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  A Search for Substellar Companions around A-type Stars - Pulsation Timing Detection of Eight Brown Dwarf Candidates and a Possible #HabitableZone Planet: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae93a0 -> Stellar Pulsations Suggest Habitable-Zone Planet Around a Massive Star: https://aasnova.org/2026/09/25/stellar-pulsations-suggest-habitable-zone-planet-around-a-massive-star/

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  An engineering model of NASA’s #DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) descent probe passed a key test that ran from Aug. 28 to Sept. 10, showing it can survive the extreme temperatures of Venus: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/davinci/2026/09/24/nasas-davinci-beats-heat-in-preparation-for-blistering-venus-descent/

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  Since 2017, ESA’s #SpaceDebris Office has published an annual Space Environment Report to provide a transparent overview of global space activities and determine how well international debris-reduction measures are improving the long-term sustainability of spaceflight: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_Debris/ESA_Space_Environment_Report_2026 -> "The number and scale of commercial satellite constellations continue to increase each year. Not enough satellites leave heavily congested...

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  Star party at #BurgRothenfels in Franconia, Germany, tonight at the beginning of the Rothenfelser Astronomietage - https://app.seminarmanagercloud.de/burg-rothenfels/buchungsportal/rothenfelser-astronomietage-zukunftsperspektiven-der-astronomie-80d5b4f2f8304b32afd6e711fb9f8d1c - of which I'm one of the presenters. In spite of the local lights exquisite views of many deep sky objects: good telescopes and high-end eyepieces FTW.

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  The #lunar crash of a Falcon 9 upper stage is expected at 06:35:37.5 UTC +/- a few seconds: https://www.projectpluto.com/25010d.htm#where - find out more in the papers https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.14625 and https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.23904 and https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.00360 while on https://www.youtube.com/live/ZfgrV4nmvcg and https://www.youtube.com/live/UKIIMm6TwT8 live views of the Moon at impact time are planned.

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  Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” published 76 years ago about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast: https://short-stories.co/@raybradbury/there-will-come-soft-rains-6k8vr4xxlnmj = a shortened version of the short story, also summarized in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(short_story)#Plot_summary #Bradbury #dystopia #shortstory

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  The seismic signature of lunar ice: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adz7220 -> By studying how seismic waves travel through frozen soil on Earth, a University of Maryland geophysicist helped develop a better way to detect water ice on the #moon—a critical resource for future astronauts and extended lunar missions: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/nicholas-schmerr-moonquakes-locate-lunar-ice

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  First detection of ultra-fast outflows in a quiescent galaxy: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.06844 -> #UFO Sighting in a Dead Galaxy! https://astrobites.org/2026/07/30/ufo-sighting-in-a-dead-galaxy/

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  The #HabitableWorldsObservatory Technology Development Plan: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.02773 -> How NASA Plans to Build the Habitable Worlds Observatory: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/how-nasa-plans-to-build-the-habitable-worlds-observatory

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  Heat and Wildfires During the K-Pg Mass Extinction Enhanced by Fine Dust: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026JG009837 -> Dinosaurs were charbroiled after #Chicxulub impact: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/07/dust-cloud-from-dino-killing-asteroid-charbroiled-the-earth/

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  Quasars Acting as Strong Lenses Found in DESI DR1: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae8014 -> Astronomers discover super-bright #quasar lenses: https://news.osu.edu/astronomers-discover-super-bright-quasar-lenses/

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  Dynamic electron radiation belt at Mercury controlled by solar wind driving: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02925-3 -> #Mercury has part-time radiation belts: https://news.engin.umich.edu/2026/07/mercury-has-part-time-radiation-belts/ - scientists thought Mercury’s magnetic field was disrupted by the sun too often to trap a radiation belt, but new analysis of MESSENGER data says that’s not always the case.

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  During commissioning, the #Katalyst team encountered a series of technical issues related to attitude control of the LINK spacecraft to raise the orbit of #Swift: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7487913846473416704/ and https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/07/28/commissioning-update-for-spacecraft-to-boost-nasas-swift/ - over the last 72 hours, the #LINK spacecraft has been in a multi-axis spin, causing a temporary loss of communications and subsequent bus reset.

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  TDE 2025abcr - A #TidalDisruptionEvent in the Outskirts of a Massive Galaxy: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae77f3 -> NASA’s #Swift Sees ‘Wandering’ Mega #BlackHole Shredding Star: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/swift/nasas-swift-sees-wandering-mega-black-hole-shredding-star/

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  This ‘miracle’ lens adapter brought the big screen to the home screen, but history had forgotten it – until now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMCzMHFhto -> https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/cameras/camera-accessories/this-miracle-lens-adapter-brought-the-big-screen-to-the-home-screen-but-history-had-forgotten-it-until-now on the #Delrama #Anamorphic Adapter. #MovieHistory

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  Artistic visions shape and respond to #Mars missions: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2622471123 -> "decades before humans might actually travel through interplanetary space, artistic visions continue to help nurture those aspirations."

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  175 years ago #OTD the Prussian photographer Johann Julius Friedrich #Berkowski took the first photograph of a total #SolarEclipse, seen here in 19th century 'processing': more in https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/julius-berkowski/ and https://web.archive.org/web/20150402161350/http://www.astro.uni-jena.de/~schie/20130000_WittmannSchielicke_Parish_Mitt_Gauss-Ges_Nr_50%282013%29_S_37-54.pdf (PDF pages 8-12) and https://time.com/4883424/solar-eclipse-first-...

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  The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is shocked and dismayed to hear that the UK's iconic #JodrellBank Observatory is at risk of closure amid a slew of catastrophic budget cuts: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/mass-cuts-and-potential-jodrell-closure-devastating-astronomy - other casualties in the long list of funding cuts include UK withdrawal from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) located in Hawaii, 20 per cent cuts for the UK's Square Kilometre Array Regional Centre and ac...

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  From 9:15 UTC on https://www.youtube.com/live/4h884umjihw the #Soyuz MS-28 Re-entry and Landing.

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  "The Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) in Robledo de Chavela was evacuated on July 24 due to the wildfires. All personnel are safe following the passage of the fire through the area. [...] Mission operations have been transferred seamlessly to the Goldstone Complex (California). This ensures service continuity and uninterrupted support for spacecraft communications." From the thread https://x.com/intaespana/status/2081035181989773598 (or https://nitter.net/intaespana/sta...

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  Beyond the merger–quasar–quench paradigm - mergers are neither necessary nor sufficient to #quench central galaxies in illustrisTNG: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/548/3/stag507/8529012?searchresult=1&login=false -> FIU study challenges leading explanation for why galaxies stop forming stars: https://news.fiu.edu/2026/fiu-study-challenges-leading-explanation-for-why-galaxies-stop-forming-stars

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  Error signals for overcoming the laser power limits of #GravitationalWave detectors: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6382/ae86aa -> New technique enables LIGO to peer farther into the distant universe: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2026/07/21/new-technique-enables-ligo-peer-farther-distant-universe - thermal imaging could boost future gravitational-wave detectors.

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  75 years ago the Soviet #SpaceDogs Dezik and Tsygan became the first vertebrates to survive a spaceflight, if only a suborbital one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dezik_and_Tsygan (and see https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2024/06/11/allgemeines-live-blog-ab-dem-11-juni-2024/ for the first vertebrate to reach space but didn't make it back alive two years earlier).

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  100 years ago #OTD the #planetarium in #Jena (Germany) opened to the public: it's the oldest one in the world srill operating in the same location! Scroll down on https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2026/07/18/die-leuchtenden-nachtwolken-sind-weiter-aktiv for some news coverage back then and the wider context.

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  This week the launch services contract was signed for the Heliospheric Pioneer for Solar and Interplanetary Threats Defence - #Henon - mission, ESA’s first stand-alone deep-space CubeSat, confirming that the pioneering spacecraft will fly onboard Ariane 6, alongside ESA’s Plato mission: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Shaping_the_Future/Deep_space_pioneer_Henon_signs_to_launch_with_Plato

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  RE: https://scicomm.xyz/@AstroDave/116930089360556295 SpaceX's original webcast of the #Starship 13 test from 22:10 UTC on https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1MKgNNXAZdmxL

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  A Calibrated Bayesian Search for Potential Chemical Technosignatures in Polluted White Dwarfs: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae742c -> Seeking Technosignatures in Polluted #WhiteDwarfs: https://aasnova.org/2026/07/15/seeking-technosignatures-in-polluted-white-dwarfs/

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  As reported here 3 weeks ago a third planet of #BetaPictoris was discovered independently with two methods - today both papers have been published formally 'side by side': https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae80a0 and https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae801b -> Faintest planet ever imaged from Earth found after more than 10 years of hide-and-seek / NASA’s Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2609/ /...

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  Probing the ion-neutral drift velocity toward the L1544 prestellar core - detection of ambipolar diffusion using N2D+ and para-NH2D: https://www.aanda.org/component/article?access=doi&doi=10.1051/0004-6361/202658871 -> Capturing the cosmic ‘drift’ before a star is born: https://www.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en/researches/view/405 - researchers observe the velocity difference between two molecules in a prestellar core, elucidating the process of early #StarFormation.

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  RE: https://mastodon.social/@PlanetariumBochum/116813523474807512 The #Bochum #sunset on 25 June, with several #sunspot groups - AR 4478 at 10 o'clock: https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3mp4yl543zs2z