Some stars and planets situations

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An article published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports the discovery of an exoplanet candidate with a very high probability of existence, a super-Earth designated as KOI-456.04 whose estimated year is slightly longer than the Earth’s that orbits Kepler-160, a Sun-like star. A team of researchers led by René Heller of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany, analyzed old data accumulated by the Kepler space telescope using a new method based on the detailed physical model of the stellar brightness variation instead of the classic one based on the search for the tiny drops in brightness that occur when the planet passes between the star and the telescope. The analysis also led to the discovery of another exoplanet candidate designated as Kepler-160 d.

Artist's concept of W1200-7845 with its protoplanetary disk (Image NASA/William Pendrill)

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At the 236th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) held in recent days, on this occasion virtually and not in a physical place due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the discovery of the youngest brown dwarf of our cosmic neighborhood was announced. Named W1200-7845, it’s so young that it has a protoplanetary disk, a really interesting discovery because it will allow to study a possible planetary formation around an object that can be considered a failed star. This result came thanks to the Disk Detective program, which allows citizen scientists to examine astronomical images captured by NASA’s WISE space telescope, looking for protoplanetary disks. Its discovery allowed to conduct follow-up observations to study its evolution.

A section of the three-dimensional map of the galaxies of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey used for the analysis

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An article published in the journal “Physical Review Letters” reports a new estimate of the expansion of the universe based on the large cosmic structures formed by galaxies. A team of researchers led by Dr. Seshadri Nadathur of the British University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) used data about over one million galaxies and quasars collected over a decade by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to create an analysis that provided a measure of the effects of the mysterious dark energy that’s accelerating the expansion of the universe. Adding a new method of its calculation doesn’t necessarily lead to the right value, but can help understand why other methods provide incompatible results and where we might need to expand our knowledge of physics to obtain the right value.

Artistic representation of an extreme horizontal branch star with a giant star spot

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports a study on stars of a particular type since they’re much smaller than the Sun but much hotter and therefore blue. A team of researchers led by Yazan Al Momany of the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, Padua, used various instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and NTT (New Technology Telescope) in Chile to study stars of that type discovering the equivalent of sunspots but even three thousand times larger in size. In some of these spots, flares have been observed that are millions of times more intense than the Sun’s which indicate the presence of very intense magnetic fields.

A diagram of the evolution of the interstellar asteroid 'Oumuamua's size and shape

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An article accepted for publication in the “Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a study on the interstellar asteroid 1I/2017 U1 / ‘Oumuamua that offers an explanation for its strange properties. Professor Gregory Laughlin of the University of Yale and Dr. Darryl Seligman of the University of Chicago examined the data collected during the various observations of ‘Oumuamua concluding that it could contain a significant percentage of hydrogen ice and could have originated in the heart of a molecular cloud.