Astronomy and Space News - Astro Watch: FINESSE Mission to Investigate Atmospheres of Hundreds of Alien Worlds
http://www.astrowatch.net/2017/09/finesse-mission-to-investigate.html

One of NASA’s proposed missions, known as the Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer (FINESSE) could greatly improve
our understanding of extrasolar worlds. If selected for development, the spacecraft will investigate at least 500 exoplanet atmospheres,
providing detailed information about climate processes on distant alien planets.

FINESSE has been recently chosen by NASA for concept studies and evaluations. It is one of the agency’s six astrophysics Explorers Program
proposals that could be selected by 2019 to proceed with construction and launch.

The mission’s main objective is to study the processes that govern planet formation and global climate. It will investigate the mechanisms
that establish atmospheric chemical composition and shape atmospheric evolution.

Space in Images - 2017 - 08 - Gaia sky mapper image near the Galactic centre
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/08/Gaia_sky_mapper_image_near_the_Galactic_centre

Gaia, ESA’s billion-star surveyor, is detecting stars and measuring their properties in order to build up the most precise 3D map
of the Milky Way. By accurately measuring the motion of each star, astronomers will be able to peer back in time to understand
the Milky Way’s history, its evolution and its destiny.

In general, as Gaia registers stars, only data covering the object of interest are transmitted to the ground. However, in the densest
regions on the sky there are more stars close to each other than the detection and processing system of Gaia can cope with, which
could result in a less complete census in these crowded areas.

To help mitigate this, a scientific selection of high-density regions is made to cover them in a special imaging mode, as illustrated
here. These types of observations are carried out routinely every time Gaia scans over these regions.

VIRGO:
Three crewmembers will depart the International Space Station on Saturday (Sept. 2) and return to Earth. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson will return
from her record-smashing mission along with her Expedition 52 crewmates, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.
Watch the crew take off in their Soyuz spacecraft and land in Kazakhstan live here at Space.com, or tune in live to NASA TV.

At 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Saturday (Sept. 2), NASA TV will kick off their coverage of the return by broadcasting live coverage of the Soyuz MS-04
crew saying farewell to their Expedition 52/53 crewmates at the space station before they enter the space capsule and close the hatch. At 2:40 p.m.
EDT (1840 GMT), they'll close the hatch and begin preparing for departure. [Space Station Photos: Expedition 52 Crew in Orbit]

The Soyuz will undock from the space station at 5:58 p.m. EDT (1758 GMT), and the crew will start their 3.5-hour descent to Earth. At 8:29 p.m. EDT
(0029 GMT on Sept. 3), when the Soyuz is approximately 12 miles away from the space station, its engines will fire for a short deorbit burn. About
half an hour later, the crew will enter the atmosphere and the Soyuz will deploy parachutes, which will allow the crew to gently float down to Earth.
At 9:22 p.m. EDT (0122 GMT on Sept. 3), they'll touch down in Kazakhstan.

SVS: Voyager 1 Trajectory through the Solar System
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4139

Voyager 1 Trajectory through the Solar System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYNIsgDrIRE

NASA’s Asteroid-Bound Spacecraft to Slingshot Past Earth
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/asteroid-bound-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth

NASA’s asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security -
Regolith Explorer), will pass about 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) above Earth just before 12:52 p.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 22.
Using Earth as a slingshot, the spacecraft will receive an assist to complete its journey to the asteroid Bennu.

OSIRIS-REx is undertaking a challenging mission to visit the near-Earth asteroid, survey the surface, collect samples and deliver
them safely back to Earth. This is the first NASA mission to attempt such an undertaking. The spacecraft is halfway through its
two-year outbound journey, and now OSIRIS-REx needs an extra boost to successfully rendezvous with Bennu.

Moon’s tidal stress likely responsible for causing deep moonquakes, new study confirms - GeoSpace - AGU Blogosphere
http://blogs.agu.org/...-tidal-stress-likely-responsible-causing-deep-moonquakes-new-study-confirms/

The same gravitational force responsible for creating tides on Earth could be causing deep quakes on the moon, a new study confirms.

A new analysis of data gathered by the Apollo missions confirms that tidal stress – the gravitational pull of the moon on the Earth
and of the Earth on the moon – is responsible for causing deep moonquakes, the lunar equivalent of earthquakes.

Close encounters of the stellar kind / Gaia / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Gaia/Close_encounters_of_the_stellar_kind

The movements of more than 300 000 stars surveyed by ESA’s Gaia satellite reveal that rare close encounters with our Sun
might disturb the cloud of comets at the far reaches of our Solar System, sending some towards Earth in the distant future.

As the Solar System moves through the Galaxy, and as other stars move on their own paths, close encounters are inevitable –
though ‘close’ still means many trillions of kilometres.

A star, depending on its mass and speed, would need to get within about 60 trillion kilometres before it starts to have an
effect on the Solar System’s distant reservoir of comets, the Oort Cloud, which is thought to extend out to 15 trillion
kilometres from the Sun, 100 000 times the Sun–Earth distance.

For comparison, the outermost planet Neptune orbits at an average distance of about 4.5 billion kilometres, or 30 Sun–Earth
distances. The gravitational influence of stars that pass near the Oort Cloud could perturb the paths of comets residing there,
jolting them onto orbits that bring them in to the inner Solar System.

While this is thought to be responsible for some of the comets that appear in our skies every hundred to thousand years,
it also has the potential to put comets on a collision course with Earth or other planets.

Tracking stellar motions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCEr8PqeLWI

Hubble delivers first hints of possible water content of TRAPPIST-1 planets | ESA/Hubble
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1713/

An international team of astronomers used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to estimate whether there might be water
on the seven earth-sized planets orbiting the nearby dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. The results suggest that the outer planets
of the system might still harbour substantial amounts of water. This includes the three planets within the habitable
zone of the star, lending further weight to the possibility that they may indeed be habitable.

Animation of the planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPWnBhjXSd0

Discovery of a Metal-Poor Little Cub
http://aasnova.org/2017/08/30/discovery-of-a-metal-poor-little-cub/

The discovery of an extremely metal-poor star-forming galaxy in our local universe, dubbed Little Cub,
is providing astronomers with front-row seats to the quenching of a near-pristine galaxy.

Ultraviolet light may be ultra important in search for life
https://phys.org/news/2017-08-ultraviolet-ultra-important-life.html

A new study by Sukrit Ranjan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., and colleagues suggests
that red dwarf stars might not emit enough UV light to kick-start the biological processes most familiar to our planet. For example,
certain levels of UV might be necessary for the formation of ribonucleic acid, a molecule necessary for all forms of known life.

NASA's Juno spacecraft will make its seventh science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Friday, Sept. 1,
at 2:49 p.m. PDT (5:49 p.m. EDT and 21:49 UTC). At the time of perijove (defined as the point in Juno's orbit when it is
closest to the planet's center), the spacecraft will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops.

Juno Scientists Prepare for Seventh Science Pass of Jupiter | Mission Juno
https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/news/scientists-prepare-for-seventh-jupiter-pass