CNET describes Venus as "a toxic, overheated, crushing hellscape where nothing can survive." But they reported Friday that one astronomy team's hypothesis published last month "could prompt a reevaluation of how and where we look for life in the universe." Carl Sagan speculated about life in the clouds of Venus back in 1967, and just a few years ago, researchers suggested that strange, anomalous patterns seen when looking at the planet in ultraviolet could be explained by something like an algae or a bacteria in the atmosphere. More recently, research published last month in the journal Astrobiology, from leading astronomer Sara Seager at MIT, offers up a vision of what the life cycle above Venus might be like. Seager has been a 21st century leader in the search for exoplanets, biosignatures, and worlds similar to our own. She's currently the deputy science director for NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission (aka TESS).

Seager and her colleagues suggest that the most likely way for microbes to survive above Venus is inside liquid droplets. But such droplets don't stay still, as anyone who's ever seen rain knows. Eventually they grow large enough that gravity takes over. In the case of Venus, this would mean droplets harboring tiny life forms and falling toward the hotter, lower layers of the planet's atmosphere, where they'd inevitably dry up. "We propose for the first time that the only way life can survive indefinitely is with a life cycle that involves microbial life drying out as liquid droplets evaporate during settling, with the small desiccated 'spores' halting at, and partially populating, the Venus atmosphere stagnant lower haze layer," the paper's summary reads. These dried-out spores would go into a sort of hibernation phase similar to what tardigrades can do, and eventually be lifted higher into the atmosphere and rehydrated, continuing the life cycle.

This is all speculation. Fortunately for Venusian life hunters, a number of astronomers and their instruments are trained on the complex planet. NASA is even considering a mission, dubbed Veritas, that could depart as soon as 2026 to orbit and study Venus and its clouds.

Meanwhile, more data from Venus, and perhaps new discoveries, may soon be incoming. The forecast for the planet remains, as it has for some time, cloudy with a chance of microbes.

Astronomers are searching for solutions to the man-made "constellations" of satellites from SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper that they say are interfering with their work. Scientific American reports: Finally, in August — after more than a year of complaints from the scientific community and damage-control efforts from SpaceX — the National Science Foundation and the American Astronomical Society released a report on the situation. It drew from discussions among more than 250 experts at the virtual Satellite Constellations 1 (SATCON1) workshop earlier this summer to provide recommendations for both astronomers and satellite constellation operators in order to minimize further disruptions...

SpaceX's initial efforts at mitigating the spacecraft's impact involved launching a prototype Starlink satellite known as DarkSat earlier this year that features a black antireflective coating. Recent ground-based observations of DarkSat in orbit found it half as bright as a standard Starlink satellite — a great improvement, according to experts, but still far from what astronomers say is needed... While the dimming techniques tested by DarkSat are far from a sufficient solution, SpaceX has continued to develop other ways to further reduce spacecraft brightness. The company's second attempt at a darkened satellite, VisorSat, uses a black sunshade to reduce light reflection. The first spacecraft with this design was launched on June 3. Astronomers are hoping to observe VisorSat and compare it with DarkSat once observatories reopen, following the COVID-19 shutdown. Even before any detailed observations of VisorSat have been made, SpaceX seems to have doubled down on the new model. All the satellites in the two Starlink batches launched in mid-June and early August were VisorSats, with each carrying its own sunshade.

Astronomers are not yet sure whether darkening methods such as DarkSat and VisorSat are the solution. Of the SATCON1 report's 10 recommendations, only one asks satellite operators to use darkening techniques. The others suggest deploying satellites in orbits below 600 kilometers to minimize their nighttime glare, controlling their orientations in space to reflect less sunlight, developing ways to remove their trails from astronomical observations and making their orbital information available so astronomers can point telescopes away from them. By some mix of approaches from this menu of options, it is hoped, the problem can be managed. Even so, the advent of satellite megaconstellations may have made further degradation of astronomers' view of the night sky inevitable.
It's a problem that's only going to accelerate, argues one astronomer at the University of Washington — adding that it's also a question of precedent. "It's a question of what kind of sky you want your grandkids to have."

"Oxford University announced Saturday it was resuming a trial for a coronavirus vaccine it is developing with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, a move that comes days after the study was suspended following a reported side-effect in a U.K. patient," reports the Associated Press: In a statement, the university confirmed the restart across all of its U.K. clinical trial sites after regulators gave the go-ahead following the pause on Sunday. "The independent review process has concluded and following the recommendations of both the independent safety review committee and the U.K. regulator, the MHRA, the trials will recommence in the U.K.," it said.

The vaccine being developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca is widely perceived to be one of the strongest contenders among the dozens of coronavirus vaccines in various stages of testing around the world...

The university said in large trials such as this "it is expected that some participants will become unwell and every case must be carefully evaluated to ensure careful assessment of safety." It said globally some 18,000 people have received its vaccine so far. Volunteers from some of the worst affected countries — Britain, Brazil, South Africa and the U.S. — are taking part in the trial... Brazil's health regulator Anvisa on Saturday said it had approved the resumption of tests of the "Oxford vaccine" in the South American country after receiving official information from AstraZeneca... The university insisted that it is "committed to the safety of our participants and the highest standards of conduct in our studies and will continue to monitor safety closely."

Pauses in drug trials are commonplace... The Oxford-AstraZeneca study had been previously stopped in July for several days after a participant developed neurological symptoms that turned out to be an undiagnosed case of multiple sclerosis that researchers said was unrelated to the vaccine.

Space.com reports: Laika, a stray dog scooped off the streets of Moscow, launched on the Soviet Union's Sputnik 2 mission in November 1957, just a month after Sputnik 1's liftoff opened the space age. The 11-lb. (5 kilograms) mixed-breed quickly died of overheating and circled Earth as a corpse until April 1958, when Sputnik 2 fell back into the atmosphere and burned up.

Laika was sacrificed to aid humanity's march into the cosmos, her pioneering mission and those of her successors designed to help show that our species could survive jaunts into the final frontier. A new documentary called "Space Dogs" asks us to examine that sacrifice and what it says about us. [Trailer here] "This film is about the relationship of another species to us humans. A species that has been used in space history in two ways: both as an experimental object and as a symbol of courage and heroism," directors Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter said in a statement.

"The dogs had to fulfill mankind's dream by conquering the cosmos for them," the duo added...

Kremser and Peter dug up stunning, never-before-seen footage of Laika and other Soviet space dogs. Some of these archival snippets show the pups being prepped for their landmark launches, their poor little bodies bristling with implanted tubes and wires. Other footage depicts post-landing processing of the shorn and wobbly strays fortunate enough to survive their orbital ordeals. Getting ahold of this priceless historic material was no easy task...

"Space Dogs" is not chiefly about Laika and her fellow space explorers; the historical footage comprises less than one-third of the roughly 90-minute film. The bulk of the documentary is devoted to strays on the streets of modern Moscow, especially one young dog with floppy ears who roams the city with charismatic enthusiasm.
This week saw the "virtual cinema launch" of the documentary, with a real-world release into theatres next weekend.