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The interstellar object ‘Oumuamua passed through the Solar System in 2017 and exhibited a puzzling combination of physical features. New work tells the story of this visitor.
Microwave measurements of water vapour from the Juno spacecraft show that Jupiter is enhanced in oxygen by roughly three times the solar abundance at the equator. The water abundance is important in understanding the formation of Jupiter, the structure of its deep interior, and the nature of its clouds and weather.
Spitzer revolutionized studies of active galactic nuclei through its high sensitivity and mapping speed at mid-infrared wavelengths. This Review summarizes key Spitzer insights on active galactic nuclei, including the properties of their dust and shocked gas.
Lyman-α blobs are spatially extended nebulae of hydrogen line emission that may hold clues for understanding the formation and evolution of massive galaxies at high redshifts. Recent observations and simulations suggest that multiple mechanisms can explain the origin of these objects, notably including gravitational cooling radiation.
Spitzer revealed the power of astrophysical polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules to probe the local physical and chemical conditions and processes, for example, establishing the relation between their abundance and galaxy metallicity for the first time.
Cosmology now has a standard model — a remarkably simple description of the Universe, its contents and its history. A symposium held last September in Cambridge, UK, gave this model a ‘health check’ and discussed fascinating questions that lie beyond it.
Extreme blazars emitting teraelectronvolt photons are ideal targets to study particle acceleration processes. The growing number of such sources has been critical for γ-ray cosmology, studying intergalactic magnetic fields and putting constraints on exotic physics.
This Perspective highlights the science opportunities and the vast discovery space of simultaneous observations from the LISA and Athena observatories, which would be missed if they were operated in different epochs .
