Telescopes

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 explosion in the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), J. Bally/H. Drass et al.)

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An article published in “Astrophysical Journal” describes a research about the birth of a group of massive stars in the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC-1). A team of astronomers led by John Bally of the University of Colorado used the ALMA radio telescope to see inside the cloud and detect the debris scattered by that really chaotic event.

Artistic concept of the exoplanet GJ 1132b and its star (Image courtesy MPIA)

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An article published in “The Astronomical Journal” describes a research about the exoplanet GJ 1132b. A team led by Dr. John Southworth of Keele University and by Italian INAF associate Luigi Mancini used the 2.2-meter ESO/MPG telescope in Chile to directly study this super-Earth during its transit in front of its star and detect its atmosphere. This is the first direct evidence of the existence of an atmosphere for a planet similar in size to Earth, although it could look more like Venus.

The HD 169142 system (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/ Fedele et al.)

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An article published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” describes the discovery of traces of two planets that are forming in the young system HD 169142. A team of researchers led by Davide Fedele of the Institute of Astrophysics in Florence, Italy, used the ALMA radio telescope to study the of gas and dust disk surrounding the young star identifying gap rings compatible with the formation of planets similar to Jupiter.

The galaxy Was 49 (Image DCT/NRL)

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A galaxy merger observed with NASA’s NuSTAR space telescope gave surprising results. The galaxy called Was 49 is being formed from the fusion of a large disk galaxy called Was 49a and a dwarf galaxy called Was 49b. The researchers were surprised when they realized that the supermassive black hole at the center of the dwarf galaxy was much bigger and more powerful than expected, going against current models regarding galactic mergers.