Planets

The Trace Gas Orbiter space probe detected water but not methane on Mars

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Two articles published in the journal “Nature” report the main results of the first year of work of ESA and Roscosmos’ Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), part of the ExoMars program. One article concerns the impact of the global storm that covered the planet Mars with a dust on the water in the atmosphere, while the other article reports the lack of methane detections, at least for now frustrating the hopes of discovering its origin. A third article submitted to the journal “Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Science” offers the most detailed map created so far of water ice and hydrated minerals present immediately below the red planet’s surface.

Artist's concept of a planetesimal orbiting the white dwarf SDSS J122859.93+104032.9 (Image courtesy University of Warwick/Mark Garlick)

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An article published in the journal “Science” reports the discovery of what’s probably a fragment of a planet that orbits a white dwarf. A team of researchers led by the British University of Warwick used the Gran Telescopio Canarias of La Palma to study the debris disk that surrounds the white dwarf cataloged as SDSS J122859.93+104032.9 detecting anomalies in the emission lines that have been interpreted as the result of the presence of what has been called a planetesimal orbiting the star in about two hours.

An independent confirmation of a methane peak on Mars

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An article published in the journal “Nature Geoscience” reports an independent confirmation of the detection of a methane peak on the planet Mars, east of Gale Crater, where NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity is operating and detected the presence of methane. However, a team of researchers led by Marco Giuranna of the Italian National Astrophysics Institute in Rome used measurements of ESA’s Mars Express space probe’s PFS instrument to find methane. Independent detections carried out in orbit and on the ground with very different instruments are crucial in this research because methane can be produced by biological processes but also by geological processes.

A preserved river channel on Mars (Image NASA/JPL/Univ. Arizona/UChicago)

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An article published in the journal “Science Advances” reports the results of a research on the ancient rivers that existed on the planet Mars that lead to think that they existed until less than a billion years ago. A team of researchers coordinated by the University of Chicago cataloged over 200 ancient rivers by analyzing model and photos showing the traces of their beds to obtain a conclusion that goes against what the scientists who studied the red planet generally think of, that is, rivers and rainfall disappeared over 3 billion years ago.

Artist's concept of the exoplanet HR 8799 e (Image ESO/L. Calçada)

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An article published in the journal “Astronomy and Astrophysics” reports the first direct observation of an exoplanet using the technique of optical interferometry. The GRAVITY collaboration, so called because the researchers who belong to it manage the work of the instrument with the same name installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), observed the exoplanet HR 8799 e, a super-Jupiter that has a atmosphere containing clouds rich in iron and silicates that swirl around in a storm that crosses the entire planet.