Space Thread

[spaminator]

Scientists get a rare peek inside of an exploding star
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Adithi Ramakrishnan
Published Aug 20, 2025 • Last updated 16 hours ago • 1 minute read

This illustration provided by W.M. Keck Observatory depicts the insides of an exploding star.
This illustration provided by W.M. Keck Observatory depicts the insides of an exploding star. Photo by Adam Makarenko/W. M. Keck Observatory via AP
NEW YORK — Scientists for the first time have spotted the insides of a dying star as it exploded, offering a rare peek into stellar evolution.


Stars can live for millions to trillions of years until they run out of fuel. The most massive ones go out with a bang in an explosion called a supernova.


Using telescopes that peer deep into space, researchers have observed many such explosions. The cosmic outbursts tend to jumble up a dying star’s layers, making it hard for scientists to observe the inner structure.

But that wasn’t the case for the new discovery, a supernova called 2021yfj located in our Milky Way galaxy.

The collapsing star’s outermost layers of hydrogen and helium had peeled away long ago, which wasn’t surprising. But the star’s dense, innermost layers of silicon and sulfur had also shed during the explosion.

“We have never observed a star that was stripped to this amount,” said Northwestern University’s Steve Schulze, who was part of the discovery team that published the research Wednesday in the journal Nature.


The finding lends evidence to ideas scientists have about how large stars look near the end of their lives, organized into layers with lighter elements on the outside and heavier ones close to the core.

“Because so many of the layers had been stripped off this star, this basically confirmed what those layers were,” said Anya Nugent, who studies supernovas at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She was not involved with the new research.

It’s not yet clear how this star got so whittled down _ whether its layers were flung off violently in the final stages of its life or yanked away by a twin star. Future research may yield clues, though scientists acknowledged such an event may be tough to capture again.

Scientists get a rare peek inside of an exploding star

Scientists for the first time have spotted the insides of a dying star as it exploded, offering a rare peek into stellar evolution.

torontosun.com

 

[Ron in Regina]

Why the Space Force broke with tradition to announce the X-37B’s activities mid-mission remains unclear (such disclosures usually come after the plane is back on the ground, or the Presidential bathroom on Truth Social at 3am).

A top secret US spacecraft takes flight tonight – and it could rewrite the rules of future warfare — BBC Science Focus Magazine

The X-37B returned to Earth this month, but details of its time in space remain hazy, to say the least. August 21, 2025 Later today, in the dead of night, a mysterious spacecraft is set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The craft in question is the eerily-named X-37B – an...

apple.news

 

[spaminator]

Scientists are baffled by a powerful and long-lasting gamma ray explosion outside our galaxy
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Sep 09, 2025 • 1 minute read

090925-Gamma_Ray_Explosion
This image provided by the European Southern Observatory shows a powerful explosion, orange dot at the center of the image, that repeated several times over the course of a day, The image, taken with ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), allowed astronomers to determine that the explosion didn't take place in the Milky Way but in another galaxy. (European Southern Observatory via AP) AP
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have discovered a gamma ray explosion outside our galaxy that’s not only exceptionally powerful, but also long-lasting.


Telescopes on Earth and in space — including Hubble — have teamed up to study the unique explosion of high-energy radiation first observed in July. Astronomers reported Tuesday it’s unlike anything they’ve witnessed before.


The repeated bursts of gamma rays were detected over the course of a day, according to scientists. That’s highly unusual since these kinds of bursts normally last just minutes or even milliseconds — rarely no more than a few hours — as dying stars collapse or are torn apart by black holes.

Scientists said such a long and recurrent gamma ray explosion is puzzling — a cosmic whodunit, at least for now. More observations are needed to confirm its precise whereabouts.

The European-led team announced its findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters in August.

Scientists are baffled by a powerful and long-lasting gamma ray explosion outside our galaxy

Scientists said such a long and recurrent gamma ray explosion is puzzling -- a cosmic whodunit, at least for now.

torontosun.com

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Probably the Jews.

 

[spaminator]

Gravitational waves from black hole smash confirm Hawking theory
Author of the article:AFP
AFP
by Frédéric BOURIGAULT
Published Sep 10, 2025 • 3 minute read

An artist's illustration of two black holes merging. Photo by N. Fischer, H. Pfeiffer, A. Buonanno /MAX PLANCK INSTISTUTE FOR GRAVITATIONAL PHYSICS/AFP/File
Paris (AFP) — Ripples in spacetime sent hurtling through the universe when two black holes smash into each other — a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein — have confirmed a theory proposed by fellow physicist Stephen Hawking over 50 years ago, scientists announced Wednesday.


These ripples, which are called gravitational waves, were detected for the first time in 2015 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States.


In his 1916 theory of general relativity, Einstein predicted that the cataclysmic merger of two black holes would produce gravitational waves that would ripple across the universe and eventually arrive at Earth.

On January 14 this year, LIGO detected another of these signals from the distant universe.

That is no longer such a surprise.

Scientists in the LVK collaboration — a vast network of scientists whose facilities includes gravitational wave detectors in Italy and Japan — now record a new black hole merger roughly once every three days.


However January was “the loudest gravitational wave event we have detected to date,” LIGO member Geraint Pratten of the University of Birmingham, England, said in a statement.

From a whisper to a shout
“It was like a whisper becoming a shout,” added the co-author of a new study in the Physical Review Letters.

The latest event bore striking similarities to the first one detected a decade ago.

Both involved collisions of black holes with masses of between 30-40 times that of our Sun. And both smash-ups occurred around 1.3 billion light years away.

But thanks to technological improvements over the years, scientists are now able to greatly reduce the background noise, giving them far clearer data.

This allowed the researchers to confirm a theory by another great physicist.


In 1971, Stephen Hawking predicted that a black hole’s event horizon — the area from which nothing including light can escape — cannot shrink.

This means that when two black holes merge, the new monster they create must have the same or larger surface area than the pair started out with.

Scientists analysing January’s merger, called GW250114, were able to show that Hawking was right.

Ringing like a struck bell
The black holes collectively started out at 240,000 square kilometres wide, which is roughly the size of the United Kingdom.

But after the collision, the resulting mega-black hole took up 400,000 square kilometres — about the size of Sweden.

The California Institute of Technology said that working out the final merged surface area was “the trickiest part of this type of analysis”.


“The surface areas of pre-merger black holes can be more readily gleaned as the pair spiral together, roiling space-time and producing gravitational waves,” it said in a statement.

But the signal gets muddier once the black holes start combining into a single new monster.

This period is called the “ringdown phase”, because the merged black hole rings like a struck bell — a phenomenon that Einstein also predicted.

The scientists were able to measure different frequencies emanating from this rung bell, allowing them to determine the size of the new post-merger black hole.

Kerr theory vindicated
This also enabled them to confirm the event aligned with another theory, made by New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr in 1963.


Kerr predicted that “two black holes with the same mass and spin are mathematically identically,” a feature unique to black holes, Maximiliano Isi of Columbia University said in a statement.

Gregorio Carullo of the University of Birmingham said that “given the clarity of the signal produced by GW250114, for the first time we could pick out two ‘tones’ from the black hole voices and confirm that they behave according to Kerr’s prediction.”

Scientists are working to find out more about black hole mergers, with several new gravitational wave detectors planned for the coming years — including one in India.

Gravitational waves from black hole smash confirm Hawking theory

Ripples in spacetime sent hurtling through the universe when two black holes smash into each other.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Amateur astronomers help track asteroid to French impact site
Author of the article:AFP
AFP
by Bénédicte Rey
Published Sep 19, 2025 • 2 minute read

A meteorite that broke off 2023 CXI and was found in northwestern France. Photo by Lou BENOIST /AFP/File
Paris (AFP) — With help from amateur astronomers, scientists tracked how an asteroid travelled from space, broke up in Earth’s atmosphere and sent fiery fragments shooting to the ground, gathering new information about how these space rocks disintegrate.


Asteroid 2023 CX1 briefly lit up the sky as it disintegrated over northwestern France at around 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) on February 13, 2023.


Seven hours earlier, a Hungarian astronomer had spotted the small asteroid — which was less than a metre (yard) wide and weighed 650 kilogrammes (more than 1,400 pounds) — roughly 200,000 kilometres (125,000 miles) from Earth.

In the following minutes and hours, scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency were able to calculate the location and timeline of its descent with unprecedented accuracy.

Observatories around the world then joined forces to study every aspect of its journey, using a range of scientific instruments.

Among those swiftly mobilising were professional and amateur astronomers from France’s FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel network, which launched around a decade ago with a mission to detect and collect meteorites — the fragments of asteroids that make it to the ground.


“We received dozens of photos and videos” of the asteroid’s seconds-long journey through the atmosphere, said meteorite specialist Brigitte Zanda of France’s National Museum of Natural History, which is part of the network.

Volunteers search for meterorites in February 2023 in Angiens, France. (Lou BENOIST/AFP/File)
Volunteers search for meterorites in February 2023 in Angiens, France. (Lou BENOIST/AFP/File) Photo by Lou BENOIST /AFP/File
Collaborating with the public — including sifting through images posted on social media — allowed scientists to observe the phenomenon with “unmatched precision”, Zanda told AFP.

In particular, there was an “extremely useful video showing the object fragmenting, which lets us see how many pieces it broke into — and how this happened”, she said.

‘Brutal’ break-up
The first meteorite, weighing 93 grams (3.3 ounces), was found two days later in the northwestern French commune of Saint-Pierre-le-Viger with the help of locals.


In all, around a dozen meteorites were collected and added to the museum’s collection.

After two-and-a-half years, all the information gathered about the asteroid was published in a study in Nature Astronomy this week.

So far only 11 asteroids have been detected before impact — and meteorites were only recovered from four of them, said the study.

2023 CX1 likely broke off from a larger rock in the Massalia asteroid family in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to the study.

As the asteroid entered our planet’s atmosphere, it disintegrated “very brutally in two stages” around 28 kilometres above Earth, Zanda said.

During the process, it lost 98 percent of its mass — and released a huge amount of energy.


“This is maybe only the second time we have observed fragmentation like this,” Zanda said. “It probably depends on the speed, angle of impact and internal structure of the rock.”

None of the fiery meteorites that made it to Earth damaged anything.

However simulations showed that this particular kind of fragmentation has the potential to cause more damage than a more gradual disintegration — such as the way a much-bigger asteroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013.

As that 20-metre-wide asteroid descended, “there were five successive fragments, each releasing a small amount of energy,” Zanda said.

Still, the resulting shockwave shattered windows across the city, injuring more than 1,000 people.

Amateur astronomers help track asteroid to French impact site

With help from amateur astronomers, scientists tracked how an asteroid travelled from space.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

New study adds to the possibility of favourable conditions for life at Saturn’s moon Enceladus
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Oct 01, 2025 • 2 minute read

In this image provided by NASA, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this image of Enceladus on Nov. 30, 2010, with the shadow of the body of Enceladus on the lower portions of the jets is clearly visible.
In this image provided by NASA, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this image of Enceladus on Nov. 30, 2010, with the shadow of the body of Enceladus on the lower portions of the jets is clearly visible. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP /AP
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists have uncovered new types of organics in icy geysers spouting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, bolstering the likelihood that the ocean world may harbour conditions suitable for life.


Their findings, reported Wednesday, are based on observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2008 during a close and fast flyby of Enceladus. The small moon, one of 274 orbiting Saturn, has long been considered a prime candidate in the search for life beyond Earth because of its hidden ocean and plumes of water erupting from cracks near its south pole.


While Enceladus may be habitable, no one is suggesting that life exists.

“Being habitable and being inhabited are two very different things. We believe that Enceladus is habitable, but we do not know if life is indeed present,” said the University of Washington’s Fabian Klenner, who took part in the study.

An international team decided to launch a fresh analysis of tiny grains of ice encountered as Cassini flew through the moon’s geysers. The grains were young compared with the much older geyser particles that ended up in one of Saturn’s outermost rings.


These new grains collided with Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer at 40,000 m.p.h. (64,800 km/h), faster than the old ones. The increased speed provided a clearer view of the chemical compounds present, the scientists noted.

Organic molecules already had been spotted in the old geyser grains, but their age raised questions as to whether they had been altered over the years by space radiation.

Scientists found some of the same molecules in the fresh grains, confirming they came from the moon’s underground sea, as well as new chemical compounds. The findings were published in Nature Astronomy.

An ice-encapsulated water world barely 310 miles (500 kilometres) across with a rocky core, Enceladus is suspected of having hydrothermal vents on its ocean floor, quite possibly like those in the Arctic. The moon’s jets of water vapor and frozen particles can stretch thousands of miles into space.


“We are confident that these molecules originate from the subsurface ocean of Enceladus, enhancing its habitability potential,” the Free University of Berlin’s Nozair Khawaja, the lead author, said in an email.

The scientists favour new missions to further explore Enceladus. Launched in 1997, Cassini is long gone; the spacecraft was deliberately plunged into Saturn in 2017 following its joint mission by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

“Having a variety of organic compounds on an extraterrestrial water world is simply phenomenal,” Klenner said in an email.

The European Space Agency is in the early planning stages of a mission to land on Enceladus decades from now. China also has proposed a landing mission.


NASA has a spacecraft en route to another enticing target to hunt for the ingredients of life: Jupiter’s moon Europa. The Europa Clipper is expected to begin orbiting Jupiter in 2030 with dozens of Europa flybys. ESA also has a spacecraft, Juice, that’s headed to Jupiter to explore Europa and two other icy moons that could hold buried oceans.

Underground oceans on moons “are perhaps the best candidates for the emergence of extraterrestrial life in our solar system. This work only confirms the need for further studies,” said University of Kent physics professor Nigel Mason, who was not involved in the latest findings.

New study adds to the possibility of favourable conditions for life at Saturn’s moon Enceladus

Scientists have uncovered new types of organics in icy geysers spouting from Saturn's moon Enceladus.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Strange 'rogue' planet spotted guzzling matter like a star
Scientists estimate there could be trillions of rogue planets in our galaxy alone

Author of the article:AFP
AFP
by Bénédicte Rey
Published Oct 02, 2025 • 2 minute read

An artist's impression of the rogue planet Cha
An artist's impression of the rogue planet Cha 1107-7626 sucking in matter from the disc that surrounds it. Photo by Handout /European Southern Observatory/AFP
A mysterious “rogue” planet has been observed gobbling six billion tonnes of gas and dust a second — an unprecedented rate that blurs the line between planets and stars, astronomers said Thursday.


Unlike Earth and other planets in our solar system which orbit the Sun, rogue planets float freely through the universe untethered to a star.


Scientists estimate there could be trillions of rogue planets in our galaxy alone — but they are difficult to spot because they mostly drift quietly along in perpetual night.

These strange objects intrigue astronomers because they are “neither a star nor a proper planet,” Alexander Scholz, an astronomer at Scotland’s University of St Andrews and co-author of a new study, told AFP.

“Their origin remains an open question: are they the lowest-mass objects formed like stars, or giant planets ejected from their birth systems?”

The team of researchers behind the new study were stunned to observe an astonishing growth spurt in a rogue planet around 620 light years from Earth in the constellation Chamaeleon.


The planet, officially called Cha 1107-7626, has a mass five to 10 times bigger than Jupiter.

Scholz explained that the object is “still in its infancy,” being roughly one or two million years old.

The object grows by sucking in matter from a disc that surrounds it — a process called accretion.

But what the astronomers saw happen to Cha 1107-7626 “blurs the line between stars and planets,” study-co-author Belinda Damian said in a statement.

In August last year, the planet suddenly started devouring matter from its disc at a record-breaking six-billion-tonnes per second — eight times faster than a few months earlier.

“This is the strongest accretion episode ever recorded for a planetary-mass object,” said lead study Victor Almendros-Abad of the Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Italy.


– ‘Awe-inspiring’ –
By comparing light emitted before and during this binge-eating session, the scientists discovered that magnetic activity was playing a role in driving matter towards the object.

This phenomenon has previously only been observed in stars.

The chemistry in the disc also changed. Water vapour was detected in the disc during the accretion episode, but not beforehand.

This is also something that has previously been observed in stars — but never for a forming planet.

Lead study author Ray Jayawardhana of Johns Hopkins University said the discovery implies “that some objects comparable to giant planets form the way stars do, from contracting clouds of gas and dust accompanied by discs of their own, and they go through growth episodes just like newborn stars”.


No matter how weird, Cha 1107-7626 is still expected to have similar characteristics to huge planets, because it is of similar size.

Scholz said that unlike stars, this object is “not massive enough to ever have fusion reactions in the core”.

So, like other planets, “it will cool inevitably as it gets older,” he added.

Amelia Bayo, another co-author of the study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, said “the idea that a planetary object can behave like a star is awe-inspiring”.

It “invites us to wonder what worlds beyond our own could be like during their nascent stages,” she added.

The observations were made by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, and included data from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Strange 'rogue' planet spotted guzzling matter like a star

A mysterious rogue planet has been observed gobbling six billion tonnes of gas and dust a second -- an unprecedented rate

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Interstellar comet swinging past Mars as fleet of spacecraft looks on
The comet will make its closest approach to Earth in December

Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Oct 02, 2025 • 1 minute read

This image composed from multiple exposures and provided by NSF's NOIRLab shows a comet streaking across a star field above the International Gemini Observatory on Cerro Pachon, near La Serena, Chile. (NSF's NoirLab via AP)
This image composed from multiple exposures and provided by NSF's NOIRLab shows a comet streaking across a star field above the International Gemini Observatory on Cerro Pachon, near La Serena, Chile. (NSF's NoirLab via AP) AP
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A comet from another star system will swing by Mars on Friday as a fleet of spacecraft trains its sights on the interstellar visitor.


The comet known as 3I/Atlas will hurtle within 18 million miles (29 million kilometers) of the red planet, its closest approach during its trek through the inner solar system. Its breakneck speed: 193,000 mph (310,000 kph).


Both of the European Space Agency’s satellites around Mars are already aiming their cameras at the comet, which is only the third interstellar object known to have passed our way. NASA’s satellite and rovers at the red planet are also available to assist in the observations.

Discovered in July, the comet poses no threat to Earth or its neighboring planets. It will come closest to the sun at the end of October. Throughout November, ESA’s Juice spacecraft, which is headed to Jupiter and its icy moons, will keep an eye on the comet.

The comet will make its closest approach to Earth in December, passing within 167 million miles (269 million kilometers).

Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope put the comet’s nucleus at no more than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) across. It could be as small as 1,444 feet (440 meters), according to NASA.

Interstellar comet swinging past Mars as fleet of spacecraft looks on

A comet from another star system will swing by Mars on Friday as a fleet of spacecraft trains its sights on the interstellar visitor.

torontosun.com