An enduring rapidly moving storm as a guide to Saturn's Equatorial jet's complex structure

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Saturn has an intense and broad eastward equatorial jet with a complex three-dimensional structure mixed with time variability. The equatorial region experiences strong seasonal insolation variations enhanced by ring shadowing, and three of the six known giant planetary-scale storms have developed in it. These factors make Saturn’s equator a natural laboratory to test models of jets in giant planets. Here we report on a bright equatorial atmospheric feature imaged in 2015 that moved steadily at a high speed of 450 ms-1 not measured since 1980–1981 with other equatorial clouds moving within an ample range of velocities. Radiative transfer models show that these motions occur at three altitude levels within the upper haze and clouds. We find that the peak of the jet (latitudes 10ºN to 10º S) suffers intense vertical shears reaching þ2.5 ms-1 km-1, two orders of magnitude higher than meridional shears, and temporal variability above 1 bar altitude level.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Drift Rates of Major Neptunian Features between 2018 and 2021

Using near-infrared observations of Neptune from the Keck and Lick Observatories, and the Hubble Space Telescope in combination with amateur datasets, we calculated the drift rates of prominent infrared-bright cloud features on Neptune between 2018 and 2021. These features had lifespans of $\sim 1$ day to $\geq$1 month and were located at mid-latitudes and near the south pole. Our observations permitted determination of drift rates via feature tracking. These drift rates were compared to three zonal wind profiles describing Neptune's atmosphere determined from features tracked in H band (1.6 $\mu m$), K' band (2.1 $\mu m$), and Voyager 2 data at visible wavelengths. Features near $-70 \deg$ measured in the F845M filter (845nm) were particularly consistent with the K' wind profile. The southern mid-latitudes hosted multiple features whose lifespans were $\geq$1 month, providing evidence that these latitudes are a region of high stability in Neptune's atmosphere. We also used HST F467M (467nm) data to analyze a dark, circumpolar wave at $- 60 \deg$ latitude observed on Neptune since the Voyager 2 era. Its drift rate in recent years (2019-2021) is $4.866 \pm 0.009 \deg$/day. This is consistent with previous measurements by Karkoschka (2011), which predict a $4.858 \pm 0.022 \deg$/day drift rate during these years. It also gained a complementary bright band just to the north.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures, accepted to Icaru

Comparison of phosphodiesterase type V inhibitors use in eight European cities through analysis of urban wastewater

In this work a step forward in investigating the use of prescription drugs, namely erectile dysfunction products, at European level was taken by applying the wastewater-based epidemiology approach. 24-h composite samples of untreated wastewater were collected at the entrance of eight wastewater treatment plants serving the catchment within the cities of Bristol, Brussels, Castellón, Copenhagen, Milan, Oslo, Utrecht and Zurich. A validated analytical procedure with direct injection of filtered aliquots by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was applied. The target list included the three active pharmaceutical ingredients (sildenafil, tadalafil and vardenafil) together with (bio)transformation products and other analogues. Only sildenafil and its two human urinary metabolites desmethyl- and desethylsildenafil were detected in the samples with concentrations reaching 60 ng L. The concentrations were transformed into normalized measured loads and the estimated actual consumption of sildenafil was back-calculated from these loads. In addition, national prescription data from five countries was gathered in the form of the number of prescribed daily doses and transformed into predicted loads for comparison. This comparison resulted in the evidence of a different spatial trend across Europe. In Utrecht and Brussels, prescription data could only partly explain the total amount found in wastewater; whereas in Bristol, the comparison was in agreement; and in Milan and Oslo a lower amount was found in wastewater than expected from the prescription data. This study illustrates the potential of wastewater-based epidemiology to investigate the use of counterfeit medication and rogue online pharmacy sales

Detailed stratified GWAS analysis for severe COVID-19 in four European populations

Given the highly variable clinical phenotype of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a deeper analysis of the host genetic contribution to severe COVID-19 is important to improve our understanding of underlying disease mechanisms. Here, we describe an extended genome-wide association meta-analysis of a well-characterized cohort of 3255 COVID-19 patients with respiratory failure and 12 488 population controls from Italy, Spain, Norway and Germany/Austria, including stratified analyses based on age, sex and disease severity, as well as targeted analyses of chromosome Y haplotypes, the human leukocyte antigen region and the SARS-CoV-2 peptidome. By inversion imputation, we traced a reported association at 17q21.31 to a ~0.9-Mb inversion polymorphism that creates two highly differentiated haplotypes and characterized the potential effects of the inversion in detail. Our data, together with the 5th release of summary statistics from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative including non-Caucasian individuals, also identified a new locus at 19q13.33, including NAPSA, a gene which is expressed primarily in alveolar cells responsible for gas exchange in the lung.S.E.H. and C.A.S. partially supported genotyping through a philanthropic donation. A.F. and D.E. were supported by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and COVID-19 grant Research (BMBF; ID:01KI20197); A.F., D.E. and F.D. were supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Cluster of Excellence ‘Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation’ (EXC2167). D.E. was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the Computational Life Sciences funding concept (CompLS grant 031L0165). D.E., K.B. and S.B. acknowledge the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF14CC0001 and NNF17OC0027594). T.L.L., A.T. and O.Ö. were funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), project numbers 279645989; 433116033; 437857095. M.W. and H.E. are supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the Research Training Group 1743, ‘Genes, Environment and Inflammation’. L.V. received funding from: Ricerca Finalizzata Ministero della Salute (RF-2016-02364358), Italian Ministry of Health ‘CV PREVITAL’—strategie di prevenzione primaria cardiovascolare primaria nella popolazione italiana; The European Union (EU) Programme Horizon 2020 (under grant agreement No. 777377) for the project LITMUS- and for the project ‘REVEAL’; Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda ‘Ricerca corrente’, Fondazione Sviluppo Ca’ Granda ‘Liver-BIBLE’ (PR-0391), Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda ‘5permille’ ‘COVID-19 Biobank’ (RC100017A). A.B. was supported by a grant from Fondazione Cariplo to Fondazione Tettamanti: ‘Bio-banking of Covid-19 patient samples to support national and international research (Covid-Bank). This research was partly funded by an MIUR grant to the Department of Medical Sciences, under the program ‘Dipartimenti di Eccellenza 2018–2022’. This study makes use of data generated by the GCAT-Genomes for Life. Cohort study of the Genomes of Catalonia, Fundació IGTP (The Institute for Health Science Research Germans Trias i Pujol) IGTP is part of the CERCA Program/Generalitat de Catalunya. GCAT is supported by Acción de Dinamización del ISCIII-MINECO and the Ministry of Health of the Generalitat of Catalunya (ADE 10/00026); the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) (2017-SGR 529). M.M. received research funding from grant PI19/00335 Acción Estratégica en Salud, integrated in the Spanish National RDI Plan and financed by ISCIII-Subdirección General de Evaluación and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (European Regional Development Fund (FEDER)-Una manera de hacer Europa’). B.C. is supported by national grants PI18/01512. X.F. is supported by the VEIS project (001-P-001647) (co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), ‘A way to build Europe’). Additional data included in this study were obtained in part by the COVICAT Study Group (Cohort Covid de Catalunya) supported by IsGlobal and IGTP, European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, COVID-19 Rapid Response activity 73A and SR20-01024 La Caixa Foundation. A.J. and S.M. were supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant numbers: PSE-010000-2006-6 and IPT-010000-2010-36). A.J. was also supported by national grant PI17/00019 from the Acción Estratégica en Salud (ISCIII) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). The Basque Biobank, a hospital-related platform that also involves all Osakidetza health centres, the Basque government’s Department of Health and Onkologikoa, is operated by the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research-BIOEF. M.C. received Grants BFU2016-77244-R and PID2019-107836RB-I00 funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI, Spain) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER, EU). M.R.G., J.A.H., R.G.D. and D.M.M. are supported by the ‘Spanish Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Competition, the Instituto de Salud Carlos III’ (PI19/01404, PI16/01842, PI19/00589, PI17/00535 and GLD19/00100) and by the Andalussian government (Proyectos Estratégicos-Fondos Feder PE-0451-2018, COVID-Premed, COVID GWAs). The position held by Itziar de Rojas Salarich is funded by grant FI20/00215, PFIS Contratos Predoctorales de Formación en Investigación en Salud. Enrique Calderón’s team is supported by CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), ‘Instituto de Salud Carlos III’. J.C.H. reports grants from Research Council of Norway grant no 312780 during the conduct of the study. E.S. reports grants from Research Council of Norway grant no. 312769. The BioMaterialBank Nord is supported by the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Airway Research Center North (ARCN). The BioMaterialBank Nord is member of popgen 2.0 network (P2N). P.K. Bergisch Gladbach, Germany and the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. He is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). O.A.C. is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education and is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—CECAD, EXC 2030–390661388. The COMRI cohort is funded by Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. This work was supported by grants of the Rolf M. Schwiete Stiftung, the Saarland University, BMBF and The States of Saarland and Lower Saxony. K.U.L. is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, LU-1944/3-1). Genotyping for the BoSCO study is funded by the Institute of Human Genetics, University Hospital Bonn. F.H. was supported by the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Arts. Part of the genotyping was supported by a grant to A.R. from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant: 01ED1619A, European Alzheimer DNA BioBank, EADB) within the context of the EU Joint Programme—Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND). Additional funding was derived from the German Research Foundation (DFG) grant: RA 1971/6-1 to A.R. P.R. is supported by the DFG (CCGA Sequencing Centre and DFG ExC2167 PMI and by SH state funds for COVID19 research). F.T. is supported by the Clinician Scientist Program of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Cluster of Excellence ‘Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation’ (EXC2167). C.L. and J.H. are supported by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). T.B., M.M.B., O.W. und A.H. are supported by the Stiftung Universitätsmedizin Essen. M.A.-H. was supported by Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion program, grant IJC2018-035131-I funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. E.C.S. is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; SCHU 2419/2-1).Peer reviewe

Detailed stratified GWAS analysis for severe COVID-19 in four European populations

Given the highly variable clinical phenotype of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a deeper analysis of the host genetic contribution to severe COVID-19 is important to improve our understanding of underlying disease mechanisms. Here, we describe an extended GWAS meta-analysis of a well-characterized cohort of 3,260 COVID-19 patients with respiratory failure and 12,483 population controls from Italy, Spain, Norway and Germany/Austria, including stratified analyses based on age, sex and disease severity, as well as targeted analyses of chromosome Y haplotypes, the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region and the SARS-CoV-2 peptidome. By inversion imputation, we traced a reported association at 17q21.31 to a highly pleiotropic ∼0.9-Mb inversion polymorphism and characterized the potential effects of the inversion in detail. Our data, together with the 5th release of summary statistics from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative, also identified a new locus at 19q13.33, including NAPSA, a gene which is expressed primarily in alveolar cells responsible for gas exchange in the lung.Andre Franke and David Ellinghaus were supported by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01KI20197), Andre Franke, David Ellinghaus and Frauke Degenhardt were supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Cluster of Excellence “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation” (EXC2167). David Ellinghaus was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the Computational Life Sciences funding concept (CompLS grant 031L0165). David Ellinghaus, Karina Banasik and Søren Brunak acknowledge the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grant NNF14CC0001 and NNF17OC0027594). Tobias L. Lenz, Ana Teles and Onur Özer were funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), project numbers 279645989; 433116033; 437857095. Mareike Wendorff and Hesham ElAbd are supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the Research Training Group 1743, "Genes, Environment and Inflammation". This project was supported by a Covid-19 grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; ID: 01KI20197). Luca Valenti received funding from: Ricerca Finalizzata Ministero della Salute RF2016-02364358, Italian Ministry of Health ""CV PREVITAL – strategie di prevenzione primaria cardiovascolare primaria nella popolazione italiana; The European Union (EU) Programme Horizon 2020 (under grant agreement No. 777377) for the project LITMUS- and for the project ""REVEAL""; Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda ""Ricerca corrente"", Fondazione Sviluppo Ca' Granda ""Liver-BIBLE"" (PR-0391), Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda ""5permille"" ""COVID-19 Biobank"" (RC100017A). Andrea Biondi was supported by the grant from Fondazione Cariplo to Fondazione Tettamanti: "Biobanking of Covid-19 patient samples to support national and international research (Covid-Bank). This research was partly funded by a MIUR grant to the Department of Medical Sciences, under the program "Dipartimenti di Eccellenza 2018–2022". This study makes use of data generated by the GCAT-Genomes for Life. Cohort study of the Genomes of Catalonia, Fundació IGTP. IGTP is part of the CERCA Program / Generalitat de Catalunya. GCAT is supported by Acción de Dinamización del ISCIIIMINECO and the Ministry of Health of the Generalitat of Catalunya (ADE 10/00026); the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) (2017-SGR 529). Marta Marquié received research funding from ant PI19/00335 Acción Estratégica en Salud, integrated in the Spanish National RDI Plan and financed by ISCIIISubdirección General de Evaluación and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER-Una manera de hacer Europa").Beatriz Cortes is supported by national grants PI18/01512. Xavier Farre is supported by VEIS project (001-P-001647) (cofunded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), “A way to build Europe”). Additional data included in this study was obtained in part by the COVICAT Study Group (Cohort Covid de Catalunya) supported by IsGlobal and IGTP, EIT COVID-19 Rapid Response activity 73A and SR20-01024 La Caixa Foundation. Antonio Julià and Sara Marsal were supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant numbers: PSE-010000-2006-6 and IPT-010000-2010-36). Antonio Julià was also supported the by national grant PI17/00019 from the Acción Estratégica en Salud (ISCIII) and the FEDER. The Basque Biobank is a hospitalrelated platform that also involves all Osakidetza health centres, the Basque government's Department of Health and Onkologikoa, is operated by the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research-BIOEF. Mario Cáceres received Grants BFU2016-77244-R and PID2019-107836RB-I00 funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI, Spain) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER, EU). Manuel Romero Gómez, Javier Ampuero Herrojo, Rocío Gallego Durán and Douglas Maya Miles are supported by the “Spanish Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Competition, the Instituto de Salud Carlos III” (PI19/01404, PI16/01842, PI19/00589, PI17/00535 and GLD19/00100), and by the Andalussian government (Proyectos Estratégicos-Fondos Feder PE-0451-2018, COVID-Premed, COVID GWAs). The position held by Itziar de Rojas Salarich is funded by grant FI20/00215, PFIS Contratos Predoctorales de Formación en Investigación en Salud. Enrique Calderón's team is supported by CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), "Instituto de Salud Carlos III". Jan Cato Holter reports grants from Research Council of Norway grant no 312780 during the conduct of the study. Dr. Solligård: reports grants from Research Council of Norway grant no 312769. The BioMaterialBank Nord is supported by the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Airway Research Center North (ARCN). The BioMaterialBank Nord is member of popgen 2.0 network (P2N). Philipp Koehler has received non-financial scientific grants from Miltenyi Biotec GmbH, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, and the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. He is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).Oliver A. Cornely is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education and is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – CECAD, EXC 2030 – 390661388. The COMRI cohort is funded by Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. Genotyping was performed by the Genotyping laboratory of Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM Technology Centre, University of Helsinki. This work was supported by grants of the Rolf M. Schwiete Stiftung, the Saarland University, BMBF and The States of Saarland and Lower Saxony. Kerstin U. Ludwig is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, LU-1944/3-1). Genotyping for the BoSCO study is funded by the Institute of Human Genetics, University Hospital Bonn. Frank Hanses was supported by the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Arts. Part of the genotyping was supported by a grant to Alfredo Ramirez from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant: 01ED1619A, European Alzheimer DNA BioBank, EADB) within the context of the EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND). Additional funding was derived from the German Research Foundation (DFG) grant: RA 1971/6-1 to Alfredo Ramirez. Philip Rosenstiel is supported by the DFG (CCGA Sequencing Centre and DFG ExC2167 PMI and by SH state funds for COVID19 research). Florian Tran is supported by the Clinician Scientist Program of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Cluster of Excellence “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation” (EXC2167). Christoph Lange and Jan Heyckendorf are supported by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). Thorsen Brenner, Marc M Berger, Oliver Witzke und Anke Hinney are supported by the Stiftung Universitätsmedizin Essen. Marialbert Acosta-Herrera was supported by Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion program, grant IJC2018-035131-I funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Eva C Schulte is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; SCHU 2419/2-1).N

The PVOL database in Europlanet 2024 RI

International audiencePVOL is an online database of amateur observations of solar system planets hosted by the University of the Basque Country at http://pvol2.ehu.es/ [1]. PVOL stands for Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory and is one of the data services integrated in VESPA: a large collection of data services integrated in the Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access services using the same data access protocol (EPN-TAP) [2]. VESPA is an integral part of the Europlanet 2020 and 2024 Research Infrastructures and PVOL is one of its most used services. PVOL accumulates images provided by more than 300 amateur observers distributed through the globe and currently contains more than 47,000 image files. Most of the data correspond to image observations of Jupiter (67%) and Saturn (22%), but PVOL contains also useful data from Venus, Mars, Uranus and Neptune and some smaller collections of objects with no atmosphere (the Moon and Galilean satellites). In this contribution we document future plans for the service which will be carried out through 2021-2023 and we show the scientific potential of the data available in PVOL.Future plans for PVOL include frequent observation alerts, integration in the database of navigation files of the images from the popular WinJupos software (ims files), addition of amateur spectra of the giant planets, and a search engine and new data service of Jupiter maps obtained from the JunoCam instrument on the Juno mission that will also be integrated in PVOL/VESPA. This will allow to perform combined searches of data obtained close in time from amateurs (PVOL), HST (queries of HST images are also integrated in VESPA) and JunoCam (new service).The science potential of amateur data comes from the availability of long-term data (PVOL contains Jupiter data since 2000 and Mars and Venus data since 2016), frequent observations (several daily observations of each planet close to their oppositions capable to cover complete longitudes of each planet) and high-resolution images provided by key contributors, with some of them capable to resolve highly-contrasted features of 0.05-0.10 arcsec. We review recent trends in analysis of this data from an analysis of scientific publications partially or highly based on data obtained from PVOL. We show that amateur observations remain as a valuable resource for high-impact science on modern research on different planets (3-5).AcknowledgementsEuroplanet 2024 RI has received funding from the European Union"s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149. We are very grateful to the ensemble of amateur astronomers sending their data to PVOL. We are in debt by the quality of many of these observations and the regular observations provided by many of them requiring long sleepless nights and even longer days of detailed image processing.References(1) Hueso et al., The Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory (PVOL) and its integration into the Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access (VESPA). Planet. Space Science, 150, 22-35 (2018).(2) Erard et al., VESPA: A community-driven Virtual Observatory in Planetary Science. Planet. Space Science, 150, 65-85 (2018).(3) Sánchez-Lavega et al., The impact of a large object on Jupiter in 2009 July, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 715, L155 (2010).(4) Sánchez-Lavega et al., An extremely high altitude plume seen at Mars morning terminator. Nature, 518, 525-528 (2015).(5) Sánchez-Lavega et al., A complex storm system in Saturn"s north polar atmosphere in 2018, Nature Astronomy, 4, 180-187 (2020)

The PVOL database in Europlanet 2024 RI

International audiencePVOL is an online database of amateur observations of solar system planets hosted by the University of the Basque Country at http://pvol2.ehu.es/ [1]. PVOL stands for Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory and is one of the data services integrated in VESPA: a large collection of data services integrated in the Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access services using the same data access protocol (EPN-TAP) [2]. VESPA is an integral part of the Europlanet 2020 and 2024 Research Infrastructures and PVOL is one of its most used services. PVOL accumulates images provided by more than 300 amateur observers distributed through the globe and currently contains more than 47,000 image files. Most of the data correspond to image observations of Jupiter (67%) and Saturn (22%), but PVOL contains also useful data from Venus, Mars, Uranus and Neptune and some smaller collections of objects with no atmosphere (the Moon and Galilean satellites). In this contribution we document future plans for the service which will be carried out through 2021-2023 and we show the scientific potential of the data available in PVOL.Future plans for PVOL include frequent observation alerts, integration in the database of navigation files of the images from the popular WinJupos software (ims files), addition of amateur spectra of the giant planets, and a search engine and new data service of Jupiter maps obtained from the JunoCam instrument on the Juno mission that will also be integrated in PVOL/VESPA. This will allow to perform combined searches of data obtained close in time from amateurs (PVOL), HST (queries of HST images are also integrated in VESPA) and JunoCam (new service).The science potential of amateur data comes from the availability of long-term data (PVOL contains Jupiter data since 2000 and Mars and Venus data since 2016), frequent observations (several daily observations of each planet close to their oppositions capable to cover complete longitudes of each planet) and high-resolution images provided by key contributors, with some of them capable to resolve highly-contrasted features of 0.05-0.10 arcsec. We review recent trends in analysis of this data from an analysis of scientific publications partially or highly based on data obtained from PVOL. We show that amateur observations remain as a valuable resource for high-impact science on modern research on different planets (3-5).AcknowledgementsEuroplanet 2024 RI has received funding from the European Union"s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149. We are very grateful to the ensemble of amateur astronomers sending their data to PVOL. We are in debt by the quality of many of these observations and the regular observations provided by many of them requiring long sleepless nights and even longer days of detailed image processing.References(1) Hueso et al., The Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory (PVOL) and its integration into the Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access (VESPA). Planet. Space Science, 150, 22-35 (2018).(2) Erard et al., VESPA: A community-driven Virtual Observatory in Planetary Science. Planet. Space Science, 150, 65-85 (2018).(3) Sánchez-Lavega et al., The impact of a large object on Jupiter in 2009 July, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 715, L155 (2010).(4) Sánchez-Lavega et al., An extremely high altitude plume seen at Mars morning terminator. Nature, 518, 525-528 (2015).(5) Sánchez-Lavega et al., A complex storm system in Saturn"s north polar atmosphere in 2018, Nature Astronomy, 4, 180-187 (2020)

Genomic Prediction with Genotype by Environment Interaction Analysis for Kernel Zinc Concentration in Tropical Maize Germplasm

Zinc (Zn) deficiency is a major risk factor for human health, affecting about 30% of the world’s population. To study the potential of genomic selection (GS) for maize with increased Zn concentration, an association panel and two doubled haploid (DH) populations were evaluated in three environments. Three genomic prediction models, M (M1: Environment + Line, M2: Environment + Line + Genomic, and M3: Environment + Line + Genomic + Genomic x Environment) incorporating main effects (lines and genomic) and the interaction between genomic and environment (G x E) were assessed to estimate the prediction ability (rMP) for each model. Two distinct cross-validation (CV) schemes simulating two genomic prediction breeding scenarios were used. CV1 predicts the performance of newly developed lines, whereas CV2 predicts the performance of lines tested in sparse multi-location trials. Predictions for Zn in CV1 ranged from -0.01 to 0.56 for DH1, 0.04 to 0.50 for DH2 and -0.001 to 0.47 for the association panel. For CV2, rMP values ranged from 0.67 to 0.71 for DH1, 0.40 to 0.56 for DH2 and 0.64 to 0.72 for the association panel. The genomic prediction model which included G x E had the highest average rMP for both CV1 (0.39 and 0.44) and CV2 (0.71 and 0.51) for the association panel and DH2 population, respectively. These results suggest that GS has potential to accelerate breeding for enhanced kernel Zn concentration by facilitating selection of superior genotypes

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot: strong interactions with incoming anticyclones in 2019

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS), a giant anticyclone, is the largest and longest-lived of all the vortices observed in planetary atmospheres. During its history, the GRS has shrunk to half its size since 1879, and encountered many smaller anticyclones and other dynamical features that might tend to erode it. In 2018-2020, while having a historically small size, its structure and even its survival appeared to be threatened when a series of anticyclones moving in from the east tore off large fragments of the red area and distorted its shape. In this work we report observations of the dynamics of these interactions and show that as a result the GRS increased its internal rotation velocity, maintaining its vorticity but decreasing its visible area, and suffering a transient change in its otherwise steady 90-day oscillation in longitude. From a radiative transfer analysis and numerical simulations of the dynamics we show that the interactions affected the upper cloud tops of the GRS. We argue that the intense vorticity of the GRS, together with its larger size and depth compared to the interacting vortices, guarantees its long lifetime.This work has been supported by the Spanish project AYA2015-65041-P and PID2019-109467GB-I00 (MINECO/ FEDER, UE) and Grupos Gobierno Vasco IT1366-19. PI acknowledges a PhD scholarship from Gobierno Vasco. EGM is Serra Hunter Fellow at UPC. This work used data acquired from the NASA/ESA HST Space Telescope, asso- ciated with OPAL program (PI: Simon, GO13937), and archived by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universi- ties for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5–26,555. All maps are available at http://dx.doi. org/10.17909/T9G593. PlanetCam ob- servations were collected at the Centro Astronómico Hispánico en Andalucía (CAHA), operated jointly by the Insti- tuto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC) and the Andalusian Universities (Junta de Andalucía). EGM, MS, APG, MAC and ASL thankfully acknowledge the computer resources at Mare Nostrum and the technical support provided by Barcelona Supercomputing Center (AECT-2019-2-0006). This research has made use of the USGS Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers (ISIS). We appreciate the contribution from all observers cited in TableS1 for his fundamental contribution to this study with Jupiter images obtained with high dedication and skill. GSO and TM were supported by NASA with funds distributed to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A planetary-scale disturbance in the most intense Jovian atmospheric jet from JunoCam and ground-based observations

We describe a huge planetary-scale disturbance in the highest-speed Jovian jet at latitude 23.5°N that was first observed in October 2016 during the Juno perijove-2 approach. An extraordinary outburst of four plumes was involved in the disturbance development. They were located in the range of planetographic latitudes from 22.2° to 23.0°N and moved faster than the jet peak with eastward velocities in the range 155 to 175 m s 1. In the wake of the plumes, a turbulent pattern of bright and dark spots (wave number 20–25) formed and progressed during October and November on both sides of the jet, moving with speeds in the range 100–125 m s 1 and leading to a new reddish and homogeneous belt when activity ceased in late November. Nonlinear numerical models reproduce the disturbance cloud patterns as a result of the interaction between local sources (the plumes) and the zonal eastward jet.Peer Reviewe