32: NASA launches its latest planet-hunting spacecraft

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*NASA launches its latest planet hunting spacecraft. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS has blasted into orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from space launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. TESS will follow on from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope which helped scientists identify over two thousand six hundred exoplanetary candidates orbiting distant stars.  You tube video url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfZ2y3-2tc0 

*Tunguska class asteroid near miss A Tunguska class asteroid has just come within a few hours of crashing into the Earth. Even more concerning – the massive space rock was only spotted 21 hours before its closest approach to the Earth. 

*A new era of antimatter studies  Physicists have undertaken the most precise measurement ever done on antimatter. Scientists with the ALPHA collaboration at CERN -- the European Organization for Nuclear Research -- successfully conducted the most accurate ever measurements revealing the spectral structure of the antihydrogen atom in unprecedented detail.  

*The Science Report A new study claims eating nuts could help avoid atrial fibrillation. Fears the 2016 marine heatwave means the Great Barrier Reef may never fully recover. Human migration out of Africa coincided with a dramatic reduction in the size of mammals and it’s still happening. Palaeontologists discover ichthyosaur as large as a blue whale. 

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