compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

-BBC

Sun’s surface seen in remarkable new detail
Behold the Sun’s convulsing surface at a level of detail never seen before. The Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope on Hawaii has released pictures that show features as small as 30km across. This is remarkable when set against the scale of our star, which has a diameter of about 1.4 million km (870,000 miles) and is 149 million km from Earth…more

-BBC

Cosmic vibrations sensed from unusual star merger
Scientists have observed gravitational waves emanating from the collision of two dense, dead stars. It’s the second time the international Ligo-Virgo collaboration of laser labs has picked up such a signal. What makes this one different, though, is the combined mass of the two merging neutron stars – at three and a half times that of our Sun…more

-BBC

Vast ‘star nursery’ region found in our galaxy
Astronomers have discovered a vast structure in our galaxy, made up of many interconnected “nurseries” where stars are born. The long, thin filament of gas is a whopping 9,000 light-years long and 400 light-years wide. The discovery, outlined in the journal Nature, came from work to assemble a new map of the Milky Way…more

-BBC

Global methane map
A Canadian start-up, GHGSat, is promising to release a high-resolution map of methane in Earth’s atmosphere by the year’s end. The company has one spacecraft in orbit currently to monitor the trace gas. Another two are expected to go up in the next few months. Montreal-based GHGSat tracks oil and gas operations…more

-BBC

Mega-constellation firms meet European astronomers
There’s concern that the size and brightness of the firms’ planned fleets could interfere with the work of professional telescopes. The parties discussed the issues in a private meeting at the Royal Astronomical Society in London, UK. The talks were described “as positive”. OneWeb and SpaceX are in the process of launching big networks of spacecraft…more

-JPL

NASA Space Telescope Discovers Largest Ring Around Saturn
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered an enormous ring around Saturn – by far the largest of the giant planet’s many rings. Saturn’s newest halo is thick, too – its vertical height is about 20 times the diameter of the planet. It would take about one billion Earths…more

-BBC

Two satellites in close shave over US city of Pittsburgh
Two satellites hurtling across the sky at nearly 33,000 mph (53,000 km/h) narrowly missed a collision over the US state of Pennsylvania on Wednesday. The two objects “crossed paths without incident,” a spokesman for US Space Command told the AFP news agency. US Space Command said the two inactive satellites passed each other at 18:39 EST (23:39 GMT) some 550 miles (900km) above Pittsburgh…more

-BBC

Capella Space radar company chases persistent vision
Capella is developing a commercial constellation of small, low-cost Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. These will be capable of sensing the Earth’s surface in all weathers, day or night. It’s an activity that has traditionally been dominated by Big Government – the national space agencies and the military – because of the expense and complexity of doing radar from orbit…more

-BBC

Inventing sign language for space
British sign language is receiving an astronomical update thanks to a unique collaboration between a space scientist and a group of deaf astronomers….more