Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

NASA Press Release:

NASA’s Curiosity Finds Organic Molecules Never Seen Before on Mars

Excerpt from the article (click the link to read the rest)

After years of lab work, the results are in: A rock that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drilled and analyzed in 2020 includes the most diverse collection of organic molecules ever found on the Red Planet. Of the 21 carbon-containing molecules identified in the sample, seven of them were detected for the first time on Mars.

Scientists have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes — either path is possible — but their discovery renewed confirmation that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life. What’s more, the molecules join a growing list of compounds known to be preserved in rocks even after billions of years of exposure on Mars to radiation, which can break down these molecules over time.

The findings are detailed in a new paper published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
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Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-70656-0
 
Lunar Dump
https://hackaday.com/2026/04/22/what-have-we-dumped-on-the-moon/

Metal rich
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-nasa-curiosity-rover-uncovers-metalrich.htmlhttps://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JE009153

Gas giant
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-exo-jupiter-clouds.html

Solar find
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sun-simulations-reveal-cool-prominences.html

Other news
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-recreating-dying-stars-reveals-hydrogen.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dual-spacecraft-capture-hemispheres-interstellar.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-size-limit-habitable-exoplanets.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-gravitational-colliding-black-holes-dark.html
https://sciencex.com/news/2026-05-perseverance-rover-uncovers-role-mars.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-perseverance-rover-snaps-selfie-western.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-waterworn-chaos-mars-length-italy.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-martian-tides-strong-ancient-landscape.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tess-reveals-fullest-night-sky.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-saturn-icy-lost-moon-chrysalis.html
 
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publiusr said:
I am hoping there are diamonds on its surface.
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Lucy in the Sky with diamonds;):D.

On another note we maybe in for an astronomical treat during our lifetimes, from Anton Petrov:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about an incredible discovery of an impending super massive black hole collision inside Markarian 541
Links:
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advanc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markari...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ikipedia.org/wiki/Markarian_501&v=x2fzUiscgwk
Final parsec problem: • Final Parsec Problem - The Paradox of Supe... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AW8w4dvT_A
Vibrating universe: • Major Discovery of Loud Gravitational Vibr... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTDJ5uVlCOA
#mrk541 #blazar #blackhole


0:00 Markarian 501 object
2:02 Recent observations and what was done
3:05 What we know about Mrk 501 and its mysteries
4:30 Black hole collisions explained and final parsec problem
5:50 What's happening here then? What do we know?
7:50 Why this is so important
9:50 Conclusions and what's next?
10:30 Can it be something else?
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NASA's TESS spacecraft discovers a weird system of exoplanets unlike anything seen before

Using NASA's exoplanet-hunting spacecraft TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets (ASTEP) on the Antarctic Plateau, astronomers have discovered a rare and uniquely weird planetary system.

The extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, that swirl around the star TOI-201 have orbits that are changing so rapidly that astronomers can see the changes in real time. The behavior of the system, located around 370 light-years from Earth, is something scientists have never seen before.
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‘Serendipitous’ discovery of Martian ripple marks reveals an ancient sandstorm

The search for life on Mars involves the efforts of scientists from many different disciplines. An important aspect of that search is to study Martian sedimentary rocks for information about the planet’s environment when it is likely that the surface environment hosted abundant water and therefore more habitable, around three to four billion years ago. Now, new research published in the journal Geology shows evidence of an intense sandstorm that swept through Mars’ Gale crater over three billion years ago.
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…

The finding comes from the discovery of ripple structures by Banham and a team of scientists working with the Curiosity rover. These windblown sedimentary structures were formed in a desert environment, and resemble millimeter-thick “crinkly” laminations, says Banham. Wind ripple strata like this are rarely found on Earth and have never before been observed on Mars. They can only be formed when sustained winds move large amounts of loose sand. While most sedimentary structures preserved in desert rocks on Earth or Mars record longer-term trends from seasonal winds to several thousands of years, supercritical climbing wind ripples document evidence of storms that lasted only minutes to hours.
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Spacecraft data reveals surprising detail about Saturn's magnetic "shield"

Scientists analysing data from the Cassini-Huygens mission have uncovered a significant structural surprise in Saturn’s protective magnetic bubble.

Researchers say this discovery confirms that giant planets operate under a different magnetospheric regime from the Earth’s.
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Astronomers have identified the most primitive star ever found

In the exurbs of the Milky Way, near a satellite galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, researchers have discovered the most metal-poor, chemically primitive star ever found, according to new research from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

Findings from the survey are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Composed primarily of hydrogen and helium and containing less than 0.005% of the metals in the Sun, the chemical makeup of the star SDSS J0715-7334 is the closest analog yet found to the first stars that formed in the universe. Studying this low-mass, ultra-metal-poor star could help clarify astronomers’ ideas about the first generation of stars, called Population III stars, which astronomers cannot observe directly.
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Star light, star bright, baby stars blow rings alight

Researchers have uncovered new insights into the early development of baby stars. Publishing in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a research team from Kyushu University and Kagawa University reports that during the early growth period of a baby star, the protostellar disk—the dense disk of gas and dust that surrounds the star—expels magnetic flux and forms a giant warm ring of gas about 1,000 au (astronomical units) in size. The research team explains that these “sneezes” of matter and magnetic energy help the baby star release excess energy, leading to proper star formation.
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How Jupiter cultivated more large moons than Saturn

The two largest planets in our Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn, also have the largest satellite systems, or the most moons. At present, Jupiter's reported moon count stands at more than 100 moons, and along with its many rings Saturn has more than 280 reported moons. Not all these moons are equal, however. Jupiter's moon family has four large members, including the largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede, while Saturn's family is dominated by one large moon, Titan, the Solar System's second largest.
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We passed an interesting milestone this week on New Horizons.
https://twitter.com/x/status/2045127207077450215
View: https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/2045127207077450215#m


Alan Stern
@AlanStern
We passed an interesting milestone this week on New Horizons. As of this week, the spacecraft is farther from Pluto than it was at launch! How cool is that? :)
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The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains 40 times more semi-heavy water than Earth's oceans

Demonstrating that its system of origin formed under extreme conditions

https://twitter.com/x/status/2047308325352559059
View: https://x.com/almaobs/status/2047308325352559059#m
 
The Most Energetic Neutrino Ever Detected Could Be Primordial

One of the foremost neutrino detectors is called KM3NeT, which stands for the Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope. It's on the sea-floor in the Mediterranean, and in February 2023, it detected the most energetic neutron ever observed. It's called KM3-230213A, and it's estimated energy was 220 PeV (220 x 1015 electron volts or 220 million billion electron volts). That's an unbelievable amount of energy, and ever since it was detected, physicists have been trying to determine its source.
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Talking asteroid bombardment it appears that the US Midwest had a huge asteroid impact 74 million years ago, from The First Dawn:


The Manson Crater lies hidden beneath the farmland of Iowa, marking one of the most powerful asteroid impacts in North American history. Formed about 74 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous, this 35-kilometer-wide structure was created when a stony chondrite asteroid struck a shallow inland sea that once covered the region. Geological evidence from drilling cores, shocked quartz, and melt rock confirms the extreme pressures and temperatures generated in the impact.​
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At velocities near 17 kilometers per second, the collision released energy equivalent to hundreds of thousands of megatons of TNT. The impact vaporized seawater and sedimentary rock, excavating a deep crater and triggering regional devastation, including seismic waves and massive water displacement. Unlike the later Chicxulub impact, this event did not cause a global extinction, but it reshaped the local environment on a catastrophic scale.​
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Today, the crater remains buried under glacial deposits, detectable only through geophysical mapping and drilling. Beneath the quiet plains, the Manson impact preserves a record of sudden planetary violence and the immense forces that have shaped Earth’s surface.​
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#MansonCrater #AsteroidImpact #Cretaceous #Geology #PrehistoricEarth #ImpactCrater #earthhistory
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00:00 Intro
00:51 The Invisible Crater
04:44 The Prehistoric Target
08:23 The 38,000 MPH Arrival
12:34 The 394,000-Megaton Vaporization
16:28 The Tap Water Proof
19:49 The Apocalypse Under the Corn
22:13 Outro
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I have heard about this theory before that concerns the Higgs field which could or could not one day change and the universe would just vanish, certainly this is the stuff of nightmares. :eek:
 
Astronomer Tracking Near-Earth Asteroid 2001 CA21 Finds Potential Shortcut To Mars

Using the shortcut found by tracking the asteroid, it would take just 153 days to get to Mars and return to the Earth.
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…

”The analysis intentionally adopts this early-epoch solution because that preliminary osculating orbit exhibits a dual-node intersection geometry, in which the resulting heliocentric path intersects, or closely approaches, the heliocentric distance ranges of both Earth and Mars," Oliveira Souza explains in the paper.
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…

”Among the examined alignments, only the 2031 configuration satisfies both the energetic and geometric requirements under the adopted anchoring criteria," Oliveira Souza explains. "Within that window, two complete and dynamically closed Earth–Mars–Earth architectures are identified: a 153-day rapid configuration (33 + 30 + 90 days) and a 226-day feasible configuration (56 + 35 + 135 days)."
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Related paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576526002456
 
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Trump’s NASA Administrator wants to bring back Pluto as a planet in our solar system

“While NASA administrators are free to wax nostalgic for the days when Pluto was a planet, the actual scientists working in the field will continue to try to explain and classify objects in the solar system in the way that actually helps us understand the world in which we live,” Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, told The Independent in an email.
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He will have a hard job trying to bring back Pluto as a planet the IAU is in control of what happens Astronomically speaking so he is not in charge of the naming of objects in our Solar System, it is the same thing with the naming of Stars.
 
 
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NASA Connects Little Red Dots with Chandra, Webb

A newly discovered object may be a key to unlocking the true nature of a mysterious class of sources that astronomers have found in the early universe in recent years.

A “X-ray dot” found by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory could explain what the hundreds or potentially thousands of these objects are. A paper describing the results published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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Why stars spin down, or up, before they die

Kyoto, Japan -- From birth to death, stars generally slow by 100 to 1000 times their initial rotation rates; in other words, they spin down. The Sun's total angular momentum has declined as material is gradually blown off at the surface as solar wind. By observing this, astronomers have theorized the interaction between magnetic fields and plasma flow to be the most efficient way to spin down stars.

Why and how this happens has long interested astronomers, and recently an observational technique called astroseismology, which measures a star's natural oscillation frequencies, has made it possible to measure the internal rotation rates and magnetic fields of other stars in our galaxy. From this huge population, a picture of how stellar rotation decreases with stellar age has emerged, one that suggests that current theory is insufficient to explain the dramatic decrease in rotation.
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrDD49p-vIY


00:00 – The Mystery of a Captured World
00:42 – What Are Rogue Planets?
01:30 – How the Sun Could Capture a Planet
02:18 – The Physics of Gravitational Trapping
03:05 – Evidence from the Outer Solar System
03:58 – Strange Orbits and Hidden Clues
04:45 – Could Planet Nine Be a Captured World?
05:36 – Simulations and Scientific Theories
06:20 – What This Means for Planetary Formation
07:10 – The Bigger Cosmic Picture
08:00 – Final Thoughts: Are We Missing Something?
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What is the Most Common Type of Planet in the Galaxy?

For the past decade, astronomers thought they had a reasonable answer to that question. Around stars like our Sun, the two dominant planet types are sub-Neptunes, worlds resembling a shrunken Neptune, with thick gaseous envelopes and super-Earths, rocky planets up to ten times the mass of our own. Surveys had found them everywhere, orbiting star after star, and the assumption quietly took hold that these planets must be equally widespread across the Galaxy as a whole.

New research from McMaster University has just demolished that assumption. The problem with the earlier picture was that the stars and planets studied were not fully representative of the plethora of stars in the Galaxy. Sun like stars for example, for all their familiarity, are actually a minority in the Milky Way. The most numerous stars in our Galaxy are mid-to-late M dwarfs (red dwarfs), small, dim, and cool, ranging from just eight to forty percent the size of our Sun. For years, their faintness made them almost impossible to study in detail, leaving a gaping hole in our understanding of where planets come from.
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Just a joke since it affects the climate. That and the Mars Starship might wind up looking like an old car part…

Now this…Heinlein approved.
https://starship-spacex.fandom.com/wiki/Ship_26_(S26)?file=Ship_26.jpg

I know…Mars Starship needs tiles too…

Asteroid trip
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-framework-asteroid-route.html

Red dots give you wings
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-astronomers-uncover-radio-galaxies-wings.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-optically-dark-gamma-ray-reveals.html

Out there
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-astronomers-explore-surface-composition-nearby.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-astronomers-explore-surface-composition-nearby.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-large-magellanic-cloud-visitor.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-spiral-galaxy-brilliant-heart-bright.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ultrahigh-energy-cosmic-messengers-ultraheavy.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-space-junk-falls-earth-faster.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-jwst-pins-planetary-odd-couple.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-astronomers-lifetime-molecular-clouds-galaxies.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-planet-volunteers-population-brown-dwarfs.html

The thin sky
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-world-neptune-atmosphere-shouldnt.html
 
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