I posted a link to a lovely little story about a school sending a bear into near-Space, as its an astronomy gem.

I did allow myself a gentle joke, even though what I said is clearly true, but your comment is indeed ironic from a person with a severely distorted perspective image permanently in his sig!

How come no one else is allowed to post in the Mugwump/Flat Stanley thread, which employs North Korean levels of moderation for anyone other than the true un-believer - but Flat Stanley is perfectly at liberty to post his lunatic ramblings about a flat earth in this one?

He's not, to be fair, he made a valid point, he just spoiled it by having in his sig the exact effect he was pointing out. But yes, we have enough threads about, shall we say, competing theories, and this won't become another.

Astronomers have found a very young "super Jupiter" planet, found wandering around without a parent. That is to say, a free-floating planet, not orbiting any star. Not the first, but close (approx. 95 light years) and very young (10 million years.

2MASS J1119–1137 is between four and eight times the mass of Jupiter, in the mass range between a large planet and a small brown dwarf star.

The loner planet belongs in the youngest group of stars in our part of the galaxy, known collectively as the TW Hydrae association. This contains about two dozen 10 million-year-old stars, all moving together through space. This astonishing (if you like this sort of thing) video illustrates the planet, and the TW Hydrae association, moving as a group through space. Mind boggling science.

Produced and directed by David Rodriguez, using visualization software Uniview by SCISS and the American Museum of Natural History’s Digital Universe data[/size

Anyone else been enjoying Tim Peake's regular images from around the globe on his facebook page recently?

Mount Etna smoking away last weekhttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QVTolctv_IE/VyS_8Oew_eI/AAAAAAAFQmE/wXo8rELyPboXQWWP3AJlCSBQrbKrQrNoQCL0B/w506-h338/Mount%2BEtna%2BISS-TimPeake%2B%252804-15-16%2529.jpg" >


Merseyside, Wirral & Cheshirehttp://media.gettyimages.com/photos/this-handout-image-supplied-by-the-european-space-agency-shows-the-picture-id521765130" >

Some real crackers recently.

He's taken some crackers. Always great to see the astronauts pics taken from the ISS.

Some of the photos are truly awe-inspiring, and what it must be like to be up there seeing them with your own eyes ..

there are squillions of astronaut images of the earth, and if you fancy a browse then a fantastic resource is rlGateway to Astronaut Photography of Earthrl

If you click on the right-side icon ("view the results with cooliris) then you can use the blue slider to scroll along a virtual wall of hundreds of images. Firts, make the wall full-screen (icon at bottom right) then wander along at whatever speed you like, and select any image that takes your fancy

There are several ways to view, thumbnails, galleries, collections etc and a clickable icon displays a map identifying the spot on Earth pictured. You can also download images in various res, and they are click-zoomable, for example here's a detail of one showing a night scene, with the aurora and the glow of dawn beautifully imaged. And whaddya know, as it is a night exposure, you can even see the stars

See full size herehttp://prnt.sc/azem45rl

Thanks for that, FA. That's a brilliant site.

On Monday May 9th we are treated to a transit of Mercury crossing the face of the Sun. In the UK it will start at around noon and will take over 7 hours, so as long as you get a clear view of the Sun anytime in that timeslot, and have suitable viewing equipment to keep your eyes safe, everyone can watch it. This video tells you what you need to know. Most local amateur astronomy clubs will be out observing it so maybe get to your local one and peek through some decent telescopes. www.space.com/32780-mercury-tran ... video.html

On Monday May 9th we are treated to a transit of Mercury crossing the face of the Sun. In the UK it will start at around noon and will take over 7 hours, so as long as you get a clear view of the Sun anytime in that timeslot, and have suitable viewing equipment to keep your eyes safe, everyone can watch it. This video tells you what you need to know. Most local amateur astronomy clubs will be out observing it so maybe get to your local one and peek through some decent telescopes. www.space.com/32780-mercury-tran ... video.html

In the most mindblowing bit of astronomical information I've chanced on for a long time, it turns out that the Milky Way has literally hundreds of previously unknown nearby galaxies, that have never been seen before, simply due to being hidden by the Milky Way.

This is an artists's impression, but the positions of the galaxies and their relative shapes and sizes are represented accuratelyhttp://www.sciencealert.com/images/articles/processed/Stills_Cam-4_Frame-1300_adjusted_1024.jpg" >

The Parkes radio telescope in Aus studied the nearby galaxies. It looked at a total of 883 galaxies, and of which, one third have never been seen before.

As one of the astronomers put it
At the end of the article is a good animation illustrating where these galaxies are in relation to us.

As Mars moves closer, here's a great shot of Vallis Marineris, Mars' Grand Canyon on steroids



This evening, Mars will be as close as it has been since 2005, and here's a handy viewing guide and link, but if you have a clear view south, you'll easily see both Saturn and Mars.

rl

If you're still up, the ISS will be back round at about 01:44

The Juno mission is entering the crucial stages this week, and it's worth looking at their website for some great features.

rlhttps://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/rl

A great feature is going to be the Junocam where everyone can get actively involved in the mission. You can upload your own images of Jupiter to help mission planners, vote on points of interest to point the spacecraft at for imaging, and download the Raw images straight to your PC.

It's going to be great.

Its all a big fake story because as you well know, the earth is flat.

Don't be silly man , any images will be the creation of CIA , protecting us from viewing the combined US/Nazi base already there , it's the main drop off for the long range trips to Alpha Centauri