An article published in “The Astronomical Journal” describes a research on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres. Using infrared observations carried out with the SOFIA observatory a team of scientists of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, SETI and NASA’s JPL identified the presence of pyroxene, clay and carbonates that so far deceived the researchers, who thought the surface was rich in carbon compounds.
NASA has published a new photo taken by the Cassini space probe of Mimas, one of Saturn’s moons, which provides an excellent perspective view of the mountain in the center of Herschel crater, which is not huge in absolute terms but has a diameter which is almost a third of that of Mimas. The mountain is high even by Earth standards with at least 6 kilometers (4 miles) above the crater’s floor and stands out even more on the small moon.
At the American Astronomical Society meeting the results of the study of galaxies NGC 1448 and IC 3639 were presented showing how they led to the identification of supermassive black holes at their centers. A team of researchers used NASA’s NuSTAR Space Telescope to detect the high energy X-ray emission from them and see beyond the dust and gas that hid those areas.
An article published in “Astrophysical Journal Letters” describes a research, also presented recently at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society, about the pulsar known as PSR J1119-6127. Discovered over 16 years ago, recently it showed behaviors typical of a magnetar, a different type of neutron star. This oddity might help explain the link between pulsars and magnetars and the evolution of neutron stars.
An article published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” describes the discovery of a great valley on the planet Mercury. A team of scientists led by Thomas R. Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. used topographic maps created thanks to NASA’s MESSENGER space probe to discover it. It’s considered evidence of the planet’s contraction.
