Planets

Artist's representation of WASP-121b (Image NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STSci))

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An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the observation of the stratosphere of an exoplanet called WASP-121b, a hot Jupiter with an orbit very close to its star. A team of researchers led by Tom Evans of the University of Exeter used the Hubble Space Telescope to study it and find evidence that it has a stratosphere, a layer of its atmosphere where the temperature gets higher than that of its lower layers. It could be the first exoplanet that was proven to have a stratosphere.

Artist's concept of a gas giant planet with a habitable exomoon (Image courtesy Andy McLatchie)

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An article sent to arXiv, the famous archive of preprint, describes the discovery of an exomoon candidate. A team of researchers led by David Kipping of Columbia University conducted a search for moons orbiting exoplanets observed by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope finding the candidate called Kepler-1625b I. Generally, research results are published on a scientific journal at the end of the work but rumors spread convincing the researchers to send an article at least to arXiv.

The possible impact area on Mars (Image MOLA Science Team)

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An article published in “Geophysical Research Letters” describes a study that attributes to a gigantic meteoric impact on Mars’ northern hemisphere almost 4.5 billion years ago some of the red planet’s features. According to Stephen Mojzsis of University of Colorado Boulder and Ramon Brasser of Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan that’s the cause of the presence of rare metals, of the differences between the northern and southern hemisphere and perhaps even the existence of its two moons.

Libya Montes (Image ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, , CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

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ESA has published images of the area of the planet Mars known as Libya Montes taken by its Mars Express space probe. It’s a mountain range near the Martian equator and is one of the oldest in Mars, altered by volcanic processes and impacts but also by processes associated with the existence of rivers. In the pictures it’s possible to identify various channels and valleys, traces of the ancient water streams.

Maps of Pluto and Charon (Image NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/LPI)

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On the occasion of the second anniversary of the New Horizons space probe’s Pluto flyby, NASA has published a map of the dwarf planet and its largest moon, Charon. The American Space Agency has also created two videos that partially reproduce that flight concentrating one on Pluto and one on Charon. They provide a truly unique perspective, giving the impression of being on board a spaceship flying by those celestial bodies.