NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter's orbit on July 4, 2016 after a 35-minute engine burn that decreased its velocity. This marks a major milestone for the mission, which aims to study Jupiter's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. Over the coming months, Juno will perform instrument checks and early science collection before its official science collection phase begins in October. The successful orbit insertion indicates the spacecraft is performing well and ready to investigate Jupiter and help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of giant planets.

1. NASA's 'Dark Matter' Probe: "Our Milky Way Galaxy is
embedded within a Vast Sphere of Black Holes"
July 09, 2016
"All galaxies, including our
own, are embedded within a vast
sphere of black holes each about 30
times the sun's mass," says Alexander
Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at
NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center.
Dark matter is a mysterious
substance composing most of the
material universe, now widely
thought to be some form of massive
exotic particle. An intriguing
alternative view is that dark matter is
made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as
primordial black holes. Kashlinsky suggests that this interpretation aligns with our knowledge of
cosmic infrared and X-ray background glows and may explain the unexpectedly high masses of
merging black holes detected last year.
The nature of dark matter remains one of the most important unresolved issues in
astrophysics. Scientists currently favour theoretical models that explain dark matter as an exotic
massive particle, but so far searches have failed to turn up evidence these hypothetical particles
actually exist. NASA is currently investigating this issue as part of its Alpha Magnetic
Spectrometer and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope missions.
Image credits: NASA, ligo.caltech.edu
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/07/nasa-probe-the-milky-way-is-embedded-within-a-
vast-sphere-of-black-holes-weekend-feature.html
Pulsing Heart of the Crab Nebula --"Ghostly Blue Glow of
a Neutron Star"
July 09, 2016
Peering deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, this close-up image reveals the beating
heart of one of the most historic and intensively studied remnants of a supernova, an exploding
star. The inner region sends out clock-like pulses of radiation and tsunamis of charged particles
embedded in magnetic fields. The neutron star at the very center of the Crab Nebula has about
the same mass as the sun but compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles
across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star shoots out detectable beams of energy that
make it look like it's pulsating.
The NASA Hubble Space Telescope snapshot is centered on the region around the
neutron star (the rightmost of the two bright stars near the center of this image) and the
expanding, tattered, filamentary debris surrounding it. Hubble's sharp view captures the intricate
details of glowing gas, shown in red, that forms a swirling medley of cavities and filaments.
Inside this shell is a ghostly blue glow that is radiation given off by electrons spiralling at nearly
the speed of light in the powerful magnetic field around the crushed stellar core.

2. The neutron star is a
showcase for extreme physical
processes and unimaginable cosmic
violence. Bright wisps are moving
outward from the neutron star at half
the speed of light to form an
expanding ring. It is thought that
these wisps originate from a shock
wave that turns the high-speed wind
from the neutron star into extremely
energetic particles.
When this "heartbeat"
radiation signature was first
discovered in 1968, astronomers
realized they had discovered a new
type of astronomical object. Now
astronomers know it's the archetype of a class of supernova remnants called pulsars - or rapidly
spinning neutron stars. These interstellar "lighthouse beacons" are invaluable for doing
observational experiments on a variety of astronomical phenomena, including measuring gravity
waves.
Observations of the Crab supernova were recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054 A.D.
The nebula, bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes, is located 6,500 light-years away
in the constellation Taurus.
Image credits: NASA and ESA, Acknowledgment: J. Hester (ASU) and M. Weisskopf
(NASA/MSFC)
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/07/pulsing-heart-of-the-crab-nebula-ghostly-blue-glow-
of-a-neutron-star.html
Exoplanet “Unlike Any Other Known World!"
Discovered --Three Suns and a 550-Year Orbit
July 08, 2016
If you thought Luke Skywalker's home planet, Tatooine, was a strange world with its two
suns in the sky, imagine this: a planet where you'd either experience constant daylight or enjoy
triple sunrises and sunsets each day, depending on the seasons, which happen to last longer than
human lifetimes.
Such a world has been discovered by a team of astronomers led by the University of
Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, using direct imaging. The planet, HD 131399Ab, is unlike any other
known world - on by far the widest known orbit within a multi-star system.
Located about 340 light years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus, HD 131399Ab is
believed to be about 16 million years old, making it one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to
date, and one of very few directly imaged planets. With a temperature of 850 Kelvin (about
1,070 degrees Fahrenheit or 580 degrees Celsius) and weighing in at an estimated four Jupiter
masses, it is also one of the coldest and least massive directly imaged exoplanets.

3. Although repeated and long-term observations will be needed to precisely determine the
planet's trajectory among its host stars, observations and simulations seem to suggest the
following scenario: At the center of the system lies a star estimated to be eighty percent more
massive than the sun and dubbed HD 131399A, which itself is orbited by the two remaining
stars, B and C, at about three-hundred AU (one AU, or astronomical unit, equals the average
distance between the earth and the sun). All the while, B and C twirl around each other like a
spinning dumbbell, separated by a distance roughly equal to that between our sun and Saturn.
In this scenario, planet HD 131399Ab travels around the central star, A, in an orbit about
twice as large as Pluto's if compared to our solar system, and brings the planet to about one-third
of the separation of the stars themselves. The authors point out that a range of orbital scenarios is
possible, and the verdict on long-term stability of the system will have to wait for planned
follow-up observations that will better constrain the planet's orbit.
"If the planet was further away from the most massive star in the system, it would be
kicked out of the system," Apai explained. "Our computer simulations showed that this type of
orbit can be stable, but if you change things around just a little bit, it can become unstable very
quickly."
"It is not clear how this planet ended up on its wide orbit in this extreme system, and we
can't say yet what this means for our broader understanding of the types of planetary systems out
there, but it shows there is more variety out there than many would have deemed possible,"
Wagner said. "What we do know is that planets in multi-star systems are much less explored, and
potentially just as numerous as planets in single-star systems."
The Daily Galaxy via University of Arizona
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/07/exoplanet-discovered-unlike-any-other-known-
world-three-suns-and-a-550-year-orbit.html

4. After an almost five-year journey to the solar system's largest planet, NASA's
Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter's orbit during a 35-minute engine
burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 8:53
pm. PDT (11:53 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 4.
"Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to America's
birthday another reason to cheer -- Juno is at Jupiter," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.
"And what is more American than a NASA mission going boldly where no spacecraft has gone
before? With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiter's massive radiation belts to delve
deep into not only the planet's interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar
system evolved."
Confirmation of a successful orbit insertion was received from Juno tracking data monitored
at the navigation facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, as well
as at the Lockheed Martin Juno operations center in Denver. The telemetry and tracking data were
received by NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Goldstone, California, and Canberra,
Australia.
"This is the one time I don't mind being stuck in a windowless room on the night of the Fourth
of July," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from Southwest Research Institute in San
Antonio. "The mission team did great. The spacecraft did great. We are looking great. It's a great
day."
Preplanned events leading up to the orbital insertion engine burn included changing the
spacecraft's attitude to point the main engine in the desired direction and then increasing the
spacecraft's rotation rate from 2 to 5 revolutions per minute (RPM) to help stabilize it..
The burn of Juno's 645-Newton Leros-1b main engine began on time at 8:18 p.m. PDT
(11:18 p.m. EDT), decreasing the spacecraft's velocity by 1,212 mph (542 meters per second) and
allowing Juno to be captured in orbit around Jupiter. Soon after the burn was completed, Juno
turned so that the sun's rays could once again reach the 18,698 individual solar cells that give Juno
its energy.
"The spacecraft worked perfectly, which is always nice when you're driving a vehicle with 1.7
billion miles on the odometer," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from JPL. "Jupiter orbit
insertion was a big step and the most challenging remaining in our mission plan, but there are others
that have to occur before we can give the science team members the mission they are looking for."

5. Over the next few months, Juno's mission and science teams will perform final testing on the
spacecraft's subsystems, final calibration of science instruments and some science collection.
"Our official science collection phase begins in October, but we've figured out a way to
collect data a lot earlier than that," said Bolton. "Which when you're talking about the single biggest
planetary body in the solar system is a really good thing. There is a lot to see and do here."
Juno's principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. With its suite of nine
science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's
intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and
observe the planet's auroras. The mission also will let us take a giant step forward in our
understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest
of the solar system. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter also can provide critical
knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars.
The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in
Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for NASA. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program,
managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science
Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. The California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160705084023.htm
Surprise! The Universe Is Expanding
Faster Than Scientists Thought
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | June 3, 2016 02:01pm ET
The universe is expanding 5 to 9 percent faster than astronomers had thought, a
new study suggests.

6. "This surprising finding may be an important clue to understanding those
mysterious parts of the universe that make up 95 percent of everything and don't emit
light, such as dark energy, dark matter and dark radiation," study leader Adam Riess, an
astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, said in a statement The new, unprecedentedly precise value for the Hubble
constant comes out to 45.5 miles (73.2 kilometres) per second per mega parsec. (One
mega parsec is equivalent to 3.26 million light-years.) Therefore, the distance between
cosmic objects should double 9.8 billion years from now, the researchers said.
The new figure is 5 to 9 percent higher than previous estimates of the Hubble
constant, which relied on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation
— the light left over from the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.
http://www.livescience.com/54975-universe-expanding-faster-than-thought-
hubble.html
Astronomers find evidence for ‘direct collapse’
black hole
An image based on a
supercomputer simulation of the
cosmological environment where
primordial gas undergoes the direct
collapse to a black hole. The gas
flows along filaments of dark matter
that form a cosmic web connecting
structures in the early universe. The
first galaxies formed at the
intersection of these dark matter
filaments.
Astronomers Aaron Smith and Volker Bromm of The University of Texas at Austin,
working with Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have
discovered evidence for an unusual kind of black hole born extremely early in the
universe. They showed that a recently discovered unusual source of intense radiation is
likely powered by a "direct-collapse black hole," a type of object predicted by theorists
more than a decade ago. Their work is published today in the journal Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Society.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160707083309.htm