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A group of researchers from IAS have identified ammonium-rich (NH₄⁺) phyllosilicates in samples collected at the surface of asteroids Ryugu and Bennu. This is a first for this type of extraterrestrial material. This discovery, published in Nature Communications, demonstrates that ammonium is a key component of nitrogen chemistry for all ‘primitive’ small bodies, whether they are carbonaceous asteroids or comets.
In November 2025, the ESA/Juice mission observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, a rare visitor from another stellar system. On this occasion, the MAJIS instrument detected emissions of water vapor and carbon dioxide, revealing strong cometary activity shortly after its closest approach to the Sun. These observations reflect the sublimation of ices buried beneath the surface, released due to solar heating. The outgassing rate, estimated at about 2 tonnes per second, indicates a particularly active process.
A study conducted by Tony Bonnaire (IAS, CNRS & Université Paris-Saclay) together with Raphaël Urfin and Giulio Biroli (ENS Paris, CNRS & PSL) and Marc Mézard (Bocconi University) sheds new light on a central question in generative AI research: how diffusion models — the key technology behind modern generative AI — manage to generalize efficiently before memorizing the data on which they are trained.
By analysing samples returned from the carbonaceous asteroids Ryugu and Bennu, an international team led by scientists at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS – Univ. Paris-Saclay / CNRS) has identified a class of primordial objects that may have contributed to the formation and early evolution of the Solar System.
The AGE-PRO collaboration, bringing together astronomers from Europe, America, and Asia, has unveiled news constraints on the evolution of dust and gas in protoplanetary disks thanks to an ambitious ALMA program targeting 30 sources. Through combined analyses of dust thermal emission and gas spectral lines, it appears that the gas reservoir available to form giant planets evolves more slowly than the dust reservoir.
