Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

View: https://twitter.com/NWSSWPC/status/2013537001820016937


G4 (Severe) geomagnetic storm levels were reached again at 08:23 UTC (3:23 am EST).

View: https://twitter.com/NWSSWPC/status/2013562199717933202


Update: G4 (Severe) geomagnetic storm levels were reached again at 10:21 UTC (05:21 EST).

Strongest solar radiation storm since 2003 hits Earth, bringing northern lights and possible tech issues

Monday’s solar flare is largely a concern for astronauts and assets related to space launch, explained Dahl. He said the SWPC is coordinating with NASA to make sure astronauts on the International Space Station take precautions.
 
My solar activity app on my phone was going daft today, I am surprised at the level of solar activity on the Sun at this time as it is ment to be getting weaker and starting to go back into solar minimum.
 
Evidence for a past Martian ocean.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2512150-mars-once-had-a-vast-sea-the-size-of-the-arctic-ocean/
Paywalled, but here's the paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44453-025-00015-8
Cut 'n' paste:

To apply the imagery to the question of putative past water sources on Mars, the researchers focused on Valles Marineris, a channel more than 4000 kilometres long that cuts along the Martian equator. They paid particular attention to a south-eastern region of the channel called Coprates Chasma. Its deep features are around 3.3 billion years old.
...

By combining the new imagery with geomorphological analyses, the researchers identified many structures comparable to those that form on Earth where rivers pour into oceans or where alpine lakes materialise at the base of mountains.

“The Nile delta is a classic example,” says Schlunegger. If you removed the Mediterranean waters just beyond the terminus of the Nile, he says, you would see structures very similar to those detected on Mars.

The new data also enabled the researchers to trace ancient coastlines around a former ocean, allowing them to measure its approximate size. They concluded that it was about as large as Earth’s Arctic Ocean. This would have been the largest ocean on Mars.

“Our research suggests that around 3 billion years ago, Mars may have hosted long-lasting bodies of surface water inside Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System,” says Indi. “Even more exciting, these water bodies may have been connected to a much larger ocean that once covered parts of Mars’ northern lowlands.”
 
You're getting warmer! Hot dark matter could refine cosmic game of hide and seek

”Dark matter can be red hot when it is born, but still have time to cool down before galaxies begin to form."

https://www.space.com/astronomy/dar...ter-could-refine-cosmic-game-of-hide-and-seek
Magnetic avalanches power solar flares, finds Solar Orbiter

Just as avalanches on snowy mountains start with the movement of a small quantity of snow, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has discovered that a solar flare is triggered by initially weak disturbances that quickly become more violent. This rapidly evolving process creates a ‘sky’ of raining plasma blobs that continue to fall even after the flare subsides.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Explora...anches_power_solar_flares_finds_Solar_Orbiter
 
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Mercury and Earth chorus waves show shared plasma behavior across magnetospheres​

An international team has shown that natural electromagnetic chorus waves, long known in Earths magnetosphere, also occur in Mercurys much weaker magnetosphere with strikingly similar frequency behavior. The work uses coordinated observations from the BepiColombo Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter Mio during six Mercury flybys between 2021 and 2025, together with decades of data from Earths GEOTAIL satellite.
https://www.spacedaily.com/m/report...lasma_behavior_across_magnetospheres_999.html
 
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSUYyShxbrg


Considering that JUMBOs may outnumber stars by 10x, this occurred to me.

Assumptions: ark, generation, or sleeper starships used for interstellar colonisation. Bussard-type ramjets, alas, seem to be impractical, and cryogenics just makes large supplies of dog food. So its big slowboats only but even then no machine works for centuries without breaking down, neither does a bottled ecosystem, and everything leaks. Thus, an uninterrupted millennia-long journey to a colonisable planet turns out to be unfeasible.

Yes, there could be some key technological development that unravels these assumptions. A lot can happen in the century + before any crewed starship is launched. Anyway, onward:

JUMBOs themselves would not be practical sources of supplies - the ones we can detect are likely gas and ice giants - but they would likely have retinues of smaller objects, including Europa-like ice moons. The L-1 and L-2 points around a tidally-locked moon near a JUMBO would be very close to the moon, perhaps making a beanstalk-like elevator to transport water &c. up to the ship possible. Like a spider, the ship could spin the elevator and then when it's finished, eat it, redeploying its mass as cosmic ray shielding, reaction mass, and building materials, or just discarding it and building a new one out of local materials at each stop.

Techniques could be developed when exploring the Kuiper and Oort.

Not an original idea, apart from the Lagrange beanstalk connecting to an ice moon, as far as I can tell. Clarke did propose a much longer one lifting ice blocks from an earthlike world in The Songs of Distant Earth, but carrying the mass of one that reaches down from geostationary orbit to an earthlike world would be absurd.

Yes, it's resource-inefficient to accelerate and decelerate repeatedly rather than do one long cruise, but if that's not possible - timescales of millennia are not an exaggeration - it may be the only solution. It could also lead to a nomad culture that never needs to find an earthlike planet anyway. One critique of the generation ship concept is that the middle generations between departure and arrival may resent their status or turn the arrival into an apocalyptic/promised land myth that undoes the mission as it becomes increasingly religious rather than technical. In this case, there is no definite blessed generation to resent, stops occur in historical time (if not living memory) of a century or so rather than mythical time.
 
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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.

Hmmm, haven't had time to digest, but there are papers suggesting that the relationship between the emergence of complex life and oxygen is complicated.

We used to think that the increase in oxygen levels on Earth around 700 million years ago drove the evolution of animals. However, geoscientists have since discovered that the story of oxygen on Earth and its relationship with animals is more complex than we once thought.

Links also in the video and in the description.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4YP8gMtpvU
 
Radio Telescopes on the Moon Could Let Us Observe Dozens of Black Hole Shadows

https://www.universetoday.com/artic...d-let-us-observe-dozens-of-black-hole-shadows
Related paper:

The 1.3 mm ground-based very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), is limited by the Earth's diameter and can image the supermassive black hole (SMBH) shadows of only M87* and Sgr A*. Extending the array with an assumed lunar-based telescope could achieve ∼0.85 μas angular resolution at 230 GHz, enabling black hole shadow detection for a larger SMBH sample. The concept is motivated by space VLBI missions and lunar exploration, including the ongoing Lunar Orbit VLBI Experiment (LOVEX) aboard QueQiao-2 (Chang'E-7) and the planned International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). We assess shadow detectability for 31 SMBH with predicted large angular sizes, exploring different telescope location and antenna size. Assuming a telescope at the lunar antipode, we simulate the Moon-Earth (u,v) coverage and show that source geometry relative to the Moon's orbit determines whether the primary indicator of shadow, first visibility null, can be sampled. Using a geometric ring model, we identify six high-priority targets: M104, NGC 524, PGC 049940, NGC 5077, NGC 5252, and NGC 1052. Shadows of M104, NGC 5077, and NGC 1052 are detectable with a 5 m lunar-based telescope; PGC 049940 requires 20 m; NGC 524 and NGC 5252 require 100 m. Photon ring detection for Sgr A*, M87*, NGC 1600, and M31 is possible if space telescopes fill the baseline coverage gaps and sensitivity requirements are met. These results provide a clear scientific and technical motivation for lunar-based telescopes in future black hole shadow studies.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02812
 
NASA Webb Finds Young Sun-Like Star Forging, Spewing Common Crystals

Astronomers have long sought evidence to explain why comets at the outskirts of our own solar system contain crystalline silicates, since crystals require intense heat to form and these “dirty snowballs” spend most of their time in the ultracold Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Now, looking outside our solar system, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has returned the first conclusive evidence that links how those conditions are possible. The telescope clearly showed for the first time that the hot, inner part of the disk of gas and dust surrounding a very young, actively forming star is where crystalline silicates are forged. Webb also revealed a strong outflow that is capable of carrying the crystals to the outer edges of this disk. Compared to our own fully formed, mostly dust-cleared solar system, the crystals would be forming approximately between the Sun and Earth.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/w...un-like-star-forging-spewing-common-crystals/
 
Hidden magma oceans could shield rocky exoplanets from harmful radiation

New research suggests that molten rock deep inside so-called super-earths may generate powerful magnetic fields necessary for sustaining life

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1113289
Related paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02729-x
Study suggests pathway for life-sustaining conditions in Europa’s ocean

A recent study by geophysicists at Washington State University offers insight into how nutrients may reach the subsurface ocean of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons and a leading candidate for extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1113015
 
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Exo-find
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-astronomers-dense-super-neptune-exoplanet.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2026-01-webb-young-sun-star-forging.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2026-01-astronomers-companion-cluster-czernik.html
This cloud is metal
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-massive-cloud-metallic-orbiting-mystery.html
Fields
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-velocity-gradients-key-large-scale.html
Life
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-rethinking-life-earth.html
Stragglers
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-hubble-uncovers-secret-blue-straggler.html
The dark
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-dark-energy-survey-scientists-analysis.html
Black holes
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-massive-black-hole-mystery.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2026-01-supermassive-black-hole-early-universe.html
Can’t blame truckers for this one
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-astrophysicists-largest-sulfur-molecular-compound.html
I hopeth people remember
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-halley-comet-wrongly-11th-century.html
ATLAS
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-atlas-nature-quark-soup-radial.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2026-01-cosmic-rare-proton-rich-isotope.html
TESS
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ai-exoplanets-tess.html
Impact
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-evidence-lightning-fast-evolution-chicxulub.html
Space health
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-space-station-crew-credits-ultrasound.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2026-01-hidden-microbial-communities-health-space.html
Waters of Mars access
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-accessing-mars-technologies-future-missions.html
Space Junk
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-seismometer-networks-track-space-junk.html
 
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Wobbling exoplanet hints at a hidden exomoon so massive it could redefine the word 'moon' altogether

A gas giant planet beyond the solar that wobbles as it circles its star, hinting to astronomers that it is orbited by its own moon. To make this suspected discovery even more remarkable, if this moon exists it would be absolutely massive, comparable to around half the mass of Jupiter. That would make it thousands of times more massive than any moon orbiting a solar system plane  — so massive it could make astronomers reconsider what constitutes a moon.

https://www.space.com/astronomy/exo...ve-it-could-redefine-the-word-moon-altogether
Related paper:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20091
 
Rethinking Where Life Could Exist Beyond Earth

Astronomers have long searched for life within a rather narrow ring around a star, the “habitable zone,” where a planet should be neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water. A new study argues that this ring is too strict: on tidally locked worlds that keep one face in daylight and the other in permanent night, heat may still circulate enough for liquid water to persist on the dark side, even when the planet orbits closer to cool M- and K-dwarf stars than conservative climate models allow.

The study also points outward: liquid water could exist far beyond the classical outer edge, hidden beneath ice as subglacial or intraglacial lakes, meaning the number of worlds worth checking for water, and potentially life-friendly conditions, may be much larger than the traditional map suggests.

https://astrobiology.com/2026/01/rethinking-where-life-could-exist-beyond-earth.html
Related paper:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae21d7
 
Dark Energy Survey Scientists Release Analysis of All Six Years of Survey Data

In this analysis, DES tested two models of the Universe against their data. There is the currently accepted standard model of cosmology — Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) — in which the dark energy density is constant. There is also an extended model, in which the dark energy density evolves over time — wCDM.

DES found that their data mostly aligned with the standard model of cosmology. Their data also fit the evolving dark energy model, but no better than they fit the standard model.

However, one parameter is still off. Based on measurements of the early Universe, both the standard and evolving dark energy models predict how matter in the Universe clusters at later times. In previous analyses, galaxy clustering was found to be different from what was predicted. When DES added the most recent data, that gap widened, but not yet to the point of certainty that the standard model of cosmology is incorrect. The difference persisted even when DES combined their data with those of other experiments.

https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2603/?lang
 
Anton again - on the recent study suggesting that we won't find daffodils on TRAPPIST-1 e.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VprXzmcOOJ8


0:00 Red dwarfs and life
2:00 Difficulty for photosynthetic life
2:30 History of life on Earth and oxygenation
3:40 What light is needed for photosynthesis
5:40 TRAPPIST-1 as an example - 63 billion years?
7:50 Photosynthesis that doesn't produce oxygen
9:10 Bacteria that are most likely to dominate
10:20 If there is life, it won't be complex and other problems with red dwarfs
11:20 The Anakin problem
11:50 Is there any hope? Conclusions
 
Astronomers reveal new details about dark matter’s influence on Universe

The area covered by the new map is a section of sky about 2.5 times larger than the full Moon, in the constellation Sextans.

Webb peered at this region for a total of about 255 hours and identified nearly 800,000 galaxies, with many detected for the first time.

The scientific team then looked for dark matter by observing how its mass curves space itself, which in turn bends the light traveling to Earth from distant galaxies – as if the light of those galaxies has passed through a warped windowpane.

The map contains about 10 times more galaxies than maps of the area made by ground-based observatories and twice as many as the Hubble Space Telescope.

It reveals new clumps of dark matter and captures a higher-resolution view of the areas previously seen by Hubble.



The team next plans to map dark matter throughout the entire Universe, using the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid telescope and NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1113814
Related paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02763-9
 
Anton again - on the recent study suggesting that we won't find daffodils on TRAPPIST-1 e.
This is bad, very bad
if true means we can dismiss 70% to 85% of all stars in the galaxy.
Mean only F G K stars planets could have Complex Life forms
While M stars planets have primitive microbes mostly anaerobic bacteria
how many star with complex life possibility ?
only 10-15% of all star in galaxy.
That's around 20 to 60 billion, if numbers of stars are 200-400 billion in our Galaxy
 
This is bad, very bad
if true means we can dismiss 70% to 85% of all stars in the galaxy.
Mean only F G K stars planets could have Complex Life forms
While M stars planets have primitive microbes mostly anaerobic bacteria
how many star with complex life possibility ?
only 10-15% of all star in galaxy.
That's around 20 to 60 billion, if numbers of stars are 200-400 billion in our Galaxy

Maybe not so disastrous. I've often commented that while the laws of nature are universal, their application is complex and contingent locally, so assuming that extraterrestrial life must replicate the history life on earth is misleading. Indeed one thing that is overlooked is co-evolution: life and its environment are in a continual feedback loop that is also a drunkard's walk - meaning that if you rewind the process, when you hit play again, it'll wander off in a completely different direction. The Great Oxidation Event was contingent on the rise of cyanobacteria, which photosynthesise using visible light, where the bulk of the Sun's output lies. However, retinal-based photosynthesis makes far more efficient use of near infrared light, which is where the bulk of output from M-types and chlorophyll-using photosynthesis would be massively outcompeted. A life-bearing planet orbiting an M-type star would most likely turn purple and stay that way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Earth_hypothesis
Now I'm not a biochemist, let alone an astrobiochemist (is there such a thing?), but I'd want to see more research published on the chemical pathways and energy budgets available in a retinal-based biosphere. Oxygen is a deadly poison to many organisms on earth and the GOE was a catastrophe until organisms evolved to survive its presence and exploit it. If mats of purple bacterial end up dominating a 'mearth' (a word astrobiologists use for a basically earth-like planet orbiting an M-type star), it's going to produce 'waste' just as chlorophyll-based photosynthesis produced an excess of oxygen.

So what is that waste? I don't know, but I've heard mention of sulphur-based compounds. If there's an abundance of it, some clever purple bacteria will exploit it and consequently prosper.

Anton has another video up on how giant viruses MIGHT have been the origin of the eukaryotic nucleus. Recently we've discovered cells incorporating 'nitroplasts' that can fix nitrogen. Like mitochondria and chloroplasts, these seem to be once-separate organisms that found homes in bacterial (or archaea? I'm a but rusty here... something about Asgardian life blah blah mumble) cells, eventually transforming them into eukaryotes. Lynn Margulis deserves a lot of credit for showing how symbiosis led to complex life on Earth (she married an astronomer named Carl something for a while and may have inspired him). The fact that it's happened repeatedly strongly suggests that it's a common phenomenon throughout the universe, so evolution doesn't hit a wall with bacteria - ofter all, it didn't here.

My questions are therefore: what is/are the product(s) of retinal-based photosynthesis? What chemical pathways could lead from that/those product(s) to provide energy?

So maybe anyone landing on a mearth and cracking open their helmet to sniff the air would say, 'Ew, this planet smells like farts!' and drop dead, but there might be something complex enough nearby to take notice.
 
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Asteroid 2024 YR4: Astronomers Are Preparing For The "Most Energetic Lunar Impact Witnessed In Human History"

If the impact occurs, it will hit with the force of 6.5 megatons of TNT and cause meteor showers on Earth.



Lunar material from the impact could cause meteor showers on Earth. While meteorites making it to the Earth are not ruled out, the main risk of an impact to Earth operations is for our satellites orbiting the planet encountering the debris.



The team agrees with previous findings that ejecta from the Moon could reach lunar escape velocity – 8,552 km/h (5,315 mph) – and temporarily populate the space between the Earth and the Moon, with potential threat to our satellites. According to the team, 107–108 kilograms of material could be ejected, ranging from millimeter-sized meteoroids to meter-scale boulders. Material that makes it to Earth would fall across all latitudes, with some falling on Antarctica, historically a great place to recover meteorites.

https://www.iflscience.com/asteroid...lunar-impact-witnessed-in-human-history-82360
Related paper:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.10666
 
Discovery Alert: An Ice-Cold Earth?

The Discovery

A candidate planet that might be remarkably similar to Earth, HD 137010 b, has one potentially big difference: It could be colder than perpetually frozen Mars.

Key Facts

Scientists continue to mine data gathered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, retired in 2018, and continue to turn up surprises. A new paper reveals the latest: a possible rocky planet slightly larger than Earth, orbiting a Sun-like star about 146 light-years away.

The orbital period of the planet — listed as a “candidate” pending further confirmation — is likely to be similar to Earth’s, around one year. Planet HD 137010 b also might fall just within the outer edge of its star’s “habitable zone,” the orbital distance that could allow liquid water to form on the planet’s surface under a suitable atmosphere.

Planets orbiting other stars are known as “exoplanets.” And this could turn out to be the first exoplanet with Earth-like properties that, from our vantage point, crosses the face of a Sun-like star that is near enough and bright enough for meaningful follow-up observations.

https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/discovery-alert-an-ice-cold-earth/
 
Far and Wide Part 3: Exoplanets

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK9jkM9WeSg


Jan 27, 2026
The James Webb and Nancy Grace Roman space telescopes are NASA’s latest flagship astrophysics observatories. One is in space already and the other will join it there soon. These two telescopes look very different, have different objectives, and together will advance our understanding of the universe. This four-part video series explores the differences and synergies of Roman and Webb.

The Roman and Webb observatories will both make great contributions to our knowledge of worlds outside our solar system, known as exoplanets.

Roman’s survey capability and frequent observations will unveil tens of thousands of exoplanets between Earth and the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument contains systems never before used in space and aims to directly image closer exoplanets, revealing types of worlds that astronomers have never photographed before.

Webb also has a coronagraph, and with its incredible sensitivity, Webb is able to measure the light from young, hot exoplanets to determine information about their surfaces and atmospheres.

Learn more at https://science.nasa.gov/roman-and-webb
 
NASA's Juno spacecraft spots the largest volcanic eruption ever seen on Jupiter's moon Io

The most violent volcanic cataclysm ever seen in our solar system has been witnessed on Jupiter’s moon Io by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, with simultaneous eruptions covering an enormous 40,400 square miles (65,000 square kilometers). The synchronous eruptions point to a hitherto undetected network of interconnected magma reservoirs just beneath the volcanic moon’s lava-encrusted surface.

The eruptions released an amount of energy estimated to be between 140 and 260 terawatts (one terawatt is a trillion watts). The previous most energetic volcanic eruption seen on Io was about 80 terawatts, from a volcano called Surt in 2001. For comparison, the Mount St Helens eruption in Washington state in 1980 had a power of 52 terawatts.

"What makes the event even more extraordinary is that it did not involve a single volcano, but multiple active sources that lit up simultaneously, increasing their brightness by more than a thousand times compared to typical levels," Alessandro Mura of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) said in a statement. "This perfect synchrony suggests that it was a single enormous eruptive event, propagating through the sub-surface for hundreds of kilometers."

https://www.space.com/astronomy/jup...lcanic-eruption-ever-seen-on-jupiters-moon-io
 
Worlds of other suns--and how to study them
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-exploration-exoplanets-mathematical-solution-atmospheres.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2026-01-sun-unraveling-mysteries-solar.html
Mars
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-brick-bacteria-react-toxic-chemical.html
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) investigated how bacteria that can mold Martian soil into brick-like structures fare in the presence of this chemical. They found that although perchlorate slows down bacterial growth, it also surprisingly leads to the formation of stronger bricks.
 
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So the future Martian bricks could well be much stronger than their Earth counterparts. Handy when future Mars explorers need to build long term permanent structures.
 
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) investigated how bacteria that can mold Martian soil into brick-like structures fare in the presence of this chemical. They found that although perchlorate slows down bacterial growth, it also surprisingly leads to the formation of stronger bricks.
so to say Martian concrete
how ever the Scientist will be not to happy to deal with that bacteria, in there search for indigenous Life on Mars...
 

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