Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2018

Editor in chief Michele Ferrara Scientific advisor Prof. Enrico Maria Corsini Publisher Astro Publishing di Pirlo L. Via Bonomelli, 106 25049 Iseo - BS - ITALY email info@astropublishing.com Internet Service Provider Aruba S.p.A. Via San Clemente, 53 24036 Ponte San Pietro - BG - ITALY Copyright All material in this magazine is, unless otherwise stated, property of Astro Publishing di Pirlo L. or included with permission of its author. Reproduction or retransmission of the materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, with- out the prior written consent of the copyright holder, is a violation of copy- right law. A single copy of the materi- als available through this course may be made, solely for personal, noncom- mercial use. Users may not distribute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form, whether or not for a charge or other consideration, with- out prior written consent of the copy- right holder of the materials. The publisher makes available itself with having rights for possible not charac- terized iconographic sources. Advertising - Administration Astro Publishing di Pirlo L. Via Bonomelli, 106 25049 Iseo - BS - ITALY email admin@astropublishing.com ASTROFILO l’ July-August 2018 BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION FREELY AVAILABLE THROUGH THE INTERNET English edition of the magazine S U M M A R Y 4 14 16 22 24 The mining industry goes beyond the Earth The colonization of near-space and beyond by mankind will require large quantities of raw materials from which to build habitats that will allow us to live without depending on Mother Earth. Asteroids can provide much of the necessary resources, and the mining industry is already looking towards that... Too many massive stars in starburst galaxies Probing the distant Universe a team of scientists, led by University of Edinburgh astronomer Zhi-Yu Zhang, used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to investigate the proportion of massive stars in four distant gas-rich starburst galaxies. These galaxies are seen when the Universe was much... Stellar thief is the surviving companion to a supernova Seventeen years ago, astronomers witnessed a supernova go off 40 million light-years away in the galaxy called NGC 7424, located in the southern constellation Grus, the Crane. Now, in the fading afterglow of that explosion, NASA’s Hubble has captured the first image of a surviving companion to a supernova... Two top-level discoveries by Curiosity The search for life on Mars produced exciting new results thanks to the work of NASA's Curiosity rover. The collected data reveal the presence of organic compounds on the surface of the planet and a mysteri- ous seasonal variation in the concentration of methane in Gale Crater. A basis for these observations... Helium in an exoatmosphere detected for the first time An international team of astronomers, led by Jessica Spake, a PhD student at the University of Exeter in the UK, used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to discover helium in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-107b. This is the first detection of its kind. Spake explained the importance of the discovery... Evidence for stars forming just 250 million years after Big Bang An international team of astronomers used ALMA to observe a distant galaxy called MACS1149-JD1. They detected a very faint glow emitted by ionised oxygen in the galaxy. As this infrared light travelled across space, the expansion of the Universe stretched it to wavelengths more than ten times longer by... A new “Supernova” over Munich On 26 April 2018, the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre was officially inaugurated, and its doors opened to the public from 28 April. The centre, located at ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany, provides visitors with an immersive experience of astronomy in general, along with ESO-specific... SPHERE reveals fascinating zoo of discs around young stars The SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile allows astronomers to suppress the brilliant light of nearby stars in order to obtain a better view of the regions surrounding them. This col- lection of new SPHERE images is just a sample of the wide variety of dusty discs being found around... Exiled asteroid discovered in outer reaches of Solar System The early days of our Solar System were a tempestuous time. Theoretical models of this period predict that after the gas giants formed they rampaged through the Solar System, ejecting small rocky bodies from the inner Solar System to far-flung orbits at great distances from the Sun. In particular, these models suggest... First precise distance measurement to a globular star cluster Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have for the first time precisely measured the distance to one of the oldest objects in the universe, a collection of stars born shortly after the big bang. This new, refined distance yardstick provides an independent estimate for the age of the universe. The new... 30 32 38 44 48