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Astronomy and planetary science are the study of objects and phenomena that occur beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. This includes investigating stars and their interaction with each other and the planetary systems that orbit them.
Phase-curve observations of the ‘hot Jupiter’ exoplanet WASP-43b, made at mid-infrared wavelengths using JWST, provide evidence that fast winds limit the formation of methane on the cooler, cloudy nightside of the planet.
Observations have revealed a galaxy that stopped forming stars earlier than expected. This discovery offers clues about when the first galaxies emerged and sheds light on how stars formed when the Universe was in its infancy.
Computer simulations based on the prevailing cosmological model, ΛCDM, reproduce many observed properties of our Universe. But a study of coherent satellite motions in galaxy clusters yields discrepancies that challenge the definition of ‘today’.
Decametre radio observations are challenging due to the presence of the ionosphere. Here Groeneveld et al. present a strategy to correct for the ionosphere that allows them to make sharp decametre radio images from the ground with the LOFAR telescope.
Water loss to space late in Venus history is shown to be more active than previously thought, with unmeasured HCO+ dissociative recombination dominating present-day H loss.
The fast-spinning primary of the Didymos near-earth asteroid binary system was found to have a degraded top shape by the DART (NASA) mission. Here, authors find that these surface features observed in the asteroid are more likely to have been caused by collisional effects than by the YORP effect.
An ultra-weak magnetic field from Earth’s core lasting for at least 26 million years may have contributed to Earth’s oxygenation and further diversification of the Ediacaran fauna, according to single-crystal paleointensity data from igneous rocks in South Africa and Brazil.
The first set of results from a pioneering cosmic-mapping project hints that the repulsive force known as dark energy has changed over 11 billion years, which would alter ideas about how the Universe has evolved and what its future will be.