Flashes

The Breakthrough Listen project has found 15 sources of flashes in a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years away.

The flashes could be natural phenomena, but as yet they remain unexplained.

Harvey

NASA's Johnson Space Center closed during Hurricane Harvey.

The area around JSC got 42 inches of rain.

North Korea

North Korea launched a missile over Japan yesterday. 

The missile seemed to have the range to reach Guam.

Proxima b

A new study suggests Proxima b's atmosphere may have been stripped away by high energy blasts from its red dwarf parent, thus making the world uninhabitable.

Red dwarfs are extremely active, especially early on, so life around them may be rare.

Space Leadership

NASA is still operating under an acting administrator.  President Trump has yet to nominate a new one.

Mr. Trump has established a new National Space Council, however.

Florence

The asteroid Florence, at almost 3 miles across, will come within 4.4 million miles of Earth on September 1.

This will be its closest approach until after 2500.

Titan Mission

NASA is looking at a mission to Titan to study that world's interior.

There's a possibility that Titan has an ocean of liquid water under its surface.

Martian Snowstorms

A new study suggests there could be snowstorms on Mars-- but only at night.

The study sees the Martian atmosphere as much more dynamic than thought.

AI In Space

NASA is planning to rely increasingly on artificial intelligence on missions so far away that constant communication with Earth is impossible.

Developing AI for such missions will no doubt hasten its adoption in society generally.

Eclipse

Today a total eclipse runs coast-to-coast across the United States.

Total solar eclipses are among the most awe-inspiring spectacles in nature, and the most benign.

Powering Mars

According to the engineering firm Siemens, powering a Mars colony could involve a combination of solar power, with solar panels deployed on the surface, wind farms, and batteries.

It would be a decentralized system, not dependent on any one factor.

TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1 and its planets may be twice as old as the Sun, a new study suggests.

That would give life plenty of time to evolve.

Perspective

Wal-Mart has announced quarterly revenues of over $123 billion.

That's more than six times NASA's annual budget.

For All Mankind

A group called For All Mankind is working to protect the six Apollo landing sites on the Moon as heritage areas.

It intends to present its plan to the United Nations shortly.

WOW!

Forty years ago today, Ohio State's Big Ear radio telescope picked up the famous WOW! signal, the best known presumed false alarm in SETI history.

The signal has never been acquired again, and it remains unexplained.

Voyagers

Both Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, are still functioning today.

It's a remarkable tribute to the engineers who designed and built them.

Cellphone Home

A startup company plans to demonstrate cellphone technology can work on the lunar surface next year.

It also plans to send two rovers to the Apollo 17 landing site.

Proxima b

The James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch next year, could give us our first detailed look at Proxima b, an Earth-sized world in the Alpha Centauri system.

JWST could look at the planet's atmosphere to determine if it might support life.

Magnetic Moon

A new study suggests the Moon had a magnetic field a billion years longer than previously thought.

That might suggest other worlds kept their magnetic fields long enough to protect early life.

North Korea

North Korea seems to be able to build nuclear warheads that fit atop their ICBM, U. S. intelligence says.

If true, it's a dangerous development.

Limiting Life

A new study suggests some worlds may go from icy cold to hellishly hot without ever going through a habitable phase.

That would cut down on the number of habitable worlds in the galaxy.

Laser SETI

SETI researchers are expanding their toolkit.  In addition to listening for radio signals, they're going to start looking for laser flashes, since lasers do not occur naturally.

The SETI Institute is trying to raise $100,000 by August 18 to start the program.

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic is successfully continuing its series of test flights of SpaceShipTwo.

The company has not yet said when commercial flights will begin.

Deep Space Gateway

NASA's Deep Space Gateway, a small space station in lunar orbit, will probably run science experiments on its own when astronauts aren't present.

DSG might launch in 2020.

Exoplanet Stratosphere

Astronomers using Hubble have detected water molecules high in the atmosphere of a hot Jupiter 880 light years away.

It marks the first establishment of a stratosphere around an exoplanet.

NASA PPO

NASA is looking for a planetary protection officer.

The job is to protect Earth from alien microbes, and to protect other worlds from Earthly contamination.

Testing Tracking

A tiny asteroid could come within 4200 miles of Earth October 12.

Astronomers will use the event to test their tracking system.