Newly formed stars shoot out powerful whirlwinds
http://phys.org/news/2016-12-newly-stars-powerful-whirlwinds.html

Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have used the ALMA telescopes to observe the early stages in the formation of a new solar system.
For the first time they have seen how a powerful whirlwind shoot out from the rotating disc of gas and dust surrounding the young star.
The results have been published in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature.

A new solar system is formed in a large cloud of gas and dust that contracts and condenses due to the force of gravity and eventually becomes
so compact that the centre collapses into a ball of gas where the pressure heats the material, resulting in a glowing globe of gas, a star.
The remains of the gas and dust cloud rotate around the newly formed star in disc where the material starts to accumulate and form larger
and larger clumps, which finally become planets.

In connection with the newly formed stars, called protostars, researchers have observed powerful emanations of whirlwinds and outflows,
so-called jets. But before now, no one had observed how these winds are formed.

Bravo ESA!
Reconstruction of the final descent showed that the spacecraft gently struck the surface only 33 m from the target point.
Rosetta’s last words: science descending to a comet / Rosetta / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA
http://www.esa.int/...ities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_s_last_words_science_descending_to_a_comet

I po 5 letech je to pořád moc působivé...
Time Lapse Sky Shows Earth Rotating Instead of Stars (fixed audio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkn2ZXWDl6k

To byla čistá práce!!
Pegasus Carrying IRIS is Launched
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHHnud-RRx4

Finger-like structures on Mars could be the result of ancient microbes - GeoSpace - AGU Blogosphere
http://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2016/12/14/finger-like-structures-mars-result-ancient-microbes/

Finger-like rock structures on Mars could harbor potential evidence of past life on the Red Planet, according to new research.
In 2007, NASA’s Spirit rover landed on Mars’ “Home Plate,” a flat 90-meter-long area within the Gusev crater. Since then, researchers
have been trying to make sense of finger-like rock structures splayed across the landscape. The working hypothesis at the time was
that these rocks started out as continuous layers but eroded into odd shapes by the touch of wind and sand over the years.

Zajímavá definice obyvatelné zóny planetárního systému! :)

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/color-variations-on-mount-sharp-mars

The foreground of this scene from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows purple-hued rocks near the rover's
late-2016 location on lower Mount Sharp. The scene's middle distance includes higher layers that are future destinations for the mission.

Variations in color of the rocks hint at the diversity of their composition on lower Mount Sharp. The purple tone of the foreground rocks
has been seen in other rocks where Curiosity's Chemical and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument has detected hematite. Winds and windblown sand
in this part of Curiosity's traverse and in this season tend to keep rocks relatively free of dust, which otherwise can cloak rocks' color.

Krása, úplně jihnu...:)
Support LEGO Philae, Comet Lander
LEGO Ideas - Philae, Comet Lander
https://ideas.lego.com/projects/155107

Are Humans the Real Ancient Aliens? - NBC News
http://www.nbcnews.com/mach/space/are-we-ancient-aliens-n695456
By Seth Shostak

How special are we? A recent research paper suggests that terrestrial-style biology may be rare, and Earth may be
among the first examples of a planet able to sustain life in the cosmos. Even as the new kids on the block, humans are
seemingly one of the precious few instances of intelligence to arise in the universe since the Big Bang did its thing.

Harvard Astronomer Avi Loeb and his colleagues in the U.K. have argued that the halcyon days for life are still to come.
It's not even morning in the universe; it's pre-dawn. Biology may erupt like weeds on an untold number of worlds, but
if so, the infestation will take place tens of billions of years in the future.

Why's that? And what's wrong with life sprouting up today?

Obviously nothing. After all, you're reading this — you, the distant descendant of a small collection of molecules
that stumbled on a method for building nearly exact replicas of itself nearly four billion years ago. No scientist
is yet sure if this molecular sleight-of-hand is just some sort of highly unlikely event, although opinions abound.