This week in space from Fraser Cain | | One of the biggest stories last week, and one we're still reeling from this week is the 2018 fiscal year budget from the White House. Some parts stay the same, but others are on the chopping block, such as the highly anticipated Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST).
The tragedy is that this mission was carefully chosen by the scientific community as part of their decadal survey; a process they go through every 10 years to choose their science priorities that can go into the planning for future missions.
This mission has been in the works for nearly 20 years now, and its loss will be devastating.
I highly recommend you read this article from Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang, who goes into the details of the mission, and explains what the repercussions could be.
Of course, White House NASA budgets never become law, they're merely a suggestion that gets modified and changed before Congress makes its final decision. If you want to learn what that process is going to be and how you can get involved, check out this episode of Planetary Radio's Space Policy.
There's still time.
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
As always, if you have comments or questions, or suggestions on how I can improve this newsletter, please don't hesitate to reply this email or send me an email at frasercain@gmail.com. | | 
When the SpaceX Falcon Heavy blasted Elon Musk's Tesla into space, it carried it out beyond Mars, almost into the Asteroid Belt. That car is going to keep buzzing around the Solar System, and there's a remote chance it'll crash into Earth or Venus in the next few million years.
In this week's video, I do a collaboration with Joe Scott to talk about the efforts of rovers on Mars. I talk about the discoveries made by Curiosity, while Joe looks into the future with the Mars 2020 rover.
Scott and Mark Kelly are identical twins and they're both astronauts. This gave NASA the perfect experiment to learn what happens when an astronaut goes to space, compared to what would happen with a year here on Earth.
Although it's mostly a blue ball, Neptune does have an interesting feature: its dark oval vortex, a huge storm raging in the upper atmosphere. New photos from Hubble are showing that this storm isn't actually that long-lived and is fading away. 
Amateur astronomer Robelio Bernal Andreo challenged himself to capture images of Musk's Tesla blasting through space on its journey out into the Solar System. It was tough, but he was able to capture it. Here's how he did it.
I hope you're not getting bored of these awesome images of Jupiter captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft. If you are, too bad, here's another, this time processed by Kevin Gill. This picture was taken on February 7, after Juno had completed its 11th close flyby of Jupiter.
The discovery of the first interstellar asteroid was an opportunity to study an object that came from the stars. So it's not surprising that astronomers have been studying it carefully. One team examined its spin and determined that the asteroid it's actually tumbling, possibly due to an impact in the ancient past.
At some point in the future, SpaceX will operate a constellation of almost 12,000 satellites, providing high speed internet to any place on Earth. The first two went up today. Their plans to catch the fairing, with a net named Mr. Steven, didn't work out so well.
The mighty Andromeda galaxy has been taken down a few pegs recently. We just learned that it's actually not that much bigger or more massive than the Milky Way, and now we learn that it might actually be pretty young compared to our own galaxy.
Another object that's theoretically smaller than a neutron star, but still large enough that it doesn't form a black hole is a "quark star". Are these things even possible, and what would it take to form one?
Spirit and Opportunity were supposed to only last 90 days on Mars. But Opportunity just enjoyed its 5,000th sunrise, proving how capable and dependable that little spacecraft really is. Here's to another 5,000 days.
Have you heard that Mount Sinabung in Indonesia is erupting? It's already sent out huge plumes of gas and dust. Here's the view from space, showing just how much of the island is already suffering the effects of the eruption.
While we're waiting for the first images from the Event Horizon Telescope, astronomers have been working to scan the region just outside supermassive black holes. And a team of astronomers recently scanned the torus of material around the black hole in galaxy M77.
In the latest threat assessment document from the US Department of National Intelligence, there's information about how China and Russia are forging ahead with space and counterspace weapons, as well as dual use satellites can could repair or destroy other spacecraft.
When we do finally discover if there's alien life out there in the Universe, how badly will people freak out? Will they be calm and rational about it or lose their minds? A group of researchers have used related discoveries to gauge our resilience to this kind of achievement.
Other Interesting Space Stuff
Amazing Astrophotography
Now that is a nice Orion Nebula. This amazing photograph was taken by Josh Borup (@joshborup), a photographer in Mesa, Arizona using an 80 mm refractor telescope with a Canon T3i DSLR. Amazing results.
We feature a different astrophotographer every day on our Instagram page. Want to do a takeover? Use the hashtag #universetoday and I'll check out your photos. | | | |
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