An article just published in the journal “Nature” describes the discovery of oxygen molecules in the coma of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It’s a surprising discovery, and in fact is the first time that this presence is detected in a comet because molecular oxygen is very reactive so it tends to combine for example with hydrogen to form water. This oxygen is a “survivor” from the time of formation of the solar system.
An article published in recent days in the journal “Science” describes research that has used the technique of asteroseismology to estimate the intensity of the magnetic fields in the vicinity of the cores of some red giants. This allowed to establish that their intensity can also be 10 million times greater than the Earth’s magnetic field. It’s the first time that scientists have been able to investigate within this type of star.
An article just published in the journal “Science Advances” describes a research about Comet Lovejoy, cataloged as C/2014 Q2. A team of researchers led by Nicolas Biver at the Observatoire de Meudon, France, analyzed the compounds emitted together with water when the comet passed close to the Sun, on January 30, 2015, and found 21 different organic molecules including ethyl alcohol and glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar.
An international team led by the astronomer Hakim Atek of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe over 250 dwarf galaxies that existed between 600 and 900 million years after the Big Bang. It’s one of the largest samples of dwarf galaxies discovered so far dating back to such a remote era and allows us to look into the universe at a young age providing useful information to understand its evolution.
An article published in “Astrophysical Journal” describes a research on a couple of very special stars. The binary system called VFTS 352 is in fact composed of two stars that are touching and these stars are the largest discovered to date in this situation. An international team of astronomers used ESO’s VLT (Very Large Telescope) to observe this double star, also to try to understand what kind of development could have.
