Various astronomy news

[FluffyFreak]

That is a brilliant idea for both reasons!

[bszlrd]

Wow

[bszlrd]

hmm. Slight possibility of a megastructure around a star.

[impaktor]

I was just about to post:
http://www.livescience.com/52490-has-ke ... cture.html
but you beat me with 3 minutes :). This article references yours.

"Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build," Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, told The Atlantic.

TL;DR-version: some irregular (non-sperical) big thing is obscuring the light of a star. Possible (unsatisfying) boring explanation: a small star 1000 AU distant has through tidal effects caused the formation of a huge swarm of comets. Then I prefer this, way more fun, explanation:

But as KIC 8462852 is showing us, there may be something else out there — possibly an alien intelligence that is well on its way to becoming a Type II civilization, which is setting up some kind of artificial structure around its star.

[impaktor]

Venus, Jupiter and Mars line up for skyline spectacle

[impaktor]

NASA gave the EM Drive another spin
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ ... f-emdrive/

A bit weird: they konw they are working on a very controversial "physics law breaking" engine, and they've started making vague statements with no data. If I were them, I'd not say a thing until I had a hugh pile of data to back me up

[FluffyFreak]

Isn't this one the same group that measured thrust even when the device was modified to remove the thing meant to provide the thrust, and even when the power was off?

[impaktor]

NASA | Thermonuclear Art – The Sun In Ultra-HD
I downloaded it first, was 4 GB. But pretty epic.

[FluffyFreak]

FUCK ME THERE'S CRYOVOLCANOES ON PLUTO!!!

Story

[err404]

I hope we will have some nice pictures or movies from WT1190F falling

here some more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WT1190F

WT1190F (9U01FF6, UDA34A3, or UW8551D) is a small temporary satellite of the Earth, thought to be space junk,[3] that will impact the Earth on November 13, 2015 at 06:18:34.3 (±1.3 seconds) UTC.
(...)
The International Astronomical Center (IAC) and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency will attempt to observe WT1190F as it falls towards the Earth.
(...)