Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

Researchers identify class of 'oddball' meteorite that killed the dinosaurs

A rare CO chondrite meteorite was the probable impactor that struck Earth 66 million years ago, wiping out 75 per cent of Earth's species, including non-avian dinosaurs.

The findings, published today in Science Advances by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Paris, Brussels and Vienna, used advanced nickel isotope analysis of samples to narrow down the composition of the deadly Cretaceous-Palaeogene meteorite.

“Carbonaceous chondrites of the Ornans class are definitely not like the typical meteors you find in museum collections,” says Dr. Philippe Claeys, who worked on the study as a visiting professor at UBC.

“A CO contains much less volatile elements—like carbon, zinc, water and particularly sulphur—than other classes of meteorites we’ve discovered so far on Earth. It doesn’t alter our theory of what caused the extinction event—but it makes it less likely that sulphur contained in the impactor was the smoking gun. The fine debris thrown into the atmosphere would have the primary factor.”
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Dead stars in our cosmic backyard: Astronomers spot four white dwarfs hiding under our noses

Researchers at University of Warwick and University of Colorado Boulder have directly observed, for the first time, four white dwarfs stars orbiting in double star systems in our nearby region of space. These stellar binaries are all located within 65 light-years of Earth, and one of them is the ninth closest white dwarf to our Sun.

The four systems all have red dwarf star companions, larger and brighter stars, making it look like these were single star systems. The new results, published in MNRAS, have identified that each of these nearby red dwarfs stars were hosting a hidden white dwarf companion star.
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A short video from V101SPACE concerning expo-planets orbiting pulsars:


Three planets orbiting a dead star shouldn't exist. Yet they do. The first exoplanets ever discovered weren't peaceful Earth-like worlds. They were orbiting the corpse of a dead star.​
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For more than thirty years, astronomers have debated how these strange exoplanets came to exist. Did these rocky worlds somehow survive a supernova? Did they form around a pulsar after the explosion? Or were they captured from another star entirely?​
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Travel over 2,300 light-years from Earth to explore the mysterious Lich planetary system, home to Poltergeist, Phobetor and Draugr, three bizarre worlds orbiting a rapidly spinning pulsar, one of the most extreme objects in the universe.​
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If you enjoyed this video, you'll love these next:
• The REAL Reason Voyager Never Reached Pluto → • The REAL Reason Voyager Never Reached Pluto
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Submillimeter Array Catches a Gamma-Ray Burst Thanks to new Fast-Response System

The Submillimeter Array (SMA), an 8-telescope radio interferometer located near the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii, reached an important milestone early this year. On January 26th, 2026, scientists from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) demonstrated this new alert system's ability to rapidly respond to astronomical phenomena identified by space telescopes. Within minutes of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) being identified, the SMA made the first observations of such an event at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.

This followed an automated alert from NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which detected a flash of gamma rays from a source located about 1.8 billion light-years from Earth. Within 90 seconds of detection, the system alerted the on-duty operator. Within 13 minutes, the telescopes were on target while a separate automated analysis generated images of the explosion in near real time. The entire process happened almost entirely without human intervention, demonstrating the alert system's ability to narrow the gap for millimeter/submilliter observations of transient events.
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The Case of the Sun's Missing Silver

Now, thanks to new work led by Sema Caliskan at Uppsala University, that mismatch has finally been resolved. The Sun, it turns out, was never missing its silver at all, we simply weren't measuring it properly.
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New ‘exomoon’ detection challenges cosmic labels:

View: https://youtu.be/z9j_oUFddIY

Related press release:

New ‘exomoon’ detection challenges cosmic labels

Observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Unlike moons in our Solar System, the newly found object does not orbit a planet, raising questions about what to name it. Instead, it circles a brown dwarf, an object larger than a planet, that orbits the CD-35 2722 star. If confirmed, this could be the first ‘moon’ discovered outside our Solar System.
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Would that be the first proper moon discovered outside our own Solar System? It would be exciting news if it was proved to be true Flyaway.
 
The 30 year old dark matter anomaly has been resolved, from Anton Petrov:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the experiment that suggested a discovery of dark matter and the recent re-examination that suggests it may have been wrong
Links:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.23191https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.23191&v=5WHqUUE5arM
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.19559https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.19559&v=5WHqUUE5arM
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.05216https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.05216&v=5WHqUUE5arM
Additional videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK7C0iZvEr0
• Strange Discoveries About Dark Matter Incl...

• Did We Just Find the First Visible Imprint...

• Neutron Stars May Be Covered in Axion Clou...

• The Groundbreaking Primordial Black Hole D... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr3TfHWSgBk&pp=0gcJCR0AztywvtLA

#darkmatter #experiment #damahttps://www.youtube.com/hashtag/dama
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0:00 Italian discovery that confused physicists for 3 decades
1:48 Dark matter in a nutshell - WIMP hypothesis
3:10 Initial experiment and first results
4:50 Xenon vs Iodide crystals
6:05 2 new experiments in Spain and Korea
7:10 Results suggest...nothing
7:48 So what's happening?
9:20 Mystery remains
10:30 Additional explanations
11:12 Conclusions
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NAM 2026: Mystery 'bullets' seen in Milky Way's only helium nova

Mysterious high-speed "bullets" – clumps of possibly oxygen-rich gas travelling at up to 20 million miles per hour – have been discovered shooting out of the rarest stellar explosion in our galaxy.

They were spotted after a dust of debris surrounding the Milky Way's only known helium nova finally cleared after more than 20 years, revealing that an unusual stellar system was to blame for the extraordinary explosion.

But the origin of the "bullets" is an enigma that has left astronomers puzzled – nothing of their kind has ever been observed in other novae throughout the universe.
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Anton Petrov on LHS1140b, famous for being the first apparently rocky world in the habitable zone of its star found to have an atmosphere (probably).

He points out that headlines about it being 'habitable' are overblown. It's a super-earth, due to its mass and the star's relative sedate temperament, it's retained some helium from its primordial atmosphere - but underneath, there's no guarantee that it's like earth.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKiD3gkaRk
 
Anton Petrov has uploaded a video about how a stellar flyby disturbed the Solar system's Oort-cloud and how we're still feeling the effects:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about a star passage close to the sun that may explain increase in cometary activity
Links:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
Scholtz's Star: • SCHOLZ'S STAR - A Solar System Visitor 70 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I18kG7nHYuo
Gliese 710: • Gliese 710 - The Star That Will Enter Our ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2i4kcOjavM
#comets #flyby #astronomy
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0:00 Solar system is affected by flybys
0:50 Scholt'z star example
2:25 Other star system examples
3:20 Oort cloud
4:12 Strange discovery about comets
5:40 Star that passed near us 2.5 millions years ago
8:20 Discoveries and implications
10:00 Other similar visitors
11:19 Conclusions
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Here's a video about the asteroid 16 Psyche how it's worth $US 10 octillion but there's a catch:


The Psyche asteroid is a metal-rich world worth an estimated $10 quintillion — more than the entire world economy. This is the story of NASA's Psyche mission to asteroid 16 Psyche, and why that price is a lie.​
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Somewhere in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a 149-mile rock made largely of iron and nickel is worth roughly one hundred thousand times everything Earth produces in a year. Divided among eight billion people, everyone alive would be a billionaire. But the scientist who first calculated that number, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, will tell you it is completely meaningless.​
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This video breaks down where the $10 quintillion figure comes from, why the treasure would destroy itself the moment it was touched, and the real reason NASA is spending over a billion dollars to reach it. Asteroid 16 Psyche may be the exposed metal core of a dead planet — a naked planetary heart, the one thing we can never reach beneath our own feet. NASA's Psyche spacecraft launched in 2023, aced its Mars gravity assist in May 2026, and arrives in 2029 to find out what this metal world really is.​
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The $10 Quintillion Object
1:42 Where the Number Comes From
4:14 What Asteroid 16 Psyche Is
5:59 The Naked Core of a Dead Planet
9:15 Why the Price Is a Lie
11:37 NASA's Psyche Spacecraft
15:03 We Might Be Completely Wrong
16:28 What Happens in 2029


SOURCES: All space footage courtesy of NASA.
"Psyche Mission Visualization", via svs.gsfc.nasa.gov https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31395
"Psyche Mission Media Reel", via svs.gsfc.nasa.gov https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14421https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14421&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Psyche Launch Highlights", via jpl.nasa.gov https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/psych...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ennedy-space-center-highlights/&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Psyche Delivers Mars Flyby Time-Lapse", via jpl.nasa.gov https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-p...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...rs-flyby-data-time-lapse-video/&v=66pFpEukhxE
"NASA's Psyche Aces Mars Flyby", via nasa.gov https://www.nasa.gov/missions/psyche-...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...by-targets-metal-rich-asteroid/&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Solar Electric Propulsion Makes Psyche Go", via jpl.nasa.gov https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/solar-e...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...kes-nasas-psyche-spacecraft-go/&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Psyche's Hall Thruster", via science.nasa.gov https://science.nasa.gov/image-detail...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev....nasa.gov/image-detail/pia24030&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Psyche Multimedia", via science.nasa.gov https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyc...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev....gov/mission/psyche/multimedia/&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Psyche Science: Composition", via psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu https://psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu/science/https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...syche.ssl.berkeley.edu/science/&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Cut-away Diagram of Earth's Interior", via nasa.gov https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/cu...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...way-diagram-of-earths-interior/&v=66pFpEukhxE
"Asteroid Approach (Dawn at Vesta)", via svs.gsfc.nasa.gov https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11452https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11452&v=66pFpEukhxE
#Psyche #Asteroid #NASA
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The UK government has announced it will cut its funding of the Jodrell Bank Observatory from the 1st April 2028 which could lead to its closure.

The announcement is part of a broader 2.7% cut to astronomy, nuclear and particle physics research over the next four years which will also impact on other projects.

The UK will no longer participate in research at the James Clark Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, which scientists are using to image supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies.

UKRI has also cut funding for the UK's involvement in two instruments on the Extremely Large Telescope which is being built in Chile to search for signs of life on other Earth-like worlds.

And there will be a 20% cut in funding that supports UK participation in the Vera Rubin Telescope in Chile, which is creating the first movie of the Universe - the project was only launched last year.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6r9rdxygo?app-referrer=deep-link
 
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A new study has found a new way to measure the age of the Universe, from Anton Petrov:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the age of the universe and a new measurement technique
Links:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.00764
https://www.astro.yale.edu/demarque/y...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ro.yale.edu/demarque/yyiso.html&v=zVt5XnzpGwQ
#ageoftheuniverse #galaxy #stars


0:00 Age of the Universe study
2:00 How we measured the universe before - CMB method
3:02 Distance ladder method
4:20 New study using stars and galactic archaeology
5:30 How this was measured
7:00 Results and what it means
9:50 Implications for cosmology
11:45 Conclusions and what we still don't know
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A short video showing Alpha Orionis's recent discovered companion star:


Astronomers have finally obtained firm evidence that Betelgeuse, a famous star in the Orion constellation, is not alone. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) they have obtained the clearest image ever of what likely is Betelgeuse B, a star orbiting Betelgeuse and which could explain some of its brightness variations. This video summarises the discovery.​
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For more details, check: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2611/.
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In relation to the cuts I posted about above. According to an article in the Guardian today this decision was made without reference to the Burnham government. It said the cuts were in response to rising costs of electricity and exchange rate which had caused cost overruns. It mentioned in the same article that in a recent survey conducted before these cuts were announced that in response to previous cuts to science that 80% of top scientists were thinking of leaving the UK. Which of course will have a longer run negative impact on our economy.
 
The ESO has uploaded a brief status report about the construction of its' largest telescope:


The ELT’s dome, still partially uncovered and showing its steel skeleton in the beginning of this video, has mostly finished receiving its layer of protective insulated cladding, designed to protect the telescope and its instruments from the harsh desert environment, including very rare but heavy rains. When the massive doors were installed the dome reached its highest point of 80 meters in April of 2025, with a topping-out ceremony that featured the raising of ESO and Chile flags on top of the dome. Later in the year, the dome’s doors were moved for the first time.​
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Meanwhile, inside the dome, the main structure of the ELT, that will hold its mirrors and instruments, is progressing fast. This structure, currently weighing around 3500 tonnes, was recently rotated around its vertical axis for the first time.​
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This video doesn’t capture the advances carried out off-site, such as testing the ELT’s deformable mirror, key to correct atmospheric turbulence and obtain sharp images. The construction of MICADO and METIS, the first instruments to be installed at the ELT, is also progressing well. An agreement for MOSAIC, another ELT instrument, was signed in the end of 2025. With the telescope components and instruments coming together, the ELT is well on its way to start observing the cosmos later this decade.​
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More information and download options: https://www.eso.org/public/videos/pot...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...so.org/public/videos/potw2629a/&v=oCwB778UXHw
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Credit:
ESO.
Music: Jon Kennedy – Funk
ConstructionFootage and photos: ESO, Apical, J. Porte/Chepox, A. Ubilla/Chepox, G. Vecchia/ESO
Acknowledgements: Cimolai
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NASA’s Swift Sees ‘Wandering’ Mega Black Hole Shredding Star

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory captured an “orphan” black hole lighting up as it devoured a star on the outskirts of a faraway galaxy. These phenomena are rare to begin with, and none had ever before been seen so far outside of a galaxy’s core.

“We were looking for these star-shredding events as a way to find otherwise invisible supermassive black holes wandering away from the galactic cores where they usually reside,” said Robert Stein, a research fellow at The University of Maryland, College Park and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “With this discovery, which is one of just a couple that have been confirmed so far, we’ve validated a new technique and can use it to hunt for more.”
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PBS Eons has uploaded this new video about the Great Dying also known as the End-Permian and Permo-Triassic extinction, this is part 1 of a 6-part series:


In the Late Carboniferous Period, predatory amphibians and giant arthropods ruled the swamps. But ancient seed plants and amniotes were evolving adaptations to drier climates. These will help them thrive on Pangea in the Permian Period to come.​
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This is the first our our six-part series on life and death during the Permian period. Episode 2 is available right now! Watch the full series on the PBS App https://to.pbs.org/EonsApphttps://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...Jx&q=https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp&v=RY8mipBWjyw​
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You can also watch on PBS.org - in particular if you're outside of the US:
https://pbs.org/eonshttps://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...N1pBWjVt&q=https://pbs.org/eons&v=RY8mipBWjyw
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Sign up for an invitation email to our watch party on August 4th at 4pm ET / 1pm PT
https://mailchi.mp/complexly/rsvp-pangea
Eons is a production of Complexly for PBS Digital Studios.
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00:00 Where to Watch
00:10 The Great Dying
03:30 The History of Complex Life
05:33 The Late Carboniferous Period
14:49 The Seed
16:51 The Rise of Amniotes
21:39 The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse
23:18 Welcome to Pangea
25:17 Next Time
25:46 Watch Party!
26:02 Credits
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NMaude said:
I suppose it's the bean-counters with no imagination in HM's treasury beyond this bit of shortsighted stupidity.
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It’s this idea that has gripped the politicians in many countries that the only science and research that should be funded is that which brings practical results. That the stuff that’s done just for sciences sake, or to expand human knowledge is a luxury they don’t believe countries can afford or should be funding.
 
Flyaway said:
That the stuff that’s done just for sciences sake, or to expand human knowledge is a luxury they don’t believe countries can afford or should be funding.
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That is an extremely shortsighted attitude though, IIRC for example fibre-optic cable tech originated in British labs back in the 1950s due to this type of research.
 
A video from Anton Petrov concerning a record breaking "Cotton Candy" planet:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about new discoveries about the cotton candy planets (super puffs)
Links:
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/tes...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...he-puffiest-planets-ever-found/&v=fDH8waSmJGM
#superpuff #cottoncandyplanet #astronomy

0:00 Strange exoplanets that shouldn't be possible - super puffs
2:10 New records
3:15 How these planets (probably) formed
7:00 Do they stay this was forever?
8:00 Additional discoveries and mysteries
9:40 Conclusions and implications
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