July 2024

The three primordial galaxies (Image courtesy JWST/NIRSpec, Bingjie Wang/Penn State)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the results of the study of three very compact primordial galaxies with characteristics that can’t be explained by current cosmological models. A team led by researchers from Penn State University used observations conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope within the RUBIES survey to examine three objects that were considered mysterious for their strange characteristics.

In an article published in the journal “Nature” the researchers had already proposed that those were galaxies, and the new examination of the data confirms that. We see them as they were when the universe was between 600 and 800 million years old but their emissions indicate that they contain stars that are already relatively old and supermassive black holes with masses that were already enormous, perhaps more than the one at the center of the Milky Way.

The Cheyava Falls Rock Found on Mars (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA’s Mars Rover Perseverance discovered a rock that contains chemical signatures and structures that might have been created by ancient Martian life forms. The rock, nicknamed Cheyava Falls, was found in Neretva Vallis during Perseverance’s journey inside Jezero Crater on Mars and was examined with the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument. The rock contains organic compounds, but it’s currently not possible to rule out that they formed through non-biological processes. The PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) instrument detected iron and phosphates in black halos on the rock.

Artist's concept of MACS J0018.5 with dark matter in blue and baryonic matter in orange (Image courtesy W.M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko)

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An article published in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of a study on the ongoing merger between two galaxy clusters that are forming a single new cluster cataloged as MACS J0018.5+1626, or simply MACS J0018.5. A team of researchers used data obtained from observations dating back even decades conducted with various space and ground-based telescopes, analyzing them to decouple the behavior of ordinary matter and dark matter.

To measure the speed of intergalactic gas composed of normal matter, they used the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect. The speed of dark matter is roughly the same as galaxies. The result is that dark matter moves faster than normal matter. This result offers clues about dark matter and its behavior that are useful in studies of its nature.

The rocks that include yellow crystals of pure sulfur in Gediz Vallis on Mars (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity found a Martian rock containing crystals of elemental sulfur, which means it’s pure sulfur. In the past, in the same area, the Gediz Vallis channel’s area, the presence of sulfur in various compounds was detected but it’s the first time that it was detected in its pure form. It’s such an anomaly that its discovery was compared to that of an oasis in the desert. A field with stones made of pure sulfur shouldn’t exist on Mars, and scientists following Curiosity’s exploration of Mount Sharp, at the center of Gale Crater, will have more work to do to explain its formation.

Artist’s Impression of a Hot Jupiter Progenitor with its star in the background (Image NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva (Spaceengine))

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports a study on the exoplanet cataloged as TIC 241249530 b which labels it as a progenitor of a hot Jupiter. A team of researchers used various telescopes to study TIC 241249530 b and try to understand its characteristics and evolution. This gas giant has an extremely eccentric orbit, meaning it’s extremely elongated, which could change greatly as time passes.

Observations and simulations suggest that the star’s gravitational action will drive this planet to have an almost circular orbit close to the star itself. This led the researchers to conclude that TIC 241249530 b is in the first phase of a planetary migration. The star is slightly more massive than the Sun and has an age estimated at just over three billion years, which indicates that these processes can begin well after the formation of a planetary system.