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News

All news from lagrange in French ...

NASA’s Webb Identifies Methane In an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere

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Published: 23 November 2023

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed the exoplanet WASP-80 b as it passed in front of and behind its host star, revealing spectra indicative of an atmosphere containing methane gas and water vapor. While water vapor has been detected in over a dozen planets to date, until recently methane – a molecule found in abundance in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune within our solar system – has remained elusive in the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets when studied with space-based spectroscopy. Taylor Bell from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute (BAERI), working at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and Luis Welbanks from Arizona State University tell us more about the significance of discovering methane in exoplanet atmospheres and discuss how Webb observations facilitated the identification of this long-sought-after molecule. These findings were recently published in the scientific journal Nature. Vivien Parmentier, researcher at Côte d'Azur Observatory, participated in the analysis and interpretation of the data. Now that this first overview of the data has been published, he and phd Nishil Mehta at Côte d'Azur Observatory will study the interaction between chemistry and atmospheric circulation using complex three-dimensional models.

Read it on NASA's blog.

Gaia's Focused Product Release

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Published: 10 October 2023

On Tuesday 10 October 2023, an intermediate version of the Gaia data will be published between DR3 (June 2022) and DR4 (end 2025). This has kept the researchers and engineers in the Gaia team in Nice busy! To explain the properties and main results of this data, five research articles will be published at the same time (see link below). For three of them, researchers from the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur were among the main authors. They cover a wide range of subjects, from the solar system to distant quasars.

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Asteroseismology catches the dress rehearsal for an upcoming cosmic ballet

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Published: 22 June 2023

The study, led by Dr. Siemen Burssens of KU Leuven, Belgium and published in Nature Astronomy, applied the technique of asteroseismology to study the variability of a newly discovered pulsating star known as HD 192575.

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NASA’s Webb Takes Closest Look Yet at Mysterious Planet

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Published: 10 May 2023

Vignette publicpreviewAn international scientific team, including Côte d'Azur University Professor Vivien Parmentier, has gained new insights into the atmosphere of a « mini-Neptune », a common type of planet in the galaxy but about which little is known. Vivien Parmentier's contribution was to develop the theoretical models that determined that a heavy atmosphere is necessary to reduce heat transport from the day side to the night side of the planet.

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Weather report: Expect scattered, patchy clouds made up of silicates on planet VHS 1256 b

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Published: 22 March 2023

fig 1 vignetteTo date, despite the huge number of exoplanet discoveries, the formation and properties of giant planets remains a mystery. Giant exoplanets sculpt young exoplanetary systems, and might determine whether smaller Earth-like planets could be capable of harboring life. The observation and characterization of the properties of young exoplanets is crucial to help scientists to understand what giant exoplanets are made of, how they differ from Jupiter and Saturn, and how they formed.

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Gravity+ : an important step has been taken

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Published: 11 January 2023

The success of the GRAVITY interferometric instrument on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), in particular with results of the confirmation of general relativity in strong regime which it provided on the black hole of our galaxy, SgrA*, led to the start of a project of instrumental and infrastructure improvements in order to extend this level of performance to the field of the exoplanets (high contrast adaptive optics) and to extragalactic astrophysics (laser guide stars) ; it is the GRAVITY+ project and mainly concerns the improvement of the performance of the adaptive optics of the VLTI. The Gravity+ consortium, composed of MPE, CNRS (through LESIA, IPAG, Lagrange & CRAL), MPIA, University of Cologne, CENTRA laboratory, Southampton University as well as ESO, has been working for 3 years on the design and the realization of 4 identical adaptive optics systems which will replace the MACAO systems, more than 20 years old. MPE is the prime contractor and responsible for the manufacturing of the wavefront sensors for natural and laser guide stars; LESIA is in charge of the realization of the real time computer and IPAG, in collaboration with ALPAO are developing the wavefront correction device (deformable mirror with 41x41 actuators). OCA is in charge of the integration of these components on an optical bench which reproduces the VLT's Coudé beam. 

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A “cantaloup” melon solar shape ?

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Published: 10 January 2023

Vignette SoleilWhat is the origin of the air we breathe, of the water in our seas and oceans, where does daylight come from, why is there a terrestrial climate, why are there auroras, why...? The answer lies in the sky. The stars are a great supplier of chemical elements, and our Sun is the source of life. Since time immemorial, man has been concerned with knowing more and more about the stars, their movement, their size, their composition... Thus, astronomy was born informing us about the celestial stars. These are described by various characteristics, mass, diameter, rotation, temperature, chemical composition, etc... to which are added the place of this body in the universe, its history, and even, in the case of the sun, its repercussions on the history of humanity.

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The chemical signature of the Galactic spiral arms revealed by Gaia

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Published: 29 September 2022

Eloisa pioggio voielactee vignetteThe spiral arms of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, have a significant impact on the chemical composition of stars. This result, newly discovered, plays a fundamental role in the study of our Galaxy and the chemical elements composing not only the stars, but also the Earth and the living beings. The study leading to this conclusion has been carried out by a team of researchers from the Côte d’Azur Observatory – Côte d’Azur University-CNRS (Nice, France) and from the Torino Observatory (Italy). This team has been led by Eloisa Poggio, an Italian scientist working at the Côte d’Azur Observatory funded by a European Marie-Curie postdoctoral grant.

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The Comet Interceptor space exploration mission

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Published: 18 July 2022

comet interceptor vignetteThe Comet Interceptor space mission has been approved by the European Space Agency (ESA) to be the next mission to explore the solar system. Developed in collaboration with the Japanese space agency (JAXA), several national space agencies and research centres in Europe, including CNES and CNRS, Comet Interceptor will be the first space mission to visit a comet from the farthest reaches of the Solar System, or even outside the Solar System. A unique feature of this space mission will be that it will stand by the Solar System before merging with the comet. Such a comet will only be discovered in a few years' time and potentially after Comet Interceptor leaves Earth. In Nice, the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur is playing a major role in this mission.

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The inside story of NASA's mission to Psyche

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Published: 08 July 2022

pia24472 psyche asteroid illustration 16 0In its visit to Psyche, NASA hopes to glimpse the center of the Earth. NASA’s mission to the solar system's largest metallic asteroid promises to show us the iron-nickel core of a dead planet. New research, however, hints that this asteroid is much more. The article was written by Megan I. Gannon for the journal Popular Science. Guy Libourel, professor at the Université Côte d'Azur, and Mark Wieczorek, senior scientist CNRS, lagrange laboratory (CNRS-UCA-OCA) have contributed to this research.

Read more …

  1. The stellar structure with the lowest metallicity of the Universe
  2. First stellar occultations in remote observing mode by the UniversCity telescope
  3. Liquid water on exomoons of free-floating planets
  4. Research engineer Software engineering
  5. Research engineer Instrumental development
  6. The 2021 Chesneau prize was awarded to Mathias Nowak
  7. Apophis asteroid observed for the first time by the stellar occultation technique
  8. Launch of Europe’s largest astronomy network
  9. Celebrating two decades of SPHERE challenges and achievements
  10. Astronomers see whirlwind around possible exoplanet-in-the-making
  11. Bye bye VEGA, Happy New Year to SPICA !
  12. Happy birthday to Betelgeuse! b.t.w. MATISSE is back online !
  13. Cracking the crack code of asteroid rocks
  14. Exogenic Basalt on Asteroid (101955) Bennu
  15. Ammonia-rich hail sheds new light on Jupiter’s weather
  16. What if the keys to the metamorphism of carbonaceous chondrites were found …in the volcanic archipelago of the Kuril Islands, South Kamchatka?
  17. First live observation of a meteoroid impact on the Moon !
  18. France delivers NISP instrument for europe’s Euclid space mission
  19. ESO Telescope Sees Surface of Dim Betelgeuse
  20. Impacts on weak carbonaceous asteroid simulant material
  21. A study poses a new constraint on the mass of "graviton"
  22. Images from Ryugu show rocks similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites
  23. Second planet for the iconic Beta Pictoris system
  24. The early days of the Milky Way revealed
  25. A “cosmic aurora” lights up the connection between two galaxy clusters
  26. Gaia’s first asteroid discoveries
  27. Outgassing processes Workshop
  28. Discovery of a star survivors of the first ages of the universe
  29. Juno measures the depth of Jupiter’s winds
  30. The first light of MATISSE
  31. First results from Microscope satellite confirm Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity with unprecedented precision
  32. The deepest spectroscopic survey ever !
  33. MATISSE : Innovation trophy winner
  34. Ageing Star Blows Off Smoky Bubble
  35. The oldest asteroid family in the Main Belt sharpen our view of how the planets formed
  36. VIRGO joins LIGO for the “Observation Run 2” (O2) data-taking period
  37. Solar gravity modes reveal rapid rotation in its core
  38. First discovery of an exoplanet by SPHERE
  39. Jupiter’s complexity revealed by Juno
  40. Workshop “Gaia for teachers” 
  41. NIKA captures the merging of galaxy clusters
  42. French researchers push forward radio image quality in view of the SKA telescope
  43. First image of the visible photosphere of a star other than the Sun
  44. Rapid temperature changes and the early activity on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
  45. A Celestial Butterfly Emerges from its Dusty Cocoon
  46. 2015 Olivier Chesneau Prize Awarded to Julien Milli
  47. A strong prediction of the “Nice model” validated by the Rosetta mission
  48. Asteroids at the “photo finish"
  49. Gaia comes into focus
  50. Asteroids : standardized physical data collected in a catalog, the MP3C

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