Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2015

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. Loc. Palazzetto, 4 52011 Bibbiena - AR - 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 copyright law. A single copy of the materials available through this course may be made, solely for personal, non- commercial use. Users may not distrib- ute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form, whether or not for a charge or other consideration, without prior written consent of the copyright holder of the materials. The publisher makes available itself with having rights for possible not characterized iconographic sources. Advertising - Administration Astro Publishing di Pirlo L. Via Bonomelli, 106 25049 Iseo - BS - ITALY email admin@astropublishing.com ASTROFILO l’ March-April 2015 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 Life on Mars, the circle narrows The confirmation (or denial) belongs to the future, but at present we can hope to be facing what re- mains of the earliest forms of extraterrestrial life discovered in our solar system. Maybe they were not green, as tradition would like them to be, and for sure they did not pilot spaceships, but if they... 4 VLT images cometary globule CG4, the mouth of the beast Like the gaping mouth of a gigantic celestial creature, the cometary globule CG4 glows menacingly in this new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Although it appears to be big and bright in this picture, this is actually a faint nebula, which makes it very hard for amateur astronomers to spot... 16 New infrared view of the Trifid Nebula taken with VISTA A new image taken with ESO’s VISTA survey telescope reveals the famous Trifid Nebula in a new and ghostly light. By observing in infrared light, astronomers can see right through the dust-filled central parts of the Milky Way and spot many previously hidden objects. In just this tiny part of one of the... 20 Hubble captures rare triple moon transit of Jupiter These new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images capture a rare occurrence as three of Jupiter’s largest moons parade across the giant gas planet’s banded face. Hubble took a string of images of the event which show the three satellites — Europa, Callisto and Io — in action. There are four... 23 Some 70,000 years ago, a star in the Oort Cloud Only discovered in 2013, Scholz’s Star turned out to be a very interesting red dwarf, due to the fact of having transited through the Oort Cloud in astronomically recent times. The effects of this transit may be visible in the inner solar system in the form of comet shower, but not before 2 million years from now. 28 Hubble captures the Pillars of Creation twenty years on The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured many breathtaking images of the Universe, but one snapshot stands out from the rest: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. In 1995 Hubble’s iconic image revealed never-before-seen details in the giant columns and now the telescope is kickstarting... 36 New exoplanet-hunting telescopes on Paranal The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) has achieved first light at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. This project will search for transiting exoplanets — planets that pass in front of their parent star and hence produce a slight dimming of the star’s light that can be detected by sensitive instruments... 39 Hubble catches the sharpest ever view of the Andromeda galaxy The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest and biggest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy — otherwise known as Messier 31. The enormous image is the biggest Hub- ble image ever released and shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded... 42 Three almost earth-size planets found orbiting nearby star A team of scientists recently discovered a system of three planets, each just larger than Earth, orbit- ing a nearby star called EPIC 201367065. The three planets are 1.5-2 times the size of Earth. The outermost planet orbits on the edge of the so-called “habitable zone,” where the temperature may... 46 New model unveils Eta Carinae One of the most massive and turbulent double stars of our galaxy has revealed a part of its mysteries to some researchers of NASA’s GSFC, who developed a numerical model capable of correctly inter- preting the scenario created by the interaction between the raging winds emitted by the two stars. 48