Dyson

Freeman Dyson, physicist, thinker, and developer of the Dyson sphere, has died.

He was 96.

Blast

Astronomers have found evidence for the biggest explosion yet discovered.

It seems to have blasted an area as big as 15 Milky Way galaxies.

New Era

On Tuesday, a servicing satellite docked with a satellite in need of fuel.

It was a first for private industry, and opens a new era of lower cost space operations, longer lasting satellites, and dealing with space junk.

SPCE

Virgin Galactic reported a $73 million loss in its first quarter as an publicly traded company.

VG, ticker symbol SPCE, plans to start commercial flights this year.

Life

While NASA, ESA, and Russia focus on Mars in a search for life, some scientists are looking beyond the Sun's habitable zone.

Both Europa and Enceladus are good bets to support life in their subsurface oceans of water.

Marsquakes

NASA's Mars InSight lander has recorded marsquakes.

Mars is seismically active.

Sovereignty

Empires and nations have always been concerned with land-- claiming it and defending it.  With the advent of cannon on naval ships, the legal concept of territorial waters was developed.  The development of military air power brought the countering legal concept of airspace.  In the Space Age, Earth orbit has been declared open to everyone.  In essence, national sovereignty ends with the atmosphere.

So, if nations attempt to lead humanity into space, by what magic will national sovereignty reassert itself on another world?