December 2022

Artist's representation of a merger between two neutron stars (Image A. Simonnet (Sonoma State Univ.) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

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Three articles published in the journal “Nature” and one article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” report various aspects of the studies conducted on the out-of-normal gamma-ray burst cataloged as GRB 211211A. Various teams of researchers used observations conducted with a series of ground-based and space telescopes to examine an event that lasted more than two hours after the actual burst. At that time, the gravitational wave detectors were not active but the event’s characteristics indicate that the origin is in a kilonova, a merger between two neutron stars.

HIPASS J1131–31 / Peekaboo, magnified in the inset (Image Science: NASA, ESA, Igor Karachentsev (SAO RAS) image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI))

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An article accepted for publication in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports a study of a dwarf galaxy cataloged as HIPASS J1131–31 that is relatively close but has the characteristics of a primordial galaxy. A team of researchers combined observations from various ground-based and space telescopes to confirm its nature, including the Hubble Space Telescope. They nicknamed it Peekaboo because it peeks out from behind a bright star that hid it for a long time and made it difficult to identify. It’s a very small galaxy but its primordial characteristics make it interesting for astronomers.

The SMACS-J0723.3-7327 galaxy cluster seen by the James Webb Space Telescope

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the results of the most complete analysis of the so-called intracluster light conducted so far. Mireia Montes and Ignacio Trujillo of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe the SMACS-J0723.3-7327 galaxy cluster. In particular, they exploited the NIRCam instrument to detect intracluster light, which is extremely dim but useful to study galaxy clusters in ways other than visible light observations. These studies are also useful for understanding the distribution of dark matter.

The Shenzhou 14 capsule after landing (Photo courtesy Xinhua/Li Gang)

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A little while ago, the three Chinese taikonauts of the Shenzhou 14 mission returned to Earth after spending almost six months on the Chinese space station Tiangong. The three taikonauts Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong, and Liu Yang departed the station a few hours earlier to land at a site called Dongfeng in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. A procedure that significantly reduces the time to return to Earth worked perfectly again.

Artist's representation of the AT2022cmc event (Image ESO/M.Kornmesser)

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Two articles, one published in the journal “Nature” and one in the journal “Nature Astronomy”, report different aspects of the study of the most distant supermassive black hole discovered as it devours a star and then emits a jet of materials accelerated at speeds close to the speed of light. The event, cataloged as AT2022cmc, is somewhat similar to a gamma-ray burst but was detected in various electromagnetic bands thanks to the fact that it’s aimed almost exactly at Earth. This is the first event of its kind detected in visible light, so it can offer new insights into the behavior of truly extreme objects during the destruction of a star that got too close to them.