July 2021

Scheme of Jupiter's X-ray auroras

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An article published in the journal “Science” reports a study on the planet Jupiter’s auroras that offers a solution to the mystery of X-ray emissions. A team of researchers obtained the crucial information thanks to data collected by ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope and NASA’s Juno space probe. That allowed them to understand how ions are transported by the electromagnetic waves present in the Jovian magnetic field to the planet’s atmosphere, with which they collide to generate the auroras.

The VSS Unity spaceplane detaching from the mothership White Knight Two (Image courtesy Virgin Galactic)

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Yesterday, Virgin Galactic conducted the first crewed flight, with owner Richard Branson also on board, of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo spaceplane called VSS Unity. It took off connected to the mothership White Knight Two from Spaceport America in New Mexico and, at an altitude of 15,000 meters, VSS Unity was dropped and its engine took it to an altitude of approximately 86.2 kilometers (almost 283,000 feet), below the 100 kilometers of the Kármán Line that officially marks the border with space but above the 80 kilometers considered by some entities as that borderline.

The Dragon cargo spacecraft leaving the International Space Station to end its CRS-22 mission (Image NASA)

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A few hours ago, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft ended its CRS-22 (Cargo Resupply Service 22) mission for NASA splashing down smoothly in Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida. The Dragon left the International Space Station last Thursday. For SpaceX, this was the second mission of the second contract with NASA to transport resupplies to the Station with the new version of the Dragon cargo spacecraft, which splashes down near the East coast of the USA instead of the Pacific Ocean.

SMSS 2003-1142 at the center (Image courtesy Da Costa/SkyMapper)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the identification of what is considered a magnetorotational hypernova, the explosion of a very massive star with a powerful magnetic field and in rapid rotation. A team of researchers led by David Yong, Gary Da Costa, and Chiaki Kobayashi collected evidence of this type of hypernova for the first time. That was achieved by examining the data collected not directly but by investigating a mysterious red giant star discovered in the Milky Way halo and cataloged as SMSS J200322.54-114203.3, or simply SMSS 2003-1142, in which there are anomalous quantities of some chemical elements explainable as the product of a magnetorotational hypernova.

The free-floating planet CFBDSIR 2149-0403 (Image ESO/P. Delorme)

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports the identification of candidate gravitational microlens events that could be the traces of free-floating planets, which are planets that do not orbit any star. A team of researchers led by Iain McDonald used data obtained in 2016 during NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope K2 mission while monitoring a star-filled area near the center of the Milky Way. The result is the discovery of 27 signals generated by possible gravitational microlenses which lasted between one hour and 10 days. The four shortest events are consistent with Earth-sized planets.