Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

www.esa.int

ESA tracks rare interstellar comet

Astronomers have confirmed the discovery of a rare celestial visitor: a comet from beyond our Solar System.Officially named 3I/ATLAS, this newly identified interstellar object is only the third of its kind ever observed, following the famous 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.
www.esa.int
 
It is amazing that the comet has a speed of 150,000 miles per second (after watching the Scott Manley YouTube video) Flyaway, for the comet to have that speed it must have been flung out of it's original system near the central star.
 
FighterJock said:
It is amazing that the comet has a speed of 150,000 miles per second (after watching the Scott Manley YouTube video)
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150K miles/sec would bei about 80% speed of light, which is obviously absurd.

In fact, the max speed relative to the sun, which 3I/Atlas will reach at perihelion, is 68.3 km/s. This is roughly 150K miles per hour.
 
FighterJock said:
That was what I was meaning Andreas Parsch, thanks for the correction.
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I asked Google Gemini if any probes were near our latest Interstellar Visitor.

While it said "no" it also said there were no nitrogen-only explosives (like N20)--and it did so right after asking it about the hexanitrogen.

So that needs looking at.
 
Currently I highly doubt that NASA, ESA, JAXA or any other space-agency have space-probes with the required delta-V to intercept this interstellar object, Scott Manley's video goes into detail about the required delta-V needed and hence the size of the LV needed (It would be huge).
 
Another supposedly impossible exoplanet has been detected orbiting a red dwarf, from Anton Petrov:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about another planet that shouldn't be possible
Links:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4155...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...com/articles/s41550-025-02552-4&v=aFHCPimcsoQ
https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.19357
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnEeHKWCijE
• What If Jupiter Didn't Exist? Why Do Other... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnEeHKWCijE
Other videos: • New Study Rewrites The Origin of Jupiter a... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cgi6D8DFFA
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0:00 Impossible planet?
0:30 Exoplanets and red dwarfs
2:20 Gas giants
3:20 Strange first discoveries and extreme examples
5:02 New impossible planet
6:00 New study and what we know
7:05 Unanswered questions
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#exoplanet #reddwarf #milkyway
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Here's an interesting Infographics Show video about potential new black-hole discovery:


Black holes aren't just cosmic monsters, they might be home. A discovery from the James Webb Space Telescope has scientists questioning everything we know about space, time, and the very fabric of our universe. Watch now to find out more!
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NMaude said:
Currently I highly doubt that NASA, ESA, JAXA or any other space-agency have space-probes with the required delta-V to intercept this interstellar object, Scott Manley's video goes into detail about the required delta-V needed and hence the size of the LV needed (It would be huge).
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It would take SLS Block 2 to get to Oumuamua with an NTR and NEP both perhaps. Interstellar Probe was slated for SLS.

This thing, on the other hand, is unreachable from here.

I kinda hope it hits one of our asteroids so we can get some crumbs as it were.

I have yet to see an overlay of probes in transit and where this thing might be after October.

What about the Mars probe called the Trace Gas Orbiter?

Bereshete used gradual burns to open up its orbit to reach the Moon.

Might TGO be able to leave Mars similarly such that it can get near this new interstellar visitor?

It has from now to October to gain distance if approved.
 
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I'm near the end of hearing our local Socal Southern OC fireworks - depending on wind conditions, I can also hear the Disneyland nightly pyrotechnics on good/bad? evenings, and occasional Camp Pendleton USMC artillery firing as well. I'm not a fan of banging noises, so I consider *all* of them a nuisance - perhaps I should complain to our local HOA (although I do realize that might risk giving rise to a Tulpa - IYKWIM)...
 
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Why is Mars barren and uninhabitable, while life has always thrived here on our relatively similar planet Earth?

A discovery made by a NASA rover has offered a clue for this mystery, new research said Wednesday, suggesting that while rivers once sporadically flowed on Mars, it was doomed to mostly be a desert planet.
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…

Lead study author Edwin Kite, a planetary scientist at the University of Chicago and a member of the Curiosity team, told AFP it appeared there were "blips of habitability in some times and places" on Mars.

But these "oases" were the exception rather than the rule.
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…

However Mars has a "feeble" rate of volcanic outgassing compared to Earth, Kite said. This throws off the balance, leaving Mars much colder and less hospitable.

According to the modelling research, the brief periods of liquid water on Mars were followed by 100 million years of barren desert – a long time for anything to survive.

It is still possible that there are pockets of liquid water deep underground on Mars we have not yet found, Kite said.
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www.sciencealert.com

NASA Discovery Could Explain Why We've Never Found Life on Mars

Why is Mars barren and uninhabitable, while life has always thrived here on our relatively similar planet Earth? A discovery made by a NASA rover has offered a clue for this mystery, new research said Wednesday, suggesting that while rivers once sporadically flowed on Mars, it was doomed to...
www.sciencealert.com www.sciencealert.com

Related paper:

www.nature.com

Carbonate formation and fluctuating habitability on Mars - Nature

A modelling study suggests that Mars had a desert-like climate with intermittent liquid-water oases regulated by a negative feedback among solar luminosity, liquid water and carbonate formation.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
Perhaps what could have been another explanation of why life on Mars never evolved unlike Earth could have been the lack of plate tectonics, whereas Earth has plate tectonics and that is why Earth has life and Mars sadly does not.
 
The estimated detection rate for Rubin of interstellar objects is here:

The Population of Interstellar Objects Detectable with the LSST and Accessible for $\textit{In Situ}$ Rendezvous with Various Mission Designs

The recently discovered population of interstellar objects presents us with the opportunity to characterize material from extrasolar planetary and stellar systems up close. The forthcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will provide an unprecedented increase in...
arxiv.org arxiv.org

A useful population estimate:

Predicting Interstellar Object Chemodynamics with Gaia

The interstellar object population of the Milky Way is a product of its stars. However, what is in fact a complex structure in the Solar neighbourhood has traditionally in ISO studies been described as smoothly distributed. Using a debiased stellar population derived from the Gaia DR3 stellar...
arxiv.org arxiv.org

A study on whether they are in streams and whether Rubin can resolve this:

He awa whiria: the tidal streams of interstellar objects

Upcoming surveys are likely to discover a new sample of interstellar objects (ISOs) within the Solar System, but questions remain about the origin and distribution of this population within the Galaxy. ISOs are ejected from their host systems with a range of velocities, spreading out into tidal...
arxiv.org arxiv.org

The visibility of the Åtautahi-Oxford interstellar object population model in LSST

With a new probabilistic technique for sampling interstellar object (ISO) orbits with high efficiency, we assess the observability of ISOs under a realistic cadence for the upcoming Vera Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Using the Åtautahi-Oxford population model, we...
arxiv.org arxiv.org
 
Just you watch—as soon as a comet interceptor is pre-positioned, they won’t find another’n for fifty years
 
Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s Cheops mission mission have caught an exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. These tremendous explosions are blasting away the planet’s wispy atmosphere, causing it to shrink every year.

This is the first-ever evidence for a ‘planet with a death wish’. Though it was theorised to be possible since the nineties, the flares seen in this research are around 100 times more energetic than expected.
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Related paper:

www.nature.com

Close-in planet induces flares on its host star - Nature

Planet-induced flares on HIP 67522, a 17 million-year-old G dwarf star with two known close-in planets, were detected.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory Will Search for Life

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJwDlLiQpS4


Jul 7, 2025
Finding signs of life on planets outside our solar system will require a more powerful space telescope than any ever built. NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory will draw on technologies proven by the agency’s Hubble, Webb and upcoming Roman Space Telescopes to peer into the cosmos and find the unique signatures of planets that can support life as well as possibly life itself.

Actor John Rhys-Davies narrates this short video about the mission and its objectives.
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Flyaway said:

Related paper:

www.nature.com

Close-in planet induces flares on its host star - Nature

Planet-induced flares on HIP 67522, a 17 million-year-old G dwarf star with two known close-in planets, were detected.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
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Given the size of HIP67522b (Slightly smaller than Uranus) it will be quickly (~100 million years) reduced to a super-Earth sized Chthonic planet.

On another note here's another video concerning our latest interstellar visitor:


A new interstellar object has been discovered racing through the Solar System at record speed. Now named Comet 3I/ATLAS, this icy traveler is only the third interstellar object ever discovered. And just days after its detection, it has already become a global astronomical sensation. This new interstellar comet could solve the mysteries left behind by its two predecessors, Oumuamua and comet Borisov.​
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REFERENCES:
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Comet 3I/ATLAS (NASA Science) – https://sou42.co/4kq9b9lhttps://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...hpVQ&q=https://sou42.co/4kq9b9l&v=KYnZk-rdxXA
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New Interstellar Object Stuns Scientists as It Zooms through Solar System (Scientific American) – https://sou42.co/45XJjy0
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"Potential Impact On Saturn": Astronomers Appeal For Help As Video Appears To Show Object Hitting The Gas Giant

On July 5, between 9:00 and 9:15 UTC, something appears to have hit Saturn. If verified, it will be the first ever to be caught on camera.
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www.iflscience.com

"Potential Impact On Saturn": Astronomers Appeal For Help As Video Appears To Show Object Hitting The Gas Giant

On July 5, between 9:00 and 9:15 UTC, something appears to have hit Saturn. If verified, it will be the first ever to be caught on camera.
www.iflscience.com www.iflscience.com
 
Anton Petrov has uploaded a video concerning research on supernovae and extinction events on Earth:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about supernovae and extinction events
Links:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.08286
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.08286&v=DhPmxM0tQxo
Other videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PYG_upOxUc
• Anomalies Around Betelgeuse May Have a Sim...

• Earth Seems To Be Flying Through a Superno...

• Signs of Nearby Supernovae Affecting Plane...

• These 3 Nearby Stars Will Go Supernova "Soon"

• Earth May Have Enough Defense Against Near...
#supernova #extinction #earthhttps://www.youtube.com/hashtag/earth
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0:00 Near Earth Supernovae
1:20 Handful of candidates and most famous supernovae
2:10 What happens if there is a nearby supernova
2:55 Historical records
4:30 Recent study and examination of potential chances
5:50 Overall results and likelihood of extinction
6:40 What about other effects?
8:40 More evidence
9:50 Problems and solutions
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Are We In An Enormous Void? It Could Explain What’s Wrong With Our Model Of The Universe

"A potential solution to this inconsistency is that our galaxy is close to the centre of a large, local void," Dr Indranil Banik, from the University of Portsmouth, said in a statement sent to IFLScience.

"It would cause matter to be pulled by gravity towards the higher density exterior of the void, leading to the void becoming emptier with time. As the void is emptying out, the velocity of objects away from us would be larger than if the void were not there. This, therefore, gives the appearance of a faster local expansion rate."
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…

In the research presented today at the National Astronomy Meeting in Durham, UK, Dr Banik showed that there are observations that are consistent with the idea of such a deep void; namely, the number of galaxies around us and the peculiar Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation, the “sound” of the Big Bang.
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…

The team is planning to independently verify these observations using alternative methods, such as galaxies that stopped forming stars. These can be used as a stopwatch for the expansion of the universe. If these too suggest that a void scenario is possible, it would be a very interesting finding.
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www.iflscience.com

Are We In An Enormous Void? It Could Explain What’s Wrong With Our Model Of The Universe

A bold explanation for the Hubble Tension suggests that maybe we are in a special position.
www.iflscience.com www.iflscience.com
 
That could be one theory about why we cannot detect dark matter and why all our observations of the universe to date have come up with no real candidate. Certainly an interesting theory Flyaway and one that I will keep a close eye on.
 
dannydale said:
I'm sorry I have to do this, but

The.
share.
button.
is.

R I G G E D !!

View attachment 777411
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I’ve deleted the post. Nor is it recent you tube apparently has been doing it for well over a year. It’s hard to get around as it defaults to that when using the share in the apps.
 
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Flyaway said:
I’ve deleted the post. Nor is it recent you tube apparently has been doing it for well over a year. It’s hard to get around as it defaults to that when using the share in the apps.
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Deleted my post likewise. I only ever copy the url when sharing yt links. I think some 3rd party yt apps let you copy clean links on phones as well.
 
Flyaway said:
I’ve deleted the post. Nor is it recent you tube apparently has been doing it for well over a year. It’s hard to get around as it defaults to that when using the share in the apps.
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dannydale said:
Deleted my post likewise. I only ever copy the url when sharing yt links. I think some 3rd party yt apps let you copy clean links on phones as well.
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Flyaway said:
For some reason if you delete the si code part it breaks the link on some forums?
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What are you referring to?
 
www.spacedaily.com

Ultrasound triggers nuclear decay anomaly hinting at flexible space-time

Paris, France (SPX) Jul 11, 2025 - A pair of Italian physicists has observed unexpected changes in radioactive decay triggered by ultrasonic waves-findings that could reshape current views on the rigidity of space-time. In experiment
www.spacedaily.com
Ultrasound triggers nuclear decay anomaly hinting at flexible space-time
by Erica Marchand
Paris, France (SPX) Jul 08, 2025

A pair of Italian physicists has observed unexpected changes in radioactive decay triggered by ultrasonic waves-findings that could reshape current views on the rigidity of space-time. In experiments using cobalt-57, brief ultrasound pulses appeared to disrupt standard decay behavior, offering rare experimental support for the Deformed Space-Time (DST) theory.
Led by Stefano Bellucci of INFN-Frascati and Fabio Cardone of ISMN-CNR, the study revealed that even nanosecond-long bursts of ultrasound at 2.25 MHz can cause measurable alterations in nuclear behavior. The key signal came from the 14.4 keV emission of iron-57, where the decay curve showed clear deviations from standard expectations.

"These changes occur after less than one percent of a single ultrasound wave cycle," said Bellucci. "It suggests that under certain conditions, space-time itself becomes distorted in ways that allow new nuclear processes to unfold."

The DST theory holds that at specific energy thresholds, space-time can deviate from its normal geometry, allowing alternative nuclear interactions to emerge. One explanation proposed by the researchers is that ultrasonic stress generates microscopic cavities-called Ridolfi cavities-which serve as miniature nuclear reactors. Within these, cobalt-57 atoms may undergo transformations bypassing classical radioactive decay channels.

Unlike traditional decay governed by the weak nuclear force, these alternative processes could involve the strong nuclear interaction-normally off-limits in such low-energy conditions. This two-channel decay model offers a fresh lens for reexamining long-held assumptions in nuclear physics.

The researchers also point to similarities with earlier DST experiments involving thorium-228 and nickel-63, where similar ultrasonic effects drastically lowered radioactivity. In the cobalt-57 study, long-lasting metric changes and unusual field couplings were recorded-features the team links to the "Mignani mimicry" phenomenon predicted by DST.

"This challenges the idea that decay rates are untouchable constants," said Cardone. "If external fields can deform space-time, it reshapes how we think about nuclear stability and even causality."

The researchers are now designing experiments to determine whether ultrasound speeds up natural decay or causes a fundamentally different type of nuclear transformation. One proposed test involves real-time radiation monitoring during sonication. According to Bellucci, "If more radiation appears, we're seeing accelerated decay. If not, we're witnessing something entirely new."

This work could impact not only nuclear physics but also cosmology and field theory-areas where space-time, matter, and energy may interact in far more dynamic ways than previously thought.
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Fetch the Sonic screwdriver!
 
That's the *last* thing I would have thought ultrasonics capable of.

Breaking rockets acoustics can do. Spacetime?

I half expect this to show up in retraction watch
 

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