Woow!!

A chat with Vít Kučera | ALICE Matters
http://alicematters.web.cern.ch/?q=content%2Fnode%2F1048

Vít Kučera has been recently awarded the 2016 ALICE thesis prize for his work on strange particle production in jets,
which he carried out at the Charles University in Prague and the University of Strasbourg. Currently a postdoc with
the Czech Academy of Sciences, he is continuing his research career in ALICE and is going to spend much time at CERN
in the next years.

When choosing his Master’s Course, he found himself hesitating between particle physics and astrophysics, since he was
very fond of both fundamental physics and astronomy. Besides, he was a guide for an observatory. In the end, he decided
to go for particle physics and, during his studies at the Charles University in Prague, he started a collaboration with
ALICE. “I got very interested in heavy-ion physics, since in some way it combines my two interests: the origin of
the universe on one side and subatomic physics on the other,” explains Vít.

Konečně!!

BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2017
with one half to Rainer Weiss and the other half jointly to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne at LIGO/VIRGO COLLABORATION LIGO Scientific Collaboration
“for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves”.

On 14 September 2015, the universe’s gravitational waves were observed for the very first time. The waves, which were predicted by Albert Einstein a hundred
years ago, came from a collision between two black holes. It took 1.3 billion years for the waves to arrive at the LIGO detector in the USA.

The signal was extremely weak when it reached Earth, but is already promising a revolution in astrophysics. Gravitational waves are an entirely new way of
observing the most violent events in space and testing the limits of our knowledge.

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, is a collaborative project with over one thousand researchers from more than twenty countries.
Together, they have realised a vision that is almost fifty years old. The 2017 Nobel Laureates have, with their enthusiasm and determination, each been
invaluable to the success of LIGO. Pioneers Rainer Weiss and Kip S. Thorne, together with Barry C. Barish, the scientist and leader who brought the project
to completion, ensured that four decades of effort led to gravitational waves finally being observed.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2017/popular-physicsprize2017.pdf

Unexpected surprise: A final image from Rosetta
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-unexpected-image-rosetta.html
Unexpected surprise: a final image from Rosetta / Rosetta / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA
http://www.esa.int/...ctivities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Unexpected_surprise_a_final_image_from_Rosetta

Russia And The US Will Work Together on The First-Ever Moon Station

In Spring of 2017, NASA revealed their plans for what the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket would be used for: to build the Deep Space Gateway, a space station in cis-lunar orbit that'll serve as a stepping stone to the exploration of the Solar System.

Until today, it was assumed that this would be a NASA project, with the agency constructing the station over the course of several launches of the SLS from 2021 through 2026, delivering the 4 major modules. The details were hazy, though, with the various components in development with various contractors.

Today, however, NASA and the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos announced that they'll be building the Deep Space Gateway together. They signed an agreement in Australia at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, and announced the news to the world.

Where Do We Go Next? Building the Deep Space Gateway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFs1EzRb--Y

Three-detector observation of #GravitationalWaves from #blackhole merger #GW170814 by @LIGO & @EGO_Virgo http://www.ligo.org/detections/
#BravoVirgo

South Pole Observatory Could Solve The Mystery of All Those Fast Radio Bursts

Around the world, efforts are ramping up to try and uncover the mystery of fast radio bursts - extremely powerful, milliseconds-long radio bursts from somewhere out beyond the solar system. We don't know what they are. We don't even know where most of them are coming from, since the majority of sources only emit a burst once and fall silent. But the answer could lie with neutrinos - and that's where a telescope facility at the South Pole called IceCube comes into play.

IceCube uses 5,160 optical modules to detect these tiny particles in the clear, dry, stable atmosphere of the South Pole, with an exceptionally wide field-of-view. When other radio telescopes detect an FRB, the IceCube team can cross-reference the radio data with their own data to check for elevated neutrino activity.

In fact, they have already done so for nearly 30 FRBs, including 17 from FRB 121102, which is an anomalous FRB source that has emitted multiple bursts. The team found no unusual neutrino data, but that is not a null result. It helps narrow down what the FRBs are not.

"We've ruled out gamma-ray bursts and we've strongly constrained the possibility of black holes," Vandenbroucke said.

tak bohužel špatné zprávy :(

Hurricane Damages Giant Radio Telescope—Why It Matters
http://relay.nationalgeographic.com/...o-radio-telescope-damaged-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-science

Forming Planetesimals in a Dust and Gas Vortex
http://aasnova.org/2017/09/19/forming-planetesimals-in-a-dust-and-gas-vortex/

Planet formation still holds many mysteries for today’s astronomers. One of the biggest unknown is how pebbles and dust clump together to form planetesimals
rather than drifting in towards the star due to its strong gravitational pull. A possible solution is dust traps — in a circumstellar disk, the inward drift
of the pebbles and particles can be stopped by high pressure in the gaseous disk. A dust trap like this would be an ideal place to form planetesimals. The
authors of today’s paper look at a circumstellar disks around AB Aur. They create hydrodynamical simulations of the dust and gas to see if there is a dust
trap with the possible formation of small planets.

Circumstellar disks are the link between bunches of dust around a star and fully formed planetesimals. There are a few types of circumstellar disks —
protoplanetary, transition, and debris. A transition disk is exactly what it sounds like — a transition from protoplanetary to debris, which means that
planets would likely be forming in a transition disk. About 450 light-years away from us, AB Aur hosts an asymmetric transition disk. The unevenness of ¨
the disk could indicate a dust trap or gas vortex. At about 120 AU from the central star, the cold dust emission disk creates an asymmetric ring in the disk.

Nanosat fleet proposed for voyage to 300 asteroids – Europlanet Outreach
http://www.europlanet-eu.org/nanosat-fleet-proposed-to-300-asteroids/

A fleet of tiny spacecraft could visit over 300 asteroids in just over three years, according to a mission study led by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
The Asteroid Touring Nanosat Fleet concept comprises 50 spacecraft propelled by innovative electric solar wind sails (E-sails) and equipped with instruments
to take images and collect spectroscopic data on the composition of the asteroids. Each nanosat would visit six or seven asteroids before returning to Earth
to deliver the data. The concept will be presented by Dr Pekka Janhunen at the European Planetary Science Congress 2017 in Riga on Tuesday 19th September.

VLASS:
VLA Begins Huge Project of Cosmic Discovery – National Radio Astronomy Observatory
https://public.nrao.edu/news/vla-begins-huge-project/

Astronomers have embarked on the largest observing project in the more than four-decade history of the National Science Foundation’s
Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) — a huge survey of the sky that promises a rich scientific payoff over many years.

Over the next 7 years, the iconic array of giant dish antennas in the high New Mexico desert will make three complete scans of the sky
visible from its latitude — about 80 percent of the entire sky. The survey, called the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS), will produce the sharpest
radio view ever made of such a large portion of the sky, and is expected to detect 10 million distinct radio-emitting celestial objects,
about four times as many as are now known.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/hubble-captures-blistering-pitch-black-planet

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a planet outside our solar system that looks as black as fresh asphalt because it eats light rather than reflecting it back into space. This light-eating prowess is due to the planet's unique capability to trap at least 94 percent of the visible starlight falling into its atmosphere.