January 2021

The Dracon cargo spacecraft departing the International Space Station (Image NASA TV)

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A few hours ago the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft ended its CRS-21 (Cargo Resupply Service 21) mission for NASA splashing down smoothly in Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida. The Dragon left the International Space Station last Tuesday. For SpaceX, this was the first mission of the second contract with NASA to transport resupplies to the Station with the new version of the Dragon cargo spacecraft, the first to splash down near the East coast of the USA instead of the Pacific Ocean.

Artist's representation of the galaxy ID2299 (Image ESO/M. Kornmesser)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports a study on a massive galaxy in the distant universe in which a galaxy merger appears to have inhibited star formation. A team of researchers led by Annagrazia Puglisi of Durham University’s Center for Extragalaxy Astronomy used the ALMA radio telescope to examine the galaxy cataloged as ID2299 and found star formation activity in its central regions while a huge amount of gas was ejected removing the possibility of forming new stars.

6 galaxy merger systems: at the top are the galaxies NGC 3256, NGC 1614, and NGC 4194; at the bottom are the galaxies NGC 3690, NGC 6052, and NGC 34.

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports a research on the star formation rate in galaxy merger systems. A team of researchers used observations carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope within the Hubble imaging Probe of Extreme Environments and Clusters (HiPEEC) survey to study the influence of a galaxy merger on star formation, particularly of entire star clusters. ESA has published a composition of six such systems.

Artist's concept of the TOI-942 system (Image courtesy Italian National Institute of Astrophysics)

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An article published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports the identification of two hot Neptunian exoplanets in the TOI-942 system. A team of researchers led by Ilaria Carleo of Wesleyan University, USA, and associated with the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, Padua, used observations conducted with NASA’s TESS space telescope to find the exoplanet candidates, subsequently confirmed with follow-up observations conducted with the HARPS-N instrument mounted on the Galileo National Telescope, Canary Islands, and the REM instrument at the La Silla observatory, Chile. With an estimated age between 30 and 80 million years, it’s the youngest planetary system discovered thanks to TESS, excellent for studying planet evolution.

The sky area where the eROSITA instrument identified the eight galaxy clusters that form the new supercluster

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An article to be published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports the discovery of a galaxy supercluster. A team of researchers led by Vittorio Ghirardini of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, analyzed data from the eFEDS survey conducted with the Spektr-RG space telescope’s eROSITA instrument identifying a structure composed of eight different galaxy clusters. Follow-up observations with the LOFAR and uGMRT radio telescopes made it possible to confirm that it’s a supercluster thanks to the identification of filaments that unite the various galaxies. The possibility of improving our knowledge of the cosmic filament web is one of the reasons why it’s important to find these superclusters.