Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 13/06/2026
It’s Saturday again so it’s time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further three papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 122 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 570.
I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.
The first paper to report this week, published on Thursday 11th June, is “Dancing Streams In Merging Halos: Stellar Streams in a MW–LMC-like merger” by (all based in the USA): Sachi Weerasooriya (Carnegie Observatories), Tjitske Starkenburg (Northwestern U.), Emily C. Cunningham (Columbia U.) & Kathryn V. Johnston (Flatiron Institute). This article explores how galaxy mergers, like the Milky Way-Large Magellanic Cloud merger, significantly alter the properties and structures of stellar streams, challenging the recovery of their initial orbits. It is in the folder marked Astrophysics of Galaxies.
The overlay for this paper is here
You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:
https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116730200889106529
The second paper for this week, also published on Thursday 11th June but in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is “X-SORTER (X-ray Survey Of meRging clusTErs in Redmapper): X-ray and Spectroscopic Characterization of 12 Optically Selected Galaxy Cluster Merger Candidates” by Christopher Hopp, David Wittman, Rodrigo Stancioli, Zhuoran Gao & Faik Bouhrik (UC Davis) and Scott Adler (Rochester), all based in the USA. The X-SORTER program identifies merging galaxy clusters to study dark matter interactions, using optical indicators and X-ray observations. This method efficiently identifies active clusters suitable for detailed dark matter studies.
The overlay for this one looks like this:
The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:
https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116730279994960097
The third and final paper of the week, published on Friday 12th June in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, is “JCMT Constraints on the Early-Time HCN and CO Emission and HCN Temporal Evolution of 3I/ATLAS” by Jason T. Hinkle (U. Illinois, USA) and 6 others based in the USA and Chile. This article presents observations of the third Interstellar Object, 3I/ATLAS, providing early sub-mm constraints on its activity. The findings suggest a steeper production rate slope than typical Solar System comets.
The overlay for this one is here:
The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:
https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116735805179724489
And that concludes this week’s update. It has been a slow week on the publishing front, but the main reason is that we have a big backlog of papers accepted but waiting for the authors to put their final versions on arXiv and we can’t do anything about that! I’ll do another update next Saturday.
#3IAtlas #arXiv250514792v2 #arXiv251202106v3 #arXiv260305596v4 #astrochemistry #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #CO #cosmologicalSimulations #CosmologyAndNonGalacticAstrophysics #DiamondOpenAccess #DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #EarthAndPlanetaryAstrophysics #galaxyClusters #GalaxyHalos #galaxyMergers #HCN #HighEnergyAstrophysicalPhenomena #interstellarObjects #OpenAccess #OpenAccessPublishing #spectroscopy #StellarStreams #XSORTER
Detecting Molecules in Space: Excitement and Caution in the Search for Life
📰 Original title: Potential signs of life on distant planets sound exciting – but confirmation can take years
🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Usuarios: It's clickbait ⚠️
View full AI summary: https://killbait.com/en/detecting-molecules-in-space-excitement-and-caution-in-the-search-for-life/?redirpost=b68c65c4-aece-4ecd-9589-a4c3cfe85c8f
Detecting Molecules in Space: Excitement and Caution in the Search for Life
📰 Original title: Potential signs of life on distant planets sound exciting – but confirmation can take years
🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Usuarios: It's clickbait ⚠️
View full AI summary: https://killbait.com/en/detecting-molecules-in-space-excitement-and-caution-in-the-search-for-life/?redirpost=b68c65c4-aece-4ecd-9589-a4c3cfe85c8f
📄 The UMIST Database for Astrochemistry 2022
Quicklook:
Millar, T. J. et al. (2024) · Astronomy and Astrophysics
Reads: 164 · Citations: 92
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346908
🔗 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024A&A...682A.109M/abstract
#Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrochemistry #MolecularData #MolecularProcesses
Context. Detailed astrochemical models are a key component to interpret the observations of interstellar and circumstellar molecules since they allow important physical properties of the gas and its evolutionary history to be deduced. <BR /> Aims: We update one of the most widely used astrochemical databases to reflect advances in experimental and theoretical estimates of rate coefficients and to respond to the large increase in the number of molecules detected in space since our last release in 2013. <BR /> Methods: We present the sixth release of the UMIST Database for Astrochemistry (UDfA), a major expansion of the gas-phase chemistry that describes the synthesis of interstellar and circumstellar molecules. Since our last release, we have undertaken a major review of the literature which has increased the number of reactions by over 40% to a total of 8767 and increased the number of species by over 55% to 737. We have made a particular attempt to include many of the new species detected in space over the past decade, including those from the QUIJOTE and GOTHAM surveys, as well as providing references to the original data sources. <BR /> Results: We use the database to investigate the gas-phase chemistries appropriate to both O-rich and C-rich conditions in TMC-1 and to the circumstellar envelope of the C-rich AGB star IRC+10216 and identify successes and failures of gas-phase only models. <BR /> Conclusions: This update is a significant improvement to the UDfA database. For both the dark cloud and C-rich circumstellar envelope models, calculations match around 60% of the abundances of observed species to within an order of magnitude. There are a number of detected species, however, that are not included in the model either because their gas-phase chemistry is unknown or because they are likely formed via surface reactions on icy grains. Future laboratory and theoretical work is needed to include such species in reaction networks.
📄 A KInetic Database for Astrochemistry (KIDA)
Quicklook:
Wakelam, V. et al. (2012) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
Reads: 460 · Citations: 484
DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/199/1/21
🔗 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012ApJS..199...21W/abstract
#Astronomy #Astrophysics #PlanetaryScience #Astrochemistry #AstronomicalDatabasesMiscellaneous
We present a novel chemical database for gas-phase astrochemistry. Named the KInetic Database for Astrochemistry (KIDA), this database consists of gas-phase reactions with rate coefficients and uncertainties that will be vetted to the greatest extent possible. Submissions of measured and calculated rate coefficients are welcome, and will be studied by experts before inclusion into the database. Besides providing kinetic information for the interstellar medium, KIDA is planned to contain such data for planetary atmospheres and for circumstellar envelopes. Each year, a subset of the reactions in the database (kida.uva) will be provided as a network for the simulation of the chemistry of dense interstellar clouds with temperatures between 10 K and 300 K. We also provide a code, named Nahoon, to study the time-dependent gas-phase chemistry of zero-dimensional and one-dimensional interstellar sources.
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