Space Images | 'Ireson Hill' on Mount Sharp, Mars
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia21718

Curiosity has begun its long-anticipated study of an iron-bearing ridge forming a distinctive layer on the mountain's slope.

Since before Curiosity's landing five years ago next month, this feature has been recognized as one of four unique terrains
on lower Mount Sharp and therefore a key mission destination. Curiosity's science team informally named it "Vera Rubin Ridge"
this year, commemorating astronomer Vera Cooper Rubin (1928-2016).

"Our Vera Rubin Ridge campaign has begun," said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, California. "Curiosity is driving parallel to the ridge, below it, observing it from different angles as we work our
way toward a safe route to the top of the ridge."

Syfy - Bad Astronomy | The farthest star
http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-farthest-star

Due to a quirk of cosmic geometry, astronomers have detected the light
from the farthest individual star ever seen. How far away is it?

Over nine billion light-years away. A single star, from that distance.

Tak kryotestování začíná!

https://www.nasa.gov/...e/goddard/2017/nasa-closes-chamber-a-door-to-commence-webb-telescope-testing
The vault-like, 40-foot diameter, 40-ton door of NASA's Johnson Space Center’s historic Chamber A sealed shut on July 10,
2017, signaling the beginning of about 100 days of cryogenic testing for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in Houston.

https://www.nasa.gov/...ture/jpl/nasas-juno-spacecraft-completes-flyby-over-jupiter-s-great-red-spot

NASA's Juno mission completed a close flyby of Jupiter and its Great Red Spot on July 10, during its sixth science orbit.

All of Juno's science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were operating during the flyby, collecting data that are now being returned to
Earth. Juno's next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on Sept. 1. Raw images from the spacecraft’s latest flyby will be posted in coming days.

"For generations people from all over the world and all walks of life have marveled over the Great Red Spot," said Scott Bolton, principal
investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Now we are finally going to see what this storm looks like up close
and personal."

The Great Red Spot is a 10,000-mile-wide (16,000-kilometer-wide) storm that has been monitored since 1830 and has possibly existed for more
than 350 years. In modern times, the Great Red Spot has appeared to be shrinking.

Juno reached perijove (the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiter's center) on July 10 at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). At the time
of perijove, Juno was about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops. Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, Juno had covered
another 24,713 miles (39,771 kilometers), and was passing directly above the coiling crimson cloud tops of the Great Red Spot. The spacecraft
passed about 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the clouds of this iconic feature.

Big Bang Confirmed Again, This Time By The Universe's First Atoms
https://www.forbes.com/...-bang-confirmed-again-this-time-by-the-universes-first-atoms/#673e0e79c22b

The Big Bang is the leading theory as to where our Universe came from. The Universe was hotter, denser, more uniform, and smaller in the past,
and is only as vast as it is today due to the fabric of expanding space. This idea was extremely controversial for many decades, until detailed
observations of the leftover glow from that hot, early fireball was discovered and measured, in extraordinary agreement with the Big Bang's
predictions. But there's another prediction the theory made: that in the Universe's first few minutes, precise amounts of hydrogen, deuterium,
helium, and lithium would be created. Those predicted ratios are fixed by physics and non-negotiable, but difficult to measure. Thanks to new
observations, both the helium and deuterium ratios are now measured, confirming the Big Bang once again.

https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-astronomers-track-birth-superearth

"Synthetic observations" simulating nascent planetary systems could help explain a puzzle that has vexed astronomers for a long time.

Heart of an Exploded Star Observed in 3-D – National Radio Astronomy Observatory
https://public.nrao.edu/news/2017-alma-dust-sn1987a/

Deep inside the remains of an exploded star lies a twisted knot of newly minted molecules and dust. Using ALMA, astronomers mapped the location of these new molecules
to create a high-resolution 3-D image of this “dust factory,” providing new insights into the relationship between a young supernova remnant and its galaxy.

Cosmic “dust factory” reveals clues to how stars are born - News - Cardiff University
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/808810-cosmic-dust-factory-reveals-clues-to-how-stars-are-born

A group of scientists led by researchers at Cardiff University have discovered a rich inventory of molecules at the centre of an exploded star for the very first time.

Two previously undetected molecules, formylium (HCO+) and sulphur monoxide (SO), were found in the cooling aftermath of Supernova 1987A, located 163,000 light years away
in a nearby neighbour of our own Milky Way galaxy. The explosion was originally witnessed in February 1987, hence its name.

These newly identified molecules were accompanied by previously detected compounds such as carbon monoxide (CO) and silicon oxide (SiO). The researchers estimate that
about 1 in 1000 silicon atoms from the exploded star can be found in SiO molecules and only a few out of every million carbon atoms are in HCO+ molecules.

Dawn’s Early Light
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia21336/dawn-s-early-light

The light of a new day on Saturn illuminates the planet’s wavy cloud patterns and the smooth arcs of the vast rings.

The light has traveled around 80 minutes since it left the sun's surface by the time it reaches Saturn. The illumination
it provides is feeble; Earth gets 100 times the intensity since it's roughly ten times closer to the sun. Yet compared to
the deep blackness of space, everything at Saturn still shines bright in the sunlight, be it direct or reflected.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken with
the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 25, 2017 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths
of near-infrared light centered at 939 nanometers.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 762,000 miles (1.23 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is
45 miles (73 kilometers) per pixel.

The Birth of Supernova 1987A animation depicting the buildup and aftermath of supernova 1987A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zTWZHhkSo

Asteroid (457175) 2008 GO98 taken by Paolo Bacci on July 4, 2017 @ San Marcello.

SOFIA to Make Advance Observations of Next New Horizons Flyby Object

On July 10, researchers using NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, will attempt to study
the environment around a distant Kuiper Belt Object, 2014 MU69, which is the next flyby target for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.

https://www.nasa.gov/...eature/sofia-to-make-advance-observations-of-next-new-horizons-flyby-object



První částečné výsledky vypadají dobře!

@SOFIAtelescope: we successfully observed the shadow!
SOFIA "observed the shadow" in the sense of measuring an actual chord through MU69's body? Or in the sense of successful data recording?
Analysis is underway. But we were exactly where the centerline of the shadow was predicted.

https://www.wired.com/story/strange-noise-in-gravitational-wave-data-sparks-debate/

IN FEBRUARY 2016, the leaders of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced
that they had successfully detected gravitational waves, subtle ripples in the fabric of space-time that
had been stirred up by the collision of two black holes. The team held a press conference in Washington
to announce the landmark findings.

They also released their data.

Now a team of independent physicists has sifted through this data, only to find what they describe as strange
correlations that shouldn’t be there. The team, led by Andrew Jackson, a physicist at the Niels Bohr Institute
in Copenhagen, claims that the troublesome signal could be significant enough to call the entire discovery into
question. The potential effects of the unexplained correlations “could range from a minor modification of the
extracted wave form to a total rejection of LIGO’s claimed [gravitational wave] discovery,” wrote Jackson in an
email to Quanta. LIGO representatives say there may well be some unexplained correlations, but that they should
not affect the team’s conclusions.

Bright fireball spotted over São José dos Campos and São Paulo, Brazil, on July 10, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4XQ0T7Nh8E

A Rare, 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Hit the Netherlands - Atlas Obscura
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/meteorite-netherlands-rare

Naturalis Newsroom #2: The Rock from Space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLJZC-ZQBWY