The limits of our knowledge on light–matter interactions will affect the exploration of exoplanetary atmospheres. Accounting for these limits will prevent biased claims. Guided improvements will ensure maximum return on investment from the next-generation observatories, including the JWST.

Identifying energy transfer processes from macroscales down to microscales in collisionless plasmas is an indispensable step towards a complete understanding of various space and astrophysical systems. Here we demonstrate with observations that cross-scale wave-ion interactions are a candidate.

NASA's New Horizons data revealed a geologically complex past on Charon. Here, we show cryovolcanic eruptions released enough methane to source Charon's red polar cap. We observe methane and their products on other Kuiper belt objects, so this process could be important across the Kuiper belt.

We developed a protocol that may be used to monitor and minimise the microbiological contamination of planetary field analogues of icy moons in their analysis. It may serve as a test-bed for procedures of decontamination of samples from future landing/return missions to icy moons.

New insights on the composition of complex cometary organic matter unveil that dominating representatives are fragrant rather than polymeric, as had been suggested previously, and expose compositional and structural properties compatible with a scenario of inheritance from pre-solar times.