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2024 Fizeau and Michelson Prize Winners Announced
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The Fizeau and Michelson Prizes were awarded to Drs. Steve Ridgway and Peter Tuthill, respectively, at the SPIE conference in Yokohama, Japan, on June 21, 2024, in recognition of their scientific contributions to the field of astronomical interferometry.
First map of Jupiter's winds using Doppler spectroscopy
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An international team of scientists managed to produce the first map of the atmospheric circulation of Jupiter by using Doppler spectroscopy, whereas previous measurements were derived by measuring cloud motions from time-separated images. Such a technical performance was realized thanks to the imaging spectrometer JOVIAL specially dedicated to measuring motions in the atmosphere of Jupiter, which can be seen as a proof of concept for future space-borne instruments.
The disk with three rings making metal-rich planets
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How Earth and the Solar System were formed, is an age-old question of humankind. By studying the present state of our planet, scientists were able to trace back our planetary history to the very beginning. Now we know that Earth formed from the dust which encircled the newborn Sun 4.5 billion years ago.
NASA’s Webb Identifies Methane In an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
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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.