Nature Astronomy

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 22 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02873-y An ALMA polarization survey towards 30 massive star-forming regions reveals that chaotic turbulence, rather than ordered magnetism, governs the formation of stellar cluster seeds, reshaping our understanding of how the most massive stars are born.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02880-z Supernovae and their systematics

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02881-y Exoplanetary cautionary tales

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02883-w Recent advances from exoplanetary atmospheric characterization and sample return are ushering the search for life into a data-rich but more complex era. Accounting for false positives and negatives and defining the abiotic baseline will be crucial to interpreting increasingly ambiguous biosignatures.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02844-3 Since the time of Galileo, the Sun’s ‘differential rotation’, with a fast equator and slow poles, has been a longstanding mystery of solar physics. New supercomputer simulations suggest that most solar-type stars generally exhibit this type of differential rotation.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02878-7 Nitrogen-rich field stars tricking the clock

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02879-6 Little red dots challenge theory

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02867-w Experimental investigations of biomorphs — abiotic structures that mimic the morphology of life — provide essential control data for biosignature interpretation. On planets where chemistry never quite became life, these experiments may hold the key for detecting and understanding extraterrestrial origin of life scenar…

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02861-2 Asteroid Ryugu contains all of the five nucleobases utilized in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). A new analysis links chemistry within primitive accreting planetary bodies to the distributions of key prebiotic molecules.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 20 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02872-z Multi-viewpoint and coordinated observations unravel the unexpected failure of a violent solar eruption, driven by a dynamic, competitive interplay between internal and external reconnection processes.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 20 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02875-w A non-star-forming, non-rotating galaxy less than two billion years after the Big Bang has been identified using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Galaxies of this type should be rare in the early Universe and are generally thought to represent the endpoint of galaxy evolution.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 18 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02889-4 Author Correction: The bound origin of low-mass stellar binaries

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02874-x Strong gravitational lensing effects are extracted from realistic simulations of black hole movies, revealing the underlying spacetime geometry and opening new possibilities for future black hole observations.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02848-z The multiwavelength observatory INTEGRAL operated for 22 years and facilitated progress across a breadth of astrophysical topics. This Review outlines some of INTEGRAL’s key achievements and highlights its legacy potential.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 14 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02865-y On our bookshelf

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 13 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02866-x Stellar occultation observations reveal that the trans-Neptunian object 2002 XV93, which has a radius of only ~250 km, is surrounded by a very tenuous atmosphere. The result shows that even a small distant icy body can host a detectable atmosphere, at least transiently.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 11 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02864-z The degree of diversity of molecular species within amino-acid and fatty-acid assemblages distinguishes biological from abiotic samples, suggesting that molecular distribution patterns could serve as a biosignature for detecting life beyond Earth.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 11 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02862-1 Across four millennia, astronomy in Iraq has endured collapse and renewal, shaped not only by institutions but by the sustained contributions of women. This Comment traces how resilience, mentorship, and international connection continue to rebuild a scientific tradition under constraint.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 07 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02847-0 Gravitational-wave data reveal evidence for the pair-instability mass gap and a population of high-mass black hole mergers formed in star clusters. The measurement also constrains the nuclear reaction that regulates carbon–oxygen production in massive stars.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 06 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02857-y HST and JWST observations of four nearby galaxies show that massive young star clusters disperse their natal gas faster than low-mass clusters, with key implications for star formation, stellar feedback and planet formation models.