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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The automated detection of transient phenomena in the sky has developed rapidly in recent years, driven by robotic telescopes such as the Zwicky Transient Facility and the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. Here the authors summarize the state of the art and look ahead to more discoveries during the Legacy Survey of Space and Time era.

The application of state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to Euclid’s first quick data release has enabled the discovery of around 500 new strong gravitational lenses, validating predictions that next-generation surveys will substantially extend the reach of strong lensing science.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Survey’s latest results indicate a tension between observations and the cosmological constant model of dark energy. This Perspective puts these findings in context and suggests a way forward for dark energy research.

Recent results from the Dark Energy Survey add to growing—but still tentative—evidence that dark energy may evolve with time rather than remaining constant. This Perspective presents these tensions and explores their potential implications for cosmology.

The infrared view of JWST has opened up the early Universe to study. This Perspective summarizes the key developments in our understanding of the high-redshift Universe from the first 18 months of JWST observations.

This third Perspective in a short series provides succinct advice on writing proposals: for telescope or computer time, for research fellowships and other job applications.

China is planning to launch its Tianwen-3 mission, with the purpose of bringing back a sample from Mars, by the end of the decade. This Perspective presents the scientific objectives and architecture of Tianwen-3, including a preliminary selection of landing sites and a description of the Mars Sample Laboratory that will curate the material on Earth.

Terraforming Mars is widely discussed but rarely studied rigorously. This Perspective advocates for more research on the topic, ranging from warming methods to biological engineering, to clarify feasibility, costs, ethics and planetary impacts before any ambitious, large-scale attempts.

This Perspective follows the journey of the sample returned from asteroid Ryugu by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft from collection to curation and presents the main results from its analysis so far. The piece highlights the implications for our knowledge of early Solar System processes and lessons for future sample return missions.

This Perspective looks forwards to the next decade of X-ray astronomy, explaining how it will contribute to better understanding of the high-energy Universe. In this context, the authors describe the NewAthena mission, a concept led by the European Space Agency.

Hydrothermal environments are sites of high astrobiological importance. Examining the behaviour of organic molecules in hydrothermal analogues from Earth could help in interpreting observations of hydrothermal settings on other planetary bodies, especially Mars.

Various observer programmes, in which early-career scientists participate in science meetings for NASA’s planetary missions, have been set up in recent years. This Perspective analyses the effectiveness of two such programmes: InSightSeers and DART Boarders.

The maturation of low-frequency radio astronomy instruments has further opened the magnetic environment of stars to investigation, yielding indications of star–planet interactions and coronal mass ejections in stellar systems other than our own.

Serpentinization — the metamorphism of rocks involving large amounts of water — includes many different aspects linked to habitability and offers a more reliable indicator of habitable conditions in the Solar System than a single diagnostic, such as water.

This Perspective presents the evidence in favour of and against the existence of an ancient ocean covering the Martian northern plains (Vastitas Borealis), discussing in particular the contribution of the Chinese Zhurong rover observations in supporting the presence of an ocean and the key role of the upcoming sample return.