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Above: Featured background from the article "A supernova or Sagittarius – which should we thank?" A graphic reconstruction of our galaxy, made on the basis of NASA images, by Nick Risinger (and available in various sizes and formats from commons.wikimedia.org).

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (July-August 2020) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure at www.astropublishing.com (click the link to go directly to the issue).

July-August 2020 includes a selected survey of astronomical content of local and cosmological interest from NASA/ESA, ESO, ALMA, as well as three feature articles from our fearless leader/editor Michele Ferrara. The feature articles in this issue discuss:

"All the planets of Proxima Centauri" – the science for this article was quite literally being published as the article itself was being put together, about as fast a processing of journal-article-to-magazine as one can do while putting others together.
"A supernova or Sagittarius – which should we thank?" – I've mentioned in many lectures that our own Sun is either the second or third stellar inhabitant in our vicinity, with a local supernova sparking the formation of it and our Solar System way back when. Recent studies indicate that other events 5-ish billion years ago might have instigated the events that lead to "us."
"The principle of mediocrity and the habitability of galaxies" – lump this use of the word "mediocrity" with the scientific use of the word "theory," please. It is a joy to know that fundamental debates are being had in the astronomy and astrophysics literature and that there remains plenty, plenty yet to know for those pondering their futures in STEM.

For those wanting a quick look at what the issue has to offer, the Table of Contents is reproduced below.

The web browser-readable version: www.astropublishing.com/4FAM2020/

Jump right to the PDF download (15 MB): July-August 2020

Above: Curiosity Rover looks up at Mount Sharp, Gale Crater, frickin' Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

With two posts here and two issues accounted for (both featuring my modest contributions to the English language version), there's now even a populated category link to click on for the whole (still short) history.

The July-August issue of Free Astronomy Magazine has been up for a few weeks now and I hope you were already aware of that from the CNY Observers post about the same.

Varied enough to cover the last 13.55 billion years and even sneak out into speculative engineering efforts in the not-too-distant future, all the while short enough to finish in one educational go. Better still, New Moon Telescopes is now even more internationally recognized, albeit perhaps still in English throughout.

I had to go right to the papers that explain the process of exoatmospheric helium detection by infrared spectroscopy (see the Nature article HERE), then think that "stellar thief" is a great name for a band.

Please download, read, and pass along. Also, check out the many back issues at www.astropublishing.com