The Sky Tonight

November 13, 2015

Space rains junk on Spain
Madrid (AFP) Nov 12, 2015
It's raining space junk in Spain. Rocket fuel tanks, chunks of satellites or something else entirely... In just over one week, three mysterious objects have fallen from the sky onto the country's southeast, prompting bomb disposal agents and experts in hazmat suits to rush over as puzzled locals looked on. First up a strange black beehive-like ball was found in Mula, a town in the region of Murcia last week. Then at the weekend, a similar-looking, smaller object was discovered in Calasparra ... read more

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Close-up view of galaxies prompts re-think on star formation Astronomers have identified for the first time one of the key components of many stars, a study suggests. A type of gas found in the voids between galaxies - known as atomic gas - appears to be part ... more		NASA's Beach Ball Coronagraph What's better at blocking sunlight: a traditional flat occulter disk or a beach ball? NASA scientist Phillip Chamberlin is putting his money on the latter. He and his team at NASA's Goddard Space Fl ... more		A new explanation for the explosive nature of magnetic reconnection Magnetic reconnection, which occurs when magnetic lines of force break apart and reconnect with a violent burst of energy, gives rise to many beautiful and powerful phenomena in the natural world. T ... more
				Mercury Gets a Meteoroid Shower from Comet Encke The planet Mercury is being pelted regularly by bits of dust from an ancient comet, a new study has concluded. This has a discernible effect in the planet's tenuous atmosphere and may lead to a new ... more		Newfound Earth-size exoplanet may be an important milestone in search for alien life Researchers have discovered an exoplanet just slightly bigger than Earth and located much closer to our Solar System than any other terrestrial, alien world. Called GJ 1132b, it orbits a tiny red, d ... more

Solar systems for home and business installations

Early Earth's haze may give clue to habitability elsewhere in space An atmospheric haze around a faraway planet - like the one which probably shrouded and cooled the young Earth - could show that the world is potentially habitable, or even be a sign of life itself. ... more		UCLA professor proposes simpler way to define what makes a planet Since the late 1980s, scientists have discovered nearly 5,000 planetary bodies orbiting stars other than the sun. But astronomers are still working on what exactly we should call them. At an America ... more		US lawmaker warns of military 'misunderstanding' risk with China Spain approves 'total' arms embargo against Israel Khamenei says Iran 'won't yield' to pressure to abandon uranium enrichment		New Results from GPI Exoplanet Survey The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey (GPIES) is an ambitious three-year study dedicated to imaging young Jupiters and debris disks around nearby stars using the GPI instrument installed on the ... more
				Measurement of Hubble constant questioned by Nobel laureate Riess' team In 1920's Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer, showed that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the earth, known as Hubble's law. Hubble's law is taken as the first ... more		Recreating a heavenly chorus of plasma waves on Earth Recent experiments at the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) at the University of California, Los Angeles, have successfully excited elusive plasma waves, known as whistler-mode chorus waves, which have hit ... more

Nuclear Operations and Maintenance Efficiency Summit USA 2015

Early Earth's Haze May Give Clue to Habitability Elsewhere An atmospheric haze around a faraway planet - like the one which probably shrouded and cooled the young Earth - could show that the world is potentially habitable, or even be a sign of life itself. ... more		UMD discovery could enable portable particle accelerators Conventional particle accelerators are typically big machines that occupy a lot of space. Even at more modest energies, such as that used for cancer therapy and medical imaging, accelerators need la ... more		Typhoon Ragasa hits south China after killing 15 in Taiwan Toxic homes a lasting legacy of Los Angeles fires Climate change causing havoc with global water cycle: UN		Antimatter not so different after all Due to the diligence of a Rice University student and his calculations, humanity now knows a little more about the universe. Kefeng Xin, a graduate student at Rice, is one of a handful of primary au ... more
Experiment records extreme quantum weirdness An experiment in Singapore has pushed quantum weirdness close to its absolute limit. Researchers from the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) at the National University of Singapore and the Univer ... more		The solution to faster computing? Sing to your data Nothing is more frustrating that watching that circle spinning in the centre of your screen, while you wait for your computer to load a programme or access the data you need. Now a team from the Uni ... more		Amazon flies high in the Internet cloud Amazon is widely known for its prowess as an online retail colossus, but is also thriving when it comes to sending business aloft in the Internet cloud. ... more		Europe comes together for space weather Working with scientists in 14 countries across Europe, ESA is developing a warning network that will help protect us from the effects of our Sun's activity. ESA's Space Situational Awareness e ... more

	Clues to the formation of magnetic fields around stars and galaxies An enduring astronomical mystery is how stars and galaxies acquire their magnetic fields. Physicists Jonathan Squire and Amitava Bhattacharjee at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plas ... more		Dark Matter and Particle Acceleration in Near Space Peering into darkness can strike fear into the hearts of some, but a new space telescope will soon peer into the darkness of "near space" (within a few thousand light years of Earth). Scientists are ... more

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The fading cinders of some of our galaxy's earliest homesteaders		ALCF helps tackle the Large Hadron Collider's big data challenge		SwRI scientists explain why moon rocks contain fewer volatiles than Earth's		Deserts and dunes: Earth as an analogue for Titan		Swift Spots its Thousandth Gamma-ray Burst
Gaia's sensors scan a lunar transit		Unlocking the mysteries of 'little starlets'		Supernova twins: Making standard candles more standard than ever		One year after comet touchdown, what's next for Philae?		Looking For Deliberate Radio Signals From KIC 8462852

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Europe comes together for space weather

Cassini Plunged Into Icy Plumes of Enceladus

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Distant world's weather is mixed bag of hot dust and molten rain

Have scientists found evidence of a parallel universe?

Chances 'fair' for Philae contact: ground controllers

Space Junk

US Prepares for Extreme Space Weather

Northern Light secrets uncovered thanks to social networking tools

The Taurids: Your best chance to see a fireball!

Disk gaps don't always signal planets

China to start work on turbo-charged super-collider by 2020: report

Finding New Worlds with a Play of Light and Shadow

Hubble Peels Back the Layers of a Warm Neptune

One size fits all when it comes to unravelling how stars form

Cassini images dunelands on Saturn's moon Titan

New HP Enterprise sees cloud ties with Amazon, others

VISTA discovers new component of Milky Way

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