When viewed at the largest scales, the distribution of galaxies in the Universe resembles a complex, tangled web:
an interconnected network of filaments of galaxies that surround vast, empty voids. Simulations and theory have
established that filaments – the largest, most densely populated structures in the Universe - have formed in the
billions of years after the Big Bang, and serve as conduits for transporting gas into galaxies, which they then
turn into stars. Thanks to advances in telescope instrumentation the current generation of galaxy surveys is
finally able to observe the night sky in sufficient detail as to accurately map the Cosmic Web for the first time,
and begin to understand the role it plays in influencing the evolutionary fate of galaxy.

In this talk, Dr. Alpaslan will review advances in mapping out the filamentary network of the Universe using data
from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, as well as discuss some recent advances in understanding how
the galaxies that live in dense filament differ from those that exist alone in isolated voids.

How galaxies are influenced in the Universe - Mehmet Alpaslan (SETI Talks 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CYMENUxYUg

Dal jsem si na pozadí HDEV, a má to doslova ozdravné účinky. :)
HDEV
https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESRS/HDEV/

Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? - Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/
High-profile physicists and philosophers gathered to debate whether we are real or virtual—and what it means either way

A popular argument for the simulation hypothesis came from University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrum in 2003, when he suggested that members
of an advanced civilization with enormous computing power might decide to run simulations of their ancestors. They would probably have the ability
to run many, many such simulations, to the point where the vast majority of minds would actually be artificial ones within such simulations, rather
than the original ancestral minds. So simple statistics suggest it is much more likely that we are among the simulated minds.

And there are other reasons to think we might be virtual. For instance, the more we learn about the universe, the more it appears to be based on
mathematical laws. Perhaps that is not a given, but a function of the nature of the universe we are living in. “If I were a character in a computer
game, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical,” said Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). “That just reflects the computer code in which it was written.”

Exploring Pluto and a Billion Miles Beyond | Pluto New Horizons
http://blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/2016/12/22/exploring-pluto-and-a-billion-miles-beyond/

Variability in the Atmosphere of the Hot Giant Planet HAT-P-7b
New World Weather | astrobites
https://astrobites.org/2016/12/22/new-world-weather/

Climate and weather are hot topics in the news lately, as much on Earth as in astronomy. As we look past our own atmosphere,
we’re beginning to find atmospheres all over the galaxy. A new look at data from NASA’s Kepler mission, reveals the first
detection of a variable atmosphere – indicating weather – on another exoplanet.

The hot Jupiter, known as HAT-P-7 b, was first discovered in 2008 via the transit method, which looks for drops in a star’s
brightness due to the planet passing in front of the star from our line of sight, much like an eclipse. HAT-P-7 b is only
40% larger than Jupiter but much closer to its own star – it completes an orbit in just 2.2 days (in comparison, Mercury has
an 88 day orbit). Like the moon, it is tidally locked, meaning the same side of the planet always faces its host star. At
such a close proximity, this makes the dayside temperatures reach as high as 2860 K.
Using four years of archival Kepler data, the scientists combined data from multiple orbits to look for subtle differences
in brightness. Their results showed definite variations over time, which could not be explained by any changes in
the instruments or in the star. The likely cause? Weather.


---

We Can Now Predict Weather On Alien Worlds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMp_YYCk2Sc

VIRGO: myslis, ze je to realne ?

Astronomers observe rise and fall of the dust shell of nova V339 Delphini
http://phys.org/news/2016-12-astronomers-fall-shell-nova-v339.html

A team of astronomers led by Aneurin Evans of the Keele University, U.K., has observed the classical nova V339 Delphini (V339 Del for short)
and spotted some peculiar changes in its dust shell. These observations could improve our knowledge about dust formation around stellar remnants.
The results of the observational campaign are presented in a paper published Dec. 19 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

Discovered in August 2013, V339 Delphini is a bright nova in the constellation Delphinus. It is the first nova that has been observed to synthesize
lithium, providing the first direct evidence of the supply of lithium to the interstellar medium by an astronomical object. Interestingly, follow-up
observations after the discovery of V339 Delphini showed that one month after its detection, dust formation commenced in this nova.

To better understand the dust formation process in V339 Delphini, Evans and his colleagues have analyzed sets of data provided by the Stratospheric
Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the Mt. Abu Infrared Observatory in India, the O'Brien Observatory in Marine on St Croix, Minnesota,
NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF), Hawaii, and the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT), located on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona.

The data collected from over two years of observations allowed the researchers to distinguish an apparent rise and decline of the mass and radius of
dust grains around this stellar remnant. The team noted that the rapid dust formation occurs around 34th day of observations and afterward, the
infrared emission became dominated by the dust. They also found that the dust is graphitic and its condensation temperature was 1 480 K at that moment.

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

AR Sco — The First White Dwarf Pulsar | astrobites
https://astrobites.org/2016/12/23/ar-sco-the-first-white-dwarf-pulsar/
Polarimetric evidence of a white dwarf pulsar in the binary system AR Scorpii

AR Scorpii, or AR Sco, is a binary system containing a white dwarf and a main sequence star. Earlier this year, it was discovered to
pulsate incredibly strongly — its brightness can increase or decrease by as much as a factor of four in as little as thirty seconds!

These pulsations are seen across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio all the way up to ultraviolet. There are three time periods
we see in the pulsations. Two are the orbital period of the system (3.5 hours) and the rotation period of the white dwarf (2 minutes,
which is much faster than a white dwarf normally spins). The third period we see, which is also around 2 minutes long, is a so-called
‘beat’ period that comes from interference between the orbital and rotation periods.

The beat period implies some interaction between the white dwarf itself and the main sequence star, such as pulses from the white dwarf
reflecting from the other star’s surface. Strangely, this beat period is the most pronounced period in the data. If it is indeed a reflection
effect, we see more of the reflected light than we see light from the white dwarf itself, a state of affairs which is hard to explain.

Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak, the future home of the ambitious DESI Survey. Over the coming years,
this telescope is going to observe 35 million galaxies to make the best 3D map of our universe ever.
Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Energy_Spectroscopic_Instrument

Two interesting amateur SETI projects use visualization to explain key concepts
Citizen SETI
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36802

Solar System's Next Close Encounter Will Be With Gliese 710, Say Astronomers
http://www.forbes.com/...-next-close-encounter-will-be-with-gliese-710-say-astronomers/#4840c2224b99

New data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia mission has given astronomers unprecedented accuracy in predicting that Gliese 710, a K-spectral
type star a little more than half the size of our Sun, will cross into our solar system’s Oort Cloud of comets some 1.35 million years from now.

According to a paper recently published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, Gliese 710 will swipe through a swath of the Oort Cloud’s estimated
few trillion comets, which in turn circle our solar system at distances of up to a light year.

The co-authors, Filip Berski and Piotr Dybczński, write that their calculations indicate that Gliese 710, currently estimated to be some 64 light years
away in the constellation of Serpens, will have the strongest influence on the Oort Cloud objects in the next ten million years. They note that their
calculations also indicate that Gliese 710 will pass 13,365 astronomical units (or Earth-Sun distances) from the Sun.

At its minimum distance, the paper’s co-authors note that of objects formed outside the solar system, Gliese 710 will appear as the brightest and the
fastest object on the night sky. The resulting Gliese 710 flyby, they write, will generate a large flux of new long-period Oort Cloud comets , many
of which will be able to reach the inner part of the solar system.