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Pluto may have nitrogen glaciers, and the planet's air pressure is much lower than scientists expected. Kepler 452b, "Earth 2.0," isn't the first roughly Earth-size planet found in a star's habitable zone: but the star, Kepler 452, is remarkably similar to our sun. Another planet, HIP 11915b, is the first we've found that's around Jupiter's size: and orbiting its star at about the same distance as Jupiter. This is the first other planetary system that 'looks like' our Solar system. Scientists still haven't found life elsewhere in the universe: but the odds seem to be getting better that we will, eventually.... ...A 'science threatens faith' op-ed got my attention this week, so I wrote about beliefs, reasonable and otherwise, before getting around to the interesting stuff. Feel free to skip ahead to Pluto's Probable Glaciers , take a walk, or whatever suits your fancy.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Pluto's still in the news, as New Horizons starts sending data from its July 14 flyby. That will take more than a year, but there have already been surprises: including "not easy to explain terrain" near Pluto's equator. Meanwhile, the DSCOVR Solar weather monitor sent back a snapshot of Earth; and Professor Stephen Hawking is supporting a new search for intelligent life in the universe. I think the Royal Society in London's Breakthrough Initiatives group will collect interesting facts while listening for extraterrestrial radio broadcasts. But I also think that our neighbors could easily have been using wireless telegraphy when Oldowan tools were our high tech. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

New Horizons has started sending back data from its Pluto flyby on July 14, 2015. Pluto and Charon don't have nearly as many craters as scientists expected. One patch, at least, seems to be very new, on the cosmic time scale. Something, maybe Pluto's equivalent of volcanic eruptions, resurfaced that terrain in the last 100,000,000 years. There's something odd about Charon's north polar region, too. Interesting, anyway. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

New Horizons is closer to Pluto than it was when I started writing this post, and should send back about 5,000 times as much data as Mariner did in its Mars flyby, 50 years ago. ( BBC News ) The ESA's Philae lander 'woke up' last month, but the big news from the Rosetta mission are Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko's sinkholes: and the jets of gas and dust coming from at least some of them. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

A bit shy of eight decades ago, a pilot and navigator set off on a round-the-world flight that should have provided ample material for her next book . Instead, shortly after midnight, July 2, 1937 GMT , the modified Lockheed Model 10 Electra disappeared. She's still famous — and now has an invisible Lunar crater named after her. Eventually, Fred Noonan may have some rock named after him, or maybe not. In a perfect world, folks in the support crew would get a tad more recognition — my opinion — but this isn't a perfect world. What's remarkable about Earhart Crater is that it's big , on the side of Earth's moon facing our planet — and buried under billions of years' of accumulated debris. Scientists found it while sifting through gravitational data. Other scientists found that lava tubes would be strong and safe enough to house a Lunar base, and Messenger took pictures of ice on Mercury. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Dawn became the first spacecraft to orbit two asteroids or planets other than Earth last week. More to the point, we're learning more about these survivors from the early Solar System. Meanwhile, from the world of infotainment , "chaos" and the early Solar System.... ...Either way, Vesta and Ceres are — most likely — the last remaining large protoplanets : which makes them valuable samples of the early Solar System. Apart from size and distance from our sun, they're very different: which also makes them intriguing places to study. Scientists have working ideas about how Vesta and Ceres ended up where they are, but those hypotheses may change when we learn more from the Dawn mission. There's quite a bit of data to work with already, from Dawn's stopover at Vesta.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Someone's made a 'top 10' list of "top exoplanet discoveries of 2014," including the first potentially habitable Earth-size world. Mars had an ocean: billions of years ago. Scientists are piecing together the story of how Mars became the world it is now: and trying to figure out where Martian methane comes from. Other scientists have discovered another reason to look for life on planets orbiting red dwarf stars: and there's the ongoing discussion of how to define "life." We're learning more about this universe, and discovering that there's much more to learn. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography discovered thousands of previously-unknown submerged mountains in data from satellites designed for measuring ice caps and ocean currents. Other scientists found a long-buried rift system on Earth's moon, and India's space program put a spacecraft in Mars orbit — on their first try.... ...I'm pretty sure that most ' pure science ' has practical applications: given time. Sometimes, given a lot of time. It took about two millennia for the aeolipiles of Vitruvius and Hero of Alexandria to make the transition from laboratory curiosities to steam engines and spaceship motors.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .