2023

The new scheme of the orbits of the planets of the TOI 700 system

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An article accepted for publication in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the discovery of the exoplanet TOI 700 e. A team of researchers used observations conducted with NASA’s TESS space telescope and confirmed with other instruments to find it. It’s the fourth planet discovered in the TOI 700 red dwarf system and is interesting because it’s a rocky planet a bit smaller than Earth. Its habitability potential is yet to be assessed because it’s within the so-called optimistic habitable zone, where a planet can only have liquid water on its surface for part of its history.

The Dragon cargo spacecraft departing the International Space Station to end its CRS-26 mission (Image NASA)

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A little while ago, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft ended its CRS-26 (Cargo Resupply Service 26) mission for NASA splashing down smoothly off the Florida Coast. The Dragon left the International Space Station last Monday. For SpaceX, this was the 6th mission of the 2nd contract with NASA to transport supplies to the Station with the new version of the Dragon cargo spacecraft.

Shortly after the splashdown, SpaceX’s recovery ship went to retrieve the Dragon to transport it to the coast. The cargo brought back to Earth will be delivered to NASA within a few hours. The Dragon spacecraft reached the International Space Station on November 27, 2021.

The six barred spiral galaxies identified by the James Webb Space Telescope

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An article accepted for publication in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the discovery of six barred spiral galaxies that are between 8.4 and 11 billion years old. A team of researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope within the CEERS survey to observe enough details of these galaxies to identify the two extensions of stars that start from their center and reach the outer disk in a structure that resembles a bar. It’s a crucial structure for the evolution of these galaxies, as it favors the growth of the supermassive black holes at their center and star formation in their central regions.

The galaxy clusters MOO J1014+0038 (left panel) and SPT-CL J2106-5844 (right panel) as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument at infrareds

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the results of a study on the so-called intracluster light that permeates galaxy clusters. Hyungjin Joo and M. James Jee of Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, used the Hubble Space Telescope to examine ten galaxy clusters and the glow within them. The surprising and therefore interesting discovery was that intracluster light is abundant even in the oldest clusters, a sign that the stars that emit it were ejected from their galaxies a long time ago. This suggests that this happened at the same time as the formation and growth of the clusters.

An image captured by the IoIO instrument on November 9, 2022, showing the sodium nebula emissions from the outburst originating from Io

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A violent volcanic outburst was detected on Jupiter’s moon Io by Jeff Morgenthaler using the Io Input/Output observatory (IoIO) at the Planetary Science Institute (PSI). The scientist of this non-profit organization based in Arizona has been monitoring Io since 2017, observing several outbursts but the one in autumn 2022 was the most violent. This monitoring can also be useful for the mission of NASA’s Juno space probe, in orbit around Jupiter, as NASA is planning a Io flyby in December 2023 in which its instruments will be able to carry out measurements of the emitted gases such as sodium and ionized sulfur.