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An international team of scientists may have solved a key mystery about the origins of the Earth's water, after uncovering persuasive new evidence pointing to an unlikely culprit - the Sun. In a new paper published today in the journal Nature Astronomy , a team of researchers from the UK, Australia and America describe how new analysis of an ancient asteroid suggests that extraterrestrial dust grains carried water to Earth as the planet formed.

New research into the powerful magnetic fields which form inside the sun and cause violent eruptions could help predict solar flares. Mathematicians and astrophysicists from the UK and Italy have comprehensively modelled the emergence of twisted magnetic fields into the solar atmosphere, and verified their models through observations - a breakthrough in scientific understanding of the process by which solar flares occur.

An international team involving UCL researchers has developed a computer model of the powerful jets released by the M87 black hole, matching the observations of astronomers and providing new support for the theory of general relativity. The black hole launches a jet of plasma at very close to the speed of light, a so-called relativistic jet, over a distance of more than 6,000 light years (that is, the jet extends beyond the giant galaxy in which the black hole resides).

The largest catalogue of gravitational wave events ever assembled has been released today, with dozens of ripples in space time captured by a global network of detectors. The aftershocks of huge astronomical events, including rare mergers of neutron stars and black holes, were picked up by an international team of scientists, include experts from Cardiff University's Gravity Exploration Institute.

The capabilities of a UCL-led panoramic camera system that will guide the search for life on Mars atop the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover are being tested ahead of the rover's launch next year. A replica of the rover and the Panoramic Camera suite known as PanCam are being used to test the wide range of photo settings - from panoramas to close-ups, from 3D maps to wheel selfies - that will deliver the greatest science possible during the ExoMars mission on the Red Planet.

Scientists have provided the clearest evidence yet of the processes that are killing off galaxies in nearby regions of the Universe. In a new paper released today, an international team of astronomers say the galaxies are being robbed of their molecular gas - the fuel needed to birth new stars - in a process that has, up until now, remained a mystery.

Global warming has caused extreme ice melting events in Greenland to become more frequent and intense over the past 40 years, raising sea levels and flood risk worldwide, finds new research involving UCL academics. Over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tonnes of ice has melted from Greenland's surface and flowed into the ocean - enough to cover the UK with around 15m of meltwater, or all of New York City with around 4500m.

A major new physics experiment has used four complementary analyses to show no signs of a theorised fourth kind of neutrino known as the sterile neutrino. Its existence is considered a possible explanation for anomalies seen in previous physics experiments. New results from the MicroBooNE experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory deal a blow to a theoretical particle known as the sterile neutrino.

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) is a scientific collaboration bringing together teams of astronomers around the largest European radio telescopes, as well as groups specialized in data analysis and modelling of gravitational wave (GW) signals. The international research team has today published in, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , a detailed analysis of a candidate signal for the since-long sought gravitational wave background (GWB) due to in-spiralling supermassive black-hole binaries.

Astronomers at the University of Warwick have joined partners around the world in launching a new online initiative, calling for volunteers to come forward and help to search for extrasolar planets. The online citizen project, Planet Hunters Next-Generation Transit Search (NGTS), is enlisting the help of the public to examine five years' worth of digital footage showing some of the brightest stars in the sky.

Results announced by the LHCb experiment at CERN have revealed further hints for phenomena that cannot be explained by our current theory of fundamental physics. The fact that we've seen the same effect as our colleagues did in March certainly boosts the chances that we might genuinely be on the brink of discovering something new Harry Cliff In March 2020, the same experiment released evidence of particles breaking one of the core principles of the Standard Model - our best theory of particles and forces - suggesting the possible existence of new fundamental particles and forces.

New methods of detecting ultra-low frequency gravitational waves can be combined with other, less sensitive measurements to deliver fresh insights into the early development of our universe, according to researchers at the University of Birmingham. Gravitational waves - ripples in the fabric of Einstein's spacetime - that cross the universe at the speed of light have all sorts of wavelengths, or frequencies.

Researchers at The University of Manchester, have been involved in an international collaboration to analyse the age and history of some of the Moon's youngest lava flows. The rock samples were collected by the Chinese National Space Agency during the robotic Chang'e-5 mission, which marked the first time any nation had collected rocks from the Moon since 1976.

Dark energy, the mysterious force that causes the universe to accelerate, may have been responsible for unexpected results from the XENON1T experiment, deep below Italy's Apennine Mountains. It was surprising that this excess could in principle have been caused by dark energy rather than dark matter.

A 900-year-old cosmic mystery surrounding the origins of a famous supernova first spotted over China in 1181AD has finally been solved, according to an international team of astronomers. New research published today (September 15, 2021) says that a faint, fast expanding cloud (or nebula), called Pa30, surrounding one of the hottest stars in the Milky Way, known as Parker's Star, fits the profile, location and age of the historic supernova.

Transporting a single brick to Mars can cost more than a million British pounds - making the future construction of a Martian colony seem prohibitively expensive. Scientists at The University of Manchester have now developed a way to potentially overcome this problem, by creating a concrete-like material made of extra-terrestrial dust along with the blood, sweat and tears of astronauts.

A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our Solar System. Hycean planets open a whole new avenue in our search for life elsewhere Nikku Madhusudhan In the search for life elsewhere, astronomers have mostly looked for planets of a similar size, mass, temperature and atmospheric composition to Earth.

A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our Solar System. Hycean planets open a whole new avenue in our search for life elsewhere Nikku Madhusudhan In the search for life elsewhere, astronomers have mostly looked for planets of a similar size, mass, temperature and atmospheric composition to Earth.

· New solar cycle clock resolves timings of solar activity, revealing the long and the short of the Sun's seasons. Research led by University of Warwick suggests the switching between seasons can be fast. The declining phase (or season) between maximum and minimum solar activity varies in duration by a factor of two between one roughly 11 year solar cycle and the next.

Record-breaking winter winds have blown large swathes of old Arctic sea ice into warmer waters, putting them at high risk of melting this summer, according to a new study by a UCL-led research team. Old Arctic ice, known as "perennial" ice, is ice that has survived at least one summer. It is thicker than new ice, is less prone to melting, and helps keep Earth cool in summer by reflecting sunlight.