Featured
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News Round-Up |
Moon ice, research imbalance and a new science minister
The latest science news, in brief.
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Editorial |
The world must cooperate to avoid a catastrophic space collision
Governments and companies urgently need to share data on the mounting volume of satellites and debris orbiting Earth.
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Article
| Open AccessGlobal upper-atmospheric heating on Jupiter by the polar aurorae
High-resolution observations confirm that Jupiter’s global upper atmosphere is heated by transport of energy from the polar aurora.
- J. O’Donoghue
- , L. Moore
- & C. Tao
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Comment |
Test quantum mechanics in space — invest US$1 billion
Shooting glass beads across the inside of a satellite could probe the limits of quantum wave behaviour. Here’s how.
- Alessio Belenchia
- , Matteo Carlesso
- & Mauro Paternostro
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News Round-Up |
Delta’s success, satellite swarms and a ‘super’ COVID antibody
The latest science news, in brief.
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News |
NASA investigates renaming James Webb telescope after anti-LGBT+ claims
Some astronomers argue the flagship observatory — successor to the Hubble Space Telescope — will memorialize discrimination. Others are waiting for more evidence.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
China’s space station is preparing to host 1,000 scientific experiments
Researchers around the world are eagerly awaiting the completion of Tiangong, to study topics from dark matter and gravitational waves to the growth of cancer and pathogenic bacteria.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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News |
Astronomers push for global debate on giant satellite swarms
Working with the United Nations, scientists hope to establish standards for satellite ‘megaconstellations’ and reduce disruption of astronomical observations.
- Alexandra Witze
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Article |
Demonstration of a trapped-ion atomic clock in space
Operating in space, NASA’s Deep Space Atomic Clock, a trapped-ion clock, is shown to have long-term stability and drift that are an order of magnitude better than current space clocks.
- E. A. Burt
- , J. D. Prestage
- & T. A. Ely
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News |
The 2,000 stars where aliens would catch a glimpse of Earth
Scientists searching for extraterrestrial life should narrow their hunt to stars and planetary systems that have an occasional view of Earth as it passes in front of the Sun.
- Alexandra Witze
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Research Highlight |
The first known space hurricane pours electron ‘rain’
Earth’s upper atmosphere cooks up a storm.
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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
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News Feature |
Mystery gamma rays could help solve age-old lightning puzzle
Researchers in Japan are enlisting an army of citizens to explore how storms on Earth create extreme bursts of gamma radiation.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News Round-Up |
COVID vaccine allocation and a dramatic telescope collapse
The latest science news, in brief.
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Article |
Detection of large-scale X-ray bubbles in the Milky Way halo
Observations from the eROSITA telescope reveal soft-X-ray-emitting bubbles extending above and below the Galactic plane, which arose from energy injected into the Galactic halo from past activity in the Galactic centre.
- P. Predehl
- , R. A. Sunyaev
- & J. Wilms
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News |
Gut-wrenching footage documents Arecibo telescope’s collapse
Instrument platform crashed into the telescope’s dish, irrevocably ending the facility’s role in astronomy.
- Alexandra Witze
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Correspondence |
Explain ESA’s last-minute ditching of new space telescope
- David L. Clements
- , Stephen Serjeant
- & Shoko Jin
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News |
Legendary Arecibo telescope will close forever — scientists are reeling
New satellite image reveals the damage that shut down the facility, ending an era in astronomical observation.
- Alexandra Witze
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News Round-Up |
COVID in Kenya, science in space and Europe’s budget boost
The latest science news, in brief.
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News |
‘Like froth on a cappuccino’: spacecraft’s chaotic landing reveals comet’s softness
Detective work reconstructs the final movements of the European Space Agency’s Philae probe.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Article |
The Philae lander reveals low-strength primitive ice inside cometary boulders
When the Philae lander bounced on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, it exposed primitive icy-dust material within cometary boulders; the intrinsic strength and porosity of this material is reported.
- Laurence O’Rourke
- , Philip Heinisch
- & Holger Sierks
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Review Article
| Open AccessArray programming with NumPy
NumPy is the primary array programming library for Python; here its fundamental concepts are reviewed and its evolution into a flexible interoperability layer between increasingly specialized computational libraries is discussed.
- Charles R. Harris
- , K. Jarrod Millman
- & Travis E. Oliphant
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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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News Round-Up |
COVID-19 immunity, scorching temperatures and telescope accident
The latest science news, in brief.
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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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News Round-Up |
Twitter’s saddest fortnight and bizarre quantum matter in space
The latest science news, in brief.
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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 |
Is this telescope-on-a-plane worth its pricetag?
NASA’s high-flying SOFIA observatory has struggled to prove its scientific worth.
- Alexandra Witze
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News Round-Up |
Coronavirus volunteers, bushfire deaths and a telescope delay
The latest science news, in brief.
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News |
How the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the world's biggest physics experiments
Many major facilities have essentially shut down, but some are soldiering on.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News |
Coronavirus pandemic threatens launch of world's most-expensive telescope
NASA halts work on the US$8.8-billion James Webb Space Telescope, which was due to launch next year.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
How China is planning to go to Mars amid the coronavirus outbreak
The launch is on track for July, as Europe and Russia announce a two-year delay in their journey to the red planet.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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Obituary |
Katherine Johnson (1918–2020)
NASA mathematician who calculated trajectories for early space flights.
- Margot Lee Shetterly
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Obituary |
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020)
Nuclear physicist, polymath, disarmament pioneer and government adviser.
- Phillip F. Schewe
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News Round-Up |
HIV vaccine failure, coronavirus papers and an unprecedented glimpse of the Sun
The latest science news, in brief.
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News |
World’s most powerful solar telescope is up and running
First images from a new Sun observatory in Hawaii show churning plasma in unprecedented detail.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
World’s largest radio telescope needs to hit US$1-billion target
Countries won’t say how much they have pledged to the Square Kilometre Array in Australia and South Africa.
- Sarah Wild
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News |
How the fight over a Hawaii mega-telescope could change astronomy
Thirty Meter Telescope controversy is forcing scientists to grapple with how their research affects Indigenous peoples.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
SpaceX tests black satellite to reduce ‘megaconstellation’ threat to astronomy
Latest launch includes ‘DarkSat’ prototype to reduce reflection from fleets of broadband Internet satellites.
- Alexandra Witze
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News Q&A |
How one astronomer hears the Universe
Wanda Diaz Merced is a blind astronomer who says that converting astronomical data into sound could bring discoveries that conventional techniques miss.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Editorial |
Parker probe kicks off a golden age for solar exploration
Humanity is finally getting up close and personal with Earth’s nearest star.
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Article |
Alfvénic velocity spikes and rotational flows in the near-Sun solar wind
Data collected by the Parker Solar Probe in the solar corona are used to determine the organization of Alfvén waves, revealing an increasing flow velocity peaking at 35–50 km s−1.
- J. C. Kasper
- , S. D. Bale
- & N. A. Schwadron
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News & Views |
A step closer to the Sun’s secrets
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is currently making a series of close encounters with the Sun. Initial observations from the spacecraft have improved our understanding of both the Sun and its environment.
- Daniel Verscharen