Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

NMaude said:
The video is private so what is it about?
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Under certain condition a Type Ia supernova produce a Zombie star
That is double star with white dwarf partner, who collect gas from his partner
So much material that white dwarf restart carbon fusion that ended in supernova event
But in some cases that white dwarf become unstable, then Supernova Iax is so intense
The White dwarf remain as zombie star, a oxygen–neon–magnesium core glow for billions of years
while his companion star is destroy or catapult into interstellar space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_Iax_supernova
 
 
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Here's a video from the First Dawn channel concerning the formation of the Moon:


This video examines the Giant Impact Hypothesis, the leading scientific explanation for how the Moon formed during the earliest chapter of Earth’s history. Around 4.5 billion years ago, the young Earth is thought to have collided with a Mars sized protoplanet known as Theia while both bodies were still forming within the inner solar system.​
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Using evidence from planetary science, isotope geochemistry, and computer simulations, we explore how this collision melted large portions of Earth’s crust and mantle and ejected vast amounts of rocky material into orbit. Over time, this debris coalesced to form the Moon, preserving chemical signatures that still closely match Earth’s mantle today. The aftermath of the impact also reshaped Earth’s internal structure, influenced its rotation rate, and set the axial tilt that drives our seasons.​
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This violent event was not an anomaly, but part of a chaotic period of planetary accretion when collisions were common. The Moon’s existence is a direct record of that era, and a reminder that Earth’s stability and habitability were forged through catastrophe as much as through gradual change.​
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#GiantImpactHypothesis #MoonFormation #EarlyEarth #PlanetaryScience #SolarSystemHistory #Theia #Geologyhttps://www.youtube.com/hashtag/geology
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00:00 Intro
01:11 The Isotope Paradox
03:09 The Crime Scene Reconstruction
06:20 The Slowest Apocalypse
08:54 The Donut Planet
11:41 The Iron Burial
13:42 Finding the Corpse
16:27 The Gifts of Catastrophe
19:29 The Goldilocks Catastrophe
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Astronomers baffled by 'mysterious disruptor' with a mass of 1 million suns and a black hole for a heart

A completely dark and mysterious body with the mass of 1 million suns and a possible black hole heart continues to baffle and intrigue astronomers despite further investigation.

This "mysterious disruptor" is located around 11 billion light-years away and was discovered in 2025 thanks to its gravitational influence. It is now the most distant body ever detected due to its gravitational effects alone.

But astronomers aren't completely in the dark about the mysterious disruptor, however. In fact, they are sure they know what lies at the heart of this strange cosmic body. "The inner central part is consistent with a black hole or dense stellar core, which surprisingly makes up about a quarter of the object's total mass," Vegetti explained. "As we move away from the center, however, the object's density flattens into a large disk-like component. This is a structure we've never seen before, so it could be a new class of dark object."
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https://www.space.com/astronomy/bla...f-1-million-suns-and-a-black-hole-for-a-heart
 
How close is R Leonis compared to Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) in light years? Just how close are we to be seeing an eruption within the next century.
 
230 Ly and it's smaller than our sun at 0.7 the mass. I doubt it will happen in our lifetime. The reaction rate of a smaller star is just much slower than a bigger supernova condidate. All we would see is sudden explosive expelling of the gas shells until only the white dwarf is left.
It would be nice for sure and going on tens of thousands of years. We would be able to see the makeup of its star system as the cloud highlights the objects within as well as leave visual traces. That's probably the more beautiful part.
 
I did not know that R Leonis was smaller than our own Sun Seragina, so it will end up as a white dwarf star after the outer layers have been blown off, that will be interesting to watch that is for sure.
 
 
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There is only one way that we could find out and that is to take a sample of the lakes and return it to Earth or even have it tested on Titan using a successor lander to Huygens with more powerful sensors than was available back then.
 
Some direct astronomical observations have appeared to have confirmed Einstein's prediction of frame-dragging, from Anton Petrov:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the evidence of Einstein's frame dragging effect from a bizarre event
Links:
https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.ady9068&v=TktvULG3Vjw
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.05400https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.05400&v=TktvULG3Vjw
https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.09112https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/abs/1902.09112&v=TktvULG3Vjw
ICRAR https://vimeo.com/332582739https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...Q&q=https://vimeo.com/332582739&v=TktvULG3Vjw
David Buttler • Classroom Aid - Frame Dragging and the Ke... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_A6XOrISYk
TDEs: • Tidal Disruption Event Updates: Strange Ex...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKI1q8OkxVg

0:00 Einstein's relativity observations
0:55 How to visualize this phenomenon
2:55 New event that uncovered this Einstein's prediction
5:35 Why this is important
7:30 Previous observations from other studies
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#physics #einstein #relativity
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NASA X-ray instrument finds black holes act like 'cosmic seesaws' shaping the universe

Turns out the expression "you can't have it all" also applies to black holes. Astronomers have discovered that although feeding black holes can produce powerful cosmic winds and blast out high-energy jets, they can't do both at the same time.

Instead, this new research suggests that black holes actually act like "cosmic seesaws," switching between these two distinct outflow modes. Not only does this discovery have implications for how black holes grow, but it could also help us better understand how they influence star formation, and thus how they shape their entire home galaxies.

"We're seeing what could be described as an energetic tug-of-war inside the black hole's accretion flow. When the black hole fires off a high-speed plasma jet, the X-ray wind dies down, and when the wind starts up again, the jet vanishes," team member Jiachen Jiang of the University of Warwick said in a statement. "This tells us something fundamental about how black holes regulate their energy output and interact with their surroundings."
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https://www.space.com/astronomy/bla...-act-like-cosmic-seesaws-shaping-the-universe
Mars was half covered by an ocean

Using images from cameras on Mars orbiters, an international research team led by the University of Bern has discovered structures on Mars that are very similar to classic river deltas on Earth. These are traces of rivers that have deposited their sediments into an ocean. This shows that Mars was a "blue planet" around three billion years ago.
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https://mediarelations.unibe.ch/med...s_was_half_covered_by_an_ocean/index_eng.html
 
Flyaway said:
NASA X-ray instrument finds black holes act like 'cosmic seesaws' shaping the universe



https://www.space.com/astronomy/bla...-act-like-cosmic-seesaws-shaping-the-universe
Mars was half covered by an ocean



https://mediarelations.unibe.ch/med...s_was_half_covered_by_an_ocean/index_eng.html
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There is a theory that could explain this. It has long been known that one-third of the Martian surface north of the equator is at a lower level than the rest of the planet. One possible explanation would be that a colossal impact in the Southern Hemisphere (perhaps the one that caused the Hellas Basin, the Grand Canyon, and the giant volcanoes) created a shock wave that blasted all the missing material into space, while paralyzing the rotation of the core and eliminating the planet's ancient magnetic field.

Over time volcanic activity and comet impacts could have created a surplus of water that accumulated in the northern lowlands, but it would not last long because of the erosion of the solar wind.
 
FighterJock said:
And of course with Mars having a thinner atmosphere than Earth that would not have helped either.
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there two issue with Mars
it has no longer magnetic field to protect against Solar wind
and it gravity is too low to keep gases like Nitrogen or oxygen in the Atmosphere

under assumption of 1500°K in higher atmosphere under Mars escape velocity of 5 km/s
if this temp is lower 650°K Mars could keep a thin Nitrogen/Oxygen Atmosphere

I hope we get better data with two ESCAPADE Probes.

Source on atmospheric depletion :
World-building
Stephen L. Gilbert
ISBN 1-58297-134-x
 
Potentially bright ‘sungrazing’ comet discovered

A potentially large member of the Kreutz family comets is speeding its way to a perihelion encounter during the first week of April this year. The object was discovered on 13 January 2026. Although not fully confirmed yet, if it is a Kreutz family comet, it will be an unprecedented discovery.
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…

The new comet is listed on the Minor Planet Center’s ‘possible comet’ confirmation page. It is registered as 6AC4721 and will be given a formal designation once it is fully confirmed as a comet. Current images show a diffuse coma and small tail, so it is expected that it will be confirmed soon and that the designation will likely become C/2026 A1.

Initial orbital simulations show that it is highly inclined from the plane of the Solar System, at an angle of 144°. This is typical for Kreutz family members and its location in the constellation Caelum, the chisel, in the southern skies also indicates an origin towards Sirius, the known aphelion point for this family of comets.
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…

So-called ‘pre-covery images’ (on which the comet has been found with the benefit of hindsight) dating back to December 2025 show its brightness to be around magnitude +20, at which it remains presently. At its closest to the Sun on 5 April it will be just 0.021 AU from the Sun with an elongation of just 0.5° (the width of the full Moon) but it could become visible in a daytime sky as did Ikeya-Seki.
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https://astronomynow.com/2026/01/16/potentially-bright-sungrazing-comet-discovered/
 
Computer models let scientists peer into the mystery beneath Jupiter’s clouds

Spectacular clouds swirl across the surface of Jupiter. These clouds contain water, just like Earth’s, but are much denser on the gas giant—so thick that no spacecraft has been able to measure exactly what lies beneath.

But a new study led by University of Chicago and Jet Propulsion Lab scientists has given us a deeper look at the planet by creating the most complete model to date of Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Among other things, the analysis addresses a longstanding question about how much oxygen the gas giant contains: It estimates that Jupiter has about one and a half times more oxygen than the sun. This helps scientists narrow down the picture of how all the planets in the solar system formed.
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https://news.uchicago.edu/story/computer-models-let-scientists-peer-mystery-beneath-jupiters-clouds
Related paper:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ae28d5/meta
 
Flyaway said:
Potentially bright ‘sungrazing’ comet discovered
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I saw that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6AC4721
Now, what I would like to know is if its outbound trajectory will put it near any other probes.

The New Horizons guys are so far out to where they may not have time to deviate towards any Kuiper objects ahead of them.

They would have time to deviate towards an outbound sungrazer that may be slowing down as they near it.

Water world
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-enceladus-subsurface-ocean-lab.html
The iron bar
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-mysterious-iron-bar-famous-nebula.html
Lunar rover
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-buildup-lunar-rover.html
No signal
https://spacenews.com/damaged-dsn-antenna-out-of-service-until-may/https://hackaday.com/2026/01/19/tolerating-delay-with-dtn/
A loss
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/science/joel-primack-dead.html
 
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Scientists find an interstellar 'tunnel' that connects our solar system to other stars

Recent observations of our corner of the universe suggest we have been living inside a hot, less dense region, and that there may even be a strange “cosmic interstellar channel,” or tunnel, connecting us to distant stars.
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https://www.earth.com/news/local-ho...nel-connects-our-solar-system-to-other-stars/
Related paper:

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2024/10/aa51045-24/aa51045-24.html
 
There goes the theory that in the far of future humanity would be living around Red Dwarf stars and milking the last remaining heat in the universe as the universe slowly dies of extreme old age as it expands for ever due to dark energy.
 
FighterJock said:
There goes the theory that in the far of future humanity would be living around Red Dwarf stars and milking the last remaining heat in the universe as the universe slowly dies of extreme old age as it expands for ever due to dark energy.
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That's outdated idea & assumption. No star will last long enough to get there. The last generation of stars will be born in 2-9 Gyears and die in another 20 Gyears. Some random stars will still be born but they will be extremely rare. The dwarfs will trail by up to a trillion years at most. Blackholes are the only longterm last homes to build on. Unless you got advanced tech to create new stars forever.
 
Flyaway said:
Red Dwarfs Are Too Dim To Generate Complex Life

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/red-dwarfs-are-too-dim-to-generate-complex-life
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Beware initial assumptions.

The conclusion is based on some necessary assumptions. One is that oxygen is necessary for complex life. Another is that life would arise on this hypothetical exoplanet on a timeline similar to Earth's. The authors point out several other assumptions, but also note that nearly all of these unknown factors scale out of the problem. That means they affect the timeline, but don't contradict the overall conclusion.

And yet they've written:

Some photosynthetic bacteria are non-oxygenic. That means that although they use photosynthesis to convert sunlight to metabolic energy, they don't produce oxygen. And they need much less light. "However, non-oxygenic photosynthetic bacteria can thrive in low-light environments and can use near-IR light out to 1100 nm, providing 22 times as many photons," the researchers explain.

Photosynthesis using visible light may be unviable for producing a Great Oxidation Event, but life will inevitably follow a divergent evolutionary path under different conditions. Visible light-using organisms would be at a severe disadvantage to IR-using organisms and evolution would therefore proceed along the latter path under an M dwarf.

I don't dispute their rigour or expertise and agree that we'd die if exposed to the atmosphere of a late-M star's (M5-9, I presume) planet, but I do question their assumptions made without further research on the potential of IR-using organisms.

Giant squid can't survive in the Scottish highlands, but as we know, haggises do very well.
 
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The race to build a super-large ground telescope is likely down to two competitors

I have been writing about the Giant Magellan Telescope for a long time. Nearly two decades ago, for example, I wrote that time was “running out” in the race to build the next great optical telescope on the ground.

At the time the proposed telescope was one of three contenders to make a giant leap in mirror size from the roughly 10-meter diameter instruments that existed then, to approximately 30 meters. This represented a huge increase in light-gathering potential, allowing astronomers to see much further into the universe—and therefore back into time—with far greater clarity.

Since then the projects have advanced at various rates. An international consortium to build the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii ran into local protests that have bogged down development. Its future came further into question when the US National Science Foundation dropped support for the project in favor of the Giant Magellan Telescope. Meanwhile the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has advanced on a faster schedule, and this 39.5-meter telescope could observe its first light in 2029.

This leaves the Magellan telescope. Originally backers of the GMT intended it to be fully operational by now, but it has faced funding and technology challenges. It has a price tag of approximately $2 billion, and although it is smaller than the European project, the 25.4-meter telescope now represents the best avenue for US-based astronomy to remain competitive in the field.

Given all of this, I recently spoke with University of Texas at Austin astronomer Dan Jaffe, who is the new president of the telescope’s executive team, to get an update on things. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
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https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/...ect-advances-how-is-its-us-competitor-faring/
 
Yesterday, sunspot 4341 unleashed an X-1.95 strength flare, accompanied by a large coronal mass ejection and so-called “flare ribbons”. Although far from record-breaking in power, the flare was unusually long-lasting and occurred over a vast area of the Sun. With the radiation unleashed being directed towards the Earth, the flare may have sent a shiver through the astronauts on the forthcoming Artemis II mission, although mission engineers are not showing alarm.
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https://www.iflscience.com/huge-x-c...rings-aurora-hopes-and-artemis-ii-fears-82269
 

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