[LINK] Pop goes the world(s)

I got this news item from james_nicoll.

Two terrestrial planets orbiting a mature sun-like star [of BD +20°307] some 300 light-years from Earth recently suffered a violent collision, astronomers at UCLA, Tennessee State University and the California Institute of Technology will report in a December issue of the Astrophysical Journal, the premier journal of astronomy and astrophysics.

"It's as if Earth and Venus collided with each other," said Benjamin Zuckerman, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and a co-author on the paper. "Astronomers have never seen anything like this before. Apparently, major catastrophic collisions can take place in a fully mature planetary system."

"If any life was present on either planet, the massive collision would have wiped out everything in a matter of minutes — the ultimate extinction event," said co-author Gregory Henry, an astronomer at Tennessee State University (TSU). "A massive disk of infrared-emitting dust circling the star provides silent testimony to this sad fate."

[. . .]

"The patterns of element abundances in the stars show that they are much older than a few hundred million years, as originally thought," Fekel said. "Instead, the binary system appears to have an age of several billion years, comparable to our solar system."

"The planetary collision in BD+20 307 was not observed directly but rather was inferred from the extraordinary quantity of dust particles that orbit the binary pair at about the same distance as Earth and Venus are from our sun," Henry said. "If this dust does indeed point to the presence of terrestrial planets, then this represents the first known example of planets of any mass in orbit around a close binary star."

[LINK] The first Chinese spacewalk, successful

36 years after China's aborted 1972 Shuguang manned spaceflight program, the Chinese space program can claim another landmark achievement.

A Chinese astronaut Saturday became the first in his country's history to complete a space walk, a feat President Hu Jintao hailed as a "major breakthrough" for the emerging space power.

Mission commander Zhai Zhigang left the Shenzhou VII spacecraft at 4:43 pm Beijing time (0843 GMT) to float in orbit for just under 15 minutes, making China the third country to complete a space walk after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

"I feel well," said Zhai, the leader of the Shenzhou VII's three-man crew, waving to a camera outside the spacecraft. "I am greeting the Chinese people and the people of the world."

The space walk, broadcast live on television, was the highlight of the 68-hour voyage -- China's third manned foray into space -- and considered an important step towards building a space station, China's next major ambition in space.

"Your spacewalk was a complete success. It's a major breakthrough in the development of our manned space programme," Hu, standing inside the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre, told the astronaut by radio.

"The motherland and the people thank you," Hu said in the televised conversation.

The spacecraft was now due to return to Earth on Sunday at 5:00pm (0900GMT), Wang Zhaoyao, spokesman for China's manned space programme, told reporters.

The space walk was likely to stir up patriotic emotions ahead of China's October 1 National Day, which will mark the 59th anniversary of the founding of the people's republic.

Coming just days before the 50th anniversary of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, also on October 1, it also marked a potent symbol of the Asian giant's emergence as a space power.

Zhai waved a small Chinese flag shortly after climbing out of the spacecraft 343 kilometres (215 miles) over the Earth, a highly symbolic move.

The United States, Russia, and now China have space agencies capable of launching (and returning!) people to low Earth orbit. Who will be next, do you think? (My money's on either the ESA or India's program.)

[MUSIC] One to One, "There Was a Time"

Internationally, the 1980s Canadian pop music group might be most notable as the group that included Leslie Howe, a producer who collaborated with Alanis Morissette on her dance-pop albums of the early 1980s. Inside Canada, they're notable as a group that had a series of Top 40 hits from 1986 to 1992, starting with the below catchy song.

"Róisín Murphy - Gone Fishing" (Watch on YouTube)