An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the study of the planet KELT-9b. This is an extreme case of hot Jupiter, a gas giant planet like Jupiter so close to its star to be considerably heated up. KELT-9b has an estimated surface temperature in the area exposed to its star that can exceed 4,600 Kelvin, so much that its atmosphere is likely to be dissipating in space and may have a tail similar to that of comets.
An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” describes a research about the growth mechanisms of supermassive black holes. A team of six Italian researchers led by Edward Pezzulli, a PhD student of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Rome proposed a model that predicts that these objects can reach masses even billions of times the Sun’s not with a steady growth but with periodic “meals” that are very quick during whith they swallow huge amounts of materials.
A little while ago the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was captured by the robotic arm Canadarm2 on the International Space Station. Jack Fischer, assisted by his colleague Peggy Whitson, managed the operation then started moving the Dragon to the berthing point at the Harmony module. The cargo spacecraft blasted off last Saturday.
A few hours ago SpaceX Dragon spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in its CRS-11 (Cargo Resupply Service 11) mission, also referred to as SPX-11. After just over ten minutes it separated successfully from the rocket’s last stage and went en route. This is the 11th mission for the Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station with various cargoes and then return to Earth, again with various cargoes.
A little while ago the astronaut Thomas Pesquet and the cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft, that landed without problems in Kazakhstan. The two of them spent more than six months on the International Space Station, where they arrived on November 20, 2016 as part of Expedition 50.
