To The Moon

SpaceX will fly a Japanese billionaire around the Moon using its giant BFR rocket.

The flight is scheduled to go by 2023.

NASA

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the creation of NASA.

It was created in response to Sputnik, as a Cold War agency, beat the Soviets to the Moon, gave us a new understanding of the universe, and is poised to put humans on Mars.  Not bad.

Sunspot

The Sunspot Observatory in New Mexico is re-opening today after being shut down for ten days by the FBI.

The FBI was apparently conducting a criminal investigation.

Leak

Russia is leading an investigation into the August 30 leak in a Soyuz docked at ISS.

The station crew quickly plugged the leak.

To The Moon

SpaceX plans to fly a private passenger to the Moon atop its BFR rocket.

Details of the flight will be announced Monday.

Highly Habitable

Sophisticated new computer simulations show Proxima Centauri b could have large amounts of surface water.

The closest exoplanet to Earth, 4.22 light years away, might be "highly habitable."

Wolf 503b

Wolf 503b is a rare find-- a world larger than Earth, but smaller than Neptune.  For whatever reason, there seems to be few worlds in that gap.

It's also only 145 light years away, so it can be studied in detail.