Mystery solved behind birth of Saturn’s rings | Kobe University
http://www.kobe-u.ac.jp/en/NEWS/research/2016_10_31_01.html

A team of researchers has presented a new model for the origin of Saturn’s rings based on results of computer simulations. The results of the simulations are also applicable to rings
of other giant planets and explain the compositional differences between the rings of Saturn and Uranus. The findings were published on October 6 in the online version of Icarus.

The lead author of the paper is HYODO Ryuki (Kobe University, Graduate School of Science), and co-authors are Professor Sébastien Charnoz (Institute de Physique du Globe/Université Paris
Diderot), Professor OHTSUKI Keiji (Kobe University, Graduate School of Science), and Project Associate Professor GENDA Hidenori (Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology).

The present study focused on the period called the Late Heavy Bombardment that is believed to have occurred 4 billion years ago in our solar system, when the giant planets underwent orbital
migration. It is thought that several thousand Pluto-sized (one fifth of Earth’s size) objects from the Kuiper belt existed in the outer solar system beyond Neptune. First the researchers
calculated the probability that these large objects passed close enough to the giant planets to be destroyed by their tidal force during the Late Heavy Bombardment. Results showed that
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune experienced close encounters with these large celestial objects multiple times.

Next the group used computer simulations to investigate disruption of these Kuiper belt objects by tidal force when they passed the vicinity of the giant planets (see Figure 2a). The results
of the simulations varied depending on the initial conditions, such as the rotation of the passing objects and their minimum approach distance to the planet. However they discovered that in
many cases fragments comprising 0.1-10% of the initial mass of the passing objects were captured into orbits around the planet (see Figures 2a, b). The combined mass of these captured
fragments was found to be sufficient to explain the mass of the current rings around Saturn and Uranus. In other words, these planetary rings were formed when sufficiently large objects
passed very close to giants and were destroyed.

Hypervariable galactic nuclei
http://phys.org/news/2016-10-hypervariable-galactic-nuclei.html

Extreme variability in the intensity of the optical light of galaxies, by factors of two or more, is of great interest to astronomers. It can flag the presence
of rare types of supernovae, for example, or spot sudden accretion activity around quiescent black holes or around the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's
nucleus. In recent years systematic searches for such variability have been made using instruments that can survey wide swaths of the sky. One, the Panoramic
Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS), is a facility capable very wide-field imaging using a combination of relatively small mirrors coupled
with very large digital cameras, and it can observe the entire sky accessible to it several times a month.

CfA astronomer Martin Elvis was part of a team of scientists that looked for variability in galaxies by comparing PanSTARRS images of the sky with images taken
by an earlier survey, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, about ten years before; the results were followed up with several other telescopes. Their comparison spanned
nearly one-third of the whole sky. After sifting through thousands of apparent transients per month to check, among other things, for accurate spatial coincidences,
that the candidates were galaxies, and that multiple observations confirmed the variability, the team reports finding seventy-six reliable objects. Spectroscopic
followups and other observations were then able to classify these into nine categories, including supernovae and radio-emitting galaxies. In the end, the team
found fifteen hypervariable sources that have brightened by almost a factor of ten in the past decade; light from the most distant one of these has been
traveling for about nine billion years. The galaxies' light is blue in color and has been steadily changing, usually getting weaker.

Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO2ubCR3suE

Gaia spies two temporarily magnified stars
http://phys.org/news/2016-10-gaia-spies-temporarily-magnified-stars.html

While scanning the sky to measure the position of over one billion stars in our Galaxy, ESA's Gaia satellite has detected
two rare instances of stars whose light was temporarily boosted by other celestial objects passing across their lines of
sight. One of these stars is expected to brighten again soon. Gaia's measurements will be instrumental to learn more about
the nature of these 'cosmic magnifying glasses'.

Space debris: how many operating, dysfunctional & dead satellites & spacecrafts orbiting our planet (per country)

Hunt for ninth planet reveals new extremely distant Solar System objects | Carnegie Institution for Science
https://carnegiescience.edu/.../hunt-ninth-planet-reveals-new-extremely-distant-solar-system-objects

In the race to discover a proposed ninth planet in our Solar System, Carnegie’s Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of Northern Arizona University
have observed several never-before-seen objects at extreme distances from the Sun in our Solar System. Sheppard and Trujillo have now submitted their
latest discoveries to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center for official designations. A paper about the discoveries has also
been accepted to The Astronomical Journal.

The more objects that are found at extreme distances, the better the chance of constraining the location of the ninth planet that Sheppard and Trujillo
first predicted to exist far beyond Pluto (itself no longer classified as a planet) in 2014. The placement and orbits of small, so-called extreme trans-
Neptunian objects, can help narrow down the size and distance from the Sun of the predicted ninth planet, because that planet’s gravity influences
the movements of the smaller objects that are far beyond Neptune. The objects are called trans-Neptunian because their orbits around the Sun
are greater than Neptune’s.

Radiation, Brains, and Exploring the Universe - Scientific American Blog Network
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/radiation-brains-and-exploring-the-universe/
New studies indicate that ionizing radiation might cause neurodegenerative disease.
The implications could be profound for interplanetary or interstellar species.

Plate tectonics doesn’t rumple the surfaces of Earth’s supersized cousins, new research suggests.
Super-Earths are not a good place for plate tectonics | Geology IN
http://www.geologyin.com/2016/04/super-earths-are-not-good-place-for.html

Simulating the extreme pressures inside giant exoplanets called super-Earths, researchers discovered that these planets probably have thick,
stagnant outer shells and sluggish internal circulation. Those properties make the existence of fragmented jigsaw puzzles of sliding and
shifting surface sections unlikely, the researchers report in a paper to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

On Earth, plate tectonics drives the carbon cycle that helps regulate the planet’s temperature and allows life to flourish, notes study
coauthor Takehiro Miyagoshi, an earth and planetary scientist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokohama.

“We think super-Earths are boring,” he says. “This point should be kept in mind in our search of habitable planets.”

XCHAOS: haha, i tak se to da vnimat.

TANTRAMAN: naopak: to, že s námi nekomunikují, je právě důkaz toho, že jsou inteligentní :-)

VIRGO: to je presne ted duvod, proc v okoli nikdo neni. a jestli ano, tak bez moznosti signal prijmout a odvysilat odpoved.
jednoduche jako facka.

News | Catalog of Known Near-Earth Asteroids Tops 15,000
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6664

The number of discovered near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) now tops 15 000, with an average of 30 new discoveries added each week.
This milestone marks a 50 percent increase in the number of known NEAs since 2013, when discoveries reached 10,000 in August of that year.

Surveys funded by NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program (NEOs include both asteroids and comets) account for more than 95 percent of discoveries so far.

The 15 000th near-Earth asteroid is designated *2016 TB57*. It was discovered on Oct. 13 by observers at the Mount Lemmon Survey, an element of the NASA-funded Catalina
Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona. 2016 TB57 is a rather small asteroid - about 16 to 36 meters in size - that will come closest to Earth on Oct. 31 at just beyond five times
the distance of the moon. It will safely pass Earth.