Reviews & Analysis

Scientists asking whether we are alone now see promising habitats in Earth-like worlds orbiting small stars and in deep oceans under thick ice layers, hinting that life may be common and that our old ways of estimating its prevalence need a rethink.

Spectra of temperate sub-Neptunes reveal strikingly different atmospheric chemistries, hinting at diverse origins and interiors.

Assuming that it could be launched or constructed in situ, a 99-m-diameter starshade in orbit around Earth, coupled with ground-based extremely large telescopes and their adaptive optics systems, could image an exo-Earth at a distance of several parsecs.

Long-period transients are repeating radio pulses of mysterious origin with minute-to-hour periods. The longest-lived of these — GPM J1839–10 — is now shown to be a binary system and seemingly mirrors the more rapid white dwarf pulsars, in which interaction of a stellar remnant with a companion star generates powerful radio beams.

Juno’s radio occultations have been used to refine the shape of Jupiter with sub-kilometre precision, revealing equatorial and polar radii that are slightly smaller than long-used values. The results tighten constraints on the planet’s interior structure and its winds.

A survey conducted among members of the Spanish Astronomical Society assessed the well-being, professional satisfaction and family–work balance of researchers in astronomy, finding trends across gender and career stages.

JWST spectroscopy of the heavily obscured galactic nucleus IRAS 07251–0248 reveals an extremely rich inventory of small gas-phase hydrocarbons, pointing to extensive processing and fragmentation of carbonaceous grains and complex organic molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

The “Tensions in Cosmology 2025” conference brought together over 130 researchers in Corfu, Greece, to assess the status of the Hubble constant (H₀), structure growth parameter (S₈), and other emerging cosmological anomalies in the era of precision data from DESI, JWST, ACT, and other facilities. This Meeting Report summarizes the main discussions, the new results presented, and their implications for addressing the growing set of tensions with ΛCDM.

Though understood to exist in large numbers, intermediate-mass black holes are difficult to identify. This Perspective makes a case for the use of time-domain variability studies to increase the known intermediate-mass black hole population.

The generation mechanism of planetary magnetic fields in massive Earth-like planets (super-Earths) is uncertain. Now, shock experiments on a magma ocean analogue (Mg,Fe)O suggest that magma becomes metallic and electrically conductive under high pressures. This finding indicates that deep magma oceans in super-Earths might be metallic enough to produce strong magnetic fields.

The discovery of an unusual type of Wolf–Rayet star that does not go through a carbon-rich transitional phase should help to explain strong ionization in environments that lack heavier elements, while also forcing astronomers to rethink how the most massive stars evolve.

How material is transported in sufficient amounts to explain the observed surface chemistry of red giants is a long-standing puzzle. Three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations now provide a natural explanation by revealing that stellar rotation dramatically enhances wave-driven mixing in red giants.

Observations of a solar flare with high temporal–spatial resolution suggest that chromospheric condensation quasi-periodic pulsations cannot be driven by magnetohydrodynamic sausage-mode waves but instead stem from oscillation reconnection.

Jupiter’s moon Europa hosts an underground ocean of liquid water at debated depth. A creative analysis from a spacecraft designed to study Jupiter provides new constraints on the depth of that ocean.

Synergies between JWST and ALMA are providing a multiwavelength view of galaxies, active galactic nuclei and the interstellar medium at high redshifts. This Review provides an overview of results so far and identifies areas for future development.

JWST observations of WASP-107 b reveal extended pre-transit and post-transit helium absorption, suggesting the planet has a giant escaping atmosphere. The results provide fresh insight into the planet’s inflated envelope, mass loss and migratory past, and demonstrate the power of long-baseline transit spectroscopy for tracing exoplanet evolution.

When icy ocean worlds in the outer Solar System experience episodes of heating, their ice shells thin. Modelling shows that this thinning can lead to boiling of the ocean beneath the ice shell, or to compressional faulting — and that the outcome is determined by the size of the moon.

This year, the latest in an annual series of Fast Radio Burst conferences was held as a fully hybrid experience from 7–11 July at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Marking ten years since the first repeating fast radio burst was discovered, more than 200 scientists at FRB 2025 discussed the latest results in the field and charted a course for future experiments.

The Lamat programme supports undergraduate scholars from marginalized backgrounds to pursue scientific endeavours in astronomy and the planetary scientists by tailoring content to their specific strengths.