysicist who advised the agency talks to Nature about ways to bring rigour to reports of ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Ancient-human fossils sent to space: scientists slam ‘publicity stunt’
The decision to send hominin bones on a commercial spaceflight has raised eyebrows among human-evolution researchers.
- Ewen Callaway
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News & Views |
Light from cosmic dawn hints at how interstellar dust is made
The obscuration of light from a distant galaxy has raised the possibility that a type of carbon dust existed in the earliest epochs of the Universe — challenging the idea that stars had not yet evolved enough to make such material.
- Xuejuan Yang
- & Aigen Li
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Research Highlight |
A historic solar flare’s huge intensity is revealed by new tools
Scientists estimate the magnitude of the 1859 ‘Carrington flare’, the biggest of its kind ever recorded.
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News Explainer |
An ‘alien meteorite’ probably didn’t slam into Earth — how will we know if one does?
Nature looks at the detective work required to confirm a controversial claim of finding interstellar debris.
- Alexandra Witze
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Article
| Open AccessPolarized thermal emission from dust in a galaxy at redshift 2.6
Linearly polarized thermal emission from dust grains in a strongly lensed, intrinsically luminous galaxy forming stars at a rate more than 1,000 times that of the Milky Way is detected.
- J. E. Geach
- , E. Lopez-Rodriguez
- & K. E. K. Coppin
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News Explainer |
India’s first Sun mission will investigate the origins of space weather
Aditya-L1 will join other spacecraft from Europe and the United States in an attempt to understand our stormy star.
- T.V. Padma
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Research Briefing |
Action spectroscopy of a single gas molecule
Spectroscopy is widely used to characterize samples. Here, spectroscopy of a single molecule of the tropylium cation (C7H7+) presents a new approach to analysis, particularly for rare or reactive molecular ions that are probably important in interstellar chemistry.
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Article |
A super-massive Neptune-sized planet
Observations of the super-massive Neptune-sized transiting planet TOI-1853 b show a mass almost twice that of any other Neptune-sized planet known so far and a bulk density implying that heavy elements dominate its mass.
- Luca Naponiello
- , Luigi Mancini
- & Tiziano Zingales
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News |
Japan’s space observatory will measure X-rays in exquisite detail
XRISM’s precision measurements will unveil a Universe in motion.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Editorial |
India’s Moon landing is a stellar achievement — and a win for science
When Chandrayaan-3 touched down, India pulled off a huge win for its own space programme and for international efforts to understand the Moon.
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News |
What powers the Sun’s mysterious wind? A daring spacecraft has some answers
Analysis shows that mini jets of gas help to generate the solar wind, a discovery that also illuminates how our star’s activity damages satellites.
- Alexandra Witze
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Article
| Open AccessOutflows from the youngest stars are mostly molecular
Near-infrared imagery and spectroscopy from JWST of the Herbig-Haro 211 system, an analogue of the young Sun, reveals supersonic jets of hot molecules that can explain the origin of the ‘green fuzzies’ phenomenon.
- T. P. Ray
- , M. J. McCaughrean
- & G. Wright
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Research Highlight |
Black hole total recoil
A black hole created by the collision of two parent bodies can rebound at a speed of more than 28,000 kilometres per second.
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News |
India lands on the Moon! Scientists celebrate as Chandrayaan-3 touches down
The craft has performed a technically challenging descent at the lunar south pole.
- T. V. Padma
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Where I Work |
Is there life on Mars? What a cave on Earth can teach us
Seventeen-year-old Zahra Ronizi jump-starts her dream of becoming an astronaut and going to Mars by joining a simulated mission in a Spanish cave as a crew biologist.
- Chris Woolston
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News & Views |
From the archive: Copernicus’s legacy, and a hungry pigeon
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Career Q&A |
Leveraging my training in space medicine for technological innovation
Shawna Pandya explores entrepreneurial niches to bring virtual-reality medicine to space exploration.
- Lesley Evans Ogden
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News |
Russian Moon lander crash — what happened, and what’s next?
The Luna 25 mission has ended in failure, raising major questions about the future of Russia’s space program.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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Career Q&A |
The Indigenous rocketeer
Nicole McGaa combined Indigenous knowledge with engineering to build a rocket for the First Nations Launch competition.
- Abdullahi Tsanni
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Article |
Confirmation and refutation of very luminous galaxies in the early Universe
JWST spectroscopy confirms redshifts for two very luminous galaxies with z > 11, and also demonstrates that another candidate with suggested z ≈ 16 instead has z = 4.9.
- Pablo Arrabal Haro
- , Mark Dickinson
- & Jorge A. Zavala
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News |
Russia launches first Moon mission in half a century: what it means for science
The Luna 25 spacecraft will attempt to land at the lunar south pole for the first time in a hunt for valuable water ice.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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News |
Closing down an icon: will Arecibo Observatory ever do science again?
Although it is slated to become an education centre, astronomers hope research might one day return to the site.
- Anil Oza
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Obituary |
Evelyn Boyd Granville, space-flight trailblazer (1924—2023)
Mathematician and programmer who transcended barriers of race and gender.
- Mar Hicks
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Nature Index |
How China is capturing attention with landmark research
From ancient sea species to clues on comets, papers by the country’s talented scientists are regularly making headlines.
- Gemma Conroy
- , Pratik Pawar
- & Sian Powell
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Article |
Sustained wet–dry cycling on early Mars
Observations by the Curiosity rover at Gale Crater on Mars indicate that high-frequency wet–dry cycling occurred on the early Martian surface, indicating a possible seasonal climate conducive to prebiotic evolution on early Mars.
- W. Rapin
- , G. Dromart
- & N. L. Lanza
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Article |
A cool runaway greenhouse without surface magma ocean
It is reported using a consistent climate model that pure steam atmospheres are commonly shaped by radiative layers, making their thermal structure strongly dependent on the stellar spectrum and internal heat flow.
- Franck Selsis
- , Jérémy Leconte
- & Émeline Bolmont
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Nature Podcast |
How welcome are refugees in Europe? A giant study has some answers
A survey of 33,000 Europeans suggests overall support towards refugees has slightly increased, and how to get shapes to roll down wiggly paths using mathematics.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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Research Highlight |
JWST spots what could be a quasar from the early Universe
The object’s deep red colour suggests it existed when the Universe was less than 700 million years old.
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News |
‘It’s a dream’: JWST spies more black holes than astronomers predicted
The James Webb Space Telescope’s observations could help to answer questions about how the celestial objects formed early in the Universe.
- Alexandra Witze
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News Feature |
The most unusual portrait of the Milky Way yet: mapping the Galaxy with neutrinos
A vast telescope buried beneath Antarctica has captured high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic Centre, ushering in a new era for observing the Universe.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Article |
Subsecond periodic radio oscillations in a microquasar
Two instances of approximately 5-Hz transient periodic oscillation features from the source detected in the 1.05- to 1.45-GHz radio band that occurred in January 2021 and June 2022 are reported.
- Pengfu Tian
- , Ping Zhang
- & Na Sai
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Article
| Open AccessWater in the terrestrial planet-forming zone of the PDS 70 disk
Observations with the sensitive mid-infrared spectrometer MIRI on board JWST reveal the presence of a water vapour reservoir in the terrestrial plant-forming zone of the young planetary system PDS 70.
- G. Perotti
- , V. Christiaens
- & G. Wright
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Article |
A long-period radio transient active for three decades
The discovery of a long-period radio transient, GPM J1839–10, prompted a search of radio archives, thereby finding that this source has been repeating since at least 1988.
- N. Hurley-Walker
- , N. Rea
- & A. Williams