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Lense-Thirring precession after a supermassive black hole disrupts a star
Loewenstein, Michael; Pasham, Dheeraj R.; Guolo, Muryel +8 more
An accretion disk formed around a supermassive black hole after it disrupts a star is expected to be initially misaligned with respect to the equatorial plane of the black hole. This misalignment induces relativistic torques (the Lense-Thirring effect) on the disk, causing the disk to precess at early times, whereas at late times the disk aligns w…
Hydrogen sulfide and metal-enriched atmosphere for a Jupiter-mass exoplanet
Deming, Drake; Sing, David K.; Fu, Guangwei +15 more
As the closest transiting hot Jupiter to Earth, HD 189733b has been the benchmark planet for atmospheric characterization1–3. It has also been the anchor point for much of our theoretical understanding of exoplanet atmospheres from composition4, chemistry5,6, aerosols7 to atmospheric dynamics8…
A recently formed ocean inside Saturn's moon Mimas
Lainey, V.; Noyelles, B.; Rambaux, N. +4 more
Moons potentially harbouring a global ocean are tending to become relatively common objects in the Solar System1. The presence of these long-lived global oceans is generally betrayed by surface modification owing to internal dynamics2. Hence, Mimas would be the most unlikely place to look for the presence of a global ocean
A temperate super-Jupiter imaged with JWST in the mid-infrared
Henning, Th.; Morley, C. V.; Lagrange, A. -M. +16 more
Of the approximately 25 directly imaged planets to date, all are younger than 500 Myr, and all but six are younger than 100 Myr (ref. 1). Eps Ind A (HD209100, HIP108870) is a K5V star of roughly solar age (recently derived as 3.7–5.7 Gyr (ref. 2) and
The black hole low-mass X-ray binary V404 Cygni is part of a wide triple
Vanderburg, Andrew; Chakrabarty, Deepto; El-Badry, Kareem +7 more
Evidence suggests that, when compact objects such as black holes and neutron stars form, they may receive a 'natal kick', during which the stellar remnant gains momentum. Observational evidence for neutron star kicks is substantial1,2, yet is limited for black hole natal kicks, and some proposed black hole formation scenarios result in …
At least one in a dozen stars shows evidence of planetary ingestion
Bitsch, Bertram; Ting, Yuan-Sen; Dotter, Aaron +6 more
Stellar chemical compositions can be altered by ingestion of planetary material1,2 and/or planet formation, which removes refractory material from the protostellar disk3,4. These `planet signatures' appear as correlations between elemental abundance differences and the dust condensation temperature3,5,6. Detecting …
Inhomogeneous terminators on the exoplanet WASP-39 b
Carter, Aarynn L.; Helling, Christiane; Mayne, Nathan +40 more
Transmission spectroscopy has been a workhorse technique used over the past two decades to constrain the physical and chemical properties of exoplanet atmospheres1–5. One of its classical key assumptions is that the portion of the atmosphere it probes—the terminator region—is homogeneous. Several works from the past decade, however, hav…
Gravitational instability in a planet-forming disk
Dong, Ruobing; Tang, Ya-Wen; Teague, Richard +7 more
The canonical theory for planet formation in circumstellar disks proposes that planets are grown from initially much smaller seeds1–5. The long-considered alternative theory proposes that giant protoplanets can be formed directly from collapsing fragments of vast spiral arms6–11 induced by gravitational instability12–14<…
Thermonuclear explosions on neutron stars reveal the speed of their jets
Kuulkers, Erik; Degenaar, Nathalie; Sánchez-Fernández, Celia +6 more
Relativistic jets are observed from accreting and cataclysmic transients throughout the Universe, and have a profound impact on their surroundings1,2. Despite their importance, their launch mechanism is not known. For accreting neutron stars, the speed of their compact jets can reveal whether the jets are powered by magnetic fields anch…
Most nearby young star clusters formed in three massive complexes
Reffert, Sabine; Meingast, Stefan; Alves, João +9 more
Efforts to unveil the structure of the local interstellar medium and its recent star-formation history have spanned the past 70 years (refs. 1-6). Recent studies using precise data from space astrometry missions have revealed nearby, newly formed star clusters with connected origins7-12. Nonetheless, mapping young clusters ac…