Sorry to mess with your long-range planning, but:

The Milky Way may NOT collide with the Andromeda galaxy in 5 billion years, as previous claimed. Move along, nothing to see here.

https://www.science.org/content/article/milky-way-may-escape-fated-collision-andromeda-galaxy #space #science #future #astronomy

Whenever you read one of those breathless stories about some asteroid passing close to Earth, keep in mind that small space stuff hits us. All. The. Time.

This map shows the orbits of things that hit Earth just *yesterday* -- and just over the southern & eastern United States!

https://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/ #space #science #risk #nasa

This is what an asteroid looks like up close.
Really close.
Through an electron microscope!

First studies of the pieces of asteroid Bennu gathered by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft are out now:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.14227 #space #astronomy #nasa #science #life #astrodon

Aurora colors come from atoms that are trying to shed some of their energy.

In very thin air, oxygen survives in a delicate, high-energy state that emits green light. In denser air, atomic collisions knock oxygen to a lower-energy state that emits red. Nitrogen is a robust emitter that glows bright in even lower, denser layers of the atmosphere.

Beautiful science.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/aurora-tutorial #aurora #science #space #nature