Electrons (in red) attract positive ions (in blue) pushing them out of the atmosphere (Image ESA–C. Carreau)

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An article published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” describes the discovery of an electric wind on Venus that accelerates the ionized hydrogen and oxygen atoms that make up water molecules at such a speed that they disperse in space. A team of scientists led by Glyn Collinson, a scientist of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, analyzed data from the ASPERA-4 instrument of ESA’s Venus Express space probe to find out this wind generated by Venus’ electric field.

Charon, Nyx and Hydra (Image NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

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NASA has published a comparative analysis of the spectral measurements of three moons of the dwarf planet Pluto which prove that in particular Nyx but also Hydra have a surface covered in water ice. The New Horizons space probe’s LEISA instrument carried out the measurements during the July 14, 2015 flyby. Unfortunately the location of the other two small moons, Styx and Kerberos in those hours didn’t allow spectral measurements.

Scheme of the AWAKE experiment within CERN's structure (Image courtesy CERN)

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At the end of last week at CERN the first particle beam was sent through the AWAKE experiment, a test of a proof-of-concept of a new type of particle accelerator. It’s currently still under construction but when finished it will prove the possibility to build plasma accelerators in which wakefield acceleration allows to build accelerators a hundred times smaller than the current ones.

Various reconstructions of the gravitational waves detected by the LIGO experiment (Image courtesy LIGO experiment)

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During a press conference at the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego, the second detection of gravitational waves from the merging of two black holes by the LIGO experiment was announced. It is a different event from the first, historic, one announced on February 11, 2016: this time the merger took place about 1.4 billion years ago and was detected on Earth on December 26, 2015. The event is also described in a article published in the journal “Physical Review Letters”.