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Two potentially habitable planets in the Gliese 581 system are just false signals arising out of starstuff, a new study said

Gliese 581d and 581g are (study authors said) instead indications of the star’s activity and rotation

Planets were first announced around the system in 2007

Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini mission have firm evidence the ocean inside Saturn's largest moon, Titan, might be as salty as the Earth's Dead Sea.

The new results come from a study of gravity and topography data collected during Cassini's repeated flybys of Titan during the past 10 years

Using the Cassini data, researchers presented a model structure for Titan, resulting in an improved understanding of the structure of the moon's outer ice shell

Heart surgery

In 1893, the suture of the pericardium (the fluid sac surrounding the heart muscle) performed by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. When a 24-yr-old victim of a stabbing during a bar-fight was brought to Provident Hospital in Chicago, Williams operated without using anesthesia to remove the knife, open the thoracic cavity, then suture the wound to the pericardium, a daring procedure for the time. He allowed a small (1/10" long) nick to heal on its own. The patient recovered and lived for at least 20 years afterward. Dr. Williams was the only African-American in a group of 100 charter members of the American College of Surgeons in 1913. He founded and became the first vice-president of the National Medical Association.

First Mars close-up photo

In 1965, the Mariner 4 satellite sent a transmission of the first close-up photograph of Mars. It consisting of 8.3 dots per second of varying degrees of darkness. The transmission lasted for 8.5 hours and depicted the regions on Mars known as Cebrenia, Arcadia, and Amazonis. The satellite was 134 million miles away from earth and 10,500 miles from Mars. The 574-pound spacecraft had been launched at 9:22am on 28 Nov 1964, from Cape Canaveral, FL, by a two-stage Atlas-Agena D rocket. In addition to its camera with digital tape recorder (about 20 pictures), it carried instruments for studying cosmic dust, solar plasma, trapped radiation, cosmic rays, magnetic fields, radio occultation and celestial mechanics

Opportunity rover has reached a long sought after region of aluminum-rich clay mineral outcrops at a new Endeavour crater ridge now “named ‘Pillinger Point’ after Colin Pillinger the Principal Investigator for the [British] Beagle 2 Mars lander”

‘Pillinger Point’ – where ancient water once flowed billions of year ago.

The Beagle 2 lander was built to search for signs of life on Mars

Curiosity

just drove outside her landing ellipse

The six wheeled rover marked a major milestone on Sol 672, June 27, 2014, by traversing beyond her targeted landing ellipse

quotes from one of the scientists involved in the discovery

“Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,”

. “I have almost no doubt about it.”

A potentially habitable Earth-like planet that is only 16 light years away has been discovered

The "super-Earth" planet, GJ 832 c, takes 16 days to orbit its red-dwarf star

has a mass at least five times that of Earth.

Friday, July 11

Mars and Spica form a striking pair in the southwestern sky at dusk! They're now just under 2° apart.

On Sunday evening they'll be at their minimum separation, 1.3°

Curiosity’s Stunt Double

Scarecrow has a full-size version of Curiosity's wheels and other driving equipment, but doesn't have the "brains."

Engineers use it to test drive on different types of terrain