Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2016

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’ July-August 2016 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 The intriguing TRAPPIST-1 system With the instruments currently available to astronomers, the best chance of identifying a habitable extra- solar planet comes from ultracool dwarf systems. A group of researchers has now discovered the first of these systems, which surprisingly contains three Earth-sized exoplanets, one of which may offer very... 4 Fragment from Earth’s formation returns after billions of years Astronomers have found a unique object that appears to be made of inner Solar System material from the time of Earth’s formation, which has been preserved in the Oort Cloud far from the Sun for billions of years. Observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope... 12 Stars and Maya, a “stupefying” discovery The time of making scientific discoveries by hashing together different elements with empirical methods, without the support of solid theoretical bases but simply proceeding by trial and error, has long gone. Therefore, if a fifteen-year-old claims to have discovered a lost Mayan city just by simply consulting... 20 Faintest early-universe galaxy ever, detected and confirmed An international team of scientists has detected and confirmed the faintest early-Universe galaxy ever using the W. M. Keck Observatory on the summit on Maunakea, Hawaii. In addition to using the world’s most powerful telescope, the team relied on gravitational lensing to see the incredibly faint object... 30 Hubble discovers moon orbiting the dwarf planet Makemake Peering to the outskirts of our solar system, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake, the second brightest icy dwarf planet — after Pluto — in the Kuiper Belt. The moon — provisionally designated S/2015 (136472) 1 and nicknamed MK 2 — is more than 1,300 time... 34 Is there an exoplanet in our solar system? Of the approximately 5,000 exoplanets identified so far with various techniques, none is near enough to leave any hope of reaching it with a probe in the relatively near future. But perhaps things are not quite like that, as there are good reasons to believe that there is an exoplanet so close to us that it... 36 Cloudy days on exoplanets may hide atmospheric water Water is a hot topic in the study of exoplanets, including “hot Jupiters,” whose masses are similar to that of Jupiter, but which are much closer to their parent star than Jupiter is to the Sun. They can reach a scorching 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 degrees Celsius), meaning any water they host would take... 42 First detection of methyl alcohol in a planet-forming disc The organic molecule methyl alcohol (methanol) has been found by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub- millimeter Array (ALMA) in the TW Hydrae protoplanetary disc. This is the first such detection of the compound in a young planet-forming disc. Methanol is the only complex organic molecule as yet... 46 Hubble finds clues to the birth of supermassive black holes For years astronomers have debated how the earliest generation of supermassive black holes formed very quickly, relatively speaking, after the Big Bang. Now, an Italian team has identified two objects in the early Universe that seem to be the origin of these early supermassive black holes. The two objects... 48 Planet-devouring star reveals possible limestone crumbs A group of researchers using the W. M. Keck Observatory have discovered a planet-like body that may have been encrusted in limestone and is having its surface layers devoured by its deceased host star. In addition to extending a relatively new method of determining the chemical composition of planets to... 16