News & Views |
Featured
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News |
Rosetta craft makes historic comet rendezvous
European Space Agency's comet-chasing mission arrives after 10-year journey.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Letter |
The origin of the local 1/4-keV X-ray flux in both charge exchange and a hot bubble
The contribution of solar-wind ions exchanging electrons with helium and hydrogen near the Sun is shown to be only about 40 per cent of the 1/4-keV X-ray flux observed in the Galactic plane; this supports the existence of a local ‘hot bubble’ filled with X-ray-emitting gas, accounting for the rest of the flux.
- M. Galeazzi
- , M. Chiao
- & B. M. Walsh
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News |
'Hot Jupiter' measurements throw water on theory
Dry atmospheres of three exoplanets challenge ideas of how planets form.
- Mark Zastrow
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News |
Duck-shaped comet could make Rosetta landing more difficult
Surprising irregularity could be the result of a merger.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Solar sail to hitch free ride on light breeze in 2016
LightSail 1 will launch from SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to demonstrate propellant-free propulsion.
- Clara Moskowitz
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News |
Diamond squished to reveal secrets of giant planets
Lasers subject gem to millions of times atmospheric pressure
- Kerri Smith
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News |
Exploding star reveals origins of Universe's dust
Cosmic dust is crucial to the birth of stars and planets but why so much was present in the young Universe was a mystery.
- Ron Cowen
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Books & Arts |
Space science: Lunar star
Roger D. Launius is perplexed by a biography of Neil Armstrong that profiles the missions, not the man.
- Roger D. Launius
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News |
Gravitational-wave team admits findings could amount to dust
Astronomers publish results with clarification note as more questions are raised.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
'Superfluid spacetime' points to unification of physics
Thinking of space and time as a liquid might help reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity.
- Clara Moskowitz
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News |
Space-station science ramps up
NASA pushes research agenda in face of Russian resistance.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Images of the month: May 2014
Pictures from the world of science, selected by Nature’s art team.
- Daniel Cressey
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News |
‘No evidence for or against gravitational waves’
Two analyses suggest signal of Big Bang ripples announced in March was too weak to be significant.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
NASA might nix Spitzer telescope to save others
Cash-starved agency to focus resources on Hubble, Kepler, Chandra and other orbiting observatories.
- Clara Moskowitz
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News |
Gravitational wave discovery faces scrutiny
Cosmologist casts doubt on BICEP2's analysis of cosmic microwaves, but the team stands by its conclusions.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
Lightning linked to solar wind
Correlation suggests answer to longstanding question about what triggers bolts.
- Katia Moskvitch
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News |
Russia's retaliation could doom Space Station
Cooperation with the United States will end in 2020 as fallout of Ukraine crisis reaches space.
- Quirin Schiermeier
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News |
NASA plans Mars sample-return rover
Agency to narrow down list of landing sites for 2020 mission.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Milky Way map skirts question of gravitational waves
Planck’s polarization map excludes region where it could have cross-checked BICEP2 findings on Big Bang.
- Ron Cowen
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Editorial |
A cosmic history
Millions of hours of processing time yield the best picture so far of how the Universe evolved.
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Books & Arts |
Space policy: A clearer final frontier
David Southwood finds that a study on safeguarding space is shorter on cooperation than conflict.
- David Southwood
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News |
Panel homes in on sites for γ-ray detector
Cherenkov Telescope Array will track high-energy photons to probe black holes, dark matter and relativity.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
ExoMars scientists narrow down landing sites
Facing engineering constraints, researchers propose four destinations for European rover.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Dwarf planet stretches Solar System's edge
Icy body found far beyond Pluto raises questions about cosmic history.
- Alexandra Witze
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News & Views |
Near-Earth space shows its stripes
Electrons in Earth's magnetic field often exhibit a striped pattern of intensity as a function of electron energy and altitude. A model that factors in some unexpectedly important effects can now explain this feature. See Letter p.338
- Drew L. Turner
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Letter |
Rotationally driven ‘zebra stripes’ in Earth’s inner radiation belt
The distributions of energetic electrons across the entire spatial extent of Earth’s inner radiation belt are found to be organized in regular, highly structured and unexpected ‘zebra stripes’, produced by Earth’s rotation.
- A. Y. Ukhorskiy
- , M. I. Sitnov
- & B. H. Mauk
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News |
Solar eruptions combine to cause super storms
Collision of successive ejections found to cause extreme space weather.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News Explainer |
All you need to know about gravitational waves
A beginner's guide to the BICEP2 discovery of primordial gravitational waves.
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News |
NASA aims to go to Europa on the cheap
The agency wants to send a robotic mission to Jupiter's moon for less than $1 billion.
- Clara Moskowitz
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News Q&A |
Head of China's space science reaches out
First collaboration between Chinese Academy of Sciences and ESA builds momentum for joint missions, says director of National Space Science Centre.
- Jane Qiu
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News |
NASA unveils exoplanet haul
Findings from the now-disabled Kepler probe have been validated, quadrupling its booty of extrasolar worlds.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
SOFIA irons out technical kinks
US–German airborne telescope slow to reach full capability.
- Alexandra Witze
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News & Views |
50 & 100 Years Ago
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News |
Moon shots stuck on Earth
Some Google Lunar X Prize contenders book launches for 2015 — but many say that is a stretch.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
NASA’s troubled US$8-billion Hubble successor is back on track
After setbacks, delays and cost overruns that almost led to its cancellation, the telescope should be able to meet its 2018 launch date.
- Clara Moskowitz
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News |
US struggles to offload telescopes
West Virginia radio observatory seeks money from partners to fend off closure by the National Science Foundation.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Telescope array could usher in astronomy revolution in Africa
The Square Kilometer Array will be the world's biggest radio observatory and promises to spur science and economic development in Africa.
- Clara Moskowitz
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News |
Light from ancient quasar reveals intergalactic web
Astronomers say it's the first direct imaging of the long-sought gas filaments stretching between galaxies.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
Comet craft ready to wake
Stakes high as European Space Agency waits for Rosetta orbiter to come out of hibernation.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Hubble telescope reveals deepest view of the Universe yet
A new deep-field photo of a 'blank spot' in space unveils thousands of previously unseen primordial galaxies.
- Clara Moskowitz
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News |
What to expect in 2014
Nature takes a look at what is in store for science in the new year.
- Richard Van Noorden
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News |
UK bolsters defences against crippling solar storms
Round-the-clock space-weather warnings will protect satellites and help prevent blackouts on Earth.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News & Views |
A fast lane in the magnetosphere
A marriage between satellite observations and modelling has shown that acceleration of electrons in the magnetosphere can be explained by scattering of these particles by plasma oscillations known as chorus waves. See Letter p.411
- Mary K. Hudson
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Letter |
Rapid local acceleration of relativistic radiation-belt electrons by magnetospheric chorus
High-resolution measurements of electrons obtained by satellite during the geomagnetic storm of 9 October 2012 together with a data-driven global wave model are analysed to show that scattering by a magnetospheric electromagnetic emission, known as ‘chorus’, can explain the temporal evolution of the observed increase in relativistic electron flux.
- R. M. Thorne
- , W. Li
- & S. G. Kanekal
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News |
Cosmologists at odds over mysterious anomalies in data from early Universe
Planck satellite's picture of cosmic microwave background needs correction, some researchers argue.
- Ron Cowen
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News |
Downsized black hole is much brighter than it should be
Reduced size puts into question theories of how supermassive black holes form.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Mexican observatory pushes the limits of γ-ray astronomy
Water tanks at 4,100 metres altitude detect high-energy bursts coming from supernova explosions and other cosmic events.
- Krista Zala
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News |
Mars mission set for launch
NASA’s MAVEN orbiter aims to unravel the mystery of the red planet’s missing atmosphere.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Risk of massive asteroid strike underestimated
Meteor in Chelyabinsk impact was twice as heavy as initially thought.
- Quirin Schiermeier