An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a study of the exoplanet WASP-17 b that includes the detection of quartz in this hot Jupiter’s atmosphere. A team of researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to detect the subtle effects of quartz crystals, nanoparticles dispersed in the very hot atmosphere of WASP-17 b, which received the official name Ditsö̀ in early 2020.
An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports a study on so-called lava worlds, rocky exoplanets so close to their stars that at least a part of their surface is made up of molten rock. A team of researchers coordinated by the Ohio State University conducted computer simulations with the free / open source software ExoPlex to try to understand the evolution of these truly exotic planets, concluding that in certain cases, it’s possible that significant quantities of chemicals necessary for life remain trapped in their mantle. It remains unlikely, to say the least, that life forms could develop in those conditions, but if a planet of that type were to cool, the situation would change considerably. In any case, it’s important to understand its evolution because there may be many lava worlds that offer the possibility of studying a molten planetary mantle.
A little while ago, NASA’s Psyche space probe blasted off atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. After just over an hour, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and set off on its route that will take it into deep space, towards asteroid 16 Psyche, which it will reach towards the end of July 2029 to study its structure composed mainly of iron-nickel.
Within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and right now about 3.6 billion kilometers away from Earth, asteroid 16 Psyche is one of the largest known. It’s an M-type asteroid, the type with the highest metal content. It has an irregular shape with a maximum length of almost 280 kilometers, which brings it close to the size of a dwarf planet.
An article accepted for publication in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of spectroscopic observations of the activity of the star TRAPPIST-1 conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope. A team of researchers observed four flares of this ultra-cool dwarf, which occurred over the course of about 27 hours. By adding data obtained with other instruments, it was possible to develop a mathematical method to separate the light of those flares from normal stellar radiation. In the study of a very small but also active star, this is very useful to improve the quality of observations of the seven rocky planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system.
An article being published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports the observation of a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT), a rare type of cosmic explosion of still uncertain nature which was cataloged as AT2023fhn. A team of researchers used various telescopes to try to study one of the few phenomena of this type known so far but this brought more questions than answers because its origin was found far from any galaxy.
