Astronomy and planetary science articles within Nature

Featured

  • News & Views |

    The means by which supermassive black holes form and grow have remained largely unclear. Numerical simulations show that the collision of massive galaxies can naturally lead to the creation of these objects.

    • Marta Volonteri

  • 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

  • Editorial |

    US astronomers' latest list of priorities holds valuable lessons for other scientific disciplines.

  • News & Views |

    Waves have been discovered in the molecular cloud surrounding the Orion nebula, generated by shearing flows in the cloud. This finding provides clues to the way filamentary substructures form in the interstellar medium.

    • John Bally

  • News |

    Dark energy rises to the top in decadal report ranking future astronomy and astrophysics projects.

    • Adam Mann

  • Letter |

    Ground-based telescopes can in principle make high-resolution, wide-field observations when fitted with ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO). These authors report observations of the core of the globular cluster M3 after a recent upgrade to their GLAO system. In natural seeing of 0.7″, the point spread function at 2.2-µm wavelength was sharpened to 0.3″ over a field of at least 2′. The wide-field resolution was enhanced by a factor of two to three over previous work, and extends to a wavelength of 1.2 ′m.

    • M. Hart
    • , N. M. Milton
    •  & E. Bendek

  • Review Article |

    For 350 years after Galileo's discoveries, ground-based telescopes and theoretical modelling furnished everything known about the Sun's planetary retinue. Over the past five decades, data from spacecraft sent to all the planets and some of their satellites have shown the diversity of Solar System bodies. Many planets and satellites have changed substantially since their birth, and violent events punctuate their histories.

    • Joseph A. Burns

  • Letter |

    Hitherto, 21-cm emission has been detected in galaxies only to redshift 0.24, although it is possible to measure the aggregate emission from many more distant, unresolved sources in the 'cosmic web'. Here the authors report a three-dimensional 21-cm intensity field at redshift 0.53–1.12. They co-add neutral-hydrogen emission from the volumes surrounding about 10,000 galaxies to detect the aggregate 21-cm glow at a significance of approximately four standard deviations.

    • Tzu-Ching Chang
    • , Ue-Li Pen
    •  & Jeffrey B. Peterson

  • Letter |

    These authors report the concentrations of hydrogen, chlorine and sulphur in the mineral apatite from a lunar basalt, and show that the concentrations are indistinguishable from apatites in common terrestrial igneous rocks. They conclude that both metamorphic and igneous models of apatite formation suggest a volatile inventory for at least some lunar materials that is similar to comparable materials within the Earth.

    • Jeremy W. Boyce
    • , Yang Liu
    •  & Lawrence A. Taylor

  • Editorial |

    The decade-late, over-budget arrival of SOFIA shows that NASA's practices need to change.

  • News & Views |

    An innovative way of mapping the large-scale structure in the Universe sidesteps the need to observe millions of galaxies individually. The approach holds promise for both astrophysical and cosmological studies.

    • Chris L. Carilli

  • News Feature |

    NASA and Germany have spent 15 years and billions of dollars on SOFIA, an airborne telescope that is about to produce its first results. Eric Hand asks whether the science will justify the cost.

    • Eric Hand

  • Letter |

    Circumstellar disks are an essential ingredient of the formation of low-mass stars, but it is unclear whether they are also required for the formation of stars more massive than about 10 solar masses. Clear observational evidence is needed, for example the detection of dusty disks around massive young stellar objects. Here, near-infrared interferometric observations are reported that spatially resolve the distribution of hot material around a high-mass young stellar object.

    • Stefan Kraus
    • , Karl-Heinz Hofmann
    •  & Leonardo Testi

  • News & Views |

    The Universe is expanding. And the expansion seems to be speeding up. To account for that acceleration, a mysterious factor, 'dark energy', is often invoked. A contrary opinion — that this factor isn't at all mysterious — is here given voice, along with counter-arguments against that view.

    • Eugenio Bianchi
    • , Carlo Rovelli
    •  & Rocky Kolb

  • Letter |

    Ultraluminous X-ray sources are the most luminous class of black hole located outside the nuclei of active galaxies. They are often associated with shock-ionized nebulae, though with no evidence of collimated jets. Now, however, it is reported that the large nebula S26 in the nearby galaxy NGC 7793 is powered by a black hole with a pair of collimated jets. The jets seem to be 104 times more energetic than the X-ray emission from the core.

    • Manfred W. Pakull
    • , Roberto Soria
    •  & Christian Motch

  • News |

    Competition is fierce as committee weighs NASA's planetary priorities.

    • Eric Hand

  • Letter |

    Type Ia supernovae form a class of cosmological 'standard candles', a property that led to the discovery of an accelerating Universe, but recent investigations have revealed that they are more complicated in nature. Here the authors report that their observed spectral diversity is a consequence of the random directions from which their theoretically asymmetrical explosions are viewed, and that this diversity is therefore no longer a concern in using them as standard candles.

    • K. Maeda
    • , S. Benetti
    •  & N. Elias-Rosa

  • Editorial |

    Biologists and astronomers approach data sharing differently, but both need better public outreach.

  • News & Views |

    The variety of stellar deaths is less than we thought. A compilation of new and archival data shows that two previously distinct subtypes of supernova are actually two sides of the same lopsided coin.

    • Daniel Kasen

  • Books & Arts |

    Antonio Santucci's great armillary sphere reveals how patrons sought immortality through science, explains Martin Kemp.

    • Martin Kemp

  • Letter |

    If the orbital velocity of an extrasolar planet could be determined, the masses of both the planet and its host star could be calculated using Newton's law of gravity. Here, high-dispersion ground-based spectroscopy of a transit of the extrasolar planet HD 209458b is reported. This allowed the radial component of the planet's orbital velocity to be calculated, and thus the masses of star and planet. Moreover, a strong wind flowing from the irradiated dayside to the non-irradiated nightside of the planet is suggested.

    • Ignas A. G. Snellen
    • , Remco J. de Kok
    •  & Simon Albrecht

  • News & Views |

    The masses of exoplanets have so far been inferred from the tiny gravitational pull they exert on the host stars. It is now possible to measure them from shifts in spectral lines arising from the planets' atmospheres.

    • Mercedes López-Morales

  • Letter |

    KBO 55636 (2002 TX300) is one of the Kuiper belt objects — specifically, a member of the water-ice-rich Haumea KBO collisional family. Here, observations are reported of a multi-chord stellar occultation by KBO 55636. Calculations show that KBO 55636 is smaller than previously thought and, like its parent body, is highly reflective. The dynamical age implies either that it has an active resurfacing mechanism, or that fresh water-ice in the outer Solar System can persist for gigayear timescales.

    • J. L. Elliot
    • , M. J. Person
    •  & A. Gilmore

  • News & Views |

    The use of stellar occultations to disclose unknown aspects of our Solar System is not new. But the latest such event to be reported involves an object that lies beyond the orbit of Neptune — and is a first.

    • Bruno Sicardy

  • Letter |

    A population of Saturn's small moons orbiting outside the main rings are less than 107 years old, which is inconsistent with the formation timescale for the regular satellites. They may have accreted at the rings' edge, but hitherto it has been impossible to model the accretion process. Here a simulation is reported in which the viscous spreading of Saturn's rings beyond the Roche limit gives rise to the small moons.

    • Sébastien Charnoz
    • , Julien Salmon
    •  & Aurélien Crida

  • News & Views |

    Simulations show that Saturn's nearby moons, after forming on the outskirts of the planet's main rings, get pushed clear of them. This model reproduces the moons' orbital locations and remarkably low densities.

    • Joseph A. Burns

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Astronomy and planetary science across other nature.com journals