Astro Blog

https://eos.org/articles/hot-jupiter-is-in-a-possible-death-spiral By Damond Benningfield , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Kepler’s first exoplanet is migrating toward its star, an evolved subgiant that is much bigger than first thought. ... Kepler-1658b  is the first inspiraling planet discovered around an “evolved” star—one that has moved out of its prime life. The star—Kepler-1658—is about 1.5 times the mass of our Sun and has expanded to almost 3 times the Sun’s diameter in its late stages of life, earning it the designation of subgiant. Should Kepler-1658b maintain its current path, it will meet its fate in about 2.5 million years. ...Early in its mission, Kepler recorded such dips from Kepler-1658. However, astronomers had initially cataloged the star as belonging to the main sequence—stars like the Sun that are still burning the hydrogen in their cores. ...Kepler-1658b was discarded as a false positive and forgotten about. ...That is, until Chontos began looking at vibrations on the surfac

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/astronomers-find-a-dozen-more-moons-for-jupiter/ By Jeff Hecht, Sky & Telescope.  Excerpt: The biggest planet in the solar system now has the largest family of moons. Since December 20th, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) has published orbits for 12 previously unreported moons of Jupiter. More publications are expected, says Scott Sheppard (Carnegie Institute for Science), who recently submitted observations of the Jovian system taken between 2021 and 2022. The discoveries bring the list of Jovian moons to 92, a hefty 15% increase from the previous tally of 80. ...The new finds put Jupiter’s lunar family count well ahead of Saturn’s 83 confirmed moons. However, while Jupiter may have the most moons for now, Saturn might catch up. A search for objects with sizes down to about 3 kilometers across that are moving along with the gas giants  found three times more near Saturn than near Jupiter .... 

2 https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/webb-telescope-confirms-earth-size-exoplanet-tries-to-sniff-air By Monica Young, Sky & Telescope.  Excerpt: The James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed its first exoplanet, a rocky Earth-size planet, and attempted to take the measure of its atmosphere. ...Although roughly Earth-like in size, this world is nevertheless completely uninhabitable, roasting in its four-day orbit around its middle-aged red dwarf star. ...while they can match the data with an atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide, those data are also consistent with a completely airless world. Zero atmosphere for a planet several hundred degrees warmer than Earth wouldn’t be a great surprise, especially around the type of star known for its atmosphere-stripping flares.... 

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/amateur-astronomer-discovers-a-weird-supernovas-fireworks By Govert Schilling, Sky & Telescope.  Excerpt: A supernova explosion that skywatchers in the Far East observed almost 850 years ago has produced the most unusual remnant astronomers have ever found. ...a paper has been submitted to  Astrophysical Journal Letters  ( preprint available here ). In other work presented at the AAS meeting and submitted to  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society  ( preprint here ), his coauthor Bradley Schaefer (Louisiana State University) argues that the supernova resulted when two white dwarf stars collided, leaving an extremely energetic “zombie” star behind. ...the measured expansion velocity of the nebula — some 1,100 kilometers per second — puts its age at 850 years old. ...astronomers are now confident about its relation with SN1181, a zero-magnitude supernova that appeared in northern Cassiopeia on August 6th of 1181 AD. Chinese and Ja

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/space-debris-game/ By  Shikha Subramaniam ,  Rekha Tenjarla  and  Christian Davenport , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: ...the space above Earth has been flooded with thousands of satellites, spent rocket stages and the debris from several catastrophic events. As a result, Earth’s lower orbit has been littered with an increasing amount of junk that is careening through space at intense speeds, threatening satellites and even the International Space Station. Last year, the problem became serious enough to prompt the Biden administration to call for the abolishment of tests that destroy satellites in orbit. The announcement came after Russia blew up a dead satellite in 2021, creating a massive debris field that threatened the ISS astronauts along with other satellites. ...Every year there are dozens of near-collisions between active satellites or pieces of debris. ...There are more than 6,000 active satellites rotating around Eart

https://eos.org/features/marine-science-goes-to-space By Damond Benningfield , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Cassini  discoveries added  Enceladus to a growing list of possible ocean worlds in our own solar system—bodies with large amounts of liquid water hidden from view. Some of them could contain more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. And in addition to Enceladus, planetary scientists have counted at least one other member of the list, Jupiter’s moon  Europa , among the ranks of the “possibly habitable.” “There could be life in our own solar system, and we may already have flown past it,” said  Christopher German , a senior scientist at  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a coleader of  Network for Ocean Worlds  (NOW), a NASA-funded effort to advance research on these intriguing bodies. “Instead of just a sci-fi thing, suddenly we have grounds for wondering if there’s life on these nearby worlds—places we have the technology to reach.” ...German said scientists have identified

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/space-missions-to-watch-in-2023/ By Sky & Telescope.  Excerpts: ...SpaceX’s Starship ...Axiom Space’s AX2 ... to the International Space Station ...ESA’s  Euclid  space telescope ...an infrared instrument, aimed at studying dark matter and dark energy ...Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) ...X-ray Polarimeter Satellite, ...and the Aditya L1 solar mission, headed to the Earth-Sun L 1  point. ...China’s  Xuntian Space Telescope , a sky survey telescope ...China also plans to launch two X-ray telescopes in 2023 ...The Moon will be bustling in 2023. Three missions [to the Moon] are at least partially NASA-funded through its  Commercial Lunar Payload Services . ...The  Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment  (PRIME 1) is set to launch in June, carrying with it The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain. The TRIDENT drill will delve three feet deep to bring lunar regolith up to the surface. ...[Russian] Roscosmos’ Luna 25 lander