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Carbon atoms are one of the most abundant chemical species in the earliest stages of star formation. They had been thought to be immobile on the surface of interstellar ice, but laboratory experiments now show that a significant fraction of carbon atoms can move on the surface and react — changing our view of interstellar organic chemistry.
Measurements of the redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen could be a powerful tool for precision cosmology, constraining fundamental parameters and probing the cosmological dark ages. However, practical challenges must first be addressed.
An ethical approach to research in extreme environments can lay the foundations for future space exploration that respects ecologies, is founded on authentic partnerships and supports co-learning from diverse communities of non-scientists.
Recent detection of polarized thermal emission from dust grains in a high-redshift, rapidly star-forming galaxy can give us an insight into the formation and evolution of magnetic fields in large-scale structures of the early Universe.
A quasar has taken part in the gravitational lensing of a background galaxy into an Einstein ring, which enables a remarkable measurement of the host galaxy lensing mass.
The Chang’e-6 mission plans to return geological samples from the farside of the Moon by 2025. The spacecraft will land in the four-billion-year-old Apollo crater within the South Pole–Aitken basin: three candidate sites within the crater have been identified and their scientific potential for sample collection has been explored.
The 21-cm absorption lines from neutral hydrogen at cosmic dawn are proposed as a probe to simultaneously study dark matter particle mass and cosmic heating history. By applying a statistical approach to simulated data this probe is shown to distinguish the effects of dark matter from those of cosmic heating.
A statistical study of the variable X-ray flux from individual knots within jets supports a model that identifies a secondary population of electrons as the source of the synchrotron emission in active galactic nuclei jets.
A dedicated method for analysing moderately saturated measurements from Swift’s Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope is used to perform a time-resolved analysis for the initial white filter exposure of GRB 220101A. This analysis reveals a rapidly evolving ultraviolet and optical flare, distinguished by extremely high luminosity and unexpected temporal behaviour.
New detector technologies and upcoming facilities will revolutionize sub-millimetre astronomy over the next decade. Experts in instrument science, data processing, observations, and state-of-the-art simulations met at the Lorentz Center in Leiden to discuss the most pressing science questions in the field.
Cosmological surveys aim to constrain the ‘gravitational slip’, a key signature of modified gravity — but an as-yet unknown force acting on dark matter could mimic the gravitational slip and invalidate the test. By additionally factoring in a measurement of gravitational redshift, future surveys could have the power to distinguish between these possibilities.
Observations of scattered X-rays from the Central Molecular Zone suggest that Sagittarius A* was much more active in the past, and moreover provide an approximate map of the location of the illuminated molecular clouds in the Galactic Centre.
The far side of the Moon offers unique advantages for science. A meeting at the Royal Society in London brought together planetary scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists and other stakeholders to discuss the future of astronomy from the Moon.
A rare observation of a quasar lens challenges the cold dark matter paradigm by accounting for anomalies with stochastic interactions of wave dark matter lenses.
Observations using JWST show water, probably from a subsurface ocean on Saturn’s icy moon, spewing into a large plume that extends far beyond the moon’s surface. This continuous outgassing results in a torus of water along Enceladus’s orbit and is so intense that the plume is the prime source of water across the Saturnian system.
The different roles of outflows in the removal of angular momentum from young stellar systems are becoming clearer with high-angular-resolution spectral-line studies.
