Susanne Pfalzner and Kirsten Vincke 2020 ApJ 897 60

Simulations of close flybys in young stellar groups indicate that the Sun likely formed either in a high-mass, extended association like NGC 2244, or in an intermediate-mass, compact cluster like M44.

Romina Ahumada et al 2020 ApJS 249 3

After more than 20 years of operation, SDSS is on its 16th data release. This includes the first results from the APOGEE-2S survey of the southern Milky Way and the final results from the eBOSS cosmological redshift survey.

Karoline M. Gilbert et al 2020 AJ 160 41

Tentative evidence suggests that the [α/Fe] abundances of stars in the Andromeda galaxy’s outer halo are more similar to the abundances of Milky Way halo stars than to the abundances of stars in Andromeda’s inner halo.

Daniel J. Whalen et al 2020 ApJL 897 L16

Cosmological simulations show that black holes born from the direct collapse of population III stars in cold accretion flows — which could grow to a billion solar masses by z ~ 7 — could be detectable by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Markus J. Aschwanden 2020 ApJ 897 16

Newly determined scaling relationships of flare properties are used to predict the upper limits of the Geostationary Orbiting Earth Satellite (GOES) fluxes of flares, improving space-weather forecasting.

Jordan K. Steckloff et al 2020 Planet. Sci. J. 1 26

Methane evaporation stratifies Titan’s lakes — which are made up of liquid methane, ethane, and nitrogen — into ethane-rich and methane-rich layers separated by a strong compositional gradient.