Description

The Discussion: A good old British whinge about the weather and looking forward to our biannual dark sky star party, AstoCamp.

The News: Rounding up the astronomy news this month we have:

• An experiment in an underground lab in London to understand dark energy
• Eight new repeating fast radio burst source
• Help us come up with a cooler name than a pair-instability supernova
• The late accretion phase of the formation of the solar system
• The discovery of interstellar radioactive iron in the Antarctica
• Spitzer reveals surprising exoplanetary details.
• A new exoplanet discovery of three rocky worlds in the same system
• Using oceanography to suggest greater exoplanet biodiversity

The main news story discussion: The latest big Juno discovery at Jupiter.

The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in September:

Jen: A tour of the planets on offer and the zodiacal light

Ralph: Jupiter Saturn and two meteor showers in September. Then further afield, a double star, an open cluster and a dark Nebula in Cepheus.

Main Object: Messier 27, The Dumbbell Nebula

Q&A: How can Titan have such a thick atmosphere with such a low gravity? From Alastair Frith in the UK