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The inner four planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system experienced induction heating due to magnetic interaction with their host star. This led them to experience increased volcanic activity, outgassing and potentially a subsurface magma ocean.
The 2010–2011 storm that appeared at Saturn’s northern mid-latitudes significantly altered the wind structure and atmospheric temperature even far away from the storm, by disrupting the quasi-periodic atmospheric oscillations at the equator for more than 3 years.
A double neutron star merger gave rise to the gravitational-wave event GW 170817, with counterpart electromagnetic radiation in the optical and gamma-ray spectra. Polarization measurements of the optical emission reveal a lanthanide-rich macronova.
The authors detect hard X-ray emission produced by plasma heated at ≥10 million kelvin from a quiescent active region of the Sun, providing clear observational evidence of plasma heating by nanoflares, and hinting at their important role in coronal heating.
Mapping the optical emission of a galaxy cluster to its mass is challenging. Lensing of the cosmic microwave background by massive clusters is used to calibrate the optical richness of clusters to their total baryonic mass at the ten per cent level.
The origin of the broad-line emission from type-1 active galactic nuclei is unclear. Calculations of emission lines from dusty clumps that are tidally disrupted by the central black hole suggest that these clumps give rise to the broad-line emission.
The first extraterrestrial detections of a member of the organohalogen family of molecules have been made towards comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko and low-mass protostar IRAS 16293-2422. Chloromethane, considered to be a biomarker, can form efficiently abiotically.
Complex organics are now observed throughout the Universe, forming in the circumstellar environments over thousands of years and providing materials for star formation. Did the Earth inherit any of these organics at the time of its formation?
The Event Horizon Telescope, an Earth-sized interferometer, aims to capture an image of a black hole’s event horizon to test the theory of general relativity and probe accretion processes, explains project director Shep Doeleman.
Internationally respected astronomer and renowned comet physics expert Michael Francis A’Hearn (1940–2017) passed away on 29 May 2017 at the age of 76.
Our inventory of the molecular universe is continually progressing. Our understanding of the astrochemistry behind it will flourish if we are mindful of funding experimental and theoretical efforts as well as observational.
Experiments are presented that indicate that methane can be produced abiotically on Mars through the photocatalytic reaction of CO2, in a process called methanogenesis. Methane can then be shocked (through impacts) to form RNA nucleobases and glycine.
