Solar Orbiter closes in on the solution to a 65-year-old solar mystery
A cosmic alignment and a little bit of spacecraft gymnastics has provided a ground-breaking measurement that is helping solve the 65-year-old cosmic mystery of why the Sun’s atmosphere is so hot.
The densest Neptunian ever observed
Its name is Toi-1853b and it is extremely peculiar: every 30 hours it completes one complete revolution around its star (the Earth takes a year to complete one complete revolution around the Sun), it has a radius comparable to Neptune’s (3.5 Earth radii, hence...
First eclipse binary system discovered in NGC 2232
By combining the photometry of the TESS space telescope with the high-resolution spectroscopy of HARPS-N (TNG), a team of researchers, led by Antonio Frasca of the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, has discovered a low-mass eclipsing binary system, the first in the...
Cheops shows scorching exoplanet acts like a mirror
Data from ESA’s exoplanet mission Cheops has led to the surprising revelation that an ultra-hot exoplanet that orbits its host star in less than a day is covered by reflective clouds of metal, making it the shiniest exoplanet ever found.
Cheops explores mysterious warm mini-Neptunes
ESA’s exoplanet mission Cheops confirmed the existence of four warm exoplanets orbiting four stars in our Milky Way. These exoplanets have sizes between Earth and Neptune and orbit their stars closer than Mercury our Sun. These so-called mini-Neptunes are unlike any...
INAF USCVIII: a “Two-day Workshop dedicated to Critical Computing” in Catania
A “Two-day Workshop dedicated to Critical Computing” will be held on June 15-16 in Catania, using the spaces made available by the local Physics Department. Details can be found at: https://indico.ict.inaf.it/e/USCVIII-2023. “Critical Computing” is here to be...
JWST Molecular Mapping And Characterization Of Enceladus’ Water Plume Feeding Its Torus
Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life in our solar system, having an active plume likely connected to a large liquid water subsurface ocean.
Using the sensitive NIRSpec instrument onboard JWST, we searched for organic compounds and characterized the plume’s composition and structure. The observations directly sample the fluorescence emissions of H2O and reveal an extraordinarily extensive plume (up to 10,000 km or 40 Enceladus radii) at cryogenic temperatures (25 K) embedded in a large bath of emission originating from Enceladus’ torus.
JUICE: JANUS sent its first images acquired in space
The instrument Jovis, Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator (JANUS) passed the commissioning phase with full marks. It is a real test during which – 8 million km from the Earth – it opened its electronic “eyes”, sending the so-called “first light”, i.e. his first series of images, to the technicians and researchers
