Howard Chen et al 2018 ApJL 868 L6
Simulations show that changes in illumination geometry and rotation-induced circulation can influence the global distribution of atmospheric biosignatures on tidally locked exoplanets.
Pei Zuo et al 2018 ApJ 867 13
The discovery of a rare, isolated dark cloud currently undergoing H2 formation lets us examine the atomic-to-molecular transition and suggests that a classical star formation picture is favored over fast star formation models.
Thomas Barclay et al 2018 ApJS 239 2
Estimates suggest TESS will find 1,250 ± 70 exoplanets, including 250 smaller than 2 R⊕. An additional 3,100 planets will be found in full-frame image data orbiting bright dwarf stars and more than 10,000 around fainter stars.
Knicole D. Colón et al 2018 AJ 156 227
New photometric observations of the disintegrating planet K2-22b suggest that its transit depths are similar in 2016-2017 to what they were in 2014-2015, though there’s ongoing variability in transit shape and time.
Nikhil Mahajan et al 2018 ApJL 867 L2
The pulse profile of PSR B1957+20, a millisecond pulsar, switches between two quasi-stable modes of emission; the time between mode changes is only 1.7 s (~1000 rotations), the shortest observed to date.
S. Mathur et al 2018 ApJ 866 123
The quasar Mrk 590 appears to again be changing its appearance, indicating that the change in AGN type is neither due to obscuration nor due to one-way evolution; it may instead be related to episodic accretion events.