Division F Planetary Systems and Astrobiology

News

Sample of asteroid Bennu delivered to NASA's Curation Center (Houston)

NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule successfully landed on Sep 24, 2023 and delivered a pristine sample collected from the asteroid Bennu. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-first-asteroid-sample-has-landed-now-secure-in-clean-room

Astronomers find an unexpected ring around dwarf planet Quaoar

A kind of revolution has recently appeared in the field: another Kuiper belt object, Quaoar, hosts also a dense arc embedded in a continuous thinner ring, but that system lies outside Quaoar’s Roche lobe and thus should theoretically not exist.
https://www.observatoiredeparis.psl.eu/improbable-discovery-of-a.html
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Cheops/ESA_s_Cheops_finds_an_unexpected_ring_around_dwarf_planet_Quaoar

DART IMPACT:  September 26, 2022

DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is the first space mission to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor.
https://dart.jhuapl.edu/News-and-Resources/index.php

The James Webb Space Telescope has provided a beautiful picture of the Neptune Rings

https://www.jwst.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/neptunelabeled-1024x1024.png

The TESS satellite has detected a system of 6 planets in Laplace resonance around the star TOI-1136

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2210.09283

Detection of CO2 by JWST in the atmosphere of the transiting planet WASP-39b

The identification of CO2 is of high interest as it is a key element in photosynthesis
https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.11692

The number of detected extrasolar planets is permanently growing

https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/exonews_archive.html
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog

EUCLID mission

Launch date: 2023
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid_overview

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