A Clue to Earth's Formation From Deep Beneath Its Surface - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/...6/12/a-clue-to-earths-formation-from-deep-beneath-its-surface/511541/
Geochemical signals from near the planet’s core are beginning to shed light on its first 50 million years, a period long viewed as inaccessible to science.

Technique could yield hyperprecise gravitational measurements | MIT News
http://news.mit.edu/2016/technique-could-yield-hyperprecise-gravitational-measurements-1227
New atom interferometer could measure inertial forces with record-setting accuracy.

This German Town Is Embedded with Millions of Tiny Diamonds | Travel | Smithsonian
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/german-town-contains-millions-diamonds-180961467/

Uppon first glance, Nördlingen has all the hallmarks of a classic German town. At its epicenter sits St.-Georgs-Kirche,
a medieval church with an imposing tower that dominates the skyline, which itself is punctuated by the red pitched roofs
of hundreds of timberframe homes and shops. But on closer inspection, it’s these very buildings that set Nördlingen apart
from other towns, and for one very curious reason: These structures are embedded with millions of microscopic diamonds.

The diamonds are the result of an asteroid, which struck this area of Bavaria, a federal state in southern Germany, some 15
million years ago. The resulting impact left behind the Nördlingen Ries (or Ries crater), a massive depression that stretches
more than nine miles across the German countryside, and is the site upon which Nördlingen sits today. The impact also created
suevite—an impact breccia or course-grained rock comprised of angular fragments that can include glass, crystal and diamonds,
and is commonly found at impact sites such as this one.

A Tour of NGC 5128 Flare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np855eaSES8

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows no signs of damage after an “anomaly”
during a vibration test earlier in the month, the agency announced Dec. 23.
No damage to JWST after vibration test anomaly - SpaceNews.com
http://spacenews.com/no-damage-to-jwst-after-vibration-test-anomaly/

VIRGO:
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v12/n8/full/nphys3852.html
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v12/n10/full/nphys3897.html

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.


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