Primary Mirror Blanks Qualified and Accepted by TMT | Thirty Meter Telescope
http://www.tmt.org/news-center/primary-mirror-blanks-qualified-and-accepted-tmt

The TMT project has accepted 72 mirror blanks produced by OHARA, a Japanese optical glass manufacturer in Sagamihara near Tokyo,
and polished by CANON Inc., under the direction of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). This official acceptance
confirms the excellent quality of the blanks and is based on stringent verification of the technical specifications set for all
492 TMT primary segment blanks (plus an additional 82 spare units) that will ultimately make TMT’s 30-meter diameter primary mirror.

Long-lasting fireball over Florida
https://watchers.news/2017/04/26/long-lasting-fireball-over-florida/

A long-lasting fireball was seen over Florida around 03:52 UTC on April 26, 2017 (23:52 EDT on April 25). The event lasted up to 20 seconds.
The American Meteor Society received 46 reports by 17:35 UTC. Five witnesses reported sound associated with the event while 33 reported fragmentation.

AMS event #1497-2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvXHEaEuJhI

News | Dawn Observing Ceres; 3rd Reaction Wheel Malfunctions
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6830

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is preparing to observe Ceres on April 29 from an "opposition" position, directly between the dwarf planet's
mysterious Occator Crater and the sun. This unique geometry may yield new insights about the bright material in the center of the crater.

While preparing for this observation, one of Dawn's two remaining reaction wheels stopped functioning on April 23. By electrically changing
the speed at which these gyroscope-like devices spin, Dawn controls its orientation in the zero-gravity, frictionless conditions of space.

The team discovered the situation during a scheduled communications session on April 24, diagnosed the problem, and returned the spacecraft
to its standard flight configuration, still with hydrazine control, on April 25. The failure occurred after Dawn completed its five-hour
segment of ion thrusting on April 22 to adjust its orbit, but before the shorter maneuver scheduled for April 23-24. The orbit will still
allow Dawn to perform its opposition measurements. The reaction wheel's malfunctioning will not significantly impact the rest of
the extended mission at Ceres.

deadspin-quote-carrot-aligned-w-bgr-2
http://gizmodo.com/scientists-are-already-planning-the-next-mission-to-plu-1794664742

Why a group of scientists think we need another mission to Pluto - The Verge
http://www.theverge.com/...6/15424770/nasa-spacecraft-new-horizons-flyby-pluto-moons-orbiter-mission

How To Not Break A Mars Rover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEjy8iaUPmo

https://www.nasa.gov/...ddard/2017/taking-aim-at-night-shining-clouds-10-years-10-science-highlights

Launched on April 25, 2007, NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, or AIM, mission, has provided a wealth of new science
on the dynamics and composition of Earth’s upper atmosphere. Designed to study noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, AIM’s data
have helped scientists understand a host of upper-atmosphere phenomena, from radio echoes to giant, planet-scale atmospheric waves.

Mysteries of Crown-like Structures on Venus' Surface Unveiled in New Study
http://www.space.com/36575-venus-unique-features-studied-in-new-research.html

On Venus, plumes of superheated rock from near the planet's core may rise up intermittently, destroy patches
of the planet's surface and create unique crown-shaped geologic features called coronae, a new study finds.

The new study suggests that the surface of Venus is more active than scientists previously thought, and the
findings could shed light on how the early Earth evolved, the researchers said.

Very bright fireball spotted over Abilene, Texas on April 19, 2017
Fireball event
http://www.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2017/1418

AMS event #1418-2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP_wHKfGIVA



Same bright fireball spotted over Amarillo, Texas on April 19, 2017
http://www.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2017/1418

AMS event #1418-2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GIZPjjrsI

A matter of distance | ESA/Hubble
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1717a/

In space, being outshone is an occupational hazard. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a galaxy named NGC 7250.
Despite being remarkable in its own right — it has bright bursts of star formation and recorded supernova explosions— it blends
into the background somewhat thanks to the gloriously bright star hogging the limelight next to it.

This bright object is a single and little-studied star named TYC 3203-450-1, located in the constellation of Lacerta (The Lizard),
much closer than the much more distant galaxy. Only this way a normal star can outshine an entire galaxy, consisting of billions
of stars. Astronomers studying distant objects call these stars “foreground stars” and they are often not very happy about them,
as their bright light is contaminating the faint light from the more distant and interesting objects they actually want to study.

Astronomers detect dozens of new quasars and galaxies
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-astronomers-dozens-quasars-galaxies.html

A team of astronomers led by Yoshiki Matsuoka of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) has detected a treasure trove
of new high-redshift quasars (or quasi-stellar objects) and luminous galaxies. The newly found objects could be very important for
our understanding of the early universe. The findings were presented Apr. 19 in a paper published on arXiv.org.

High-redshift quasars and galaxies (at redshift higher than 5.0) are useful probes of the early universe in many respects. They offer
essential clues on the evolution of the intergalactic medium, quasar evolution, early supermassive black hole growth, as well as
evolution of galaxies through cosmic times. Generally speaking, they enable scientists to study the universe when it looked much
different than it does today.

Recently, Matsuoka's team has presented the results from the Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs) project,
which uses multi-band photometry data provided by the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program (SSP) survey. HSC is a wide-field
camera installed on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope located at the summit of Maunakea, Hawaii and operated by NAOJ. The researchers selected
nearly 50 photometric candidates from the HSC-SSP source catalog and then observed them with spectrographs on the Subaru Telescope and
the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), located on the island on the Canary Island of La Palma, Spain.

The observations resulted in the identification of 24 new quasars and eight new luminous galaxies at redshift between 5.7 and 6.8.

Mars Trojans may be part of a planet that was destroyed long ago | New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/...81-mars-trojans-may-be-part-of-a-planet-that-was-destroyed-long-ago/

Mars has an asteroid entourage, with nine so-called Trojans trailing in its wake. Now it seems these travelling
companions all had the same violent beginning: as the innards of a mini-planet, eviscerated in a violent collision.
Some remnants may even have been incorporated into the material that became Mars.

Trojans are distinct from the asteroids found in the asteroid belt, which begins about 101 million kilometres past Mars
and stretches toward Jupiter. While Trojans orbit the sun, like the asteroid belt, they are trapped in gravitational
sweet spots that ensure they will permanently trail or precede the planet in its trip around our star. These are known
as Lagrange points.

Weird, hairy microbes discovered on volcano soon after eruption | New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/...8570-weird-hairy-microbes-discovered-on-volcano-soon-after-eruption/

Gone today, hair tomorrow. Soon after an underwater volcano erupted and wiped out all nearby life forms,
hardy bacteria moved in and covered the area in a huge mat of hair-like filaments.

These strange colonies were found by an expedition to Tagoro Volcano, near the Canary Islands, in 2014,
two years after an eruption that reshaped 9 square kilometres of the sea floor. The researchers explored
the area via a robotic submarine equipped with cameras and arms for collecting samples.

Asteroid shock waves could have provided the building blocks for RNA - ScienceAlert
http://www.sciencealert.com/the-building-blocks-for-rna-could-be-the-result-of-asteroid-shock-waves

A now famous experiment conducted by chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey back in 1952 showed that even if we don't know for sure how the first living
cells formed, at least some of their molecular building blocks could have been produced by simple chemical reactions under conditions on ancient Earth.

Now, more than half a century later, researchers from France and the Czech Republic have used a similar experiment to expand this list of potential
ingredients to include all four RNA bases, filling in some possible stepping stones on the pathway from chemical soup to the origins of life.

While the results don't show how life probably formed, they do demonstrate that conditions on Earth roughly 3.5 to 4 billion years ago could have been
sufficient to produce the toolbox of compounds necessary for biochemistry.

Those conditions include what was probably an atmosphere without oxygen – referred to as a reducing atmosphere – and warm bodies of water containing
nitrogen and carbon-based molecules such as ammonia and methane.

Miller and Urey dissolved these two compounds in a sterile flask of water with some hydrogen gas for their experiment, letting it sit for a week before
shocking the solution with electricity to simulate lightning strikes.