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Seeing Bennu through the eyes of OSIRIS-REx Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-22 Queenie H. S. Chan
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Astrophysics with continuous gravitational waves Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-21 B. Haskell, M. Bejger
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Dilution of chemical enrichment in galaxies 600 Myr after the Big Bang Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Kasper E. Heintz, Gabriel B. Brammer, Clara Giménez-Arteaga, Victoria B. Strait, Claudia del P. Lagos, Aswin P. Vijayan, Jorryt Matthee, Darach Watson, Charlotte A. Mason, Anne Hutter, Sune Toft, Johan P. U. Fynbo, Pascal A. Oesch
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Athena Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Paul Woods
James Stone started developing Athena in the mid-2000s, building on several years’ work on numerical methods for compressible magnetohydrodynamics in shocks. A couple of incarnations later, AthenaK is ready to face the exascale computing future.
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Modelling a long gamma-ray burst Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Sayali Avachat
The afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are important signatures to study the origin of these energetic transient phenomena. GRB221009A is the brightest known GRB so far and relatively close to us at z = 0.151. The burst lasted almost 1,500 s and at peak its kinetic energy was ~1055 ergs (as compared to the typical 1050–1054 ergs). GRB221009A provided an opportunity to test our theories and push the
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Three arms point to three stars Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Paul Woods
Most stars form in multiple systems, but because single stars are more straightforward to conceptualize and study theoretically and computationally, much of the research to date has been focused in that direction. In order to further develop understanding of how multiple systems form and evolve, observational examples of tertiary and higher-order systems have become sought-after study subjects. Jeong-Eun
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And it’s touchdown! Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Sayali Avachat
Chandrayaan – which literally means Moon-craft – is India’s series of lunar exploration satellite missions. Chandrayaan-1 (CH1) was the first deep space mission of the series, launched in 2009. CH1, which carried NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, was pivotal in the discovery of water molecules locked in the form of minerals. Subsequently, CH2, launched in 2019, observed the Moon’s surface for the extent
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Still hope for the atmosphere of TRAPPIST-1 c Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Luca Maltagliati
It is no surprise that the exceptional TRAPPIST-1 system got a fair share of JWST time, focused on atmospheric characterization. The first observations of the two closest planets, b and c, tempered our expectations, as both were compatible with a bare rock or a very thin atmosphere. This result, based on the 15 µm CO2 absorption band measured by the MIRI spectrometer, is consistent with the hypothesis
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Next stop the Moon Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15
The two Moon landing attempts of the Luna 25 and the Chandrayaan-3 missions in close succession are symbolic of the renewed international push to go back to the Moon on a more consistent basis, which is shaping up to be one of the main space exploration narratives of our time.
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Tracking transients night and day Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Alberto J. Castro-Tirado
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Carbon atoms can diffuse and react on the surface of interstellar ice Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-14
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Prospects for precision cosmology with the 21 cm signal from the dark ages Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Rajesh Mondal, Rennan Barkana
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A tilted dark halo origin of the Galactic disk warp and flare Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Jiwon Jesse Han, Charlie Conroy, Lars Hernquist
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Ethical considerations for analogue fieldwork in extreme environments Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Alessandra Marino, Fulvio Franchi, Lesedi Lebogang, Fernando J. Gomez, Armando Azua-Bustos, Barbara Cavalazzi, Ermias Balcha, Kennda Lynch, Shonil A. Bhagwat, Karen Olsson-Francis
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Surface diffusion of carbon atoms as a driver of interstellar organic chemistry Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Masashi Tsuge, Germán Molpeceres, Yuri Aikawa, Naoki Watanabe
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Whistler-mode waves in Mercury’s magnetosphere observed by BepiColombo/Mio Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Mitsunori Ozaki, Satoshi Yagitani, Yasumasa Kasaba, Yoshiya Kasahara, Shoya Matsuda, Yoshiharu Omura, Mitsuru Hikishima, Fouad Sahraoui, Laurent Mirioni, Gérard Chanteur, Satoshi Kurita, Satoru Nakazawa, Go Murakami
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Formation of lunar surface water associated with high-energy electrons in Earth’s magnetotail Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 S. Li, A. R. Poppe, T. M. Orlando, B. M. Jones, O. J. Tucker, W. M. Farrell, A. R. Hendrix
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Neptune periodically clouded with uncertainty Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-06 Paul Woods
Chavez et al. have examined ~26 years’ worth of HST near-infrared observations with the WFPC2 and WFC3 instruments (see top row of the image, where monochrome images have been artificially coloured), along with archival observations from the W. M. Keck and Lick observatories that cover the period 1994–2022 in total. Clouds appear bright against the dark planetary disk, and are often smeared longitudinally
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Magnetic dynamo active in the young Universe Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-06 Rainer Beck
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Monthly quasi-periodic eruptions from repeated stellar disruption by a massive black hole Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-07 P. A. Evans, C. J. Nixon, S. Campana, P. Charalampopoulos, D. A. Perley, A. A. Breeveld, K. L. Page, S. R. Oates, R. A. J. Eyles-Ferris, D. B. Malesani, L. Izzo, M. R. Goad, P. T. O’Brien, J. P. Osborne, B. Sbarufatti
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Transverse energy injection scales at the base of the solar corona Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Rahul Sharma, Richard J. Morton
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A JWST transmission spectrum of the nearby Earth-sized exoplanet LHS 475 b Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-31 Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, Guangwei Fu, E. M. May, Kevin N. Ortiz Ceballos, Sarah E. Moran, Sarah Peacock, Kevin B. Stevenson, James Kirk, Mercedes López-Morales, Ryan J. MacDonald, L. C. Mayorga, David K. Sing, Kristin S. Sotzen, Jeff A. Valenti, Jéa I. Adams Redai, Munazza K. Alam, Natasha E. Batalha, Katherine A. Bennett, Junellie Gonzalez-Quiles, Ethan Kruse, Joshua D. Lothringer, Zafar Rustamkulov,
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Spectral determination of the colour and vertical structure of dark spots in Neptune’s atmosphere Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Patrick G. J. Irwin, Jack Dobinson, Arjuna James, Michael H. Wong, Leigh N. Fletcher, Michael T. Roman, Nicholas A. Teanby, Daniel Toledo, Glenn S. Orton, Santiago Pérez-Hoyos, Agustin Sánchez-Lavega, Lawrence Sromovsky, Amy A. Simon, Raúl Morales-Juberías, Imke de Pater, Statia L. Cook
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A reproduction of the Milky Way’s Faraday rotation measure map in galaxy simulations from global to local scales Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Stefan Reissl, Ralf S. Klessen, Eric W. Pellegrini, Daniel Rahner, Rüdiger Pakmor, Robert Grand, Facundo Gómez, Federico Marinacci, Volker Springel
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High-redshift galaxies don’t fit the mould Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Morgan Hollis
Being able to accurately identify extremely distant galaxies is a crucial step in exploiting JWST to its full potential and achieving some of its primary science goals. However, standard photometric methods to do this rely on fitting templates that are based on much lower-redshift conditions, potentially introducing biases and inaccuracies into the process. Charles Steinhardt and collaborators seek
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Digging the grooves Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Paul Woods
Twelve Class 0 and seven Class I protostars were selected in nearby star-forming regions, enabling an angular resolution of 5–7 au. Three sources were found to have companions; one source was previously known to be a binary. The disks in these sources are embedded within their natal clouds, and careful separation of the disk emission is needed from background and foreground emission, requiring high
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Codes of honour Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17
A new regular column, Access Code, makes its debut in this issue. Access Code will focus on computational astrophysics, and in particular the models and programs that have supported astrophysical discoveries over the past few decades.
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Chasing habitable worlds with Tianlin Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Luca Maltagliati
None of the many telescopes coming in the next 10–15 years will be able in principle to perform a systematic atmospheric characterization of true Earth analogues — temperate rocky planets orbiting around G/K-type stars. The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), an infrared/optical/ultraviolet 6 m telescope proposed as a top priority for NASA by the latest Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics
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Deep impact releases boulder swarm Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Paul Woods
As a consequence of the DART impact, a substantial amount of ejected material was thrown into space. This process removed kinetic energy from the system, and needs to be accounted for when Dimorphos’s remaining kinetic energy is determined. HST has been periodically observing Dimorphos since the collision with DART, and in a HST/WFC3 optical image from approximately 3 months post-impact, shown here
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Umbrella-like stellar stream of NGC 922 Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Sayali Avachat
It shows a deep composite image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the DESI Legacy survey of the stellar tidal stream in tidal ring galaxy NGC 922. Examination of low-surface-brightness stellar structures in NGC 922 unveil complex umbrella-like features caused by interaction with nearby compact dwarf galaxy PGC 3080368 (or S2) — not seen in this image — along with the detection of a peculiar stellar
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Neutrinos from the Galactic plane Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Sayali Avachat
Neutrinos are produced in various astrophysical processes, such as nuclear reactions in the cores of stars, supernovae explosions, and high-energy phenomena like gamma-ray bursts and active galactic nuclei. The plane of the Milky Way — being a host of many of these high-energy events — is expected to be a significant source of neutrinos. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has now observed evidence of
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Europe’s Ariane woes Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17
With the retirement of Ariane 5, Europe lost its only heavy-lift rocket — one that carried most of ESA’s fleet of large astronomy missions. The long-term future of independent access to space for Europe is not straightforward and can complicate the European space exploration roadmap.
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Resolving the nature of hot cosmic plasmas Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Kyoko Matsushita
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Cloudy Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Paul Woods
Gary Ferland has been developing the photoionization code Cloudy for 45 years. The model has steadily been expanding in its coverage of parameter space, and focuses on the microphysics of irradiated environments.
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Evolutionary paths of active galactic nuclei and their host galaxies Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Ming-Yang Zhuang, Luis C. Ho
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Strong and weak pulsar radio emission due to thunderstorms and raindrops of particles in the magnetosphere Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 X. Chen, Y. Yan, J. L. Han, C. Wang, P. F. Wang, W. C. Jing, K. J. Lee, B. Zhang, R. X. Xu, T. Wang, Z. L. Yang, W. Q. Su, N. N. Cai, W. Y. Wang, G. J. Qiao, J. Xu, D. J. Zhou
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An irradiated-Jupiter analogue hotter than the Sun Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-14 Na’ama Hallakoun, Dan Maoz, Alina G. Istrate, Carles Badenes, Elmé Breedt, Boris T. Gänsicke, Saurabh W. Jha, Bruno Leibundgut, Filippo Mannucci, Thomas R. Marsh, Gijs Nelemans, Ferdinando Patat, Alberto Rebassa-Mansergas
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Breaking waves on the surface of the heartbeat star MACHO 80.7443.1718 Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-10 Morgan MacLeod, Abraham Loeb
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Where should Chang’e-6 collect samples on the farside of the Moon? Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-31
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Landing site of the Chang’e-6 lunar farside sample return mission from the Apollo basin Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-31 Xingguo Zeng, Dawei Liu, Yuan Chen, Qin Zhou, Xin Ren, Zhoubin Zhang, Wei Yan, Wangli Chen, Qiong Wang, Xiangjin Deng, Hao Hu, Jianjun Liu, Wei Zuo, James W. Head, Chunlai Li
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In pursuit of life beyond Earth Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Duo Cui, Lingyan Li, Siyao Yang, Xiuzhu Dong, Meng Zhang, Yeqing Sun, Tao Zhang, Qing Tian, Xuping Tian, Zhu Liu
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Evidence for baryon acoustic oscillations from galaxy–ellipticity correlations Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Kun Xu, Y. P. Jing, Gong-Bo Zhao, Antonio J. Cuesta
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The photometric variability of massive stars due to gravity waves excited by core convection Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Evan H. Anders, Daniel Lecoanet, Matteo Cantiello, Keaton J. Burns, Benjamin A. Hyatt, Emma Kaufman, Richard H. D. Townsend, Benjamin P. Brown, Geoffrey M. Vasil, Jeffrey S. Oishi, Adam S. Jermyn
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Introducing QUOTAS as a new research platform for the data-driven discovery of supermassive black holes Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Priyamvada Natarajan, Kwok Sun Tang, Sadegh Khochfar, Brian Nord, Steinn Sigurdsson, Joe Tricot, Nico Cappelluti, Daniel George, Jack Hidary
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Communicating astrobiology in words not numbers and with facts not fiction Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-20 Adrian Lenardic, Johnny Seales, William B. Moore, A. Mark Jellinek
Recently, NASA scientists and administrators have proposed a numerical scale for quantifying the Confidence of Life Detection — the CoLD scale1. Although the stated goal is to minimize damaging public trust with premature or overly confident claims of detecting life beyond Earth, the CoLD scale is an inapt and easily abused tool that will do little to address the misleading terminology and sensational
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Long-lived volcanic resurfacing of Venus driven by early collisions Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-20 Simone Marchi, Raluca Rufu, Jun Korenaga
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The JWST disk revolution is not being televised Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-19
Early JWST results on high-redshift galaxies have attracted a lot of press and much debate, but other areas of astronomy and astrophysics are also uncovering new understanding about the Universe with JWST, albeit with less of a fanfare.
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Discovery of X-ray polarization angle rotation in the jet from blazar Mrk 421 Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Laura Di Gesu, Herman L. Marshall, Steven R. Ehlert, Dawoon E. Kim, Immacolata Donnarumma, Fabrizio Tavecchio, Ioannis Liodakis, Sebastian Kiehlmann, Iván Agudo, Svetlana G. Jorstad, Fabio Muleri, Alan P. Marscher, Simonetta Puccetti, Riccardo Middei, Matteo Perri, Luigi Pacciani, Michela Negro, Roger W. Romani, Alessandro Di Marco, Dmitry Blinov, Ioakeim G. Bourbah, Evangelos Kontopodis, Nikos Mandarakas
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Probing the solar coronal magnetic field with physics-informed neural networks Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-13 R. Jarolim, J. K. Thalmann, A. M. Veronig, T. Podladchikova
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An aquatic exodus for eccentric exoplanets Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Morgan Hollis
The authors use a terrestrial global climate model to compare scenarios that differ only by the eccentricity (e), choosing the values e = 0 (circular orbit) and e = 0.4. The results show that the eccentric model has ~3 times the hydrogen and water loss than the circular case, the corresponding boost to the amount of water vapour in the upper atmosphere making the effects of clouds more significant
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A radio-emitting outflow from a tidal disruption event Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Sayali Avachat
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are cataclysmic astronomical phenomena that occur when a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole (SMBH), resulting in the star being torn apart by immense gravitational forces. Although TDEs are tracers of emission from the outflows or jets coming from close to the SMBHs, their broadband-radio detection is rare. In their article, Adelle Goodwin and colleagues
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Flinging giant planets to the Oort cloud Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Luca Maltagliati
Planetary evolution models and indirect observational evidence indicate that the architecture of the Solar System just after formation was substantially different from the current one, due to an early dynamical instability that rearranged the configuration of the giant planets. Some models suggest that we had five or six giant planets before one or two of them were ejected in the upheaval. It is assumed
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When will I see you again? Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Paul Woods
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) fall into two observational categories: those that repeat and those that are not seen to repeat. In the current sample of FRBs (O(103)) just 1 in every 14 bursts has been observed to repeat, but potentially all FRBs emit repeat bursts, with those after the first evading detection. There are no clear (astro)physical differences between the two categories, but there are hints
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The 21-cm forest can be used to probe both dark matter and the first galaxies Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-06
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The 21-cm forest as a simultaneous probe of dark matter and cosmic heating history Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-06 Yue Shao, Yidong Xu, Yougang Wang, Wenxiu Yang, Ran Li, Xin Zhang, Xuelei Chen
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Direct images and spectroscopy of a giant protoplanet driving spiral arms in MWC 758 Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-06 Kevin Wagner, Jordan Stone, Andrew Skemer, Steve Ertel, Ruobing Dong, Dániel Apai, Eckhart Spalding, Jarron Leisenring, Michael Sitko, Kaitlin Kratter, Travis Barman, Mark Marley, Brittany Miles, Anthony Boccaletti, Korash Assani, Ammar Bayyari, Taichi Uyama, Charles E. Woodward, Phil Hinz, Zackery Briesemeister, Kellen Lawson, François Ménard, Eric Pantin, Ray W. Russell, Michael Skrutskie, John Wisniewski
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Evidence for auroral influence on Jupiter’s nitrogen and oxygen chemistry revealed by ALMA Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-06 T. Cavalié, L. Rezac, R. Moreno, E. Lellouch, T. Fouchet, B. Benmahi, T. K. Greathouse, J. A. Sinclair, V. Hue, P. Hartogh, M. Dobrijevic, N. Carrasco, Z. Perrin
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Detection of the cosmological time dilation of high-redshift quasars Nat. Astron. (IF 14.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Geraint F. Lewis, Brendon J. Brewer
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