Astronomy and planetary science articles from across Nature Portfolio

At the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, participants of the rapid response workshop on the gravitational wave background explored discrepancies between experimental results and theoretical models for a background originating from supermassive black hole binary mergers. Underestimated theoretical and/or experimental uncertainties are likely to be the explanation. Another key focus was the wide variety of search methods for supermassive black hole binaries, with the conclusion that the most compelling detections would involve systems exhibiting both electromagnetic and gravitational wave signatures.

Observations of polarized thermal emission from dust grains in the protoplanetary disk around the HD 142527 protostar suggest that in part of the disk the polarization is caused by the magnetic field. The strength and structure of this magnetic field are deduced from these observations using a modelling approach.

A suborbital experiment indicates that centimetre-sized clusters of tribocharged submillimetre grains resist erosion by individual grains with collision speeds up to around 0.5 m s^–1. The stability of these charged clusters allows them to grow larger than uncharged clusters, enabling the formation of planetesimals in protoplanetary disks.

The transport of hydrothermal products within Enceladus, inferred from Cassini observations, is incompatible with numerical models, which predict ocean stratification beneath Enceladus’ South Pole, unless its ice shell is not in steady state.

Cha and colleagues present a translation- and rotation-equivariant autoencoder-based method for robust image recognition, which they demonstrate on diverse tasks from bioinformatics, material science and astronomy.

A millihertz frequency X-ray quasi-periodic oscillation has been observed near the innermost orbit of an actively accreting supermassive black hole and its frequency has evolved significantly over 2 years, a phenomenon that is difficult to explain with existing models.

The magnetic field structure of the protoplanetary disk around HD 142527 is derived from dust polarization observations. A magnetic field strength of 0.3 mG and its three-dimensional components were calculated using the distributions of the polarization vectors.

Stellar material falling back in supernova explosions plays a crucial role in the formation of magnetic fields for some magnetars. X-ray bursts of these ‘low-field’ magnetars are products of their complicated fields, produced in Tayler–Spruit dynamos.

The Schrödinger impact event carved two canyons on the moon comparable in size to the Grand Canyon of North America. The directions of those canyons imply little debris covers the > 4-billion-year-old units that will be explored by Artemis astronauts.

At the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, participants of the rapid response workshop on the gravitational wave background explored discrepancies between experimental results and theoretical models for a background originating from supermassive black hole binary mergers. Underestimated theoretical and/or experimental uncertainties are likely to be the explanation. Another key focus was the wide variety of search methods for supermassive black hole binaries, with the conclusion that the most compelling detections would involve systems exhibiting both electromagnetic and gravitational wave signatures.

Scientists studying the controversial 'running of the bulls' discover unique crowd movements they hope could prevent overcrowding deaths

Observations of polarized thermal emission from dust grains in the protoplanetary disk around the HD 142527 protostar suggest that in part of the disk the polarization is caused by the magnetic field. The strength and structure of this magnetic field are deduced from these observations using a modelling approach.

How Grand Canyon-sized lunar-valleys could have been carved in mere minutes.

Unusual detection bolsters evidence that the mysterious signals can be caused by different astrophysical events.

Samples from Bennu contain the chemical building blocks of life — but with a twist.