September 2018

A possible pulsar formed after a long-duration supernova

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An article published in the “Astrophysical Journal Letters” describes a study on the supernova Sn 2012au. Sometimes supernovae remain bright for a long time if the remnants of the explosion collide with hydrogen layers, but Dan Milisavljevic of Purdue University wondered if this could happen without any interaction of that kind. His team studied Sn 2012au concluding that after the supernova a neutron star of the pulsar type was formed with a rotation and a magnetic field sufficient to create a cloud of gas around it, called in jargon a pulsar wind nebula.

The galaxy cluster Abell 370 (Image NASA, ESA, A. Koekemoer, M. Jauzac, C. Steinhardt, and the BUFFALO team)

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The first Hubble Space Telescope’s observations in the new BUFFALO project have been published. Its goal is to shed light on the evolution of the first galaxies of the universe, also to establish the most interesting observation targets for the James Webb space telescope. The Abell 370 galaxy cluster is the first to be studied for this new survey together with a series of galaxies seen through gravitational lenses.

Landslides and avalanches could be important to keep a comet active for a long time

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An article published in the journal “Icarus” describes a research focused on the link between landslides and avalanches with the long-term activity of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Jordan K. Steckloff and Nalin H. Samarasinha of the Planetary Science Institute examined data collected by ESA’s Rosetta space probe in the course of its mission to conclude that those phenomena occurring on the surface of the comet, with the resulting waste of mass, are a key to keeping it active in the long term.

Artist's concept of Patroclus and Menoetius (Image courtesy W.M. Keck Observatory/Lynette Cook)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes a research on the migration of the solar system’s gaseous planets. A team of scientists studied two asteroids called Patroclus and Menoetius that are out of the ordinary as they form a pair of Jupiter trojans, which means that they orbit at a point of equilibrium of the Sun-Jupiter system. Their conclusion is that their existence is evidence of the shifting of the gaseous planets’ orbits.