compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

Artwork credit: ESA

Design call for ‘solar sentinel’ mission
UK scientists and engineers will play a leading role in developing a satellite that can warn if Earth is about to be hit by damaging solar storms.
The European Space Agency has requested studies be undertaken to design the mission that would launch in the 2020s…more

Artwork credit: NASA

‘Serious gap’ in cosmic expansion rate hints at new physics
A mathematical discrepancy in the expansion rate of the Universe is now “pretty serious”, and could point the way to a major discovery in physics, says a Nobel laureate. The most recent results suggest the inconsistency is not going away. Prof Adam Riess told BBC News that ..more

Dust entering our atmosphere -BBC

Is dust the source of life on Earth?
Philip Pullman fans will be familiar with the fictionalised idea of dust. But a new University of Edinburgh study suggests it might really be the source of life on earth.
Fast flowing streams of interplanetary dust are continually entering our planet’s atmosphere, travelling at up to 70 km per second…more

Hubble watched the neutron star merger light fade away -BBC

Gravitational waves: So many new toys to unwrap
Whenever there’s a big science discovery, it’s always nice to get a historical perspective. And so here goes with the remarkable observation of gravitational waves emanating from the merger of two dead stars, or neutron stars, some 130 million light-years from Earth…more

Artwork credit:BBC

‘Oumuamua: ‘space cigar’s’ tumble hints at violent past
The space interloper ‘Oumuamua is spinning chaotically and will carry on doing so for more than a billion years.
“At some point or another it’s been in a collision,” says Dr. Wes Fraser from Queen’s University…more

Credit: Getty Images

Crypto-currency craze ‘hinders search for alien life’
Scientists listening out for broadcasts by extra-terrestrials are struggling to get the computer hardware they need, thanks to the crypto-currency mining craze, a radio-astronomer has said…more

Galaxy NGC 613 -NYT

He Took a Picture of a Supernova While Setting Up His New Camera
On Sept. 20, 2016, Victor Buso, an amateur astronomer in Rosario, Argentina, was checking out the new camera on his telescope by taking pictures of a nearby spiral galaxy when a star within it went off in a supernova explosion…more

Superionic water: solid or liquid? -NYT

New Form of Water, Both Liquid and Solid, Is ‘Really Strange’
Long theorized to be found in the mantles of Uranus and Neptune, the confirmation of the existence of superionic ice could lead to the development of new materials…more