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Here is the latest article from the Astronomy site at BellaOnline.com.

Biggest in the Solar System - Facts for Kids
The biggest impact crater on Earth is the Vredefort crater in South Africa, and the highest mountain is Everest. But what about the rest of the Solar System? Which features are the biggest ones in the whole Solar System?

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art305462.asp

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - book review
“Lessons” and “physics” are in the title, but don't panic. Although Carlo Rovelli is a high-powered theoretical physicist, he doesn't lecture the reader. He shares his understanding of the strange universe of modern physics as a man steeped in philosophy and with poetry in his soul.

https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art305454.asp

*Birth anniversaries*
(1) July 4, 1868: American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt – her discovery of the relationship between the period and the luminosity of Cepheid variable stars made possible Edwin Hubble's work on galactic distances.
(2) July 15, 1943 – Northern Irish astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell - as a graduate student she first noted what turned out to be rotating neutron stars. Until then neutron stars were only theoretically an endpoint of the evolution of massive stars.

*Space exploration*
(1) July 7, 2003: NASA's Mars rover Opportunity was launched for a three-month mission - it's still at work on the Red Planet.
(2) July 8, 2011: STS-135 Atlantis was launched, the final shuttle mission.
(3) July 10, 1962:  Telstar 1 was launched, the beginning of a revolution in communications around the world.
(4) July 14, 2015: NASA's New Horizons mission made a historic fly-by of Pluto and its moons.
(5) July 14, 1965: Mariner 4 performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning pictures of the Martian surface.

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I wish you clear skies. 

Mona Evans, Astronomy Editor 
http://astronomy.bellaonline.com 
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