Free Republic

A Metal Pattern That Shouldn't Exist in Nature Something unprecedented is happening with our alien visitor, and some scientists are asking the unthinkable: could 3I/ATLAS be artificial? Two of the world's most powerful telescopes have detected a metal emission pattern from 3I/ATLAS that breaks every known rule of natural space chemistry. The object is producing streams of atomic nickel vapor while showing absolutely no trace of iron, a combination so rare it has never been observed in any natural space object. In the cosmos, nickel and iron are cosmic twins, forged together in stellar cores and found together in virtually...

Explanation: Its surface is the most densely cratered in the Solar System -- but what's inside? Jupiter's moon Callisto is a battered ball of dirty ice that is larger than the planet Mercury. It was visited by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s and 2000s, but the recently reprocessed featured image is from a flyby of NASA's Voyager 2 in 1979. The moon would appear darker if it weren't for the tapestry of light-colored fractured surface ice created by eons of impacts. The interior of Callisto is potentially even more interesting because therein might lie an internal layer of liquid...

It started with a quiver deep down in the Martian crust weak, barely detectable, yet bearing 4.5-billion-year-old echoes. Those seismic waves, recorded by NASA's InSight lander from 2018 to 2022, have revealed a remarkable discovery: giant preserved fragments of Mars' primordial crust, trapped in the planet's mantle since the formation of the Solar System.The discovery emerged from the painstaking analysis of eight exceptionally clear marsquake events by a team led by Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London. Using the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), InSight recorded how primary (P) and secondary (S) waves traveled through the planet, reflecting and...

Explanation: The largest volcano in our Solar System is on Mars. Although three times higher than Earth's Mount Everest, Olympus Mons will not be difficult for humans to climb because of the volcano's shallow slopes and Mars' low gravity. Covering an area greater than the entire Hawaiian volcano chain, the slopes of Olympus Mons typically rise only a few degrees at a time. Olympus Mons is an immense shield volcano, built long ago by fluid lava. A relatively static surface crust allowed it to build up over time. Its last eruption is thought to have been about 25 million years...

Explanation: The diffuse hydrogen-alpha glow of emission region Sh2-27 fills this cosmic scene. The field of view spans nearly 3 degrees across the nebula-rich constellation Ophiuchus toward the central Milky Way. A Dark Veil of wispy interstellar dust clouds draped across the foreground is chiefly identified as LDN 234 and LDN 204 from the 1962 Catalog of Dark Nebulae by American astronomer Beverly Lynds. Sh2-27 itself is the large but faint HII region surrounding runaway O-type star Zeta Ophiuchi. Along with the Zeta Oph HII region, LDN 234 and LDN 204 are likely 500 or so light-years away. At that...

Could a vagabond giant from the outermost regions of interstellar space be poised on the cusp of sweeping by our cosmic doorstep? Astronomers say yes and they have the data to support it. Using the Pan-STARRS survey telescope on Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, researchers have found a giant rogue planet, possibly as massive as Jupiter, speeding toward the solar system. It is a transient discovery made possible by the combination of wide-sky monitoring and the capability of high-resolution spectroscopy. Pan-STARRS first notified astronomers to the object with weak, creeping light signals near...

Both the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory observatory SPHEREx snapped new images of 3I/ATLAS this week, almost two months after it was first spotted in the skies above Chile. 3I/ATLAS glows red in the new images with a seemingly threatening aura, though most scientists believe the object to be merely a 12-mile-wide interstellar comet. The snaps showed that 3I/ATLAS is “outgassing” as it approaches the Sun, which was expected. However, the object is dumping out a conspicuous amount of carbon dioxide and a surprisingly small amount of water and carbon monoxide, according to experts, including Harvard...

Explanation: That yellow spot -- what is it? It's a young planet outside our Solar System. The featured image from the Very Large Telescope in Chile surprisingly captures a distant scene much like our own Solar System's birth, some 4.5 billion years ago. Although we can't look into the past and see Earth's formation directly, telescopes let us watch similar processes unfolding around distant stars. At the center of this frame lies a young Sun-like star, hidden behind a coronagraph that blocks its bright glare. Surrounding the star is a bright, dusty protoplanetary disk -- the raw material of planets....

In recent years, researchers led by Abel Méndez—lead author of the new study and director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico—have contributed significantly to that evidence through the AWOW project. In August 2024, Méndez and his colleagues published findings that suggest the Wow! Signal stemmed from the sudden brightening of a cold hydrogen cloud due to a transient source of radiation such as a magnetar. These neutron stars have magnetic fields strong enough to excite the atoms in hydrogen clouds and elicit a burst of brightness. Re-evaluating the Wow! Signal Now, Méndez’s team has meticulously...

For decades, astronomers have searched for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence using radio telescopes and optical instruments, scanning the skies for artificial signals. Now, researchers are taking a different approach, this time looking much closer to home for alien artefacts that might already be in our Solar System. A new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society describes an innovative method for detecting potential extraterrestrial probes near Earth. Their approach; to use Earth's shadow as a natural filter to eliminate interference from human-made satellites and space debris. Modern skies are cluttered with thousands of satellites and millions of...

NASA reveals a breathtaking photo of Earth and Moon taken from deep space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel From nearly 290 million kilometers away, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft turned its gaze homeward and captured an arresting glimpse of Earth and the Moon, now just distant specks of light nestled among the stars of the Aries constellation. According to NASA, this deep-space photo opportunity came as part of a scheduled instrument calibration while the spacecraft continues its cruise toward the asteroid Psyche. Testing Cameras With Familiar Cosmic Landmarks The image, taken on July 20 and 23, was created...

07/01/2025 61.0 km/s =136,560.54 mph 07/04/2025. 61.4 km/s = 137,385.81 mph | Perihelion: 29 Oct 2025 11:29 UTC [-117d 6h 35m 35s] 07/10/2025 61.5 km/s = 137,607.07 mph | Perihelion: 29 Oct 2025 11:29 UTC [-111d 9h 14m 49s] 07/31/2025. 62.2 km/s =139,172.08 mph | Perihelion: 29 Oct 2025 11:29 UTC [-89d 16h 35m 51s] 08/03/2025 . 62.3 km/s = 139,361.08 mph. | 08/05/2025 . 62.4 km/s = 139,582.44 mph | 08/15/2025 . 62.9 km/s = 140,569.70 mph | Perihelion: 29 Oct 2025 11:29 UTC [-74d 20h 25m 14s] 08/16/2025 . 63.0 km/s = 140,790.96 mph | 08/19/2025. 63.1 km/s...

Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS — which is zooming through our inner solar system — appears to be emitting its own light, according to Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb. The observation by Loeb, if verified, would contradict NASA’s classification of the Manhattan-sized object as a comet, the scientist argues in a new blog post. Loeb and a colleague analyzed photos released by NASA of the object in determining that the source of its glow is likely not from the sun. The astrophysicist wrote the “brightness profile around 3I/ATLAS implies that the nucleus dominates the observed light.” “The simplest interpretation is that the nucleus...

Across the globe, technology that is designed to generate solar energy could potentially be employed for yet another planet-saving enterprise: Asteroid detection. One scientist at Sandia National Labs has started to get the ball rolling on a theory using a large-scale mirror, and a bit of ingenuity and hope. Sitting just south of Albuquerque is a field of more than 200 large-scale mirrors. These heliostats focus the immense power of the sun on to a 200-foot tower, collecting as much as a million watts of power during the day, but at night, they don’t have a job — they’re just...

The Webb Space Telescope has spotted a new tiny moon orbiting Uranus. The new member of the lunar gang, announced Tuesday by NASA, appears to be just six miles (10 kilometers) wide. It was spotted by the telescope’s near-infrared camera during observations in February. Scientists think it hid for so long — even eluding the Voyager 2 spacecraft during its flyby about 40 years ago — because of its faintness and small size. Uranus has 28 known moons that are named after characters from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. About half are smaller and orbit the planet at closer range. This...

By splitting a single photon, scientists confirmed that angular momentum is always conserved — a billion-to-one experiment that reinforces the foundations of quantum physics. Credit: SciTechDaily.com ===================================================================== Physicists have, for the first time, shown that even a single photon obeys one of nature’s strictest rules: conservation of angular momentum. Achieved only once in a billion attempts, this needle-in-a-haystack success not only proves a cornerstone law of physics at the smallest scale but also opens a pathway to advanced quantum technologies, from entangled states to secure communication. Quantum-Level Confirmation of Angular Momentum Conservation Researchers at Tampere University, working with colleagues in...

Artist representation of CAPERS-LRD-z9, home to the earliest confirmed black hole. The supermassive black hole at its center is believed to be surrounded by a thick cloud of gas, giving the galaxy a distinctive red color. Credit: Erik Zumalt, The University of Texas at Austin ================================================================== Astronomers have discovered the most distant confirmed black hole, hidden inside a rare galaxy known as a “Little Red Dot.” Its enormous size and early existence challenge current theories about how galaxies and black holes formed in the young universe. A global team of astronomers, led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Cosmic...

Explanation: Over 500,000 light years across, NGC 6872 (bottom left) is a truly enormous barred spiral galaxy. At least 5 times the size of our own large Milky Way, NGC 6872 is the largest known spiral galaxy. About 200 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock, the appearance of this giant galaxy's stretched out spiral arms suggest the wings of a giant bird. So its popular moniker is the Condor galaxy. Lined with massive young, bluish star clusters and star-forming regions, the extended and distorted spiral arms are due to NGC 6872's past gravitational interactions with the...

Ultraviolet observations suggest that some heavy white dwarf mergers might be masquerading themselves. A white dwarf interacting with a red giant. Is this how this white dwarf formed? We do not know yet. Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI) Astronomers report the finding of a unique new object that doesn’t fit with categories that were only established in the last few years. They have observed an ultra-massive white dwarf with an outer layer of hydrogen and helium, 10 billion times thinner than other white dwarfs. This object is believed to be the product of a past merger event....

Explanation: The camera battery died about 2am local time on August 12, while shooting in the bright moonlit skies from a garden in Chastre, Brabant Wallon, Belgium, planet Earth. But not before it captured the frames used to compose this cool animated gif of a brilliant Perseid meteor and a lingering visible trail known as a persistent train. The Perseid meteor, a fast moving speck of dust from the tail of large periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle, was heated to incandescence by ram pressure and vaporized as it flashed through the upper atmosphere at 60 kilometers per second. Compared to the brief...