June 2021

The Progress MS-17 cargo spacecraft blasting off atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket (Image NASA TV)

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A few hours ago, the Progress MS-17 spacecraft blasted off atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After about nine minutes it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and was placed on its route. The cargo spacecraft began its resupply mission to the International Space Station also called Progress 78 or 78P. In this mission, the route used is the one that requires about two days.

The supernova 2018zd, in the white circle on the right, near the galaxy NGC 2146

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports a study on the supernova 2018zd. A team of researchers studied observations conducted with various telescopes and concluded that this supernova is of the electron-capture type, which was theorized 40 years ago but never identified with certainty. According to the researchers, 2018zd matches the theoretical predictions and offers new confirmations to the hypothesis that the supernova observed in A.D. 1054 was of the electron-capture type.

RCW 49 (Image NASA/JPL-Caltec/E.Churchwell (University of Wisconsin))

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports a study concerning a stellar nursery inside the RCW 49 nebula. A team of researchers coordinated by the University of Maryland used data obtained with the SOFIA flying telescope and combined them with others obtained with other instruments to obtain a 3D reconstruction of a gigantic structure of ionized hot plasma that is expanding around the open star cluster Westerlund 2. The main “suspect” behind that expansion is the star WR 20a.

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a model of supermassive black hole formation that explains the rapid growth of the ones observed in the early universe. Wei-Xiang Feng, Hai-Bo Yu, and Yi-Ming Zhong propose a model in which the so-called seeds from which these gigantic black holes are formed are generated by a halo of self-interacting dark matter. According to this model, the collapse that forms the seed is accelerated by baryonic matter, common matter, a unified scenario between the two types of matter.

The galaxy NGC1052-DF2 (Image NASA, ESA, Z. Shen and P. van Dokkum (Yale University), and S. Danieli (Institute for Advanced Study))

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a precise measurement of the distance of the galaxy NGC1052-DF2 that was used to confirm that it’s almost devoid of dark matter, a notable anomaly. A team of researchers led by Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the red giants on the outskirts of NGC1052-DF2 using them as “standard candles” taking advantage of the fact that they all reach the same peak in brightness. Understanding why so few of the gravitational effects attributed to dark matter are detected in this galaxy may offer new clues to its nature.