December 2017

Wright Mons on Pluto (Image NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

An article published in the journal “Icarus” describes a research that suggests new possibilities for the gravitational effects of trans-Neptunian celestial bodies to generate heat on other celestial bodies close enough such as in the case of Pluto and Charon. A team of researchers examined the influence of that type of heating on bodies that may have very low temperatures but that under certain conditions can host underground oceans whose duration could be lengthened.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field galaxies seen by MUSE (Image ESO/MUSE HUDF collaboration)

A series of 10 articles to be published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” describes various aspects of the deepest spectroscopic investigation ever carried out with the MUSE instrument installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. An international team with many researchers focused on the Hubble Space Telescope’s Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) to measure distances and properties of 1,600 very dim galaxies, of which 72 were never detected before.