Carnival of Space #487

Welcome, come in to the 487th Carnival of Space! The Carnival is a community of space science and astronomy writers and bloggers, who submit their best work each week for your benefit. I’m Susie Murph, part of the team at Universe Today and CosmoQuest. So now, on to this week’s stories!

Looking for a nice holiday gift for the “astronaut” in your life? The Music of the Spheres website suggests for you to get them the new Orbiter 2016, the latest version of the free space flight simulator for Windows. The 2016 version includes new, detailed 3D terrain for Earth, Moon, and Mars among other improvements. Read more about this game here. If you are already enjoying this game and want to know how to best use some of the great add-ons for the game, check out this article for best use advice!

Over at Planetaria, Paul Scott Anderson gives us a report on the new flybys of Titan and Enceladus from Cassini.

Next, over at the Evolving Planet, Nina Mortera gives us a report on how the ESA has pledged nearly half a billion dollars to next Mars lander. And Brad Rogers shares an interactive infographic was was created by Number Sleuth, illustrating the scale of the largest and smallest objects within the observable universe.

Over at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory website, guest blogger Jingzhe Ma, first author, tells us about the paper Super Starburst Galaxy Found One Billion Years After the Big Bang. Jingzhe is a PhD candidate at the University of Florida, working with Prof. Anthony Gonzalez and Prof. Jian Ge.

Finally, back here at Universe Today, we have several interesting stories to feature! First up, Matt Williams gives us a view of what the weather might be like on the surface of Venus. Next, Ken Kremer briefs us on the results of the Russian Progress launch fail and it’s effects on the ISS.

Finally, we have a lovely remembrance of Astronaut and hero John Glenn, from Nancy Atkinson.

Thank you for all of your stories – we’ll see you next week!

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, sign up to be a host. Send an email to the above address.