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Well, this sure is one parade that's getting rained out of existence. A spectacular astronomical event that had been predicted for 2022 now isn't going to happen after all. Early in 2017, scientists forecast the collision of two stars in the constellation Cygnus – something that would result in a rare and wonderful phenomenon visible to the naked eye. And the news spread like wildfire. The two stars, located a mere 1,800 light-years from Earth, are currently locked in a spiralling death dance. According to the researchers, in the year 2022 – just a few short years away – they were going to collide. And it wasn't just going to be a small blip in the night sky. When binary star system KIC 9832227 finally merged, it was going to produce a luminous red nova - increasing in brightness 10,000-fold, which would be visible from Earth for some time. Now, though, that prediction has been nixed. *Sad trombone* A team of researchers led by astronomer Quentin Socia at S

It's the largest hot desert in the world: the Sahara, a blistering landscape of sand, heat, and deadly dryness that swallows 10 nations and is growing bigger all the time. Because of its searing, sunny conditions, numerous energy projects are already seeking to capitalise on the immense solar potential of the Sahara. But new research shows an amazing, unprecedented effect of these efforts: solar and wind farms could actually bring rainfall and greenery back to the desert. "We found that the large-scale installation of solar and wind farms can bring more rainfall and promote vegetation growth in these regions," says one of the researchers, atmospheric scientist Eugenia Kalnay from the University of Maryland. "The rainfall increase is a consequence of complex land-atmosphere interactions that occur because solar panels and wind turbines create rougher and darker land surfaces." Scientists already knew that wind and solar farms produced localised e