NASA’s Kepler space telescope increased its catalogue in 2016 by an additional 1,284 worlds — the greatest number of planets ever announced at a single time.  It brings Kepler’s confirmed planetary haul to more than 2,000 exoplanets.  The nearest is 4.2 light years away – in other words, around our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Proxima…

I missed the super moon the other night, which is to say I saw the full moon but didn’t know it was the closest the moon had been since 1948. SO in theory the moon would have been about 20% brighter than average.  But the moon is actually brightest at the time of an opposition…

This 1000 km wide heart-shaped patch is free of craters, so must be very young.  It’s actually a depression, probably a massive impact crater 7km deep, now full of frozen nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide, with glacial flows. It’s also on the move – the ice is denser than surrounding water ice, and so it…

Supercluster which contains Virgo group, in which you find our local group (Milky Way but also Andromeda Galaxy). Gold formed from collision of 2 neutrino stars (themselves remnants of bigger, older stars?) Dark matter postulated because stars spinning in a galaxy spiral do not move at expected speeds, also difficult to explain formation of galaxies…

http://shar.es/10UwSd The ALMA telescope’s image of a planetary system forming around a surprisingly young star may revolutionize theories on how planets grow.

In Feb 2013 a meteor lit up the sky over Chelyabinsk in Russia brigher than the sun.  It had not been anticipated, causing widespread panic.  It measured about 20m across, weighed about 13 000 tons (about the weight of the Eiffel tower) and was travelling at over 40 000 mph (Mach 60).  The energy released on impact…