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Publication of the LGL-TPE in the journal Nature Astronomy on May 22, 2024. Communication by CNRS Earth & Space on June 19, 2024. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most abundant ices in the Solar System. It has been detected in giant planet atmospheres and on their moons, on and around comets, and even in regions of Mercury, the Moon and Mars.

For nearly ten years, astronomers have been trying to demonstrate the existence of a massive object thought to be orbiting in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Although the hypothesis is widely debated, a recent study claims that the absence of such a body is statistically impossible. Now that Pluto is no longer considered a true planet, the Solar System counts just eight such bodies.

A team of CNRS planetary scientists 1 working in collaboration with astronomers from the University of Montréal has presented first evidence that the temperate exoplanet LHS 1140b could be an ocean world. Over the past few years, the planet, which is located around 48 light-years from the Solar System in the constellation Cetus, has been observed by the Hubble, Spitzer and TESS space telescopes, as well as by the ESPRESSO instrument mounted on the VLT telescope in Chile.

A team of researchers including French scientists from the CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes, and the Observatoire de Paris-PSL 1 have for the first time ever observed brown dwarfs orbiting very near bright stars-a feat for precise astronomical imaging. Out of the eight companions 2 imaged, the researchers determined that five were brown dwarfs, substellar celestial objects that are still poorly understood, neither stars nor planets but something in between.

The recent discovery of a binary system containing an extremely rare object, the most massive black hole (apart from SgrA*) ever detected in our Galaxy, calls into question the models for the formation of these bodies. Up until now, the Gaia space observatory has been used to observe the position and motion of stars, uncover the underlying structures of our Galaxy, and find new exoplanets.

Galactic winds enable the exchange of matter between galaxies and their surroundings. In this way, they limit the growth of galaxies, that is, their star formation rate. Although this had already been observed in the local universe, an international research team led by a CNRS scientist 1   has just revealed-using MUSE, 2  an instrument integrated into the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope-the existence of the phenomenon in galaxies which are more than 7 billion years old and actively forming stars, the category to which most galaxies belong.

Pulsars, small, very dense dead stars, emit electromagnetic radiation in the form of beams that sweep through space at regular intervals, rather like cosmic lighthouses. Now, recent observations of one of the nearest pulsars to Earth, the Vela pulsar, have caused a major stir in the scientific community: radiation around 200 times more energetic than any previously detected from this source has been detected at the H.E.S.S.

Thanks to the latest catalog from ESA's Gaia satellite, an international team, led by astronomers from Observatoire de Paris - PSL and CNRS, obtains the most accurate measurement of the Milky Way's mass. The subject of an article published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics on September 27, 2023, this study opens the way to important questions in cosmology, particularly on the relative amount of dark matter contained in our Galaxy.

Scientists have discovered fossil evidence of a cyclical climate on Mars, with wet and dry seasons like those on Earth. This environment, in which simple organic molecules have already been discovered, may have provided ideal conditions for the formation of complex organic compounds. This work opens up new prospects for research into the processes underlying the origin of life, of which no vestiges remain on Earth.

Publication of the CRAL in the journal Nature on December 6, 2023. Press alert of CNRS on December 6, 2023. Galactic winds enable the exchange of matter between galaxies and their surroundings. In this way, they limit the growth of galaxies, that is, their star formation rate.

An international team of scientists has discovered that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) 1 , the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, emerged from a long period of dormancy some 200 years ago. The team, led by Frédéric Marin 2 , a CNRS researcher at the Astronomical Strasbourg Observatory (CNRS/University of Strasbourg), has revealed the past awakening of this gigantic object, which is four million times more massive than the Sun.

Ammonia plays an important role in the mechanisms at work inside the planets Uranus and Neptune. Experiments carried out at the Laboratory for the Use of Intense Lasers (LULI) have reproduced the extreme conditions prevailing on these planets, and demonstrated the fusion of "superionic" ammonia ice. These results are reported in the journal Nature Physics.

  Dark matter remains a scientific mystery: it makes up 26% of our Universe's total energy density, but has never been observed. The CNRS and German research centres from the Helmholtz Association have joined forces to create the Dark Matter Lab (DMLab), an International Research Laboratory (IRL) focusing on the mysterious substance that is dark matter.

  Young stars are surrounded by discs of material from which future planets form. The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the chemical composition of the disc around the star J160532, which turns out to be rich in hydrocarbons. In recent years, observations  have shown that rocky exoplanets are very abundant around low-mass stars such as J160532.

Young stars are surrounded by disks of material where future planets are born. The James Webb telescope has revealed the chemical composition of the disk of the star J160532, rich in hydrocarbons. Observations in recent years have shown that rocky exoplanets are very abundant around "light" stars like J160532.

  By combining various techniques, scientists have successfully revealed the internal structure of the Moon. Their findings confirm that the Moon has a solid core, like the Earth. They also confirm the 'mantle overturn' and explain the presence of iron-rich elements at the surface of the Moon.

Publication of the CRAL in the journal Science on March 30, 2023. Communication of the CNRS-INSU on April 14, 2023. In this study, published in the journal Science , an international team involving French scientists from the Lyon Astrophysics Research Center (CRAL - OSUL, CNRS / ENS de Lyon / Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University) and the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris (IAP, CNRS/Sorbonne University) focus on one of the processes involved in the formation and evolution of galaxies.

WEAVE has carried out its first-light observations on Stephan's Quintet, a group of five galaxies, some of which are undergoing collision. They provide a demonstration of its exceptional capabilities and hold out the promise of major discoveries. WEAVE, a new spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope (Canary Islands, Spain), has successfully carried out first-light observations of a group of five galaxies called Stephan's Quintet, thus demonstrating its unprecedented capabilities and providing the astronomical community with the promise of many new discoveries.

For the first time in over a decade, scientists from the CNRS and the Institut de radioastronomie millimétrique 1 , together with international colleagues, have observed a tidal disruption event (TDE

Hipparchus' star catalog is the earliest known attempt to accurately determine the positions of fixed stars. Researchers have just found fragments of this missing text in an old manuscript. They show that Hipparchus' data were significantly more accurate than those of another catalog composed centuries later.