Volume 7 Issue 5, May 2023

A change in policy that has allowed the public to use the Thiruvananthapuram Astronomical Observatory has brought about a consistent increase in visitors that is being spurred on by recent celestial events, such as the appearance of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

Long-exposure spectra taken with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal the most distant galaxies ever observed — back to a time when the Universe was only 2% of its present age.

A group of amateur astronomers made key observations during the impact of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft into asteroid Dimorphos — a pioneering experiment aimed at modifying the dynamical state of an asteroid.

The success of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is a giant leap for planetary defence. DART is an important milestone on the long road that still lies ahead for reducing the risk of a devastating natural object impact with Earth.

Near-infrared observations of large dark asteroids in the main belt reveal that they have spectral characteristics similar to those of the dwarf planet Ceres. Thermal evolution models suggest that these asteroids accreted at large orbital distances and may have been implanted into the main belt by the dynamic instability of the giant planets.

The first maps of the magnetic field in the nebula surrounding the Crab pulsar have been drawn using X-ray polarimetry. They provide insight into the flow of relativistic particles through the nebula and the generation of turbulence.

The large, low-albedo asteroids in the main belt between 3.0 au and 3.4 au share spectral characteristics and history with Ceres. Accreted in different parts of the outer Solar System, they might have been implanted into the main belt by the dynamic upheaval created by the giant planets’ instability.

The unusual radar properties of icy satellites appear to be correlated and distributed along a spectrum of values. Only modelling including the coherent backscatter opposition effect can reproduce this behaviour.

Laboratory measurements reveal highly efficient formation of H₂ at temperatures up to 250 K on a carbonaceous surface. This process should lead to a high rate of H₂ formation on the surfaces of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in both nearby and high-redshift galaxies, bolstering the contribution of H₂ to the cooling of warmer gas.

Mapping the 158 μm line of ionized carbon within the Cygnus region with the SOFIA observatory provides evidence for dynamic interactions between molecular clouds and their atomic envelopes, which trace out the assembly process of cloud complexes.

A four-arm spiral pattern in the accretion disk around an accreting high-mass protostar has been resolved using VLBI observations of methanol masers. These observations provide evidence for a link between disk accretion, disk instability and episodic growth of a protostar.

The red dwarf star YZ Ceti produced two observed bursts of radio waves that may have been caused by the star interacting magnetically with a nearby Earth-like planet, as the radio bursts occur at similar points in the planet’s two-day orbit.

Magnetars are potential sources of fast radio bursts, but are the magnetars that may be created following a binary neutron star merger fast radio burst source? This study of the coincidence between FRB 20190425A and a gravitational wave event finds a weak association.

The brightness at the tip of the red giant branch in the Magellanic Clouds sets the scale of the Universe and has been debated. Here a number of samples are drawn from across the Clouds and composited, providing sub-per-cent level agreement and measurements consistent with independent geometric constraints.

X-ray polarization measurements of the Crab nebula and pulsar by the IXPE satellite reveal a global toroidal magnetic field with large variations in local polarization, suggesting a more complex turbulence distribution than anticipated.

The JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey using NIRCam to find the earliest galaxies reveals the size and star formation rates of four extreme redshift (z > 10) galaxies of the distant Universe.

As part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), NIRSpec has spectroscopically confirmed four young and metal-poor galaxies at redshift 10.3–13.2, from an early epoch of galaxy formation.

A year of science from the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer has brought results that are stimulating a re-examination of theoretical models of astrophysical sources.