Space in Images - 2017 - 10 - Cloudy with a chance of protons
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/10/Cloudy_with_a_chance_of_protons

In September, Gaia unexpectedly detected a large quantity of protons – subatomic particles – emitted by a solar flare.

In this image, captured by Gaia’s Wave Front Sensor – a sort of ‘camera within a camera’ in its main star-sensing instrument –
the streaks of ‘snow’ are trails of individual protons. During normal space weather conditions, the image would only include
one or two proton trails. The long trail running horizontally across the image indicates a particularly energetic proton.

This proton storm was also reported by NASA’s GOES weather satellite, which is equipped with a particle-sensing instrument.

Comet Mission Reveals "Missing Link" in our Understanding of Planet Formation
http://www.ras.org.uk/...comet-mission-reveals-missing-link-in-our-understanding-of-planet-formation

The missing link in our understanding of planet formation has been revealed by the first ever spacecraft to orbit and land on a comet,
say German scientists. The study is published in a recent edition of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Professor Blum explains the implications of the team's observations "Our results show that only a single model for the formation of
larger solid bodies in the young solar system may be considered for Chury. According to this formation model, 'dust pebbles' are
concentrated so strongly by an instability in the solar nebula that their joint gravitational force ultimately leads to a collapse."

This process forms the missing link between the well-established formation of 'dust pebbles' ('planetary building blocks' formed in
the solar nebula by sticking collisions between dust and ice particles) and the gravitational accretion of planetesimals into planets,
which scientists have pondered over for years.

Is there anybody out there? | The Planetary Society
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2017/20171025-seti-anybody-out-there.html

Odhalování galaktických tajemství | ESO Česko
https://www.eso.org/public/czechrepublic/news/eso1734/?lang

Zooming in on the galaxy NGC 1316
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFboxodn7ZM


Na obřím snímku, který zachycuje kupu galaxií v souhvězdí Pece, upoutá naši pozornost nespočet galaxií. Některé vypadají jen jako drobné tečky v pozadí,
ale jiné dominují celému popředí záběru. Jedním z velkých objektů je hojně zkoumaná čočková galaxie NGC 1316. Bouřlivá minulost zanechala nápadné šrámy
na jejím současném vzhledu – struktury smyček, oblouků a prstenů, které se nyní astronomům pomocí dalekohledu VST podařilo zachytit v jemnějších detailech,
než bylo dosud možné. Tento pozoruhodně hluboký snímek rovněž odhaluje myriády slabších objektů.

A super-precise measurement shows proton and antiproton have identical magnetic properties

Universe shouldn’t exist, CERN physicists conclude | Cosmos
https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/universe-shouldn-t-exist-cern-physicists-conclude

One of the great mysteries of modern physics is why antimatter did not destroy the universe at the beginning of time.

To explain it, physicists suppose there must be some difference between matter and antimatter – apart from electric charge.
Whatever that difference is, it’s not in their magnetism, it seems.

Physicists at CERN in Switzerland have made the most precise measurement ever of the magnetic moment of an anti-proton –
a number that measures how a particle reacts to magnetic force – and found it to be exactly the same as that of the proton
but with opposite sign. The work is described in Nature.

http://www.aei.mpg.de/2147555/stronger-tests-of-einstein-s-relativity

Combining gravitational-wave observations and pulsar timing to study alternatives to the theory of general relativity

Einstein's theory of general relativity has withstood 100 years of experimental scrutiny. However, these tests do not constrain how well the very strong gravitational fields
produced by merging neutron stars obey this theory. New, more sophisticated techniques can now search for deviations from general relativity with unprecedented sensitivity.
Scientists at the Max Planck Institutes for Gravitational Physics and for Radio Astronomy studied two foremost tools for testing the strong-field regime of gravity – pulsar
timing and gravitational-wave observations – and demonstrated how combining these methods can put alternative theories of general relativity to the test.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2017/hubble-unravels-a-twisted-cosmic-knot

NGC 2623 gained its unusual and distinctive shape as the result of a major collision and subsequent merger between two separate galaxies.
This violent encounter caused clouds of gas within the two galaxies to become compressed and stirred up, in turn triggering a sharp spike
of star formation. This active star formation is marked by speckled patches of bright blue; these can be seen clustered both in the center
and along the trails of dust and gas forming NGC 2623’s sweeping curves (known as tidal tails). These tails extend for roughly 50 000 light-
years from end to end. Many young, hot, newborn stars form in bright stellar clusters — at least 170 such clusters are known to exist within
NGC 2623.

An Atmosphere Around the Moon? Research Indicates Yes | NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/...nd-the-moon-nasa-research-suggests-significant-atmosphere-in-lunar-past.html

Looking up at the Moon at night, Earth’s closest neighbor appears in shades of gray and white; a dry desert in the vacuum of space,
inactive and dead for billions of years. Like many things, though, with the Moon, there is so much more than what meets the eye.

Research completed by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center planetary volcanologist Debra Needham in Huntsville, Alabama, and planetary
scientist David Kring at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, suggests that billions of years ago, the Moon actually
had an atmosphere. The ancient lunar atmosphere was thicker than the atmosphere of Mars today and was likely capable of weathering
rocks and producing windstorms. Perhaps most importantly, it could be a source for some, if not all, of the water detected on the Moon.

Armagh Observatory
http://star.arm.ac.uk/press/2017/MarsTr_Oct17_pr.html

The planet Mars shares its orbit with a handful of small asteroids, the so-called Trojans. Among them, one finds a unique group, all moving in very similar orbits,
suggesting that they originated from the same object. But the mechanism that produced this "family" has been a mystery. Now, an international team of astronomers
believe they have identified the culprit: sunlight. Their findings, which highlight how small asteroids near the Sun may evolve, are to be presented at the annual
Meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society at Provo, Utah this week, by Dr. Apostolos Christou, a Research Astronomer at
the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom and leader of the research team.

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-s-messier-catalog

While the Hubble Space Telescope has not produced images of every object in the Messier catalog, it has observed 93 of them as of August 2017.
Some of Hubble's photographs offer views of a given object in its entirety, but many focus on specific areas of interest. While Hubble is able
to magnify objects very effectively, it has a relatively small field of view. This means that, in some cases, Hubble would need to take many
exposures to capture an entire object. Although this is not always an efficient use of its time, as is the case for the widely spaced “open”
star clusters in the Messier catalog, many exposures are taken when the scientific value justifies the time spent. One of these objects is the
Andromeda galaxy (designated M31 in Messier’s catalog). In order to create a mosaic image that depicts almost half of Andromeda, Hubble has
taken nearly 7,400 exposures of the galaxy.

News | Deep Space Communications via Faraway Photons
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6967

A spacecraft destined to explore a unique asteroid will also test new communication hardware that uses lasers instead of radio waves.

The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package aboard NASA's Psyche mission utilizes photons -- the fundamental particle of visible
light -- to transmit more data in a given amount of time. The DSOC goal is to increase spacecraft communications performance and efficiency
by 10 to 100 times over conventional means, all without increasing the mission burden in mass, volume, power and/or spectrum.

Tapping the advantages offered by laser communications is expected to revolutionize future space endeavors - a major objective of NASA's
Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).

The DSOC project is developing key technologies that are being integrated into a deep space-worthy Flight Laser Transceiver (FLT), high-tech
work that will advance this mode of communications to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6. Reaching a TRL 6 level equates to having technology
that is a fully functional prototype or representational model.