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Keyword: astronomy

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  • 3I/ATLAS's Coma Proves Another Cometary Formation Theory

    10/17/2025 10:44:15 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 10 replies
    Universe Today ^ | October 06, 2025 | Andy Tomaswick
    ...Scientists have been keeping a close watch on those changes, both to ensure there’s nothing unexplainable by our current understanding, but also to compare 3I/ATLAS to both previous interstellar visitors as well as comets in our own solar system. A recent paper from European researchers describes how the changes in a particular material ratio in 3I/ATLAS’ coma fit with our current understanding of cometary geology.That ratio is the nickel to iron (Ni/FE) abundance ratio. It has been measured for two decades, including on twenty in-system comets as well as 2I/Borisov, the last known interstellar visitor our solar system had. However,...
  • NASA unit JPL to lay off about 550 workers, citing restructure

    10/14/2025 2:51:22 PM PDT · by Angelino97 · 3 replies
    CNBC ^ | October 13, 2025 | Dan Mangan, Sarah Whitten
    The Jet Propulsion Laboratory unit of NASA said Monday that it will lay off about 550 employees — 11% of JPL’s workforce — as part of a restructuring. The job cuts “are not related to the current government shutdown,” JPL Director Dave Gallagher said in a message to the unit that was posted on the lab’s website. JPL is a research and development lab funded by NASA — the federal space agency — and managed by the California Institute of Technology. “While not easy, I believe that taking these actions now will help the Lab transform at the scale and...
  • Astronomers discover rare double-ringed odd radio circle in space

    10/14/2025 11:07:40 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 13 replies
    CNN ^ | October 14, 2025 | Ashley Strickland
    VIDEO AT LINK.............. An unusual double-ring structure spotted in space with the help of citizen scientists has turned out to be a cosmic rarity. The celestial anomaly, captured by a radio telescope, is an odd radio circle, one of the scarcest and most mysterious objects in the universe, said Dr. Ananda Hota, lead author of a study published on October 2 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Odd radio circles, also known as ORCs, likely consist of magnetized plasma — charged gas that is strongly influenced by magnetic fields — and are so massive that entire galaxies...
  • “We Need To Go Back” – Uranus’ Moon May Have Harbored a Colossal 100-Mile Deep Ocean

    10/14/2025 6:47:10 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 32 replies
    Scitech Daily ^ | October 11, 2025 | Mikayla Mace Kelley, Planetary Science Institute
    New research suggests that Ariel, a moon of Uranus, might have once harbored an ocean about 100 miles (170km) deep. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/PSI/Mikayla Kelley/Peter Buhler Evidence points to a long-lost ocean beneath Ariel’s icy crust. Tides and orbit shifts may have cracked its surface billions of years ago. Growing evidence indicates that a deep ocean may lie hidden beneath the icy exterior of Uranus’ moon Ariel. A new study published in Icarus examined how this subsurface ocean might have formed and evolved, revealing that it could once have reached depths of more than 100 miles (170 kilometers). For comparison, Earth’s Pacific...
  • 3I/ATLAS Is Extremely Weird. But Not In The Ways You Think [23:39]

    10/11/2025 5:59:41 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 33 replies
    YouTube ^ | October 10, 2025 | Fraser Cain
    3I/ATLAS is a mad topic surrounded by speculations about aliens and other controversial takes. But there's a lot of real science about this fascinating objects. So, in this video we put together all the major discoveries and scientific papers about 3I/ATLAS. 3I/ATLAS Is Extremely Weird. But Not In The Ways You Think | 23:39 Fraser Cain | 476K subscribers | 74,119 views | October 10, 2025
  • Sen. Kennedy Just Exposed More Absurd Things Democrats Shut Down the Government For (What gives? Didn't Musk & Co, already shut these down)

    10/09/2025 5:40:02 AM PDT · by ma_che62 · 23 replies
    PJ Media ^ | 10/4/2025 | Matt Margolis
    Kennedy didn’t hold back as he read aloud what Democrats are fighting to restore. “We found that under President Biden, they were spending $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia,” he said. “We took that out. The congresswoman says, ‘We’re gonna shut down government until you put that back in.’” And that was just the beginning. “We found $500,000 of American taxpayer money for electric buses in Rwanda...” “We found $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. I kid you not. I’m not making this up. It was in the budget...
  • So Close! A Small Asteroid Just Skimmed Past Earth’s Edge

    10/09/2025 6:52:01 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 28 replies
    Scitech Daily ^ | October 08, 2025 | European Space Agency (ESA)
    A small asteroid narrowly missed Earth over Antarctica, passing within the altitude of the International Space Station. Credit: Shutterstock ===================================================================== Asteroid 2025 TF zoomed over Antarctica just 266 miles above Earth, roughly the same height as the ISS. Detected only hours later, the 1–3 meter rock posed no threat but provided valuable data for astronomers. Close Encounter Over Antarctica In the early hours of October 1, Asteroid 2025 TF swept over Antarctica at 00:47:26 UTC ± 18 seconds, passing within just 428 ± 7 km (266 ± 4 miles) of Earth’s surface. That distance places it nearly at the same...
  • A New Planet Discovered? Planet 9 Has a Rival -- Meet Planet Y [9:45]

    10/08/2025 1:55:08 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 25 replies
    YouTube ^ | October 6, 2025 | NASA Space News
    Astronomers from Princeton may have found evidence of a hidden planet -- Planet Y -- orbiting in the far reaches of the Solar System. Could this be the missing world shaping the Kuiper Belt? Watch to find out. A New Planet Discovered? Planet 9 Has a Rival -- Meet Planet Y | 9:45 NASA Space News | 556K subscribers | 28,062 views | October 6, 2025 Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 00:38 The Discovery 03:04 Scientific Importance and Theories 05:30 Implications and What’s Next 08:29 Outro 08:43 Enjoy
  • Dark Matter and Dark Energy May Be Illusions Created by Changing Physics

    10/08/2025 7:46:10 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 36 replies
    SpaceChatter.com ^ | October 01, 2025 | Staff
    Chatter Points * A new model suggests dark matter and dark energy may not be real entities, but effects of changing physical constants. * Galaxy rotation curves from seven galaxies fit the model using one key parameter: a “turn-off density.” * The approach also explains supernovae, galaxy clusters, and the cosmic microwave background without exotic matter. * Challenges remain: galaxies are complex, and no direct evidence yet shows that fundamental constants truly vary. ========================================================================== A physicist at the University of Ottawa has published research suggesting the universe’s most perplexing mysteries — dark matter and dark energy, which together supposedly account...
  • Latest NASA Images of 3I/ATLAS From Recent Mars Flyby Stunned Social Media—Here’s Why It Looks So Strange

    10/07/2025 12:56:30 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 55 replies
    The Debrief ^ | October 06, 2025 | Micah Hanks
    Recent images purportedly depicting the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS during its closest approach to Mars last week have erupted in controversy online, as many took to social media with theories about what the object’s unusual shape could mean about its nature and origins. The new images obtained last week by NASA’s Perseverance rover appear to show 3I/ATLAS streaking through the Martian night sky as it passed through the field of view of the robotic explorer’s Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) from its position in Jezero Crater. The recent imagery was originally uploaded to NASA’s multimedia page in raw format. Since that time,...
  • University adds electrochemical boost in pursuit of cold fusion

    10/07/2025 8:22:54 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 20 replies
    Nuclear Newswire ^ | August 25, 2025 | Staff
    Thunderbird, the University of British Columbia’s benchtop-scale particle accelerator and electrochemical reactor. (Photo: UBC) ************************************************************************* Researchers at the University of British Columbia seeking the energy grail of cold fusion—alias lattice confinement fusion or low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR)— used electrochemistry to load extra deuterium ions into a metal lattice and found a “modest” performance boost of 15 percent, compared with experiments without the electrochemical loading technique, according to the university. While the experiment is benchtop scale, with more energy input than gained, it is the first time that deuterium–deuterium fusion has been demonstrated using the technique, according to UBC. The results...
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Shows "Extreme Negative Polarization". What Does That Mean?

    10/06/2025 11:33:25 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 63 replies
    IFL Science ^ | October 06, 2025 | James Felton
    According to the team the polarimetric behavior is "significantly different from all known comets (either interstellar or bound to our Solar System)". 3I/ATLAS imaged by NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx). Image credit: NASA/SPHEREx. ================================================================= Ateam of astronomers have presented the first polarimetric observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, finding that it has extreme negative polarization. On July 1, 2025, astronomers spotted an object moving through the Solar System at nearly twice the velocity of previous interstellar visitors ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov. The object was confirmed to be an interstellar comet with...
  • Researchers believe interstellar comet Borisov is breaking apart

    03/25/2020 10:37:03 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 31 replies
    nypost ^ | 03/23/2020 | By Chris Ciaccia, Fox News
    Since it was first discovered in August 2019, astronomers have been awestruck by interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov. But recent observations of the space object suggest that it could be breaking apart. A group of researchers from Poland have noted that the object has brightened up twice this month. “The total brightness increase is thus about 0.7 mag in 5 days between UT 2020 March 4.3 and 9.3,” the researchers wrote in a note published March 12. “This behavior is strongly indicative of an ongoing nucleus fragmentation.” In September 1019, the International Astronomical Union confirmed that the object was from another solar...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Interstellar Comet 2I Borisov

    03/05/2022 12:53:11 PM PST · by MtnClimber · 13 replies
    APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 5 Mar, 2022 | NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA) et al.
    Explanation: From somewhere else in the Milky Way galaxy, Comet 2I/Borisov was just visiting the Solar System. Discovered by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov on August 30, 2019, the first known interstellar comet is seen in these two Hubble Space Telescope images from November and December 2019. On the left, a distant background galaxy near the line-of-sight to Borisov is blurred as Hubble tracked the speeding comet and dust tail about 327 million kilometers from Earth. At right, 2I/Borisov appears shortly after perihelion, its closest approach to Sun. European Southern Observatory observations indicate that this comet may never have passed close...
  • Astronomers discover an 'interstellar tunnel' that connects our solar system to other stars

    08/17/2025 2:10:13 PM PDT · by Eleutheria5 · 26 replies
    Earth.com ^ | 17/8/25 | Eric Ralls
    Space can surprise even those who spend their lives studying it. People often think of our solar system as just a few planets and a bunch of empty space. Yet new observations suggest we have been living inside a hot, less dense region, and that there may even be a strange cosmic channel connecting us to distant stars. After years of careful mapping, a new analysis reveals what appears to be a channel of hot, low-density plasma stretching out from our solar system toward distant constellations. Astronomers from the Max Planck Institute recently confirmed it using data from the eRosita...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day- Government shutdown so no APOD Today. I will dig up some of my favorites - Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014

    10/02/2025 12:02:56 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 23 replies
    NASA ^ | 5 Jun, 2014 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, H.Teplitz and M.Rafelski (IPAC/Caltech), A. Koekemoer (STScI), R. Windhorst
    Explanation: Galaxies like colorful pieces of candy fill the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014. The dimmest galaxies are more than 10 billion times fainter than stars visible to the unaided eye and represent the Universe in the extreme past, a few 100 million years after the Big Bang. The image itself was made with the significant addition of ultraviolet data to the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, an update of Hubble's famous most distant gaze toward the southern constellation of Fornax. It now covers the entire range of wavelengths available to Hubble's cameras, from ultraviolet through visible to near-infrared. Ultraviolet data...
  • NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula

    10/01/2025 12:35:08 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 9 replies
    NASA ^ | 1 Oct, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Brian Meyers
    Explanation: Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light would suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was from a supernova, or exploding star, and record the expanding debris cloud as the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant. This sharp telescopic view is centered on a western segment of the Veil Nebula cataloged as NGC 6960 but less formally known as the Witch's Broom Nebula. Blasted out in the cataclysmic explosion, an interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material....
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN)

    09/18/2025 3:15:46 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 6 replies
    NASA ^ | 18 Sep, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Team Ciel Austral
    Explanation: A new visitor from the outer Solar System, comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) also known as SWAN25B was only discovered late last week, on September 11. That's just a day before the comet reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun. First spotted by Vladimir Bezugly in images from the SWAN instrument on the sun-staring SOHO spacecraft, the comet was surprisingly bright but understandably difficult to see against the Sun's glare. Still close to the Sun on the sky, the greenish coma and tail of C/2025 R2 (SWAN) are captured in this telescopic snapshot from September 17. Spica, alpha star...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - New Comet SWAN25B over Mexico

    09/16/2025 12:30:36 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 16 Sep, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Korona
    Explanation: A newly discovered comet is already visible with binoculars. The comet, C/2025 R2 (SWAN) and nicknamed SWAN25B, is brightening significantly as it emerges from the Sun's direction and might soon become visible on your smartphone -- if not your eyes. Although the brightnesses of comets are notoriously hard to predict, many comets appear brighter as they approach the Earth, with SWAN25B reaching only a quarter of the Earth-Sun distance near October 19. Nighttime skygazers will also be watching for a SWAN25B-spawned meteor shower around October 5 when our Earth passes through the plane of the comet's orbit. The unexpectedly...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Two Camera Comets in One Sky

    09/29/2025 12:25:06 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 11 replies
    NASA ^ | 29 Sep, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Luc Perrot (TWAN)
    Explanation: It may look like these comets are racing, but they are not. Comets C/2025 K1 ATLAS (left) and C/2025 R2 SWAN (right) appeared near each other by chance last week in the featured image taken from France's Reunion Island in the southern Indian Ocean. Fainter Comet ATLAS is approaching our Sun and will reach its closest approach in early October when it is also expected to be its brightest -- although still only likely visible with long exposures on a camera. The brighter comet, nicknamed SWAN25B, is now headed away from our Sun, although its closest approach to Earth...