Nature Astronomy最新文献

{"title":"DART impact ejecta yields insights","authors":"Paul Woods","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02516-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41550-025-02516-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"9 3","pages":"322-322"},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143608344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sporadic radio pulses from a white dwarf binary at the orbital period","authors":"I. de Ruiter, K. M. Rajwade, C. G. Bassa, A. Rowlinson, R. A. M. J. Wijers, C. D. Kilpatrick, G. Stefansson, J. R. Callingham, J. W. T. Hessels, T. E. Clarke, W. Peters, R. A. D. Wijnands, T. W. Shimwell, S. ter Veen, V. Morello, G. R. Zeimann, S. Mahadevan","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02491-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02491-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recent observations have revealed rare, previously unknown flashes of cosmic radio waves lasting from milliseconds to minutes, with a periodicity of minutes to an hour. These transient radio signals must originate from sources in the Milky Way and from coherent emission processes in astrophysical plasma. They are theorized to be produced in the extreme and highly magnetized environments around white dwarfs or neutron stars. However, the astrophysical origin of these signals remains contested, and multiple progenitor models may be needed to explain their diverse properties. Here we present the discovery of a transient radio source, ILT J1101 + 5521, whose roughly minute-long pulses arrive with a periodicity of 125.5 min. We find that ILT J1101 + 5521 is an M dwarf–white dwarf binary system with an orbital period that matches the period of the radio pulses, which are observed when the two stars are in conjunction. The binary nature of ILT J1101 + 5521 establishes that some long-period radio transients originate from orbital motion modulating the observed emission, as opposed to an isolated rotating star. We conclude that ILT J1101 + 5521 is probably a polar system where magnetic interaction has synchronized the rotational and orbital periods of the white dwarf. Magnetic interaction and plasma exchange between two stars has been theorized to generate sporadic radio emission, making ILT J1101 + 5521 a potential low-mass analogue to such mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"17 2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143598903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Seafloor hydrothermal control over ocean dynamics in Enceladus","authors":"Mathieu Bouffard, Gaël Choblet, Hagay Amit, Gabriel Tobie, Ondřej Čadek, Filipe Terra-Nova","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02490-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02490-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Cassini observations imply that there is a global ocean underneath Enceladus’s ice shell with hydrothermal seafloor activity. Previous numerical simulations showed that convection in Enceladus’s unconsolidated core may produce a heterogeneous seafloor heat flux and hydrothermal activity, potentially explaining the South Polar ice thinning and plume activity. How the ocean transports heat and hydrothermal products is the missing piece of the Enceladus puzzle. Here we perform three-dimensional numerical simulations of the ocean dynamics using a very heterogeneous bottom boundary condition from three-dimensional hydrothermal core simulations. We gradually increase the heterogeneity amplitude of the bottom heat flux until its peak-to-peak value reaches 60 times its mean. We show that a strong zonal flow diminishes low-latitude heat transfer, whereas the heat flux remains efficient in polar regions, which explains the ice shell variations derived from gravity and topography observations. Using passive tracers, we predict rising times of hours to weeks, which are compatible with previous predictions. Our simulations confirm that a strong heterogeneous seafloor heat flux concentrates upwellings at the South Pole, thus efficiently transporting organic matter from hydrothermal vents to erupting plumes.</p>","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143598898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards sustainable space research in France","authors":"Alexandre Santerne, Héloïse Meheut, Didier Barret, Olivier Berné, Etienne Berthier, Agnès Ducharne, Jürgen Knödlseder, Aurélie Marchaudon, Thierry Pellarin, Aymeric Spiga, Peter Wolf","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02506-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02506-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Ten years ago, 195 countries signed the so-called Paris Agreement that aims to limit global warming within 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial time. According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this objective can be only reached if anthropocentric greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decrease to net zero by 2050¹. To achieve this challenge, all human activities, including scientific research, must become sustainable. In France, awareness on this topic is shared by a large fraction of the academic community². One third of the French research laboratories have already started evaluating their GHG emissions, using the public tool developed by Labos1point5^3,4. In 2022, the ethics committee of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) stressed that “the environmental impact of research should be considered as part of research ethics, in the same way as respect of human beings and experimental animals”.</p><p>In this context, research performed using space-based instruments is facing formidable challenges. They make an unequivocal contribution to society by benefiting from the unique conditions of space. However, space missions have a large carbon footprint^5,6,7, notably because they need to be launched by rockets that are difficult to decarbonize. Rocket debris and satellite re-entries are also impacting the stratosphere⁸ and the ozone layer⁹. Nevertheless, in January 2024, CNES (the French space agency), together with 15 other French national research organizations, committed to “contribute, through their research activities and changes in their operations, to meet the challenges of the ecological transition for sustainability”. In particular, they decided to be “an example in the application of the objectives of [France’s] ecological plan”. The European Space Agency (ESA) also committed to “reducing [their] greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by 2030 compared to the 2019 baseline”.</p>","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143582911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Photometric detection at 7.7 μm of a galaxy beyond redshift 14 with JWST/MIRI","authors":"Jakob M. Helton, George H. Rieke, Stacey Alberts, Zihao Wu, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Kevin N. Hainline, Stefano Carniani, Zhiyuan Ji, William M. Baker, Rachana Bhatawdekar, Andrew J. Bunker, Phillip A. Cargile, Stéphane Charlot, Jacopo Chevallard, Francesco D’Eugenio, Eiichi Egami, Benjamin D. Johnson, Gareth C. Jones, Jianwei Lyu, Roberto Maiolino, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Marcia J. Rieke, Brant Robertson, Aayush Saxena, Jan Scholtz, Irene Shivaei, Fengwu Sun, Sandro Tacchella, Lily Whitler, Christina C. Williams, Christopher N. A. Willmer, Chris Willott, Joris Witstok, Yongda Zhu","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02503-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02503-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has spectroscopically confirmed numerous galaxies at <i>z</i> &gt; 10. While weak rest-frame ultraviolet emission lines have only been seen in a handful of sources, the stronger rest-frame optical emission lines are highly diagnostic and accessible at mid-infrared wavelengths with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) of JWST. We report the photometric detection of the distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 at <span>(z=14.3{2}_{-0.20}^{+0.08})</span> with MIRI at 7.7 μm. The most plausible solution for the stellar-population properties is that this galaxy contains half a billion solar masses in stars with a strong burst of star formation in the most recent few million years. For this model, at least one-third of the flux at 7.7 μm originates from the rest-frame optical emission lines Hβ and/or [O <span>iii</span>]<i>λ</i><i>λ</i>4959, 5007. The inferred properties of JADES-GS-z14-0 suggest rapid mass assembly and metal enrichment during the earliest phases of galaxy formation. This work demonstrates the unique power of mid-infrared observations in understanding galaxies at the redshift frontier.</p>","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143569494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Warm gas in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole 13 billion years ago","authors":"K. Tadaki, F. Esposito, L. Vallini, T. Tsukui, T. Saito, D. Iono, T. Michiyama","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02505-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02505-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Quasars, powered by supermassive black holes, are among the brightest objects in the Universe. In the vicinity of a supermassive black hole, X-ray photons from an active galactic nucleus can heat the surrounding gas to several hundred kelvin. Here we report observations of dust continuum and carbon monoxide (CO) <i>J</i> = 13–12 and <i>J</i> = 14–13 line emissions at a resolution of 130 pc in a luminous quasar at a redshift of 6. We successfully detected these high-<i>J</i> CO line emissions from warm gas in a compact disk component. The CO luminosity ratio in the central region of the compact disk is consistent with theoretical models in which X-ray heating dominates the CO excitation and the gas column density is as high as 10²⁵ cm⁻². This finding demonstrates that high-resolution observations of high-<i>J</i> CO lines are promising ways to identify extremely dust-obscured quasars in the early Universe.</p>","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"127 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143569766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Abundant water from primordial supernovae at cosmic dawn","authors":"D. J. Whalen, M. A. Latif, C. Jessop","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02479-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02479-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Primordial (or population III) supernovae were the first nucleosynthetic engines in the Universe, and they forged the heavy elements required for the later formation of planets and life. Water, in particular, is thought to be crucial to the cosmic origins of life as we understand it, and recent models have shown that water can form in low-metallicity gas like that present at high redshifts. Here we present numerical simulations that show that the first water in the Universe formed in population III core-collapse and pair-instability supernovae at redshifts <i>z</i> ≈ 20. The primary sites of water production in these remnants are dense molecular cloud cores, which in some cases were enriched with primordial water to mass fractions that were only a factor of a few below those in the Solar System today. These dense, dusty cores are also probable candidates for protoplanetary disk formation. Besides revealing that a primary ingredient for life was already in place in the Universe 100–200 Myr after the Big Bang, our simulations show that water was probably a key constituent of the first galaxies.</p>","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143538427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Primordial water formed in the era of the first stars","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02483-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02483-0","url":null,"abstract":"State-of-the-art computer simulations show that the first water in the Universe formed in primordial supernova remnants 100 Myr after the Big Bang. This water enriched sites of future planet formation, leading to water mass fractions close to those present in the Solar System today.","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143538619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An 85-s X-ray quasi-periodicity after a stellar tidal disruption by a candidate intermediate-mass black hole","authors":"Wenjie Zhang, Xinwen Shu, Luming Sun, Rong-Feng Shen, Liming Dou, Ning Jiang, Tinggui Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02502-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02502-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>It is still in dispute whether intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) with a mass of ~10³–10⁵ solar masses (<i>M</i>_{<span>⊙</span>}) exist, which are the missing link between stellar-mass black holes (5–50 <i>M</i>_{<span>⊙</span>}) and supermassive black holes (10⁶–10¹⁰ <i>M</i>_{<span>⊙</span>}). The bright flares from tidal disruption events (TDEs) provide a new and direct way to probe IMBHs. 3XMM J215022.4-055108 is a unique off-nuclear X-ray transient that can be best explained as the TDE by an IMBH in a massive star cluster, although its mass is not well determined. Here we report the discovery of a transient X-ray quasi-periodicity signal from 3XMM J215022.4-055108 with a period of ~85 s (at a significance of &gt;3.51<i>σ</i>) and fractional root-mean-squared amplitude of ~10%. Furthermore, the signal is coherent with a quality factor of ~16. The significance drops to &gt;3.13<i>σ</i> if considering all light curves with sufficient quality for quasi-periodic oscillation search. Combined with the results from X-ray continuum fittings, the detection of quasi-periodic oscillation allows joint constraints on the black hole mass and dimensionless spin in the range of 9.9 × 10³ to 1.6 × 10⁴ <i>M</i>_{<span>⊙</span>} and 0.26 to 0.36, respectively. This result supports the presence of an IMBH in an off-nuclear massive star cluster and may allow the study of IMBHs through X-ray timing of TDEs.</p>","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":14.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143518770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Scientific writing in the age of AI","authors":"C. M. F. Mingarelli","doi":"10.1038/s41550-025-02493-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41550-025-02493-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18778,"journal":{"name":"Nature Astronomy","volume":"9 3","pages":"316-316"},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143518763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}