New Pieces Placed in Milky Way Formation and Evolution Puzzle

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Two new research papers examine how the Milky Way galaxy was formed and how it evolved. Plus, we take a look at stories on the prospects for life elsewhere in the cosmos and on fast radio bursts and supernovae. Finally, just what was the zero-gravity indicator aboard the Crew-1 Dragon?

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Family Tree of the Milky Way Deciphered

• Royal Astronomical Society press release 
• “Kraken Reveals Itself — The Merger History of the Milky Way Reconstructed with the E-MOSAICS Simulations,” J. M. Diederik Kruijssen, Joel L. Pfeffer, Mélanie Chevance, et al., 2020 October, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (preprint on arxiv.org)

Potential Plumes on Europa Could Come from Water in the Crust

• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory press release 
• “Brine Migration and Impact-Induced Cryovolcanism on Europa,” G. Steinbrügge et al., 2020 Nov. 5, Geophysical Research Letters

Orbits of Ancient Stars Prompt Rethink on Milky Way Evolution

• Science In Public press release 
• ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) press release 
• “Exploring the Galaxy’s Halo and Very Metal-Weak Thick Disk with SkyMapper and Gaia DR2,” G. Cordoni et al., 2020 Nov. 4, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (preprint on arxiv.org)

New Interdisciplinary Consortium for Astrobiology Research

• UCSC press release 

Cosmic Flashes Come in All Different Sizes

• Onsala Space Observatory press release 
• “Detection of Two Bright Radio Bursts from Magnetar SGR 1935+2154,” Franz Kirsten et al., 2020 Nov. 16, Nature Astronomy (preprint on arxiv.org)

Building blocks of life can form long before stars

• Queen Mary University of London press release 
• “A non-energetic mechanism for glycine formation in the interstellar medium,” S. Ioppolo, et al., 2020 Nov. 16, Nature Astronomy

Tree rings may hold clues to earthly impacts of distant supernovas

• UC Boulder news article 
• “Solar system exposure to supernova γ radiation,” G. Robert Brakenridge, 2020 Nov. 4, International Journal of Astrobiology

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 Astronauts Arrive at Space Station

• NASA press release 

Credits

Written by Pamela Gay and Beth Johnson
Hosted by Pamela Gay and Beth Johnson
Audio and Video Editing by Ally Pelphrey
Content Editing by Beth Johnson
Intro and Outro music by Kevin MacLeod, https://incompetech.com/music/