Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2019

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’ March-April 2019 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 18 22 24 The Genesis Project and planetary protection In the relatively near future, we will be able to colonize some exoplanets with elementary life forms. The opportunity to proceed in this direction is linked to a number of factors that are not yet completely under- stood and that, for some aspects, raise ethical issues. However, the most basic problem remains − that... Hubble sees the brightest quasar in the early Universe Astronomers have discovered the brightest object ever seen at a time when the universe was less than one billion years old, with the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The brilliant beacon is a quasar, the core of a galaxy with a black hole ravenously eating material surrounding it. Though the quasar is... NASA’s New Horizons mission reveals entirely new kind of world On January 2, 2019, scientists from NASA’s New Horizons mission released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored — the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Its remarkable appearance, unlike anything we’ve seen before, illuminates the processes that built the planets four... Mars rover Opportunity retired One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA's Opportunity rover mission ended after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars. The Opportunity rover stopped com- municating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. After... ALMA discovers early protostar with a warped disk Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers have observed, for the first time, a warped disk around an infant protostar that formed just several tens of thousands of years ago. This implies that the misalignment of planetary orbits in many planetary systems, including... New baseline schedule for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope Since the ESO Council gave their “green light” to start the construction of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in 2014, the programme has been advancing rapidly. To date, almost 90% (by value) of the external contracts have been awarded for the design and manufacture of the telescope, optics, components and... Orbital advertising − a concrete risk Watching the night sky with the naked eye might seem to some a boring activity because, with few ex- ceptions, you always see the same things. Some might even think it would be nice if there was at least a bit of space advertising between one observation and another... As incredible as it may seem, someone... Free open source materials from ESO Supernova Planetarium The ESO Supernova Planetarium and Visitor Centre is the world’s first open-source planetarium, and part of its mission is to develop and share visuals, texts and materials for both the general public and astron- omy science communicators. Now that the ESO Supernova is open to the public, the extensive content... Hubble finds a fast evaporating exoplanet Fishermen would be puzzled if they netted only big and little fish, but few medium-sized fish. Astronomers likewise have been perplexed in conducting a census of star-hugging extrasolar planets. They have found hot Jupiter-sized planets and hot super-Earths (planets not less than 1.5 times Earth’s diameter). These... ESO to host Cherenkov Telescope Array-South at Paranal The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation ground-based instrument designed to detect very high energy gamma rays, with sites in both the southern and northern hemispheres. Gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation of very high energy, emitted by the hottest and most extreme objects in... 32 36 40 48 52