The “February” issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society brings us:
Volume 545, Issue 4, February 2026
Morate,D. Mahlke,M. Álvarez-Candal,A. et al. JaMONCITO: the Javalambre – Moving Objects New Catalog from Investigations of Time-domain Observations staf2052
Buendia, E. Valdés, J. R. Mújica, R. et al. Taxonomic classification of the Flora family neighbourhood using a hybrid approach staf2098
Volume 546, Issue 1, February 2026
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Volume 546, Issue 2, February 2026
Special issue: Genesis and Evolution of Organics in Space
Vilchez, A. Duffard, R. Spagnuolo, M. G. et al. Comparison of hydration bands between the spectra of carbonaceous chondrites and asteroids: perspectives for mineralogy on Main-Belt Asteroid… staf2171
Coulson, I. M Kuan, Y-J. Charnley, S. B. et al. JCMT detection of HCN emission from 3I/ATLAS at 2.1 au stag063
Coulson et al. I had covered as a preprint. MNRAS now publishes the “print”.
JaMONCITO is a program of the Javalambre Observatory to sweep the skies. No Vera Rubin, that Javalambre, but hey, it’s built and running. The running program catches supernovae, variable stars, and… asteroids. Lots of asteroids. Morate et al. brief us on their asteroid results.
The Flora family of asteroids, likewise, covers the skies as part of the inner Main Asteroid Belt. However, are all members actually family? The fact that asteroids share close orbits does not actually mean they split off from a parent, in a major impact. Buendia et al. confirm that, yes, some “Floras” are actually likely to be related by impact, while some are interlopers that just happen to share orbits.
From close asteroids, to asteroids to watch closely: Vilchez et al. search not for asteroids in general but asteroids with water. Yes, water on asteroids. There are U. S. groups looking, and now a Spanish/Latin American research group. They identify several asteroids with mining potential.