Benjamin C. Bromley and Scott J. Kenyon 2020 AJ 160 85
Modelling shows that an impact between Pluto’s companion Charon and a body of 30–100 km could have produced a disk of debris that later formed into the smaller satellites of Pluto and Charon.
Paul Robertson et al 2020 ApJ 897 125
New radial velocity measurements reveal that starspot modulation for rapidly rotating M stars frequently remains coherent for hundreds of stellar rotations, giving rise to signals that can be mistaken for exoplanets.
Pedro H. Bernardinelli et al 2020 Planet. Sci. J. 1 28
Analysis of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects detected in the first 4 years of the Dark Energy Survey show that this population is consistent with azimuthal isotropy and does not require a “Planet 9” hypothesis.
Daniel J. Whalen et al 2020 ApJL 897 L16
Cosmological simulations of direct-collapse black holes born in cold accretion flows — where they can grow to billions of solar masses by z~7 — show that these objects may be detectable by the James Webb Space Telescope.
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.