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1. Relation of Gravity, Winds, and the Moment of Inertia of Jupiter and Saturn

   https://doi.org/10.3847/psj/acd2cd  

   Militzer, Burkhard; Hubbard, William B. (May 2023, The Planetary Science Journal)

   Abstract We study the relationship of zonal gravity coefficients, J 2 n , zonal winds, and axial moment of inertia (MoI) by constructing models for the interiors of giant planets. We employ the nonperturbative concentric Maclaurin spheroid method to construct both physical (realistic equation of state and barotropes) and abstract (small number of constant-density spheroids) interior models. We find that accurate gravity measurements of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s J 2 , J 4 , and J 6 by the Juno and Cassini spacecraft do not uniquely determine the MoI of either planet but do constrain it to better than 1%. Zonal winds (or differential rotation (DR)) then emerge as the leading source of uncertainty. For Saturn they are predicted to decrease the MoI by 0.4% because they reach a depth of ∼9000 km, while on Jupiter they appear to reach only ∼3000 km. We thus predict DR to affect Jupiter’s MoI by only 0.01%, too small by one order of magnitude to be detectable by the Juno spacecraft. We find that winds primarily affect the MoI indirectly via the gravity harmonic J 6 , while direct contributions are much smaller because the effects of pro- and retrograde winds cancel. DR contributes +6% and −0.8% to Saturn’s and Jupiter’s J 6 value, respectively. This changes the J 6 contribution that comes from the uniformly rotating bulk of the planet that correlates most strongly with the predicted MoI. With our physical models, we predict Jupiter’s MoI to be 0.26393 ± 0.00001. For Saturn, we predict 0.2181 ± 0.0002, assuming a rotation period of 10:33:34 hr that matches the observed polar radius. 

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2. New Wolf–Rayet wind yields and nucleosynthesis of Helium stars

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae1853  

   Higgins, Erin_R; Vink, Jorick_S; Hirschi, Raphael; Laird, Alison_M; Sander, Andreas_A_C (August 2024, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT Strong metallicity-dependent winds dominate the evolution of core He-burning, classical Wolf–Rayet (cWR) stars, which eject both H and He-fusion products such as $$^{14}$$N, $$^{12}$$C, $$^{16}$$O, $$^{19}$$F, $$^{22}$$Ne, and $$^{23}$$Na during their evolution. The chemical enrichment from cWRs can be significant. cWR stars are also key sources for neutron production relevant for the weak s-process. We calculate stellar models of cWRs at solar metallicity for a range of initial Helium star masses (12–50 $$\rm M_{\odot }$$), adopting recent hydrodynamical wind rates. Stellar wind yields are provided for the entire post-main sequence evolution until core O-exhaustion. While literature has previously considered cWRs as a viable source of the radioisotope $$^{26}$$Al, we confirm that negligible $$^{26}$$Al is ejected by cWRs since it has decayed to $$^{26}$$Mg or proton-captured to $$^{27}$$Al. However, in Paper I, we showed that very massive stars eject substantial quantities of $$^{26}$$Al, among other elements including N, Ne, and Na, already from the zero-age-main-sequence. Here, we examine the production of $$^{19}$$F and find that even with lower mass-loss rates than previous studies, our cWR models still eject substantial amounts of $$^{19}$$F. We provide central neutron densities (N$$_{n}$$) of a 30 $$\rm M_{\odot }$$ cWR compared with a 32 $$\rm M_{\odot }$$ post-VMS WR and confirm that during core He-burning, cWRs produce a significant number of neutrons for the weak s-process via the $$^{22}$$Ne($$\alpha$$,n)$$^{25}$$Mg reaction. Finally, we compare our cWR models with observed [Ne/He], [C/He], and [O/He] ratios of Galactic WC and WO stars. 

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3. Giant planets migrated shortly after the Solar System’s protoplanetary disk dispersed

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02341-5  

   Edwards, Graham Harper (August 2024, Nature Astronomy)

   Maltagliati, Luca (Ed.)

   Early in the history of the Solar System, the giant planets — including Jupiter and Saturn — migrated under gravity into different orbits around the Sun, causing an epoch of chaos and collisions. Radioactive isotopes in asteroids record the thermal imprint of these collisions, and a broad survey of meteorites now constrains the timing of the migration to approximately 11 million years after the Solar System formed. 

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4. Photochemically produced SO2 in the atmosphere of WASP-39b

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05902-2  

   Tsai, Shang-Min; Lee, Elspeth K.; Powell, Diana; Gao, Peter; Zhang, Xi; Moses, Julianne; Hébrard, Eric; Venot, Olivia; Parmentier, Vivien; Jordan, Sean; et al (May 2023, Nature)

   Abstract Photochemistry is a fundamental process of planetary atmospheres that regulates the atmospheric composition and stability¹. However, no unambiguous photochemical products have been detected in exoplanet atmospheres so far. Recent observations from the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program^2,3found a spectral absorption feature at 4.05 μm arising from sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in the atmosphere of WASP-39b. WASP-39b is a 1.27-Jupiter-radii, Saturn-mass (0.28 M_J) gas giant exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star with an equilibrium temperature of around 1,100 K (ref. ⁴). The most plausible way of generating SO₂in such an atmosphere is through photochemical processes^5,6. Here we show that the SO₂distribution computed by a suite of photochemical models robustly explains the 4.05-μm spectral feature identified by JWST transmission observations⁷with NIRSpec PRISM (2.7σ)⁸and G395H (4.5σ)⁹. SO₂is produced by successive oxidation of sulfur radicals freed when hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is destroyed. The sensitivity of the SO₂feature to the enrichment of the atmosphere by heavy elements (metallicity) suggests that it can be used as a tracer of atmospheric properties, with WASP-39b exhibiting an inferred metallicity of about 10× solar. We further point out that SO₂also shows observable features at ultraviolet and thermal infrared wavelengths not available from the existing observations. 

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5. Multiphase Shock Cooling Emission in Ultrastripped Supernovae

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/addc72  

   Haynie, Annastasia; Wu, Samantha C; Piro, Anthony L; Fuller, Jim (July 2025, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Ultrastripped and Type Ibn supernovae (USSNe and SNe Ibn, respectively) are fast-evolving, hydrogen-poor transients that often show signs of interaction with dense circumstellar material (CSM). S. C. Wu & J. Fuller identify a mass range for helium-core stars in which they expand significantly during core oxygen/neon burning, resulting in extreme late-stage mass loss in tight binaries (P∼ 1–100 days). Here we explore the resulting light curves from a subset of models from S. C. Wu & J. Fuller and find that in some cases they can exhibit two phases of shock cooling emission (SCE). The first SCE is attributed to the circumbinary material, and the second is from the extended helium-burning envelope of the exploding star. Since SCE luminosity is roughly proportional to the initial radius of the emitting material, events that exhibit both phases of SCE provide the exciting opportunity of measuring both the extent of the CSM and the radius of the exploding star. These light curves are explored with both analytic arguments and numerical modeling, and from this we identify the parameter space of CSM mass, helium envelope (HE) mass, and nickel mass, for which the HE SCE will be visible. We provide a qualitative comparison of these models to two fast-evolving, helium-rich transients, SN 2019kbj and SN 2019dge. The similarity between these events and our models demonstrates that this extreme binary mass loss mechanism may explain some SNe Ibn and USSNe. 

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