Volume 4 Issue 3, March 2020

The recent disclosure regarding possible biological consequences of the Beresheet hard landing on the Moon raises concerns relating to planetary protection policies. Here we analyse legal and regulatory aspects of the landing of tardigrades and other biological material on the Moon and suggest possible ways to manage challenges arising therefrom.

Growing evidence suggests that synchrotron radiation plays a significant role in shaping the spectra of most γ-ray bursts. The relativistic jets producing them are likely to carry a significant fraction of energy in the form of a Poynting flux.

Spectropolarimetric data combined with high-resolution numerical simulations reveal a resonance cavity above a highly magnetic sunspot. This technique conclusively determines the three-dimensional structure of solar active regions from relatively commonplace two-dimensional data.

The global geological map of Saturn’s moon Titan, created using radar observations from Cassini, shows a clear latitudinal dependence, with young dune fields dominant at the equator, plains at mid-latitudes and lakes and old dissected terrains at the poles. Titan’s geomorphology is controlled mostly by climate and topography.

Enceladus’s tiger stripes at the south pole formed in cascade and spaced equally after the first fracture—probably Baghdad Sulcus—was created by the release of accumulated tensile stress, caused in turn by secular cooling.

Protonated buckminsterfullerene (C₆₀H⁺) may be the most abundant interstellar analogue of C₆₀, and its gas-phase laboratory infrared spectrum is presented here. C₆₀H⁺ has more infrared active modes than C₆₀, giving it a richer spectrum that may be detectable with future infrared space missions.

Nineteen dwarf galaxies from the ALFALFA catalogue support previous observations of dwarf galaxies that suggested a deficiency in dark matter, challenging the formation theory of low-mass galaxies within the standard cold dark matter model.

A detailed study of young stellar populations from high-quality stacked spectra of 28,663 massive early-type galaxies reveals ubiquitous residual star formation, measuring average mass fractions of 0.5% in young stars in the last 2 Gyr of their evolution.

Multi-frequency observations by the upgraded LIGO/Virgo and the proposed LISA space gravitational wave detector will be used to detect intermediate-mass black hole binaries in their inspiral, merger and ring-down phases out to cosmological distances.

16 out of 17 spectral observations of Europa, spanning from February 2016 to May 2017, did not see anything, but the one on 26 April 2016 shows evidence of a direct detection of water vapour, compatible with a column density of 1.4 ± 0.4 × 10¹⁹ H₂O m⁻². Whatever water activity there is on Europa, it is very sporadic.

Dust in the Solar System originates primarily in two locations: the interstellar medium and stellar outflows. On the basis of measurements of palladium isotopes in iron meteorites, Ek et al. suggest that the interstellar component was destroyed in the inner Solar System, revealing an enhancement of s-process isotopes from stardust.

The large-scale spatial distribution of local active galactic nuclei can constrain the black hole–stellar mass relation and their mean radiative efficiency to 10–20%, suggesting moderate to high spins for the vast majority of supermassive black holes.

A cost-efficient overhaul of the 50-year-old Molonglo radio telescope will equip it as a standalone fast radio burst detector and localizer, explain Adam Deller and Chris Flynn.