An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes a research on the magnetic field of the star TRAPPIST-1 and its possible consequences on its inner planets. According to a team of researchers led by the Space Research Institute (IWF) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Öaw) at least two of those planets could be heated by the effects of that magnetic field to the point of having a surface composed of a magma ocean.
An article accepted for publication in “The Astronomica Journal” describes the discovery of a planet that orbits EPIC 228732031, a star just a little smaller than the Sun. A team of researchers used NASA’s Kepler space telescope to detect traces of the transits of the exoplanet that was called EPIC 228732031b. This type of discovery has become common but in this case it’s a super-Earth whose orbit is very close to its star, so much that its year only lasts 8.9 hours.
During the 49th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences, the results were presented of a research that led to the discovery that the planet Mars has a magnetic tail, called magnetotail, twisted by the interaction with the solar wind. A team led by Dr. Gina DiBraccio of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center used data from the MAVEN space probe to discover this phenomenon that according to the researchers is linked to the process known as magnetic reconnection.
In the course of the Conference of the American Astronomical Society’s 49th Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting, SwRI (Southwest Research Institute) scientist Simone Marchi presented the results of a study on the origin of the organic compounds discovered on the dwarf planet Ceres by NASA’s Dawn space probe. There were some doubts about the possibility they had formed on Ceres but according to Marchi and his team the evidence they collected that’s the most likely theory.
During the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Science meeting some of the latest discoveries were presented about the planet Saturn and its rings obtained from data collected by the Cassini space probe before disintegrating in the planet’s atmosphere on September 15. Some of the results were published in “The Astrophysical Journal”.
