Interstellar Updates

 

These are items of interest to the interstellar exploration community that we’ve found in our quest for information that will help us advance toward our goals.  If you know of anything we’ve overlooked, or any sources of such information we should monitor, or if you would like to be added to our IRG-updates mailing list and receive these updates in you email every weekday, please send that information to info@irg.space.

You can now search our database of interstellar updates and find items of interest to you.

July 1, 2019 updates

A sub-Neptune exoplanet with a low-metallicity methane-depleted atmosphere and Mie-scattering clouds
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0800-5

The natural history of ‘Oumuamua
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0816-x

An emission spectrum for WASP-121b measured across the 0.8– wavelength range using the Hubble Space Telescope
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/mnras/stz1753/5524368

Close-in Sub-Neptunes Reveal the Past Rotation History of Their Host Stars: Atmospheric Evolution of Planets in the HD 3167 and K2-32 Planetary Systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.12153

A Gap in the Mass Distribution for Warm Neptune and Terrestrial Planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11865

The Application of International Human Rights Instruments in Outer Space Settlements: Today’s Science Fiction, Tomorrow’s Reality
https://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/per/article/download/5904/7781/

June 28, 2019 Updates

Ploonets: formation, evolution, and detectability of tidally detached exomoons
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11400

Overcast on Osiris: 3D radiative-hydrodynamical simulations of a cloudy hot Jupiter using the parameterised, phase-equilibrium cloud formation code EddySed
https://arxiv.org/list/astro-ph/new

Upper limits on protolunar disc masses using ALMA observations of directly-imaged exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11774

TESS mission finds its smallest planet yet
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-s-tess-mission-finds-its-smallest-planet-yet

Moving Beyond Definitions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2018.1980

Hot, rocky and warm, puffy super-Earths orbiting TOI-402 (HD 15337)
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2019/07/aa35457-19/aa35457-19.html

The L 98-59 System: Three Transiting, Terrestrial-size Planets Orbiting a Nearby M Dwarf
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ab2459

June 27, 2019 updates

Main instrument for NASA’s WFIRST mission completes milestone review
https://spacenewsfeed.com/index.php/news/3366-main-instrument-for-nasa-s-wfirst-mission-completes-milestone-review

Constraints on HD 113337 fundamental parameters and planetary system: Combining long-base visible interferometry, disc imaging, and high-contrast imaging
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2019/07/aa35494-19

TESS Hunt for Young and Maturing Exoplanets (THYME): A planet in the 45 Myr Tucana-Horologium association
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.10703

Nearly Polar orbit of the sub-Neptune HD3167 c: Constraints on a multi-planet system dynamical history
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11013

KMT-2018-BLG-0029Lb: A Very Low Mass-Ratio Spitzer Microlens Planet
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11183

The Atmosphere
https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.04481

June 26, 2019 updates

On Alien Worlds, Extraterrestrials Could Be Spewing a Toxic, Smelly Gas. That’s How We Could Find Them.
https://www.livescience.com/65791-alien-life-may-spew-toxic-gas.html

Modelling galactic settlement
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-galactic-settlement.html

10th Global Trajectory Optimisation Competition
https://gtocx.jpl.nasa.gov/gtocx/

Three Red Suns in the Sky: A Transiting, Terrestrial Planet in a Triple M Dwarf System at 6.9 Parsecs
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.10147

Thermal Tides in Rotating Hot Jupiters
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.10330

Atmospheric Evolution on Low-Gravity Waterworlds
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.10561

Galactic Tide and Local Stellar Perturbations on the Oort Cloud: Creation of Interstellar Comets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.10617