"Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold, and Earth is just right," says planetary scientist Dave Brain. But why?
In this pleasantly humorous talk, Brain explores the fascinating science behind what it takes for a planet
to host life — and why humanity may just be in the right place at the right time when it comes to the timeline
of life-sustaining planets.

What a planet needs to sustain life | Dave Brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RTkZaX1cH0

Back Alley Astronomy: The Perils of Proxima
http://backalleyastronomy.blogspot.cz/2016/08/the-perils-of-proxima.html
Just as newsworthy is Proxima b likely temperature. Even though Proxima b has an orbital period of only 11.2 days and a semimajor axis
of only 0.049 astronomical units (AU), its host star is so dim that the planet receives just 65% of the irradiance that bathes Earth.
This results in a blackbody equilibrium temperature (Teq) of 235 Kelvin (K) – which is actually cooler than Earth’s Teq of 255 K, and
a bit warmer than that of Mars, at 210 K. Proxima b is located squarely in its system’s habitable zone.

Anglada-Escude and colleagues were unable to determine the eccentricity of the new planet’s orbit, offering only an upper limit of 0.35.
This is a notable gap in our understanding of the overall system architecture. Nevertheless, the discovery team collected data suggesting
a possible second planet orbiting Proxima Centauri with an orbital period longer than 100 days. This result meets expectations, given
abundant evidence that small planets like Earth and Proxima b often have companions of similar mass.

For the record, planet Earth is still in the Holocene.
There Is A Lot Of Confusion About What Geologic Epoch We're In
http://gizmodo.com/there-is-a-lot-of-confusion-about-what-geologic-epoch-w-1786062915

And forget exoplanets, how about exomoons?
NASA's Next Wave of Exoplanet Searches Could Even Detect Alien Vegetation | Inverse
https://www.inverse.com/article/20564-there-s-something-so-darn-freaky-about-alien-wheat
Kepler proved there are more planets than stars in our galaxy, and TESS hopes to take a closer look at what’s out there.

NASA | The Search for New Worlds is Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsPStvGgNuk

Here's what colourful clouds on alien gas giants would look like | New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/...469-heres-what-colourful-clouds-on-alien-gas-giants-would-look-like/
The clouds can obscure information about the worlds below them, like how much water there is, Parmentier says.
Knowing that could give us clues about how and where the planets formed.

Astronomers know that hot Jupiters are made up of roughly the same stuff as their stars. Chemical compounds condense at specific temperatures,
so a particular material could form clouds in cooler areas and evaporate in warmer ones. But without knowing how temperature changes across a planet,
we don’t know which materials form the clouds at any given location.

To figure it out, Parmentier and his colleagues built a model of temperature variation across a planet’s face, based on factors like how far it is
from its star and wind circulation.

What Does "Earth-like" Mean for a Planet? |
http://thespacewriter.com/wp/2016/08/30/what-does-earth-like-mean-for-a-planet/
In the wake of the long-teased and barely embargoed story about the discovery of Earth-like planet Proxima Centauri b last week,
the press really ran with the idea of it being “just like Earth”. That’s really a misleading way to report on an astonishing finding.

Rings from Close Encounters
http://aasnova.org/2016/09/02/rings-from-close-encounters/
We’ve recently discovered narrow sets of rings around two minor planets orbiting in our solar system. How did these rings form?
A new study shows that they could be a result of close encounters between the minor planets and giants like Jupiter or Neptune.

How NASA’s Exoplanet Modeling Software Simulated Conditions on Earth-Twin Proxima B
https://www.technologyreview.com/...-modeling-software-simulated-conditions-on-earth-twin-proxima-b/
NASA’s computer model predicts that the exoplanet Proxima b will appear as a pale purple dot when it is imaged for the first time.

What would the sun look like from Jupiter or Pluto? – Astro Bob
http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2012/01/05/what-would-the-sun-look-like-from-jupiter-or-pluto/

Asteroid named after the great Freddie Mercury (his 70th birthday)
Discovered at La Silla on 1991-03-21 by H. Debehogne.
(17473) Freddiemercury = 1991 FM3
http://minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?utf8=%E2%9C%93&object_id=17473

Rocket Launches Are Actually Surprisingly Successful - Scientific American Blog Network
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/rocket-launches-are-surprisingly-successful/
The recent SpaceX launchpad explosion is a reminder that rocketry is tricky, but also remarkable for accomplishing as much as it does

http://planet4589.org/space/misc/pe.txt
How often do accidents like the Falcon 9 static test explosion happen? Here is a list of rocket explosions on on near the launch pad,
either before launch or just after. A few significant non-explosive incidents are also included. The list for orbital vehicles is
thought to be complete. Cape Canaveral's last nasty one was in 1997 during a launch; the only previous time there's been a prelaunch
explosion of an orbital rocket at the Cape was in 1959.

Cryogenic Data Acquisition Integrated Circuit
The James Webb Space Telescope
http://jwst.nasa.gov/circuit.html

Comet C/2016 Q4 (Kowalski) - another distant but apparently active comet.
http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/004300/CBET004314.txt