Small impacts are reworking the moon's soil faster than scientists thought

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The Moon's surface is being "gardened" -- churned by small impacts -- more than 100 times faster than scientists previously thought. This means that surface features believed to be young are perhaps even younger than assumed. It also means that any structures placed on the Moon as part of human expeditions will need better protection.
via Science Daily
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Superradiant laser may one day boost atomic clocks

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Physicists have demonstrated a novel laser design based on synchronized emissions of light from the same type of atoms used in advanced atomic clocks. The laser could be stable enough to improve atomic clock performance a hundredfold and even serve as a clock itself, while also advancing other scientific quests such as making accurate "rulers" for measuring astronomical distances.
via Science Daily
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Modeling floods that formed canyons on Earth, Mars

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Geomorphologists who study Earth’s surface features and the processes that formed them have long been interested in how floods, in particular catastrophic outbursts that occur when a glacial lake ice dam bursts, for example, can change a planet’s surface, not only on Earth but on Mars. Now geoscience researchers have proposed and tested a new model of canyon-forming floods that suggests that deep canyons can be formed in bedrock by significantly less water than previously thought.
via Science Daily
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Gemini Observatory North

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It does look like a flying saucer, but this technologically advanced structure is not here to deliver the wise extraterrestrial from the scifi classic movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. It is here to advance our knowledge of the Universe though. Shown sitting near the top of a mountain in Hawaii, the dome of the Gemini Observatory North houses one of two identical 8.1-meter diameter telescopes. Used with its southern hemisphere twin observatory in Chile, the two can access the entire sky from planet Earth. Constructed from 85 exposures lasting 30 seconds each with camera fixed to a tripod, the image also clearly demonstrates that the Earth did not stand still. Adjusted to be slighter brighter at the ends of their arcs, the concentric star trails centered on the North Celestial Pole are a reflection of Earth's rotation around its axis. Close to the horizon at Hawaiian latitdues, Polaris, the North Star, makes the shortest star trail. The fainter denser forest of star trails toward the right are in the rising Milky Way. Tomorrow's picture: venusian cylinder

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