Traces of ancient salty ponds at the bottom of Gale Crater on Mars

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An article published in the journal “Nature Geoscience” reports the results of an analysis of data collected by the Mars Rover Curiosity in a section of sedimentary rocks of Gale Crater on Mars called Sutton Island where salt was detected in the form of mineral salt in the sediments. A team of researchers led by William Rapin of Caltech interpreted that presence as evidence that about 3.5 billion years ago there were salty ponds that went through episodes of overflow and drying. The deposits show the history of climatic fluctuations in the period in which the Martian environment passed from wet and similar to the Earth to today’s dry desert.

Filaments (in blue) that connect the galaxies (in white) of the SSA22 cluster (Image courtesy Hideki Umehata)

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An article published in the journal “Science” reports the discovery of massive gas filaments between the galaxies of a protocluster cataloged as SSA22 about 12 billion light years from Earth. A team of researchers coordinated by the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research used the MUSE spectrograph mounted on the VLT in Chile and the Suprime-Cam on the Subaru telescope to map those filaments, which extend over more than 3 million light years. Follow-up observations that provided further details were conducted with the ALMA radio telescope and the Keck telescope. The filament gas can feed star formation and the growth of supermassive black holes in the protocluster. The observation of those processes can provide new information on the evolution of galaxies.

New organic compounds discovered on Saturn's moon Enceladus

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports the identification of organic compounds on Enceladus, the moon of Saturn which became famous in the last decade after the discovery of an underground ocean. A team of researchers led by Nozair Khawaja used data collected by the Cassini space probe’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) to identify compounds that could be (di)methylamine, ethylamine and carbonyls in ice grains from the surface of Enceladus. They aren’t the first organic compounds that are formed on Enceladus and represent another interesting discovery in the search for life forms on that moon.

Nick Hague, Alexey Ovchinin and Hazzaa Ali Almansoori assisted after their landing (Image NASA TV)

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A few hours ago astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft, that landed in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz MS-12 landed on its side but that created no problems to its crew. The two of them spent a bit more than 6 months on the International Space Station, where they arrived on March 15, 2019 as part of Expedition 59. Together with them there was Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, who spent 8 days on the Station.

The protocluster z66OD with its galaxies in the insets (Image courtesy NAOJ/Harikane et al.)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the discovery of a galaxy protocluster dating back to about 13 billion years ago. A team of astronomers led by Yuichi Harikane of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), used the Subaru, Keck and Gemini telescopes to find a group of 12 early galaxies including a giant one nicknamed Himiko that form a precursor of today’s galaxy clusters cataloged as z66OD. Its study will help to better understand the evolution of these cosmic structures and the influences among the galaxies that form them, especially the more massive ones.