Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

Here's a video about a prehistoric mega thrust earthquake that functionally split California is two:


The prehistoric megathrust earthquakes of California reveal a seismic history far older and more powerful than the well-known 1906 San Francisco event. Using paleoseismology, scientists analyze sediment layers, fault scarps, and displaced landforms along systems like the San Andreas Fault to reconstruct massive ruptures that reached magnitudes above 8.0. These events occurred during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, reshaping river systems, altering coastlines, and leaving geological evidence of sudden, catastrophic ground displacement.​
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Trenches dug across ancient fault lines expose buried soils and offset strata, allowing researchers to date past earthquakes through radiocarbon methods and stratigraphic analysis. These findings suggest that California has experienced repeated “Big Ones” over thousands of years, long before human records existed. The scale of these quakes would have dramatically impacted Ice Age ecosystems, potentially affecting megafauna such as mammoths and saber-toothed cats.​
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This deep seismic past shows that extreme earthquakes are not rare anomalies but recurring forces that have continually reshaped the landscape, reminding us how dynamic and unstable Earth’s crust truly is.​
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#Prehistory #Earthquakes #Paleoseismology #SanAndreasFault #Geology #IceAge #NaturalDisastershttps://www.youtube.com/hashtag/naturaldisasters
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00:00 Intro
00:53 The Engine Underneath
04:03 The Diary in the Dirt
06:51 The Carrizo Plain Cluster
09:51 The Map That Broke
12:54 Living Through the End of the Ground
17:14 The Oldest Monsters
19:46 The Same Engine, Still Running
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The Sun

Sunspots as tools--ESPRESSO

I'll take mine decaf

Telescopes

asteroids
www.universetoday.com

We Could Be Hit By Five Building-sized Asteroids By The End Of The Century - So What Are We Going To Do About It?

It’s amazing how much one movie can act as a cultural touchpoint for an entire topic - even a topic as serious as defense of a planet. Popular media consistently use the 1998 movie Armageddon as a reference when talking about how we would destroy a civilization-ending asteroid. That’s despite...
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com
www.universetoday.com

Hera Aces A Massive Engine Burn On Its Way To Didymos

In September 2022, humanity crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid - on purpose. The objective of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was to see if we could intentionally modify the orbit of Dimorphos, the small moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos. According to all accounts...
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com

CosmoBlasts

Mercury
www.universetoday.com

Mercury Scout Mission Concept with Solar Sail Propulsion

The planet Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and also the most difficult for spacecraft to visit and explore. This is because as spacecraft get closer to Mercury, the Sun’s enormous gravity pulls in the spacecraft, greatly increasing its speed and making it hard to slow down without...
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com

Venus

Earth

Mars-type worlds
www.universetoday.com

Could We Actually Terraform Mars? A New Scientific Roadmap Lays Out the Blueprint—And the Risks

Reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson brings the benefits and pitfalls of efforts to terraform the Red Planet into sharp relief. Since the 1970s, when Carl Sagan first suggested the possibility that we could make Mars more Earth-like, that process has been a staple of science fiction...
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com
www.universetoday.com

Meet Orpheus - A Hopper Mission Built To Hunt For Life In Martian Volcanoes

We’ve spent decades scratching the surface of Mars trying to uncover life there. But we’ve been searching a barren wasteland bombarded by radiation and bathed in toxic perchlorates. The entire time, it's likely that it’s been too hostile to harbor extant life. So if we want a better shot at...
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com

LEO

Bracewell probes

ET language
www.psychologytoday.com

Exploring Extraterrestrial Language

Searching for alien languages sheds light on how much human languages have in common—with each other and even with animal communication.
www.psychologytoday.com www.psychologytoday.com

Uranus
www.nationalacademies.org

Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032

The Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032 will assess key scientific questions in planetary science and astrobiology, identify priority medium- and large-class missions and other initiatives, and present a comprehensive research strategy for the 2023-2032 timeframe...
www.nationalacademies.org www.nationalacademies.org

The end
astronomycast.libsyn.com

Astronomy Cast: Ep. 789: What Happens When a Planet's Star Dies

Astronomy Cast Ep. 789: What Happens When a Planet's Star Dies By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay Streamed live on Mar 30, 2026. A star like the Sun only lasts about 10 billion years and it becomes a red giant and finally a white dwarf. This is catastrophic for some of the planets, consumed by the...
astronomycast.libsyn.com

Black holes

Great....how many times have I said to properly....never mind
View: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/oMcWdzhYZ9U
 
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Study shows a massive asteroid slammed into the North Sea, triggering a 330-foot-high tsunami

A team of scientists discovered recently that Silverpit was, in fact, created by an asteroid strike more than 43 million years ago.

The discovery resolves a decades-long geological dispute and reframes the seabed as the preserved aftermath of a violent ancient impact.

Deep below muddy sediments about 80 miles off England’s east coast, Silverpit appears as a bowl with raised center and ringed faults.

Using sharper 3D scans, Dr. Uisdean Nicholson at Heriot-Watt University matched that pattern to damage only a high-speed impact.

His team then recovered rare shocked grains from nearby drill cuttings, giving the crater the hard proof earlier arguments lacked.

That combination closed the question of origin, but it also pushed scientists to reconstruct the violence of the strike.
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Space art from 1882.

publicdomainreview.org

The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings (1882)

The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings published in 1882, a collection of 15 exquisite pastel works created by the French artist, astronomer and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot.
publicdomainreview.org publicdomainreview.org
 

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  • Mare Humorum. From a study made in 1875. (Plate VI.jpg
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  • Group of sun spots and veiled spots. Observed on June 17th 1875 at 7 h. 30 m. A.M. (Plate I.jpg
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  • The planet Saturn. Observed on November 30, 1874, at 5h. 30m. P.M. (Plate X.jpg
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On 9-13 February 2026, scientists met at the Lorentz Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands, to explore past and present conditions for habitability on Venus. The scientists established the state-of-the-art knowledge of the coevolution of the planet's surface, interior, and atmosphere through time enabling habitability. The objectives and ability of planned and candidate future Venus missions to address key habitability questions were assessed. An overview of the workshop objectives and discussions is provided in this video, and the outcome is being prepared as a peer-reviewed journal paper to be submitted soon.

Credit: This video was produced by Lightcurve Films for the Lorentz Centre "Roadmap to the Exploration of Venus Habitability" workshop, 9-13 February 2026. The video production was funded by the European Astrobiology Institute.
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View: https://youtu.be/xhCdanBLASc
 
Anton Petrov has a video out concerning the possible actual discovery of Population III stars:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about a possible discovery of first ever stars in the universe
Links:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.20362
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.20363https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.20363&v=VGekUw84lxQ
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...what-were-the-first-stars-like/&v=VGekUw84lxQ
https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev....edu.au/cosmos/*/Population+III&v=VGekUw84lxQ
Previous video: • JWST Finds Something Unusual Inside GN-z11... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mqw1k9fI20

#populationiii #cosmology #firststarshttps://www.youtube.com/hashtag/firststars
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0:00 Did we finally find the first ever stars?
1:18 Star classification
4:20 GN-z11 galaxy and Hebe region
5:20 How and what was discovered
7:10 Limitations and implications
8:30 Other possibilities?
9:40 Conclusions and what's next?
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What is Proxima Centauri b like? There are several very widely differing scenarios: airless rock, a super-Europa with 'explosive' cryovolcanism, a hellish cross between Venus and Io, a world with an actual ocean but on an eccentric orbit so that there are kilometre-high tides as it wobbles back and forth, and so on.

As the creator summarises, 'If, if, if, if, if.' Or, "Nobody knows anything.' Or 'We've got a long way to go' as new telescopic technologies appear. Indeed, that's one reason to keep living.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7in6nsUWYu8


Papers linked in the description:


 
X-Ray astronomy breakthrough?

Mars

Galaxy core

On space
gizmodo.com

This New Image of Mars Is Not the Same Thing NASA Saw in 1976

A new image shows a striking contrast between Mars' desert-like terrain against dark deposits of volcanic ash.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com
www.wired.com

The Caves That Could Help Us Find, or Become, Aliens

From lava tubes on Mars to ice pockets on Europa, subterranean environments may offer the best chance of finding life—and living safely—beyond our planet.
www.wired.com www.wired.com
bigthink.com

Earth’s orbit is getting crowded. Here’s how we avoid a disaster.

We’ve populated low-Earth orbit with satellites in record time — now we have to figure out how to keep it safe.
bigthink.com bigthink.com
 
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Rare Comet Visible For First Time In 170,000 Years This Weekend

Days after astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II mission witnessed a total solar eclipse from the moon’s far side, a new comet is emerging in the predawn sky — and it could soon become visible to the naked eye. After a widely followed moon mission, this comet offers a rare chance for anyone to witness a dramatic event in the night sky without special equipment. Here’s everything you need to know about comet Pan-STARRS, also known as comet C/2025 R3 (Pan-STARRS).
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…

The comet will reach perihelion (closest to the sun) on Sunday, April 19, passing at a safe distance of about 0.5 AU — half the Earth-sun distance — meaning it is unlikely to disintegrate like last week’s “sungrazer” comet MAPS, which vaporized.
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…

Comet Pan-STARRS will make its closest approach to Earth on Monday, April 27, when it is expected to be at its brightest, though by then it will be impossible to see from the Northern Hemisphere.

Observers in the Northern Hemisphere should look low in the eastern sky about 90 minutes before sunrise until April 20. It’s currently moving close to the four bright stars of the Great Square of Pegasus.
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Debris

Self-interacting dark matter

Or no?

Collapse

Unfolding

Cousins

Fossils

X-ray

Haze ochre art
 
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Flyaway said:
When the Earth Had Supermountains:
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with Africa moving into Europa and near East geological
it will form new supermountains
from Gibraltar to Tibet were the India subcontinent moving into Asia
even longer if Australia compact everything on it move northwards

that would be somewhere in 50 Million years from now, follow by new evolutionary boost
 
Anton Petrov has out a new video concerning new findings as to where the solar the solar nebula the Sun was formed in originally was:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about solar twins and migration across the Milky Way
Link:
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.1...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...i.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.11155&v=w63eHw4Npx8
Other videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdNemHgT2_4
• Strange Comet Like Objects In the Orion Ne...

• Forget Betelgeuse! First Ever Star Embryos... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wis4czNcohI
#milkyway #science #astronomy
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0:00 Sun and solar twins
0:42 How we thought the Sun was born
3:05 Solar twins and why they matter
4:25 New study from Japan and discovery of 6500 stars
5:15 Main discovery - birth place near the center
6:30 How did the Sun migrate so far?
8:30 What happened billions of years ago?
9:25 Implications and conclusions
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It appears that Vesuvius is "Hotter" than expected:


The infamous Mount Vesuvius volcano in Italy produces elevated levels of radioactivity. And this is not due to some accident, as rather much of the volcano and its lavas display this same property. Thankfully, the level of radioactivity is not considered harmful, but is considered anomalous. So, why exactly does Mount Vesuvius produce elevated levels of radioactivity unlike at most other world volcanoes? Today's video will answer this question through the knowledge and analysis of a geologist.​
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And yes, visiting Mount Vesuvius really IS safe. I visited it recently myself :D.
Thumbnail Photo Credit: Keaton Terry, Used with Permission
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...rg/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode&v=wX4nUuV7YcU
Sources/Citations:
[1] INGV
[2] Breit, G.N., and Hall, S.M., 2011, Deposit model for volcanogenic uranium deposits: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011–1255, 5 p.
[3] The "isotopes of lanthanum" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanthanum, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[4] The "isotopes of lutetium" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutetium, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[6] The "isotopes of potassium" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[7] The "isotopes of rhenium" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenium, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[8] The "isotopes of rubidium" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubidium, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[9] The "isotopes of samarium" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarium, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[10] The "isotopes of thorium" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[11] The "isotopes of uranium" chart on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium, CC BY-SA 4.0.
[12] Radon surveys and monitoring at active volcanoes: learning from Vesuvius, Stromboli, La Soufrière and VillarricaC. Cigolini , M. Laiolo , D. Coppola , C. Trovato , and G. Borgogno
[13] Riccardo Avanzinelli, Martina Casalini, Tim Elliott, Sandro Conticelli; Carbon fluxes from subducted carbonates revealed by uranium excess at Mount Vesuvius, Italy. Geology 2018;; 46 (3): 259–262. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/G39766.1https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://doi.org/10.1130/G39766.1&v=wX4nUuV7YcU
[14] Rapolla, A., Vittozzi, P. Radioactivity of Vesuvian lavas and their dating by the disequilibrium Ra226 - U238 . Bull Volcanol 32, 353–364 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02599774https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ps://doi.org/10.1007/BF02599774&v=wX4nUuV7YcU

0:00 Vesuvius Radioactivity
1:27 Radioactive Isotopes
2:31 Vesuvius Model
4:13 Summit Fumaroles
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What if you stood on a planet orbiting Pulsar?


Exploring exactly what if you stood on a planet orbiting a pulsar will reveal the ultimate cosmic death trap hidden in the deepest parts of our galaxy.
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You are about to touch down on a dead, irradiated world bathed in the relentless glow of a rapidly spinning neutron star. We break down the agonizing physical reality of trying to survive under a cosmic lighthouse that violently blasts lethal energy across the void. This documentary explores the brutal magnetic fields and the terrifying physics that would instantly vaporize any unprotected deep space explorer.​
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Many people wonder what happens to a solar system after a massive star explodes in a violent supernova. We are taught that these cosmic blasts destroy absolutely everything within light-years of the impact zone. But sometimes, the charred remnants of terrestrial worlds actually manage to survive the initial shockwave. These dead, rocky bodies are left circling a hyper-dense, collapsed core known as a neutron star. What happens when you walk on the surface of a world locked in this terrifying gravitational trap? The alien sky above you would be completely dominated by a spinning sphere of pure, superheated matter. These stellar corpses rotate at mind-bending speeds, sometimes spinning hundreds of times every single second. As they spin, they project twin beams of lethal electromagnetic radiation out from their violent magnetic poles. This creates a blinding, high-energy strobe effect that relentlessly sweeps across the surrounding planetary bodies. If you were standing directly in the path of this cosmic lighthouse, the radiation wave would be instantly fatal. Your advanced spacesuit would offer absolutely no protection against the continuous barrage of gamma rays and X-rays. The immense magnetic forces at play would also violently strip away any remaining atmosphere on the dead world. Even the basic atomic structure of your own body would be warped and torn apart by the intense magnetic fields. Understanding the physics of these extreme environments shows us how violently hostile stellar evolution truly is. We are essentially looking at a zombie solar system that continues to exist long after its parent star has completely died. By studying these distant, pulsing radio signals, astronomers can slowly map out the darkest graveyards of our galaxy. The brutal reality of these dead worlds is far more terrifying than any science fiction nightmare.​
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Flares

Planetary unfolding

Titan lakes

Shell games

Axion hunt

On gravity

Cygnus
physicsworld.com

Lure of the black hole: from science to art – Physics World

An excerpt from art historian and author Lynn Gamwell’s book Conjuring the Void: the Art of Black Holes
physicsworld.com

Core
 
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Nuts

Exoplanet database

3D Universe map

Torjan

Black holes

The night sky
www.universetoday.com

A New Eye Opens at the Top of the World.

Thirty four years ago, a group of Cornell scientists looked at a remote Chilean mountaintop and imagined what might be built there one day. That day has arrived. The Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope has just opened its eyes on the universe from one of the most extreme observatory sites ever...
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com

No cheap
 
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