December 2022

The galaxy ESO 415-19 (Image ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA)

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An image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy ESO 415-19 and its long arms, making it a decidedly unusual spiral galaxy. It’s a spiral galaxy but was included in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies due to the extraordinary extension of its arms. So far, no other traces of the cosmic interaction that caused this anomaly in ESO 415-19 have been found but its peculiarity made it an interesting object of observation with Hubble and other instruments. For publication, photos taken with Hubble’s ACS instrument were combined with others captured with the DECam camera on the Victor M. Blanco telescope.

Sand dunes covered by frost on Mars (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

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To celebrate the winter solstice on Earth and the start of winter in the northern hemisphere, NASA has released some photos captured on Mars by its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter space probe’s HiRISE camera showing what some Martian areas look like when it’s winter on the red planet. Seeing snowfall is still beyond the possibilities of the available instruments but frozen or at least frost-covered landscapes show some of the marvels of Mars.

Artist's illustration of a tidal disruption event (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of the observations of a supermassive black hole that is destroying a star. Cataloged as AT2021ehb, this is an event of the type technically called a tidal disruption event. A team of researchers used observations conducted with NASA’s NuSTAR and Swift space telescopes, the NICER instrument on the International Space Station, and other instruments to cover 430 days of the evolution of this process. This will help understand what happens to materials captured by a supermassive black hole before they’re completely swallowed.

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a study on the exoplanet Kepler-1658b which predicts the decay of its orbit until it’s destroyed by its star. A team of researchers used data gathered from observations conducted over several years, from those by the Kepler Space Telescope that discovered Kepler-1658b to those by the TESS Space Telescope to examine its orbit. The conclusion is that this gas giant is slowly approaching its star and will be destroyed in the future.

The Cosmic Cliffs and in the insets on the right side the details of some areas with indications of hydrogen outflows, jets, and bow shocks, the shock waves caused by that activity

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports a study of the open cluster NGC 3324, part of the Carina Nebula, one of the largest known star nurseries. A team of researchers used observations conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope to specifically study an area on the edge of NGC 3324 nicknamed the Cosmic Cliffs. The nickname is due to the jagged appearance like a cliff but instead of water and rocks, there’s an expanse of gas and dust. The amplitude of the infrared frequencies detected by Webb made it possible to obtain more details than ever of what is happening in the midst of those cosmic clouds, finding 24 new outflows of molecular hydrogen associated with as many protostars.