Transient astrophysical phenomena articles from across Nature Portfolio

Black hole (BH) masses can be estimated from tidal disruption events (TDEs). Here, the authors show that AT 2018cqh, a TDE, exhibits unusual X-ray characteristics consistent with a TDE scenario involving an intermediate-mass BH.

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 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.

Early high-resolution images of two 2021 novae reveal eruptions unfolding in multiple stages with colliding outflows that produce shocks and gamma rays, reshaping our understanding of stellar explosions.

An extreme flare has been seen from a supermassive black hole at redshift z = 2.6. First detected in 2018, it is 30 times brighter than similar events. The most likely cause is the shredding of a star of 30 solar masses or more.

Observations of multi-temperature stellar eruptions from EK Draconis reveal a solar-like yet complex view of stellar coronal mass ejections. Such frequent, powerful events on the young Sun may have shaped Earth’s early atmosphere.

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.

A coherent 909-Hz quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) has been detected, briefly, in the second brightest gamma-ray burst recorded to date, GRB 230307A. This burst originated from a merger of compact stars, and the QPO signal implies the presence of a millisecond magnetar, formed after the merger.

Supernovae were first recognized a hundred years ago, and despite much progress in understanding these catastrophic cosmic explosions, several fundamental properties remain to be determined. A deluge of high-cadence observations from new facilities and the availability of fast computers will accelerate the field into the next century.

A Spring meeting in Pittsburgh focused on fast radio bursts, recapping theoretical, observational and instrumental developments, while looking forward to upcoming advances aimed at learning more about these short radio flashes.