In a Rare Pairing, a Venus-Like Planet Has Been Found Around a "Failed Star" | Science | Smithsonian
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/...e-pairing-venus-planet-has-been-found-around-failed-star-180957124/

The system offers clues to the way planets and moons form and may aid in the quest to find habitable worlds across the galaxy

Astronomers using a gravitational magnifying glass have found a Venus-like planet orbiting a "failed star"—a massive but incredibly dim
brown dwarf. This rarely seen pairing offers clues to the way planets and moons form, which may in turn help in the quest to find habitable
worlds, whether they are Earth-like planets or life-friendly moons.

Are Astronomers on the Verge of Finding an Exomoon? - Scientific American Blog Network
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...rvations/are-astronomers-on-the-verge-of-finding-an-exomoon/

It would be a huge discovery, but until they train the Hubble on a possible candidate, they won't know for sure—so stay tuned

Alex Teachey : This morning David (Kipping) and I put out a paper on the arXiv that represents the culmination of years of work searching
for the signature of exomoons in the population of stars examined by the Kepler Mission. After carefully analyzing an ensemble of the highest
quality planetary transit signals, we have determined that exomoons appear to be quite rare in the inner regions of star systems (regions of
space close to the host star). This finding was both remarkable and, frankly, a bit disappointing. https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.08563

A ještě přidám čerstvý SETIinst FB live: dnes "mladá krev" NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL), hosted at the SETI Institute.

https://www.facebook.com/SETIInstitute/videos/10155414100585535/

FDL is an applied artificial intelligence research accelerator and public/private partnership between NASA Ames Research Center
and the SETI Institute. The program tackles knowledge gaps in space science by pairing machine learning experts with astronomy and
planetary science expertise. Interdisciplinary teams address tightly defined problems with meaningful application to the space program.

Participants are set up in five teams consisting of four members:

Planetary Defense: Long Period Comets
Provide more warning time for long-period comet impacts by applying deep learning to meteor shower observations

Planetary Defense: Radar 3D Shape Modeling
Develop a methodology to automate the backlog of neo radar imagery that requires shape modeling – and also improve the resolution of the result

Space Resources: Lunar Water & Volatiles
Determine the location and most promising access points for vital lunar H2O, in terms of cost effectiveness and engineering constraints

Space Weather: Solar-Terrestrial Interactions
Improve understanding of solar influence on Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere

Space Weather: Solar Storm Prediction
Discovering new relationships and agents to help predict major solar events

A sixth team comprised of undergraduate students will address AI and the space sciences by exploring the application
of AI as a breakthrough capability for the space program, informed by the experience of FDL and its partner network.

Teď začínají!

Tony Darnell / Deep Astronomy - Mercury: Bombarded by many tiny meteoroids

https://www.pscp.tv/DeepAstronomy/1YpJkmbNmPVKj

It has been known for a long time that Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system does not have much of an atmosphere.
This variable “exosphere” around Mercury has been detected several times and appears to contain numerous interesting chemical
elements besides hydrogen. Chemicals such as potassium, sodium, oxygen and even water vapor also have been measured. Besides
that, there also is seasonal variation in the dust/meteoroid environment of Mercury. The material varies with position on the
planet and sometimes has a dawn–dusk asymmetry. But why? Where is the material in Mercury’s exosphere come from? Is it from
the surface, or the blast from the Solar wind. A new analysis of comets suggests that these are the orgin of some features
in Mercury’s exosphere.

Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on July 27, 2017 at 3PM Eastern (Daylight) Time as
they discuss with Menelaus Sarantos and Diego Janches about their study of this fascinating planet.

https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/videos/1434120169986890/

Half of the Milky Way comes from other galaxies | Science News
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/half-milky-way-comes-other-galaxies

Simulations suggest that galactic winds blew the material in from elsewhere

New simulations suggest that nearly half the matter in the Milky Way may have been siphoned from the gas of other galaxies.
That gas provides the raw material that galaxies use to build their bulk. The finding, scheduled to appear in the Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, reveals a new, unexpected way for galaxies to acquire matter and could give
clues to how they evolve.

Galaxies trade gas | Science News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opq0YATsKX8

Příběh tří hvězdných měst | ESO Česko
http://www.eso.org/public/czechrepublic/news/eso1723/?lang

Díky novým pozorováním, která pořídil dalekohled VST, se astronomům podařilo odhalit tři různé populace mladých stálic tvořících hvězdokupu
v nitru Velké mlhoviny v souhvězdí Orion. Nečekaný výsledek přináší nový pohled na chápání procesu vzniku hvězdokup. Naznačuje totiž, že ke
vzniku hvězd mohlo docházet v explozivních etapách, přičemž každá epizoda se odehrála mnohem rychleji, než se dříve myslelo.

Širokoúhlá kamera OmegaCAM pracující na dalekohledu ESO/VST (VLT Survey Telescope) pořídila nové detailní a působivé záběry Velké mlhoviny
v Orionu (Orion Nebula) a s ní spojené hvězdokupy mladých hvězd. Tato mlhovina je jednou z nejbližších oblastí s probíhajícím vznikem malých
i velkých hvězd a nachází se ve vzdálenosti asi 1 350 světelných let od Země.

Zooming in on the Orion Nebula | ESO Česko
http://www.eso.org/public/czechrepublic/videos/eso1723b/

Zooming in on the Orion Nebula
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkg5RXxlxuk

Has Cassini found a universal driver for prebiotic chemistry at Titan? / Cassini-Huygens / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA
http://www.esa.int/...-Huygens/Has_Cassini_found_a_universal_driver_for_prebiotic_chemistry_at_Titan

The international Cassini-Huygens mission has made a surprising detection of a molecule that is
instrumental in the production of complex organics within the hazy atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Titan boasts a thick nitrogen and methane atmosphere with some of the most complex chemistry seen in the Solar System.
It is even thought to mimic the atmosphere of early Earth, before the build-up of oxygen. As such, Titan can be seen
as a planet-scale laboratory that can be studied to understand the chemical reactions that may have led to life on Earth,
and that could be occurring on planets around other stars.

In Titan’s upper atmosphere, nitrogen and methane are exposed to energy from sunlight and energetic particles in Saturn’s
magnetosphere. These energy sources drive reactions involving nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon, which lead to more complicated
prebiotic compounds.

Using powerful Dark Energy Camera, scientists reach the cosmic dawn | EurekAlert! Science News
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/asu-upd072617.php

Arizona State University astronomers Sangeeta Malhotra and James Rhoads, working with international teams in Chile and China,
have discovered 23 young galaxies, seen as they were 800 million years after the Big Bang. The results from this sample have
been recently published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Giant Radio Telescope Scaled Back to Contain Costs - Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-radio-telescope-scaled-back-to-contain-costs/

Crowding antennas closer together may affect the Square Kilometer Array's ability to observe the early Universe

Designs for the world’s largest radio telescope have been scaled back to save money—a decision that astronomers
say could affect its ability to peer deep into the Universe’s past.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a telescope 50 times more sensitive than current instruments, is expected to cost
billions of dollars. Its final design calls for around 2,000 radio dishes in Africa, together with up to one million
antennas in Australia, that will have a total light-collecting area of roughly 1 square kilometre—hence the project's
name.

Galactic David and Goliath | ESA/Hubble
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1712/

The gravitational dance between two galaxies in our local neighbourhood has led to intriguing visual features in both as witnessed in this new
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The tiny NGC 1510 and its colossal neighbour NGC 1512 are at the beginning of a lengthy merger, a crucial
process in galaxy evolution. Despite its diminutive size, NGC 1510 has had a significant effect on NGC 1512’s structure and amount of star formation.

The Making of a Pre-Planetary Nebula
http://aasnova.org/2017/07/26/the-making-of-a-pre-planetary-nebula/

The gas expelled by dying stars gets twisted into intricate shapes and patterns as
nebulae form. Now a team of researchers might have some answers about how this happens.

Massive star's dying blast caught by rapid-response telescopes
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-massive-star-dying-blast-caught.html

In June 2016, an international team of 31 astronomers, led by the University of Maryland's Eleanora Troja and including
Arizona State University's Nathaniel Butler, caught a massive star as it died in a titanic explosion deep in space.

The blast of the dying star released in about 40 seconds as much energy as the Sun releases over its entire lifetime,
all focused into a tight beam of gamma rays aimed by chance toward Earth.

The team's findings, reported in the scientific journal Nature, provide strong evidence for one of two competing models
for how gamma-ray bursters (GRBs) produce their energy.

Comet C2015 ER61 Panstars taken by Salvador Torres Morales on July 26, 2017 @ San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Space in Images - 2017 - 06 - Euclid flagship mock galaxy catalogue
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/06/Euclid_flagship_mock_galaxy_catalogue

ESA’s Euclid mission, to be launched in 2020, is set to provide a unique window into the evolution of our 13.8 billion year-old Universe.
It will map the history of the Universe’s structure by studying billions of galaxies. In this way, it will be able to probe the nature of
invisible dark matter, which makes itself known by the forces it exerts on ordinary matter, and the mysterious dark energy that drives
the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

Mars rover spots clouds shaped by gravity waves | Science | AAAS
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/mars-rover-spots-clouds-shaped-gravity-waves

NASA’s Curiosity rover usually keeps its instruments firmly focused on Mars’s ground, zapping grit with its laser or drilling
cores in bedrock. But every few days, the SUV-sized robot, like any good dreamer, shifts its sights upward to the clouds.

Well into its fifth year, the rover has now shot more than 500 movies of the clouds above it, including the first ground-based
view of martian clouds shaped by gravity waves, researchers reported here this week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
(Gravity waves, common atmospheric ripples on Earth that result from air trying to regain its vertical balance, should not be
confused with gravitational waves, cosmological ripples in spacetime.) The shots are the best record made so far of a mysterious
recurring belt of equatorial clouds known to influence the martian climate.

Four new short-period giant planets discovered
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-short-period-giant-planets.html

Astronomers have detected four new giant exoplanets as part of the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network-South (HATSouth) exoplanet survey.
The newly found alien worlds are about the size of Jupiter, but less massive. They transit moderately bright stars and have short orbital periods.
The findings were presented July 22 in a paper published on arXiv.org.

HATSouth is a network of six astrograph telescope systems located in South America, Africa, and Australia. These telescopes are designed to detect
transiting extrasolar planets in orbit around relatively bright stars visible from the Southern hemisphere. Since its launch in 2009, the network
has already detected dozens of transiting exoplanets.

Now, the list of planets detected by HATSouth has expanded. In a recent paper, a team of researchers led by Rafael Brahm of the Pontifical Catholic
University of Chile in Santiago presents the discovery of four new planets, HATS-43b, HATS-44b, HATS-45b, and HATS-46b. The planetary nature of
transiting signals detected by HATSouth was confirmed by follow-up spectroscopic and photometric observations using various instruments, including
the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) network at the Cerro Tololo International Observatory (CTIO) in Chile.

This extensive observational campaign that led to the discovery of four new alien worlds was carried out from December 2009 to October 2016.