Compiled by David Kaplan and Michael Wright

Politician wants to renew legislation to ban green lasers:
Blinded by the light: Who is shining laser pointers into planes over N.J.? NJ.com
12 planes hit by blinding lasers in N.J. among dozens targeted in U.S. in one night: NJ.com

Astronomy meets the blues: When I Look into the Night Sky by Lori Henriques

“I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies … I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.” ~Ptolemy

The flyby of Pluto was a triumph of human ingenuity and the capstone of a mission that unfolded nearly flawlessly. It almost did not happen. NYTimes

The NYTimes says the New Horizons flyby ends an era of planetary exploration. I don’t think so. It ended with the Voyager flyby of Neptune. We just did not know it. Maybe this flyby begins an era of Kuiper belt object exploration? ~Mike

Extraordinary lunar astrophotography by Paolo Lazzarotti National Geographic

Don’t miss NYTimes’ Summer of Science

Space video cameras to circle globe: Canadian group Urthecast plans to put a 16-satellite constellation in orbit to image the Earth, including making small movies of what is happening at the surface of the planet. BBC

Volcanic eruptions glimpsed on Venus: Scientists say they have the best evidence yet that there is hot lava spewing from the surface of Venus. BBC

Recently discovered galaxy, CR7, holds the signature of a lost generation of stars that created the elements needed for life. NYTimes

Philae comet lander wakes up: the Philae lander which lost power after historic comet landing has woken up and contacted Earth – European Space Agency BBC

Earth enters new extinction phase: The Earth has entered a “new period of extinction”, a study by three US universities concludes, and humans could be among the first casualties. BBC

Ceres’ spots seen in more detail: NASA releases a new, higher-resolution picture of the brightest spots on the dwarf planet Ceres. BBC

Aiming to make the first portrait of the hungry monster at the center of our galaxy, astronomers built a telescope as big as the world. NYTimes

HST studies Pluto’s wobbly moons: Hubble reveals fascinating new details about Pluto’s four smaller moons – Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. BBC

Does science always need empirical evidence?  NYTimes

Green light for Magellan super-scope: Construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope receives the go-ahead, leading to preliminary operations in 2021 or 2022. BBC

Hadron collider turns on data tap: the Large Hadron Collider has re-started scientific investigations after a two-year pause. BBC

Black hole seen ‘playing billiards’: a series of images captures two vast blobs of plasma, shot out by a black hole, cannoning into each other in a nearly light-speed cosmic collision. BBC