Space physics articles within Nature

Featured

  • Letter |

    It has long been suspected that the development of hydrodynamical instabilities can compress or fragment a molecular cloud (in which stars are born). One key signature of an instability would be a wave-like structure in the gas, although this has not yet been seen. Now, the presence of 'waves' is reported at the surface of the Orion cloud, near where massive stars are forming. The waves probably arise as gas that is heated and ionized by massive stars is blown over pre-existing molecular gas.

    • Olivier Berné
    • , Núria Marcelino
    •  & José Cernicharo

  • News |

    European Space Agency mission provides the first global map of a key climate variable.

    • Quirin Schiermeier

  • News |

    Most of the Solar System's comets may have been stolen from other stars.

    • Lucas Laursen

  • News |

    Realistic computational models of supernovae might soon solve a long-standing mystery.

    • Eric Hand

  • Books & Arts |

    Brian Greene, author of best-selling books The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, is a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, New York. As an orchestral work based on his 2008 children's book, Icarus at the Edge of Time, premieres next week, Greene discusses black holes and how music might portray the physics of warped space-time.

    • Jascha Hoffman

  • News |

    US President rallies support at NASA despite unpopular cuts to the Constellation rocket programme.

    • Mark Schrope

  • Letter |

    It has been inferred that, during the Archaean eon, there must have been a high concentration of atmospheric CO2 and/or CH4, causing a greenhouse effect that would have compensated for the lower solar luminosity at the time and allowed liquid water to be stable in the hydrosphere. Here it is shown, however, that the mineralogy of Archaean sediments is inconsistent with such high concentrations of greenhouse gases. Instead it is proposed that a lower albedo on the Earth helped to moderate surface temperature.

    • Minik T. Rosing
    • , Dennis K. Bird
    •  & Christian J. Bjerrum

  • News |

    Astrophysicists ponder whether ultrahigh-energy particles really do come from the centre of galaxies.

    • Eric Hand

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Space physics across other nature.com journals