Vol. 687 6. Interstellar and circumstellar matter Narrow absorption lines from intervening material in supernovae. I. Measurements and temporal evolution by Santiago Gonzalez-Gaitan, Claudia P. Gutierrez, Joseph P. Anderson, Antonia Morales-Garoffolo, Lluis Galbany, Sabyasachi Goswami, Ana M. Mourao , Seppo Mattila, Mark Sullivan 2024, A&A, 687, Axxx It has often been noted by historians and sociologists of science that negative or null results remain in desk drawers. This paper stands as a striking counterexample. The authors present a meticulous study of the absorption lines from presum ..read more

Vol. 687 1. Letter-to-the-Editor Resonant sub-Neptunes are puffier by Adrien Leleu, Jean-Baptiste Delisle, Remo Burn, André Izidoro, Stéphane Udry, Xavier Dumusque, Christophe Lovis, Sarah Millholland, Léna Parc, François Bouchy, Vincent Bourrier, Yann Alibert, João Faria, Christoph Mordasini, and Damien Ségransan 2024, A&A, 687, L1 Exoplanets whose masses have been measured through transit timing variations (TTVs) have systematically lower densities than those whose masses have been measured with radial velocities (RVs). This discrepancy was initially feared to reflect shortcomings in th ..read more

Vol. 686 10. Planets and planetary systems Into the thick of it: ALMA 0.45 mm observations of HL Tau at a resolution of 2 au by Osmar M. Guerra-Alvarado, Carlos Carrasco-González, Enrique Macías, Nienke van der Marel, Adrien Houge, Luke T. Maud, Paola Pinilla, Marion Villenave, Yoshiharu Asaki, Elizabeth Humphreys 2024, A&A, 686, A298 The disk orbiting the pre-main-sequence star HL Tau presents a series of striking bright and dark rings that have been mapped with the ALMA telescope in an already iconic image. The origin of these rings is still under debate, but a favored interpretation i ..read more

Vol. 686 10. Planets and planetary systems A 3D picture of moist-convection inhibition in hydrogen-rich atmospheres: Implications for K2-18b by Jérémy Leconte, Aymeric Spiga, Noé Clément, et al. 2024, A&A, 686, A131 The issue of convective inhibition has received increased attention from a diverse range of planetary research groups around the world as its centrality to understanding the atmospheric dynamics and thermal evolution of the Solar System and exoplanets has become increasingly apparent. So far, researchers have relied primarily on linear stability analysis to draw conclusions, a ..read more

Vol. 686 5. Galactic structure, stellar clusters and populations 22Ne distillation and the cooling sequence of the old metal-rich open cluster NGC 6791 by Maurizio Salaris, Simon Blouin, Santi Cassisi, Luigi R. Bedin 2024, A&A, 686, A153 There is a significant correlation between the luminosity of white dwarfs (WDs) and their cooling age, rendering WDs invaluable as cosmic timekeepers. However, the accuracy of this temporal gauge hinges upon precise WD models, particularly the processes governing their energy reservoirs. Recent simulations have unveiled a notable phenomenon: the efficien ..read more

Vol. 686 11. Celestial mechanics and astrometry A new pulsar timing model for scalar-tensor gravity with applications to PSR J2222-0137 and pulsar-black hole binaries by A. Batrakov, H. Hu, N. Wex, P.C.C. Freire, V. Venkatraman Krishnan, M. Kramer, Y. J. Guo, L. Guillemot, J. W. McKee, I. Cognard, G. Theureau 2024, A&A, 686, A101 General relativity has been tested in great detail thanks to relativistic binary pulsars. The double binary pulsar PSR J0737-3039 allowed us to reach a 99.99% accuracy. Despite this, tests of alternative theories of gravity continue (and must continue for the go ..read more

Vol. 685 7. Stellar structure and evolution Discovery of a dormant 33 solar-mass black hole in pre-release Gaia astrometry by Gaia Collaboration: P. Panuzzo, T. Mazeh, F. Arenou, B. Holl, E. Caffau, A. Jorissen, C. Babusiaux, P. Gavras, J. Sahlmann, U. Bastian, Ł. Wyrzykowski, L. Eyer, et al. 2024, A&A, 685, L2 Detections of gravitational waves from merging black holes demonstrate that pairs of black holes more massive than 30 solar masses are relatively common in the nearby universe. Yet, the most massive black hole known to date in our Galaxy is 20 solar mass Cyg X1, with all others be ..read more

Vol. 685 4. Extragalactic astronomy A quasar-galaxy merger at z~6.2: Black hole mass and quasar properties from the NIRSpec spectrum by Federica Loiacono, Roberto Decarli, Marco Mignoli, Emanuele Paolo Farina, et al. 2024, A&A, 684, A121 The authors used JWST NIRSpec to obtain high resolution integral field spectroscopy of the spectacular system composed of a quasar host interacting with two companion galaxies, namely PJ308-21 at z=6.23. The quasar has an inferred black hole mass of 2-3x10^9 Msol and an Eddington ratio of 0.67, which is in line with the population of the most distant quas ..read more

Vol. 684 5. Galactic structure, stellar clusters and populations Observed kinematics of the Milky Way nuclear stellar disk region by M. Zoccali, A. Rojas-Arriagada, E. Valenti, R. Contreras Ramos, A. Valenzuela-Navarro, C. Salvo-Guajardo 2024, A&A, 684, A214 Zooming into the central regions of the Milky Way unravels a great deal of structures, though often obscured by large extinction. These comprise the Galactic bulge at the kiloparsec scale, down to stellar and gaseous components with a 100 pc extent, as also seen in other galaxies. In past works, a flat, stellar disk with a 150 pc radi ..read more

Vol. 684 10. Planets and planetary systems AFM-IR nanospectroscopy of nanoglobule-like particles in Ryugu samples returned by the Hayabusa2 mission by Jérémie Mathurin, Laure Bejach, Emmanuel Dartois, et al. 2024, A&A, 684, A198 Vibrational spectroscopy is a powerful tool to investigate the chemical structure of organic matter and minerals in meteorites, micrometeorites, and return samples from space missions. "Classic" infrared microspectrocopy (µ-FTIR) is, however, diffraction limited to spatial resolutions of a few microns. Infrared photothermal nanospectrocopy (AFM-IR), which combine ..read more