Can Organisms Sense via Radio Frequency? | Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/can-organisms-sense-radio-frequency

A new project by researchers at the University of California San Diego will investigate a biological mystery that has so far gone unsolved: can organisms use radio frequencies to sense surroundings?

Radio frequency waves (RF) are electromagnetic waves between the frequencies of 3 kilohertz to 300 gigahertz, used in radio, cellphones, wi-fi, radar, GPS, and many other systems. While humans have
used RF technology to communicate for over 100 years, no living organism has ever been observed using RF to communicate without technology.

But recently there have been clues that this may in fact occur.

VIRGO: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=38679

Just how elaborate is the planetary system around the nearest star? It’s a question rendered more interesting this morning by the news that the ALMA
Observatory in Chile has now detected dust in the system in an area one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the Sun.
Moreover, there are signs of what may be an outer dust belt, an indication that while we have already discovered Proxima Centauri b, we are looking
at a system in which cold particles and debris that could have formed other planets continue to accompany the star.

Chandra :: Photo Album :: Jupiter :: November 6, 2017
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2017/jupiter/

A Quick Look at Jupiter's Auroras
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P48vGm0q4a4


New X-ray observations show the auroras — northern or southern lights — on Jupiter behave differently at each pole.

This makes Jupiter puzzling and unlike Saturn (no known auroras) or Earth (where north and south pole auroras mirror one another).

These latest X-ray findings are challenging the current theoretical models that explain the Jovian auroras.

Scientists hope to combine Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Juno data to learn more about the source of Jupiter's auroras.

Tracing the Fuel for Forming Stars
http://aasnova.org/2017/11/03/tracing-the-fuel-for-forming-stars/

Huge reservoirs of cold hydrogen gas — the raw fuel for star formation — lurk in galaxies throughout the universe.
A new study examines whether these reservoirs have always been similar, or whether those in distant galaxies are
very different from those in local galaxies today.

Heating ocean moon Enceladus for billions of years / Cassini-Huygens / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA
http://www.esa.int/...ace_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Heating_ocean_moon_Enceladus_for_billions_of_years

Enough heat to power hydrothermal activity inside Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus for billions of years could be generated through tidal
friction if the moon has a highly porous core, a new study finds, working in favour of the moon as a potentially habitable world.

A paper published in Nature Astronomy today presents the first concept that explains the key characteristics of 500 km-diameter Enceladus
as observed by the international Cassini spacecraft over the course of its mission, which concluded in September.

This includes a global salty ocean below an ice shell with an average thickness of 20–25 km, thinning to just 1–5 km over the south polar
region. There, jets of water vapour and icy grains are launched through fissures in the ice. The composition of the ejected material measured
by Cassini included salts and silica dust, suggesting they form through hot water – at least 90ºC – interacting with rock in the porous core.

These observations require a huge source of heat, about 100 times more than is expected to be generated by the natural decay of radioactive
elements in rocks in its core, as well as a means of focusing activity at the south pole.

The tidal effect from Saturn is thought to be at the origin of the eruptions deforming the icy shell by push-pull motions as the moon follows
an elliptical path around the giant planet. But the energy produced by tidal friction in the ice, by itself, would be too weak to counterbalance
the heat loss seen from the ocean – the globe would freeze within 30 million years.

Yasushi yede! October 26, 2017 @ Ishikawa, JAPAN

ALMA objevila chladný prach v okolí nejbližší hvězdy | ESO Česko
http://www.eso.org/public/czechrepublic/news/eso1735/?lang

Radioteleskop ALMA pro milimetrovou a submilimetrovou oblast elektromagnetického záření pracující v Chile detekoval prach v okolí nejbližší sousední hvězdy Proximy Centauri.
Nová pozorování odhalila, že záření chladných prachových částic vychází z oblasti, která by se ve Sluneční soustavě rozkládala od oběžné dráhy Země až téměř k Jupiteru.
Navíc se zdá, že v soustavě Proximy může být ještě jeden o něco chladnější vnější prachový pás. Tyto oblasti by mohly být známkou přítomnosti komplexního planetárního systému.
Jelikož se očekává, že částice v těchto oblastech jsou tvořeny horninami a ledem, jsou pozorované struktury nejspíše podobné mohutnějším pásům meziplanetární hmoty, jaké známe
ze Sluneční soustavy , kde se rovněž jedná o zbytky látky nespotřebované při vzniku a vývoji planet.

Artist’s impression of the dust belts around Proxima Centauri
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrYvTBZ6j20

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/return-of-the-comet-96p-spotted-by-esa-nasa-satellites

The ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA mission SOHO — short for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory — got a visit from an old friend this week
when comet 96P entered its field of view on Oct. 25, 2017. The comet entered the lower right corner of SOHO’s view, and skirted up and around
the right edge before leaving on Oct. 30. SOHO also spotted comet 96P in 1996, 2002, 2007 and 2012, making it the spacecraft’s most frequent
cometary visitor.

A/2017 U1 centered in this 5 minute exposure recorded with the William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands on October 28

APOD: 2017 November 3 - A 2017 U1: An Interstellar Visitor
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171103.html

Pluto's Travels Since Discovery [OC] : dataisbeautiful
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/6ftr76/plutos_travels_since_discovery_oc/

https://www.nasa.gov/...picture-this-selfi-nasa-advances-instrument-to-study-the-plumes-of-enceladus

The team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, recently received support to advance technologies needed
for the Submillimeter Enceladus Life Fundamentals Instrument, or SELFI. This remote-sensing instrument represents a significant
improvement over the current state-of-the-art in submillimeter-wavelength devices, said SELFI Principal Investigator Gordon Chin.

SELFI is being designed to measure traces of chemicals in the plumes of water vapor and icy particles that emanate from fissures,
also known as tiger stripes, on Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moon. By studying the plumes, scientists believe they can
extrapolate the composition of the ocean that lies beneath the moon’s icy crust and its potential to host extraterrestrial life.