Volume 5 Issue 2, February 2021

On a magnetar’s surface, magnetic fields can create permanent sunspot-like structures. Accounting for heat diffusion and magnetic evolution in a magnetar’s crust in the latest simulations improves agreement with observations.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) looked at the Moon in the 6 µm wavelength region and found a signature of molecular water, distinguishing it from other forms of hydration. The authors estimate water abundances between 100 and 400 µg g⁻¹ at high latitudes, trapped within impact glasses or possibly in between grains.

The change in growth of the lunar regolith thickness around 3.5 Gyr ago, a consequence of a change in population of the impactor bodies from planetesimals to asteroids, indicates that the instability of giant planets happened early.

The distribution of boulders on the surface of top-shaped asteroids such as Bennu or Ryugu tells us about the processes driving their evolution. A model shows that the spin-up induced by the Yarkovsky–O’Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack (YORP) effect can explain simultaneously both the latitudinal behaviour of the boulders and the regolith migration.

A shape evolution model shows that bilobed Arrokoth obtained its peculiar flattened shape by sublimation-driven mass loss. This process happened very early in the body’s history and may be a widespread shaping mechanism of Kuiper belt objects.

Realistic three-dimensional magneto-thermal simulations of magnetars with strong, large-scale toroidal magnetic fields accurately describe the observed light curves of 10 out of 19 magnetars in quiescence and allow their rotational orientation to be further constrained.

Precision quantum sensor networks are a useful and viable tool in multi-messenger astronomy for the detection of exotic fields that go beyond standard model theories. They could, for example, detect intense bursts of exotic low-mass fields generated by high-energy astrophysical events.

Observations of the jellyfish galaxy JO206 reveal an ordered, large-scale magnetic field and extremely high polarization, which can be explained by the accretion of magnetized plasma from the intergalactic medium that condenses onto the external layers of the tail.

A reconstruction of the distribution of cold traps on the Moon at spatial scales varying from 1 km to 1 cm shows that the smallest ones are also the most numerous, 10–20% of the total. The total surface area of the Moon that can efficiently trap water is revised substantially upward, to 40,000 km².

A five-membered carbon ring molecule, cyanocyclopentadiene, has been detected in a molecular cloud at a higher abundance than expected. This result from the GOTHAM survey indicates a rich aromatic chemistry in molecular clouds that is not fully understood theoretically.

Benzonitrile, a proxy for the aromatic ring molecule benzene, has now been detected at multiple locations in the Taurus and Serpens molecular clouds, suggesting a widespread aromatic chemistry in the interstellar medium. Chemical models underestimate the abundance of aromatic molecules, highlighting the need for further study.

The authors present a technique to detect (weak) molecular emission lines towards sources with sparse line spectra. This method supports the current GOTHAM survey of TMC-1, and is applied to the detection of the cyanopolyyne species HC₁₁N.

Amino acid glycine is shown here to form in the laboratory at temperatures of <15 K without the need for energetic processing (such as ultraviolet irradiation or particle bombardment). The implication is that amino acids could potentially form at the very earliest stages of star formation and persist until planetary systems are established.

The Very Large Telescope’s Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) recently marked 20 years of operations, but the job is not done for this workhorse instrument, write Instrument Scientist Luca Sbordone and Fellow Camila Navarrete.