Turbulence is ubiquitous and occurs in our everyday lives on Earth, such as when milk is stirred into coffee, or in the stormy motions of the ocean and the atmosphere. Media in space and astrophysical systems can also develop turbulence, but the physics is different because the medium is in an ionized state (known as the plasma state) and the flow motion is strongly coupled to electromagnetic fields. Furthermore, space plasma is collisionless because the medium is so dilute that the particles do not collide with each other. How does plasma develop into turbulence? How is the fluctuation energy distributed in collisionless turbulence? Turbulence in space plasma remains a mystery in physics.  

An international research team from the Technische Universität Braunschweig and University of Tokyo in cooperation with Tohoku University, Kyushu University, Osaka University, and multinational research institutes has now demonstrated, for the first time, a reversal phenomenon of magnetic field rotation in space turbulence. A structure emerges within the unstructured space plasma. The results are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

A record-breaking cosmic signal has offered a rare glimpse of the early Universe as astronomers have detected and traced the most distant fast radio burst ever recorded, a powerful flash of radio waves that travelled for more than 10 billion years across the cosmos before reaching Earth.

The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through an S-shaped kink known as a ‘switchback’ in the solar wind’s magnetic field. By fingerprinting the elusive particles within the switchback, Solar Orbiter has traced its origin back to the Sun’s surface and revealed more about solar magnetism – the unruly instigator of dangerous solar storms.

A comprehensive model of the Cambrian explosion featuring "multi-factors coupling and multi-sphere driving". Supercontinent breakup and mantle plume activity served as the initial trigger of environmental change in the Neoproterozoic, the orogenic belts and subduction zones under the modern plate tectonic regime during Gondwanan assembly served as the long-term sustained driving force, and the extreme geomagnetic field served as an important environmental stressor. The coupling of these three factors jointly provided the genetic and environmental triggers, material basis, and ecological space required for the Cambrian explosion, and together they drove the milestone evolution of Earth's habitability.