December 2021 Starcharts and Newsletters
Edwin Rod
Please find this month’s Star charts and newsletters attached. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas and look forward to new year’s too. Two important announcements on the North Islands Star Parties are below.
The Summer Stardate is on 4 & 5 February 2022 at Stonehenge Aotearoa. We anticipate excellent night skies for observation. The key activity this Stardate is a celebration with the "beaker people", hearing their anecdotes, retelling of the experiences and an opportunity to engage in conversation with them about the journey that gave rise to Stonehenge Aotearoa. Alongside this activity will be a focus on home observation, hearing from practitioners on their experiences and learning.
The Central Star Party in the Hawks Bay has been cancelled.
As always there is plenty of interesting research papers to work through this month.
Cheers Edwin
Research papers
Moons are planets Scientific usefulness versus cultural teleology in the taxonomy of planetary science
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103521004206
The Clustering of Orbital Poles Induced by the LMC
https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.07321
Investigating the risks of debris-generating ASAT tests in the presence of megaconstellations
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.12196
Atmospheric dynamics of temperate sub-Neptunes
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.11108
Towards a Classification Scheme for the Rocky Planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.11404
Effect of clouds on emission spectra for Super Venus
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.04587
Atmospheres of Rocky Exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.04663
Rocky planets as the Lavosier-Lomonosov Bridge from the non-living to the living world
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.04309
The HD 137496 system
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.08764
The Onset of a Globally Ice-covered State for a Land Planet
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.12913
Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) III
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.02054
TOI-712 mini-Neptunes extending to the habitable zone
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.02416
An upper limit on late accretion and water delivery in the Trappist-1 exoplanet system
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.13351
A hot Mars-sized exoplanet transiting an M dwarf
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.03958
The Ice Coverage of Earth-like Planets Orbiting FGK Stars
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.03372
Assessing TESS's Yield of Rocky Planets Around Nearby M Dwarfs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.08337
A Cross-Laboratory Comparison Study of Titan Haze Analogs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.04904
The 3D Direct Simulation Monte Carlo Study of Europa Gas Plume
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.13532
Do Oceanic Convection and Clathrate Dissociation Drive Europa's Geysers
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.15094
Salt Ice analogs of Jovian Icy moons in support of the planned JUICE mission
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.05697
Constraints on the production of phosphine by Venusian volcanoes
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.00140
Production of Ammonia Makes Venusian Clouds Habitable
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.10850
Venus Life Finder Mission Study
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.05153
An Investigation of Libration Heating and the Thermal State of Enceladus's Ice Shell
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.07038
The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog
https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.11304
A Search for Analogs of KIC 8462852 (Boyajian's Star)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.01208
Fast-running theropods tracks from the Early Cretaceous of La Rioja, Spain
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-02557-9
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Interesting News items
Tree of Life
Life on Venus?
Would Mars be More Habitable if it Orbited a Red Dwarf?
https://www.universetoday.com/153736/would-mars-be-more-habitable-if-it-orbited-a-red-dwarf/
Scientists envision what Mars would look like as an exoplanet
Destination Mars
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/127261589/destination-mars-a-fastpaced-interstellar-adventure
Would Mars be More Habitable if it Orbited a Red Dwarf?
https://www.universetoday.com/153736/would-mars-be-more-habitable-if-it-orbited-a-red-dwarf/
New research may explain why satellite galaxies align themselves around the Milky Way.
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/how-our-largest-dwarf-galaxy-keeps-the-others-in-line
The Clustering of Orbital Poles Induced by the LMC
https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.07321
A planet beyond the realm of possibility
http://nccr-planets.ch/blog/2021/12/08/a-planet-beyond-the-realm-of-possibility
Arabia Terra
Are Water Plumes Spraying From Europa?
An interesting look at Phobos
Search for MH370
https://www.mh370search.com/2021/10/11/how-can-wspr-help-find-mh370