April 2024 News, research Items and Starcharts

 

April 2024 News, research Items and Starcharts

 

Hi Folks, the biggest event of the past month was meeting Lisa Kaltenegger from Cornell, she gave an interesting presentation on one of my favourite research subjects. That being the environments and condition on a range of Exo planets. While not able to see it in person watching some of the live stream and all the photos of the eclipse from the states was enjoyable.

 

The most interesting papers out this month to catch my attention were the search for an Outer Ice giant, the search continues there. Pluto has a good look in with a look at the details of Sputnik Planitia. There is also work from Cornell on exoplanets as well.

 

Research papers

 

 

How to identify cell material in a single ice grain emitted from Enceladus or Europa

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl0849

 

 

A Proposal for Enhancing Technosignature Search toward the Galactic Center

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad2a48

 

 

An Agnostic Biosignature Based on Modeling Panspermia and Terraformation

https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14195

 

 

Sub-Micrometer Particles Remote Detection in Enceladus Plume

https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.15727

 

 

Sputnik Planitia as an impactor remnant indicative of an ancient rocky mascon in an oceanless Pluto

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02248-1

 

 

BepiColombo observations of cold oxygen and carbon ions in the flank of the induced magnetosphere of Venus

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02247-2

 

 

A Century of Reforestation Reduced Anthropogenic Warming in the Eastern United States

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2023EF003663

 

 

Generation of Low-Inclination, Neptune-Crossing TNOs by Planet Nine

https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.11594

 

 

Purple is the new green: biopigments and spectra of Earth-like purple worlds

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/530/2/1363/7645230

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting News items

 

 

Webb Reveals Secrets of Neptune’s Evolution

https://www.universetoday.com/166178/webb-reveals-secrets-of-neptunes-evolution/

 

 

Final Delta launch

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/03/the-delta-iv-heavy-a-rocket-whose-time-has-come-and-gone-will-fly-once-more/

 

 

A good update here on the increasing number of satellities

https://spacenews.com/astronomers-and-megaconstellations-learn-to-get-along/

 

 

2028 total solar eclipse in New Zealand likely big tourism drawcard, astronomer says

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/513861/2028-total-solar-eclipse-in-new-zealand-likely-big-tourism-drawcard-astronomer-says

 

 

Mercury: The Solar System's smallest planet may once have been as large as Earth

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240410-mercury-the-solar-systems-smallest-planet-may-once-have-been-as-large-as-earth

 

 

How Pluto got its 'heart'

https://news.arizona.edu/news/how-pluto-got-its-heart

 

 

Move the Earth outwards?

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/04/a-survival-guide-for-the-end-of-the-solar-system/

 

 

 

Purple is the new Green

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/04/search-alien-life-purple-may-be-new-green

 

Solar sail launched from NZ

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/515083/watch-nasa-rocket-lab-launch-solar-sail-from-hawke-s-bay

 

 

 

 

Dr Lisa Kaltenegger – “Searching for Alien Earths”

 

Lisa Kaltenegger is the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute to Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell, and is Associate Professor in Astronomy. She is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modeling potential habitable worlds and their detectable spectral fingerprint. Her research focuses on rocky planets circling other stars, with a focus on potentially Earth-like exoplanets in the Habitable Zone.

 

Lisa Kaltenegger serves on the National Science Foundation's Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC), and on NASA senior review of operating missions. She is a Science Team Member of NASA's TESS Mission as well as the NIRISS instrument on JWST.

 

With exo planets being one of my favourite subjects and interests I had to make it to Lisa’s talk here in Wellington, and given the last few years of the Covid pandemic there hasn’t been any international visitors to our shores either.

 

Lisa gave me a warm welcome and said hello and introduced herself, her talk was extremely interesting and well received from the audience, with some interesting questions in there too. I hope she has a good trip around NZ and makes it back to the US in time for the Eclipse.

 

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