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Positron annihilation in the Galaxy has been observed for half a century now, but the positron sources have not been identified yet. A rare class of supernovae is now suggested to be the main positron producer.
Using a sample of more than 200,000 publications over a 65-year period, it is found that astronomy papers led by women receive 10% fewer citations than those led by men, consistent with studies in other related disciplines.
The seabed of Ligeia Mare, a hydrocarbon sea at the north pole of Titan, may be a favourable place for the separation of nitrogen and the creation of bubbles that then buoyantly rise to the sea's surface.
Images from ESA's Rosetta mission show, in real time, the processes that sculpt the surface of a comet, which is revealed to have a pristine icy interior surrounded by an evolved surface.
The combined power of a space telescope, a large ground-based telescope and a gravitational lens made catching a small galaxy — 1/100 the mass of the Milky Way — at the cosmic reionization epoch feasible.
The biggest black holes in the Universe were in place soon after the Big Bang. Explaining how they formed so rapidly is a daunting challenge, but the latest simulations give clues to how this may have occurred.
The Sun is a magnetically active rotating star. Simultaneous observations with the STEREO and SDO space missions reveal solar analogues of planetary Rossby waves that will help forecast space weather.
Black holes grow by accreting mass, but the process is messy and redistributes gas and energy into their environments. New evidence shows that magnetic processes mediate both the accretion and ejection of matter.
The destruction of stars by supermassive black holes appears to be rarer than predicted. A candidate stellar disruption in a kind of galaxy that is usually obscured may explain why.
Spectroscopic and imaging data for low metallicity galaxies observed during the peak epoch of star formation offer detailed insights into the most distant galaxies discovered to date.
