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1831814085: 'Wet Sidewalk Effect' Solves Mystery of Rain on Saturn's Moon Titan
io9 Space

Direct link 'Wet Sidewalk Effect' Solves Mystery of Rain on Saturn's Moon Titan

16 Jan 2019, 21:25 UTC Scientists have found evidence of seasons on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, thanks to observations akin to sunlight reflecting off of wet pavement.
https://www.geekwire.com/?p=474212: Hubble Space Telescope team hits ‘reset’ to get balky camera back in business
Geekwire

Direct link Hubble Space Telescope team hits ‘reset’ to get balky camera back in business

16 Jan 2019, 18:17 UTC NASA says the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 has been brought back into operation, one week after it went dark due to a telemetry glitch.
https://www.skyandtelescope.com/?p=255490719: Astronomers Discover Most Distant Lensed Quasar
Sky and Telescope

Direct link Astronomers Discover Most Distant Lensed Quasar

16 Jan 2019, 15:50 UTC A cosmic lens has magnified light from a distant quasar, making it shine with brightness of 600 trillion Suns, astronomers report in a study published in the January 9th Astrophysical Journal Letters. That makes it “the brightest object in cosmic dawn,” says study author Xiaohui Fan (University of Arizona), and it’s giving astronomers an unprecedented look at the formation of supermassive black holes and their galaxies in the early universe.
195064 at https://www.syfy.com: Rocky worlds around red dwarfs may get blasted clean of water
Bad Astronomy

Direct link Rocky worlds around red dwarfs may get blasted clean of water

16 Jan 2019, 14:00 UTC New observations of a young, nearby red dwarf star indicate that any planets forming there may get scoured clean of water and other materials before they even get a chance to cool down after forming. If this is the case, it implies that life on these kinds of planets may be more rare than we first thought. Given that planets around red dwarfs are probably the most common in the Universe, this news, well, kinda sucks.
http://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann19003/: World’s largest convex mirror blank ready for final touches
ESO Announcements

Direct link World’s largest convex mirror blank ready for final touches

16 Jan 2019, 09:00 UTC Work on the elaborate optics of ESO’s 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has taken a major step forwards following the successful casting, annealing, ceramization, machining and acid-etching of the substrate for the ELT’s secondary mirror, M2. This massive 3-ton mirror blank has been successfully machined from a slab of the low-expansion ceramic material ZERODURⓇ into its near-final form by the German company SCHOTT [1]. The creation of this technological masterpiece was a challenging process, requiring state-of-the-art CNC machines to correctly grind the mirror blank. Now, safely stowed in an extra-large transport box, the blank is being shipped to France for final grinding and polishing by Safran Reosc.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/?p=7131: Station Trio Practices Emergency Before Radiation, Physics Research
NASA Space Station Blog

Direct link Station Trio Practices Emergency Before Radiation, Physics Research

15 Jan 2019, 18:42 UTC The Expedition 58 crew members started Tuesday with an emergency drill before splitting up for more space research and hardware maintenance.
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=41459: ‘Oumuamua: Future Study of Interstellar Objects
Centauri Dreams

Direct link ‘Oumuamua: Future Study of Interstellar Objects

15 Jan 2019, 14:57 UTC ‘Oumuamua continues to inspire questions and provoke media attention, not only because of its unusual characteristics, but because of the discussion that has emerged on whether it may be a derelict (or active) technology. Harvard’s Avi Loeb examined the interstellar object in these terms in a paper with Shmuel Bialy, one we talked about at length in these pages (see ‘Oumuamua, Thin Films and Lightsails). The paper would quickly go viral.
195044 at https://www.syfy.com: Huge asymmetric exploding space cow!
Bad Astronomy

Direct link Huge asymmetric exploding space cow!

15 Jan 2019, 14:00 UTC Last year, astronomers saw a really weird flash of light in the sky. About all anyone can agree on is that it was an extremely big explosion seen from very far away, but other than that there are as many explanations as there are observations. Something catastrophic happened in a distant galaxy, but what? I love stuff like this. A mystery is afoot! Watson! To the telescope!
https://www.newscientist.com/?post_type=article&p=2190727: Astronauts travelling to the moon and Mars risk dying from superbugs
New Scientist

Direct link Astronauts travelling to the moon and Mars risk dying from superbugs

15 Jan 2019, 11:07 UTC Just trace amounts of antibiotics in a spacecraft could be enough to let bacteria evolve deadly resistance on long space journeys
CE06991D-FDA3-46BC-A6CB7B8476590DFB: Ocean Moons, Promising Targets in Search for Alien Life, Could Be Dead Inside
Scientific American

Direct link Ocean Moons, Promising Targets in Search for Alien Life, Could Be Dead Inside

14 Jan 2019, 19:30 UTC For more than two decades, scientists have wondered whether extraterrestrial life may be flourishing deep below the icy coatings boasted by moons in our outer solar system. But new research is looking deeper, into the rock itself, and suggesting that these worlds may be dead inside—not just biologically, but geologically as well.

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