Peer-reviewed journal from Nature Portfolio publishing astronomy and astrophysics research, spanning planetary science, galactic evolution, and cosmology.
Astronomers used JWST data and a technique called transmission strings to map WASP-17b's atmosphere as a ring with raised 'gems'. The temperature contrast they found matches theory, so the result is a test of the method.
Reality
Curtin-led astronomers report that black holes differing in mass by millions of times appear to launch jets at the same stage of their feeding cycle. If the pattern holds, delayed radio flares after stellar disruptions could be timed from the feeding rate.
Reality
INAF-led researchers sorted 300 well-characterized multiplanet systems into two families that track host-star mass and metal content. In Nature Astronomy, the authors say the split holds up against detection bias.
Reality
Cornell and Bristol researchers applied transmission strings to JWST data and found WASP-17b's atmosphere more extended on one side. The shape matches theoretical predictions, so the study is a first test of the method on one planet.
Reality
MIT-led astronomers found a star about 300 light-years away slowly pulling material off a brown dwarf companion, a process that could last billions of years. One detection shows slow stripping happens, and working out how common it is will need a larger sample of such pairs.
Reality
Astronomers re-reading 1999 Hubble spectra of white dwarf HS 0209+0832 found unusually high niobium that may trace matter the star shed as it died. The team proposes that some of that debris built a gas giant hinted at in TESS data, though the planet remains a candidate.
Reality
Warwick-led astronomers tie niobium at over 1,000 times solar levels in a white dwarf to a candidate planet made from what the star shed as it died. If it holds up, it shows planets can still form after a star has died.
Perspective Coverage
6 publishersReality
Solar Orbiter flew through a large magnetic switchback and used the particles inside it to trace the kink to a source on the Sun's surface. The result comes from a single crossing, so it limits how switchbacks can begin but cannot yet say how most of them do.
Reality
MIT-led astronomers say ZTF J0440+2325, 300 light-years away, is the first system seen where one low-mass object steadily feeds on another. Nobody has settled how long the feeding can last, and published estimates run from hundreds of thousands to billions of years.
Reality
Two Nature Astronomy studies report a red dwarf drawing material off a brown dwarf and a white dwarf apparently fed by a second-generation planet. Each rests on a single system, so together they show that such feeding happens and leave open how often it does.
Reality
University of Arizona astronomers used JWST to detect carbon and oxygen flowing out of three galaxies seen 500 million years after the Big Bang. The result suggests heavy elements spread earlier than astronomers expected, though three galaxies picked from hundreds of spectra cannot yet show how common such outflows were.
Reality
University of Copenhagen researchers estimate at least 75% of Earth's mass came via pebble accretion and about three-quarters of Mars' from planetesimals. On this evidence, rocky neighbours can grow by different routes, though the models have to assume what the building blocks were made of.
Reality
Cambridge-led researchers plan to fly the suitcase-sized CosmoCube around the Moon and collect about 1,000 hours of Earth-shielded radio data over two years. It will listen for hydrogen's 21-centimetre signal from the roughly 150 million years before the first stars, an era no one has directly observed.
Reality
Hubble imaging and Gaia orbits separate a third population of ancient star clusters in the galaxy's inner regions, evidence of a dwarf galaxy swallowed about 11.8 billion years ago.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
Star formation has fallen to under half its rate of 4.5 billion years ago, but a FAST and DESI measurement finds the atomic hydrogen reservoir down only about a third, which moves the bottleneck downstream.
Reality
The 84 detections came out of public Chandra data on six galaxies with no new observing time, and the class is defined by a spectral shape that co-author Jimmy Irwin thinks may cover three different kinds of stellar remnant.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
Astronomers find white dwarf RXJ0528+2838 has sustained a bow shock for at least 1,000 years with no disc to power it. Its strong magnetic field may account for part of that, and the team says an unexplained energy source may supply the rest.
Reality
A hand search of public JWST spectra turned up three galaxies whose outflowing gas carried carbon, oxygen and silicon 500 million years after the Big Bang. The search was done by eye, so the three cases show that enrichment happened while leaving its frequency open.
Reality
A chapter in the SKAO's 2026 science book sets out how the Square Kilometre Array could read auroral radio emission from planets around ultracool dwarfs, the one target class with radio detections going back decades.
Reality
Yale researchers read the original makeup of planetesimals that melted so thoroughly their textures vanished, and place the Solar System's preference for heat-formed rock beads inside the first million years.
Reality
Science · September 10, 2026 · One report1 publisher