June 2024

At the top left a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu and in the subsequent panels increasingly zoomed views of a fragment that broke off along a bright vein that contains phosphate, captured under an electron microscope

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An article published in the journal “Meteoritics & Planetary Science” reports the results of the preliminary analysis of the samples of material from asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe. A team of researchers conducted morphological and chemical analyzes of the samples, finding a lot of carbon and nitrogen together with organic compounds, all very important components for life forms of the Earth’s type.

The surprise came from the discovery of magnesium-sodium phosphate, which wasn’t detected by the instruments aboard OSIRIS-REx. This compound forms in water-rich environments and suggests that Bennu may be a fragment of a primordial world that had an ocean. The researchers mentioned Enceladus, Saturn’s moon with a subterranean ocean where sodium phosphate was found, and suggest a possible link to Bennu.

On the left the planet Jupiter seen by the James Webb Space Telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument and on the right the Great Red Spot observed by the Near-InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports the identification of structures in the planet Jupiter’s upper atmosphere above the Great Red Spot, the iconic storm larger than the Earth. A team of researchers led by Henrik Melin of the British University of Leicester used observations conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope to obtain new details of that area. The surprise came from the identification of intricate structures including dark arcs and bright spots in the observed area.

The capsule with the samples from the Chang-e 6 mission after landing (Image courtesy CCTV)

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A little while ago, the capsule carrying the Moon samples taken during the Chang’e-6 mission landed in the Siziwang Banner, meaning an autonomous county of Inner Mongolia. The lander with the return module landed on the Moon when in China it was June 2, spent about two days collecting samples, and the return module took off to transport the samples to orbit and start the voyage back to Earth. Recovery personnel found the capsule, which will be transported to a laboratory in Beijing, where operations will begin to open it without contaminating its contents.

The Serpens Nebula observed by the James Webb Space Telescope

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An article accepted for publication in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the first detection of aligned bipolar jets emitted by protostars in the Serpens Nebula. A team of researchers used observations conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope to obtain the details needed to spot these jets. Typically, they have different orientations within a star-forming region but in this case, they are aligned almost perfectly. This suggests that star formation may be at a unique time in its history in the Serpens Nebula and provide crucial information about these processes.

The pair of quasars photographed by the Hyper Suprime-Cam mounted on Subaru Telescope

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An article published in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the discovery of the most distant pair of merging quasars known. A team of researchers combined observations from the Subaru Telescope with the Gemini North Telescope to find traces of this pair of quasars that we see as they were about 900 million years after the Big Bang.
Studying this pair of quasars can offer new insights into the epoch of reionization, the period that began about 400 million years after the Big Bang and was crucial in the history of the universe. That’s the time when the neutral, light-blocking hydrogen was ionized, resulting in the universe becoming the bright place we know today. An article accepted for publication in a journal of the American Astronomical Society offers further analysis based on observations conducted with the ALMA radio telescope.