Image credit: © Solarseven

Welcome to the 579th Carnival of Space! The Carnival is a community of space science and astronomy writers and bloggers, who submit their best work each week for your benefit. We have a fantastic roundup today, so now, on to this week’s worth of stories!

NextBigFuture:

• Breakthrough Carbon nanotube bundles are over 20 times stronger than Kevlar and would be strong enough for space elevators if they could be made in large quantities
• NASA JPL update on progress to assembling giant 100+ meter space telescopes and starshades
• Giant satellites in high low-earth orbit to provide internet directly to smartphones

The Hill:

• Remembering the man who sold the moon: Paul Spudis
• How ice on the moon can get us to Mars

Washington Examiner:

• Is space exploration racist?

Chandra:

• Cosmic Collision Forges Galactic One Ring — in X-rays

Universe Today:

• A Japanese Company is About to Test a Tiny Space Elevator… in Space
• New Reasons why Pluto Should be Considered a Planet After All
• What is the Cosmic Microwave Background?
• Japanese Startup is Working on a Reusable Rocketplane to Carry Passengers to Space, as Early as 2023
• Cassini Data Has Revealed a Towering Hexagonal Storm at Saturn’s Northern Pole
• This is the Exact Spot that ESA’s SMART-1 Crashed Into the Moon in 2006
• Exploring the Ice Giants: Neptune and Uranus at Opposition for 2018
• Europan Space Whales Anyone? Planets Covered by Deep Oceans Can Still Have Life on Them
• Forming Dense Metal Planets like Mercury is Probably Pretty Difficult and Rare in the Universe

Thank you for all of your stories – we’ll see you next week!

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to susie@wshcrew.space, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, sign up to be a host. Send an email to the above address.