Planets

The Rochette rock (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA has published the first results of the examination of the first two rock samples collected in recent days by the Mars Rover Perseverance in the Jezero crater on planet Mars. After last month’s disappointment, with the failure of the first attempt to take a sample of a rock that proved too crumbly, there were two successes. A rock nicknamed Rochette proved suitable and Perseverance was successful in taking a sample nicknamed Montdenier on September 6 and a sample nicknamed Montagnac on September 8. The most interesting indication is that there was water in the area for a long time when the environment was potentially habitable.

A representation of the solar system up to the Kuiper Belt

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An article published in “The Planetary Science Journal” reports a study on some Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) that are part of a particular group of which new observations revealed a blue color and a binary nature. A team of researchers used observations ran by the Col-OSSOS team which obtained color measurements of 98 Kuiper Belt Objects while also offering new insights into the subgroup of objects called cold classical Kuiper Belt Objects. Their conclusion is that the blue binary objects were pushed into that area by Neptune as it moved away from the Sun.

Artist's concept of the surface a Hycean planet (Image courtesy Amanda Smith, University of Cambridge)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports a study that proposes a new type of habitable planet that was named Hycean. Nikku Madhusudhan, Anjali AA Piette, and Savvas Constantinou of the British University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy started from the study of the exoplanet K2-18b to argue that some planets with conditions between those of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes can be covered in oceans and have hydrogen-rich atmospheres offering the possibility of developing carbon-based life forms. These Hycean planets could potentially be habitable even orbiting outside what is commonly considered ​​a star system habitable zone.

The possible structure of Saturn (Image courtesy Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC))

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports a study on the planet Saturn’s core. Caltech astronomers Christopher Mankovich and Jim Fuller analyzed data collected by the Cassini space probe on the oscillations of Saturn’s rings caused by the internal seismic activity to indirectly analyze the characteristics of the planet’s interior. The conclusion is that the core is not rocky but a mixture that has been compared to a soup or a sludge composed of ice, rock, and metallic fluids that fill a volume for about 60% of Saturn’s diameter, far more than it was previously estimated.

Artist's concept of the exoplanet L 98-59b and its star (Image ESO/M. Kornmesser)

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An article published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports a study on the planets orbiting the red dwarf star L 98-59. A team of researchers used the ESPRESSO instrument mounted on ESO’s VLT in Chile to study the characteristics of three already known exoplanets and concluded that the innermost one has a mass that is approximately half of Venus’s. There was some doubt about the nature of the outermost planet, and this study suggests that it’s a rocky planet that contains a large amount of water. The researchers found evidence of a fourth planet and clues that there might be a fifth planet.