Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

https://twitter.com/x/status/1995579411429777818
View: https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1995579411429777818


So you’re in space and on the way to Mars, what next? [Dec 1]

Here's an overview of the current planned TCMs, though the dates and durations are subject to change:

Trajectory Correction Maneuver 1 (TCM-1):

Expected date: December 2nd 2025 on Blue, December 8th 2025 on Gold
15 seconds long, consuming 2 kg of propellant to deliver 11.5m/s of delta V.

This is our initial demonstration maneuver to verify all systems perform as expected. Our fault management limits will be at their tightest to be conservative, based on margined modelling of how we expect the systems to perform.
Once it's executed, we'll update our engine performance models including Isp, or specific impulse, (i.e. fuel efficiency), thrust, and mass flow rates, as well as parameters specifying system performance such as temperatures, pressures and flow.

Trajectory Correction Maneuver 2 (TCM-2):

Expected date: December 11th 2025 on Blue and December 16th 2025 on Gold
257 seconds long, consuming ~33 kg of propellant to deliver 200m/s of delta V.

This is the big one. After we execute this burn, we will recalculate our mass margins and determine exactly how much mass we can bring to Mars. There are always small variations and tolerances in every design. So far, we have assumed the lowest design performance for the system and now we get to see just how much margin we have. The better our manufacturing, the more fuel we have in reserve to extend the science mission for as long as possible at Mars, enabling the UCB-SSL team to gather more data, giving scientists and researchers greater insights. For example, the efficiency of an engine is characterized by its Isp, measured in units of seconds. A few seconds more Isp (1% more Isp) could result in allowing us to bring 20kg more propellant at Mars, enough for half a year of station keeping in orbit.
Although this is a longer burn, we have room to adapt to any contingencies should it not go perfectly. Burning a few seconds short is easily fixable on the next trajectory correction maneuver. But if we don’t... that’s equivalent to missing Mars by 100,000 km.

Trajectory Correction Maneuver 3 (TCM-3):

TCM-3 is tentatively planned as a final clean-up maneuver, but it may not be needed (10 m/s or less). TCM-3 is the last maneuver that Rocket Lab will be operating directly. Once it's complete (or if it gets skipped), we'll hand off control to the team at Berkeley to operate the rest of the mission, but we’ll be cheering them on all the way to Mars!

Although TCM-3 is the last time Rocket Lab will be operating an engine maneuver, Blue and Gold still have some critical ones ahead. After patiently loitering in orbit at the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2 for around a year, Blue and Gold’s engines will ignite once again for a Trans-Mars Injection burn in November 2026, then after a 10 month cruise to the Red Planet they’ll undertake the Mars Orbit Insertion maneuvers in September 2027. Rocket Lab will be providing support to UC Berkeley for these two critical maneuvers.
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Exomoons around rogue planets may house life, from Anton Petrov:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about exomoons, rogue planets and habitability
Links:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.05155
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...le/10.3847/2041-8213/ae0290/pdf&v=UPg2s8IW9GY
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.03392https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.03392&v=UPg2s8IW9GY
Previous videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pszyf-IBDto
• TRAPPIST-1 Updates: With First 3 Planets (...

• Exciting Discoveries About Rogue Planets a...

• Bizarre Rogue Planet Is Growing Faster Tha...

• Potential Discovery of an Exomoon That's B...

• We Finally Have Evidence of an Exotic Moon...

• Discovery of 6 New Exomoons Around Distant... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQdbhHU-6rE
#rogueplanet #exomoon #habitability


0:00 Exomoons and habitability1:25 Why can't we find them though?
2:35 Interesting new method using volcanic emissions
3:55 Disc forming moons
5:35 Rogue planet moons - perfect for habitability?
8:35 Free floating planet evidence of moons
10:30 Red dwarfs may not have any moons
11:50 Conclusions
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Flyaway said:
A dying satellite could use its final moments to photograph the infamous asteroid Apophis
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Perhaps this craft as well?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5109/1
Lots to choose from
https://www.iflscience.com/18-aster...-all-of-them-were-discovered-that-month-81757
Comets
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-interstellar-icy-volcanoes-rewrite-comets.htmlhttps://www.space.com/astronomy/com...d-even-glimpses-interstellar-invader-3i-atlas
Exploding stars
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-images-stars-real.html
Huge sunspot
https://www.livescience.com/space/t...red-on-the-sun-and-its-pointed-right-at-earth
Shields down
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...what-shields-us-from-space-weather-180987800/

Misc:
https://www.livescience.com/space/a...-scientists-have-seen-space-photo-of-the-weekhttps://www.livescience.com/space/j...rachnid-like-demon-lurking-on-gas-giants-moonhttps://www.unexplained-mysteries.c...covered-a-planet-that-is-the-shape-of-a-lemonhttps://thedebrief.org/exciting-imp...ses-chances-of-finding-extraterrestrial-life/https://www.sciencealert.com/alien-...t-about-to-make-its-closest-approach-to-earth
Avi at it again
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/1...-for-the-existence-of-intelligent-alien-life/
Impact
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqBpksv4R0Y&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D
 
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It would be really interesting to see what Apophis looks like from a satellite especially if they could also use Chandrayann-3 to take pictures of it, we could get detailed images of the surface and see what the make up of the components are.
 
Thanks to the projected rapid growth of mega satellite constellations over the coming decades both ground and space based astronomy will become increasingly difficult if not verging on the impossible due to light pollution. About the only ones not impacted are those like JWST well away from Earth. I imagine amateur astronomy will be just as badly impacted. Or even just looking up at the night sky.

Satellite megaconstellations will threaten space-based astronomy | Nature


Rapidly growing satellite constellations have raised strong concerns among the scientific community. Reflections from satellites can be visible to the unaided eye and extremely bright for professional telescopes. These trails already affect astronomical images across the complete electromagnetic spectrum, with a noticeable cost for operations and mitigation efforts. Contrary to popular perception, satellite trails affect not only ground-based observatories but also space observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope5. However, the current number of satellites is only a fraction (less than 3%) of those to be launched in the next decade. Here we show a forecast of the satellite trail contamination levels for a series of international low-Earth-orbit telescopes on the basis of the proposed telecommunication industry constellations. Our results show that if these constellations are completed, one-third of the images of the Hubble Space Telescope will be contaminated, while the SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), ARRAKIHS (Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys) and Xuntian space telescopes will have more than 96% of their exposures affected, with 5.6+/-0.3, 69+21-22 and 92+11-10 trails per exposure, respectively, with an average surface brightness of μ = 19 ± 2 mag arcsec−2. Our results demonstrate that light contamination is a growing threat for space telescope operations. We propose a series of actions to minimize the impact of satellite constellations, allowing researchers to predict, model and correct unwanted satellite light pollution from science observations
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As an amateur astronomer myself I can see why the astronomical comunity is up in arms about the satellite constelations causing all sorts of problems with observations Flyaway, they could even be worse than light pollution which was my main concern when I was growing up in the central belt of Scotland which was always a problem with the BP Grangemouth petrochemical plant as it then was being close by.
 
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Astronomers spot one of the largest spinning structures ever found in the Universe

An international team led by the University of Oxford has identified one of the largest rotating structures ever reported: a “razor-thin” string of galaxies embedded in a giant spinning cosmic filament, 140 million light-years away. The findings, published today (4 December) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, could offer valuable new insights into how galaxies formed in the early Universe.
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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1108139
 
That's not really that surprising imho. Star systems are basically full of dust (clouds) which absorb outside radiation to some extend not to mention all the oortcloud. We are also leaving in a galactic "shadow" as far as supernova coverage is concerned for the past ~3 billion years.
 
Unless Betelgeuse explodes sometime in the next thousand years or millions of years Seragina, then you are right in saying that we have been in a quiet part of the Milky Way Galaxy for the past 3 billion years.
 
FighterJock said:
Unless Betelgeuse explodes sometime in the next thousand years or millions of years Seragina, then you are right in saying that we have been in a quiet part of the Milky Way Galaxy for the past 3 billion years.
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Well, the (short term) flash of a single supernova at that distance isn't a problem unless it's a hypernova beaming at us. The more troublesome issue are the remnant cloud that would eventually end up enclosing the solar system. The question is how much longterm radioactive elements there could be? We know most elements aren't produced by supernovas but by more ordinary (neutron star) novas.
 
Close brush with 2 hot stars millions of years ago left a mark just beyond our solar system

Nearly 4.5 million years ago, two large, hot stars brushed tantalizingly close to Earth’s sun. They left behind a trace in the clouds of gas and dust that swirl just beyond our solar system—almost like the scent of perfume after someone has left the room.
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https://www.colorado.edu/today/2025...rs-ago-left-mark-just-beyond-our-solar-system
Related paper:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae10a6
 
A new look at TRAPPIST-1e, an Earth-sized, habitable-zone exoplanet

"Based on our most recent work, we suggest that the previously reported tentative hint of an atmosphere is more likely to be 'noise' from the host star," Ranjan said. "However, this does not mean that TRAPPIST-1e does not have an atmosphere – we just need more data."

Ranjan pointed out that while James Webb is revolutionizing exoplanet science, the telescope was not originally designed to study small, Earth-like exoplanets.

"It was designed long before we knew such worlds existed, and we are fortunate that it can study them at all," he said. "There is only a handful of Earth-sized planets in existence for which it could potentially ever measure any kind of detailed atmosphere composition."

New answers could come from NASA's Pandora mission, currently in development and slated for launch in early 2026. Led by Daniel Apai, professor of astronomy and planetary sciences at the U of A Steward Observatory, Pandora is a small satellite designed to characterize exoplanet atmospheres and their host stars. Pandora will monitor stars with potentially habitable planets before, during and after they transit in front of their host stars.
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https://news.arizona.edu/news/new-look-trappist-1e-earth-sized-habitable-zone-exoplanet
 
Flyaway said:
A new look at TRAPPIST-1e, an Earth-sized, habitable-zone exoplanet
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Why is that methane signature so important ?
Methane is volatile, it decompose over time, it must refill
Either was this a Volcano eruption on Trappist-1e, or a lifeforms that produce Methane as waste product !
 
Brett Davidson said:
The title's clickbatey, but the content's more serious. Set aside an hour and ten minutes to watch it all.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlkZhOj_yhg&t=1864s


00:00 Intro
01:28 Planetary Habitability
15:07 Superhabitable Worlds
25:10 Red Dwarfs
32:47 High-Gravity Planets
35:54 Exomoons
38:03 Alternative Biochemistries
54:36 Intelligent Aliens
01:03:07 Final Thoughts & Outro
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If one wants to get an idea what alien life might look like then you only need to look to Earth's distant past in the Paleozoic era specifically the Ediacaran (Although the Ediacaran period is right at the end of the Neoproterozoic era) and Cambrian periods as there where some truly bizarre animal lifeforms.​
 
Anton Petrov has a new video out concerning the discovery of hyper giant stars so massive they don't make sense:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about supermassive stars galaxy
Links:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.04148
Additional videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkkWrKMDzzk
• Little Red Dots May Be Strange Cocoon Obje...

• JWST Finds Strong Evidence for the First S...

• Best Evidence For Elusive Population III S... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM3icldUUYM

#supermassivestar #astrophysics #science
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0:00 Strange JWST galaxy with bizarre stars
0:40 What galaxy is this?
2:29 How normal stars are produced
4:50 Why this galaxy is so strange
7:55 Explanation: supermassive stars
9:30 What this implies
10:55 Still a hypothesis
12:20 Conclusions
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NMaude said:
If one wants to get an idea what alien life might look like then you only need to look to Earth's distant past in the Paleozoic era specifically the Ediacaran (Although the Ediacaran period is right at the end of the Neoproterozoic era) and Cambrian periods as there where some truly bizarre animal lifeforms.​
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And that's just one percent of the fossils we've discovered, out of a total of one percent of totally unknown species with some fossilized specimens yet to be discovered.
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...s-from-the-cambrian-period.42870/#post-648455
 
Flaring black hole whips up ultra-fast winds

Leading X-ray space telescopes XMM-Newton and XRISM have spotted an extraordinary blast from a supermassive black hole. In a matter of hours, the gravitational monster whipped up powerful winds, flinging material out into space at eye-watering speeds of 60 000 km per second.
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https://www.esa.int/Science_Explora.../Flaring_black_hole_whips_up_ultra-fast_winds
https://twitter.com/x/status/1998422476292833651
View: https://twitter.com/NASAWebb/status/1998422476292833651


NASA’s Webb Identifies Earliest Supernova to Date, Shows Host Galaxy [Dec 9]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has observed a supernova that exploded when the universe was only 730 million years old — the earliest detection of its kind to date. Webb’s crisp near-infrared images also allowed astronomers to locate the supernova’s faint host galaxy. The telescope took these quick-turn observations July 1 in support of an international group of telescopes that detected a super bright flash of light known as a gamma-ray burst in mid-March.
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https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/maven/2025/12/09/nasa-teams-work-maven-spacecraft-signal-loss/
NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft, in orbit around Mars, experienced a loss of signal with ground stations on Earth on Dec. 6. Telemetry from MAVEN had showed all subsystems working normally before it orbited behind the Red Planet. After the spacecraft emerged from behind Mars, NASA’s Deep Space Network did not observe a signal.

The spacecraft and operations teams are investigating the anomaly to address the situation. More information will be shared once it becomes available.
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At Earth's core
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-ghostly-solar-neutrinos-caught-carbon.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2025-12-earth-core-onion-layered.html
Our Moon
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-lunar-soil-analyses-reveal-space.html
Europa's spider
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-damhn-alla-newly-christened-spider.html
Rock Giants?
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-uranus-neptune-giants.html
Black hole orbit curiosity
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-einstein-theory-astronomers-star-black.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2025-12-black-hole-star-student-gamma.html
Distant galaxies
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-galaxy-clusters-physics.html
Our Sun's atmosphere:
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-sun-magnetic-secrets-ai-powered.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2025-12-parker-solar-probe-spies.htmlhttps://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/astronomers-create-first-map-suns-outer-boundary
Dark Energy from the Sun's tachocline?
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.063023
 
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First X-Ray Image Of Comet 3I/ATLAS Reveals Signature Unseen In Other Interstellar Objects

Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is different from its predecessors, 1I/’Oumuamua, discovered in 2017, and Comet 2I/Borisov in 2019. It’s faster, it’s older, more active, and estimated to be larger. Now, observations from the X-ray telescope XRISM suggest that it is also the first interstellar object with an X-ray signature.

Before the conspiracy theorists claim that this is some sort of engine signature or a weapon charging up, let’s stress that it is perfectly normal for comets to emit X-rays. This emission comes from specific interactions between the plasma released at high speed by the Sun and the coma, the atmosphere of the comet. This is gas and dust released as the comet gets near the Sun.
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https://www.iflscience.com/first-x-...re-unseen-in-other-interstellar-objects-81857
 
Uranus and Neptune might be rock giants

The planets in the Solar System are typically divided into three categories based on their composition: the four terrestrial rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), followed by the two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and finally two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). According to the work carried by the UZH scientific team, Uranus and Neptune might actually be more rocky than icy. The new study does not claim the two blue planets to be one or the other type, water- or rock- rich, it rather challenges that ice-rich is the only possibility. This interpretation is also consistent with the discovery that the dwarf planet Pluto is rock-dominated in composition.
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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1109137
Astronomers find first direct evidence of “Monster Stars” from the cosmic dawn

For two decades, astronomers have puzzled over how supermassive black holes – some of the brightest objects in the universe – could exist less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Normal stars simply couldn't create such massive black holes quickly enough.

Now, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team has found the first compelling evidence that solves this cosmic mystery: “monster stars” weighing between 1,000 and 10,000 times the mass of our Sun existed in the early universe.
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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/110918
New research on flares from a hot-tempered star could inform the search for habitable planets

Like a toddler right before naptime, TRAPPIST-1 is a small yet moody star. This little star, which sits in the constellation Aquarius about 40 light-years from Earth, spits out bursts of energy known as “flares” about six times a day.

New research led by the University of Colorado Boulder takes the deepest look yet at the physics behind TRAPPIST-1’s celestial temper tantrums. The team’s findings could help scientists search for habitable planets beyond Earth’s solar system.
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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1108563
 
Flyaway said:
Cool Worlds - The Most Tragic Solution to the Fermi Paradox:

View: https://youtu.be/jSlbplt7GhA
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In my opinion, the paradox does not exist. If it is not possible to exceed the speed of light, it is indifferent to the existence of other forms of intelligent life of which we will never know anything.

If it is possible to exceed the speed of light by technical means, everyone in the galaxy will use FTL communication so that they do not have to wait three hundred years in a two-sentence conversation.

A civilization with FTL technology will have already found the solution to all its problems, immortality included and should not have the need to conquer the universe in search of raw materials... an idea of the nineteenth century.

If your scientists are curious about our little low-rent mud ball, they can use sophisticated sensors we can't even imagine figuring out everything they need to know.

It is inconceivable that an ET would risk exposure to our viruses physically by shaking hands with a corn farmer or scaring an elderly woman in the kitchen of her isolated farm.

An even more advanced civilization would not even inhabit the same area of the Galaxy as we do.

There is no paradox.
 
Justo Miranda said:
It is inconceivable that an ET would risk exposure to our viruses
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A true extra-terrestrial is exceedingly unlikely to be vulnerable to any earth viruses. Those viruses are tailored to infect earth lifeforms by hijacking their gene-transcription mechanisms. I expect those mechanisms to be unique to earth life.
Bacterial and fungal infections are equally bound to earth lifeforms as hosts.
Justo Miranda said:
An even more advanced civilization would not even inhabit the same area of the Galaxy as we do.
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How do you know?
Justo Miranda said:
A civilization with FTL technology will have already found the solution to all its problems, immortality included and should not have the need to conquer the universe in search of raw materials... an idea of the nineteenth century.
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You are assuming realising FTL - it might be impossible - automatically leads to the level of knowledge needed to reach immortality - then opting in. Magical thinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...haracters#Wowbagger,_the_Infinitely_Prolonged
 

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