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Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) has the potential to put on a stellar showThere's a new comet in the sky that has gained a lot of attention lately over its potential to become visible to the naked eye. Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) was discovered by observatories in China and South Africa in early 2023. Believed to have originated from the Oort Cloud — a giant spherical shell that surrounds our solar system and contains billions of icy objects — this little comet has been slowly making its way into our solar system. At the moment, Comet C/2023 A3 is roughly 175...

New measurements of Neptune's atmosphere by a European space telescope suggest that a comet may have crashed into the gas giant about 200 years ago.Scientists analyzed the composition of Neptune's atmosphere using data from the Herschel space observatory. They found a peculiar distribution of carbon monoxide in the gas giant's atmosphere, which could be an indication of an earlier comet impact...Other similar collisions between comets (or asteroids) and planets helped the astronomers detect the telltale signs of cometary impacts.When pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter in 1994, scientists were able to examine the trajectory and debris to...

Dutch researchers have found evidence of approximately 20 mysterious, large-scale structures hidden beneath the sediment of an ancient lost ocean on Mars. The team also reports the discovery of evidence that an active Martian crust is pushing against Olympus Mons, elevating the solar system’s largest volcano. Previous scientific efforts have found hidden ice deposits and other unexpected structures on the red planet. However, the researchers behind this latest discovery say these mysterious, large-scale structures are particularly perplexing because they appear hidden beneath the sedimentary layers of an ancient ‘lost’ Martian ocean. “These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or...

This is a new image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. By comparing Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 near-infrared exposures taken in 2009, 2012, and 2023, astronomers found evidence for flickering supermassive black holes in the hearts of early galaxies. One example is seen as a bright object in the inset. Some supermassive black holes do not swallow surrounding material constantly, but in fits and bursts, making their brightness flicker. Credit: NASA, ESA, Matthew Hayes (Stockholm University), Steven V.W. Beckwith (UC Berkeley), Garth Illingworth (UC Santa Cruz), Richard Ellis (UCL), Joseph DePasquale (STScI) =========================================================================== A Survey of Hubble’s Deepest Look...

"The next fight of Starship is ready to fly. We are waiting on regulatory approval. It shouldn’t be possible to build a giant rocket faster than the paper can move from one desk to another."US Congress, NASA is NOW Forcing FAA for Starship Soaring! Here's Why | 10:00ALPHA TECH | 96.1K subscribers | 9,367 views | September 17, 2024

A recent study led by a Kansas State University engineer has provided evidence that supports the "Tired Light" theory, a century-old concept that challenges the widely accepted Big Bang theory. ... Shamir's findings align with the long-standing "Tired Light" theory, originally proposed in the 1920s. "In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble and George Lemaitre discovered that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to move away from Earth," Shamir explained. "That discovery led to the Big Bang theory, which suggests that the universe began expanding approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Around the same time, astronomer Fritz Zwicky proposed...

Webb Telescope observations reveal that supermassive black holes starve galaxies of star-forming gas, as seen in ‘Pablo’s Galaxy’, where high-speed gas expulsion by the black hole has ceased new star formation. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com ================================================================================= Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered that supermassive black holes can exhaust the resources necessary for star formation in their host galaxies, effectively starving them. This was observed in a galaxy similar in size to the Milky Way, located in the early universe. The discovery reveals that the black hole is actively preventing star formation by expelling essential star-forming gas at...

Artistic view of the imploding wire: a strong current of high-energy electrons (pink) heats up the surface, thus driving subsequent shockwaves that compress the wire radially. Credit: HZDR / T. Toncian, edited Using a novel laser method, scientists mimicked the extreme environments of stars and planets, enhancing our understanding of astrophysical phenomena and supporting nuclear fusion research. Extreme conditions prevail inside stars and planets. The pressure reaches millions of bars, and it can be several million degrees hot. Sophisticated methods make it possible to create such states of matter in the laboratory – albeit only for the blink of an...

Araneiform features on the surface of Mars, as imaged by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona) ====================================================================== Mars has spiders unlike anything else in the Solar System. Between the ocher dunes, across the scars of impacts, long-legged shadows appear to scuttle across the dust. They aren't actual, living spiders. These tendrilled shapes that appear in satellite images of the red planet are made, like almost everything on Mars, from dust. They're known as araneiforms, small systems of dark troughs that appear only in the southern polar region of Mars in the planet's spring. Exactly how the araneiforms...

In a couple of weeks, Earth will have a mini-moon for 56.6 days. Welcome to the neighborhood, 2024 PT5. Image credit: Buradaki/Shutterstock.com An asteroid heading towards Earth is set to have an unusual fate: instead of smashing through our planet’s atmosphere, it’s likely to become trapped in orbit and become a mini-moon. It will be a swift visit, however, and is likely to only remain in Earth's gravitational grasp for two months. The asteroid, named 2024 PT5, was discovered on August 7 and measures around 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter. Two astronomers from the Complutense University of Madrid, Carlos...

New research has revealed high-altitude air in Earth’s atmosphere is teeming with living organisms, a discovery that challenges our views on the dispersal of microbes and their relationship to human health. The findings, made by an international collective of climate, health, and atmospheric specialists based in Japan and Spain, has revealed Earth’s atmosphere is populated with a surprisingly diverse array of living bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Discovered at altitudes as high as 1,000 to 3,000 meters, the organisms included several potential human pathogens, revealing their ability to travel over great distances and prompting new concerns about their impact on health...

ALMA images of the star R Doradus, taken on different days, show the movements of giant convection bubbles each as big as 75 Suns...ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. Vlemmings et al. ================================================================================== The Sun is the biggest fish in our small pond of a solar system, but it’s a mere minnow compared to the whales that dwell out in the cosmos. New telescope images show a gigantic star casually blowing bubbles 75 times bigger than our Sun. The matter in our neighborhood is distributed pretty unevenly – the Sun hogs some 99.8% of all mass in the solar system, making our planets look...

Orbiting Earth on board Dragon, the Polaris Dawn crew talked with families of Folds of Honor, an organization providing educational scholarships to spouses and children of America's fallen and disabled military service-members and first responders.UPDATE! Polaris Dawn Crew Calls Military Families From Space | 9:45The Launch Pad | 419K subscribers | 128 views | September 11, 2024

Explanation: Orbiting 400 kilometers above Quebec, Canada, planet Earth, the International Space Station Expedition 59 crew captured this snapshot of the broad St. Lawrence River and curiously circular Lake Manicouagan on April 11. Right of center, the ring-shaped lake is a modern reservoir within the eroded remnant of an ancient 100 kilometer diameter impact crater. The ancient crater is very conspicuous from orbit, a visible reminder that Earth is vulnerable to rocks from space. Over 200 million years old, the Manicouagan crater was likely caused by the impact of a rocky body about 5 kilometers in diameter. Currently, there is...

The structure in Quebec, Canada. Image credit: Google Maps Aman browsing Google Maps whilst planning a camping trip in Quebec's Côte-Nord region has potentially discovered the site of an ancient asteroid impact. People have discovered all sorts of oddities while browsing through Google Maps, from "aliens" and camera-hogging cats to the answer to decades old cold cases. In the latest find, Joël Lapointe stumbled across an unusual, roughly spherical structure about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) across surrounding Marsal Lake in Quebec. Lapointe contacted geophysicist Pierre Rochette of the Centre de recherche en géosciences de l'environnement (CEREGE) in France for help...

Artist’s impression of the white dwearf star WD1054–226 orbited by clouds of planetary debris and a major planet in the habitable zone. Credit: Mark A. Garlick / markgarlick.com. ============================================================================== The lifespan of the Sun is 12.3 billion years. This is 1.5 billion years shorter than the age of the Universe, 13.8 billion years. If the Sun happened to be born in the first 1.5 billion years of cosmic history, or equivalently at a cosmological redshift above 4 when the first several percent of all stars formed, then it would have turned into a white dwarf by now. There are about...

A research team led by Lund University in Sweden has discovered a small planet that displays peculiar orbital motion. The shimmying planet, located 455 light-years from Earth, shows that planetary systems can be considerably more complex than researchers have previously thought.The newly discovered planet TOI-1408c has a mass equivalent to eight Earths and circles very close to a larger planet, the hot gas giant TOI-1408b. After starting to study both planets and their star, TOI-1408, in detail, the researchers felt puzzled. The small planet has a very peculiar orbital motion. The interactions between the two planets and their star can...

The image is a composite. 2M1207b orbits the brown dwarf from almost twice as far as Neptune does from the sun, but in the image, the planet appears positioned close to its star. The data used to capture it comes from three near-infrared exposures in different wavebands. It's a technique used to produce images for public consumption, but more importantly, to locate exoplanets around stars. That's because infrared data lessens the huge brightness difference between a star and a planet, making the latter easier to find.It was produced using the 27-foot (8.2 meters) Yepun telescope — part of the Very...

“We proved that the Einstein field equation from general relativity is actually a relativistic quantum mechanical equation,” the researchers note in their study. In simple words, this new framework connects the science that governs the macroscopic world with that of the microscopic world. Therefore, it has the potential to explain every physical phenomenon known to humanity ranging from the mysterious dark matter in space to the photons emitted by your phone’s flashlight. “To date, no globally accepted theory has been proposed to explain all physical observations,” the researchers added. They claim that their theory can challenge the foundations of physics...

Explanation: Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, named for the figures in Greek mythology Fear and Panic. Detailed surface views of smaller moon Deimos are shown in both these panels. The images were taken in 2009, by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, NASA's long-lived interplanetary internet satellite. The outermost of the two Martian moons, Deimos is one of the smallest known moons in the Solar System, measuring only about 15 kilometers across. Both Martian moons were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer working at the US Naval Observatory in Washington...