Astronomy / Astrophysics

Artist's concept of the planet LHS 1140b about to pass in front of its star (Image M. Weiss/CfA)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the discovery of a super-Earth called LHS 1140b. A team led by Jason Dittmann of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics used the HARPS instrument installed on ESO’s 3.6-meter telescope in La Silla, Chile, to study that exoplanet after identifying it with the MEarth-South telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. Its location in ​​its solar system’s habitable zone makes it particularly interesting.

Example of galaxy pair connected by dark matter filaments (Image courtesy S. Epps & M. Hudson / University of Waterloo)

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” describes a research on dark matter filaments that connect two galaxies. A team of astronomers led by Mike Hudson of the University of Waterloo in Canada exploited a weak gravitational lensing effect to create an image that shows even if indirectly a kind of dark matter bridge between two galaxies.

2014 UZ224 / DeeDee seen by ALMA (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO))

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An article accepted for publication in the “Astrophysical Journal Letters” describes the research that followed the discovery of a possible dwarf planet called 2014 UZ224 and nicknamed DeeDee, as in Distant Dwarf. A team led by David Gerdes of the University of Michigan announced its discovery in October 2016 and thanks to a further observation carried out by the ALMA radio telescope they estimated other features.

Plumes on Europa (Image NASA, ESA, W. Sparks (STScI), and the USGS Astrogeology Science Center)

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Yesterday, NASA held a press conference to explain the latest news about the studies of alien oceans. The attention was focused on the two most popular underground oceans, the one in Jupiter’s satellite Europa and the one in Saturn’s satellite Enceladus. There are confirmations of plumes from Europa, also described in an article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters”. The presence of molecular hydrogen in the Enceladus ocean was announced, also described in an article published in the journal “Science”.

The triple crater in the Terra Sirenum region on Mars (Image ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

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ESA has published some new pictures taken by its Mars Express space probe that show a curious crater in the Terra Sirenum region on Mars. It’s a crater with an elongated shape having a length of about 45 kilometers (about 28 miles) and a width of approximately 24 kilometers (about 15 miles). It’s probably the result of an asteroid impact that broke up into three parts when it was still above the surface causing the triple impact of fragments that were still very close. The sedimentary deposits on the bottom of the crater suggest that in ancient times water existed in that region of Mars.