Geoscientists Find Explanation for Mysterious Structures within Earth’s Mantle

For decades, scientists have been baffled by two enormous structures buried deep inside Earth. These anomalies may retain geochemical signatures distinct from the surrounding mantle. Yet, their origin remains enigmatic. Rutgers University geodynamicist Yoshinori Miyazaki and colleagues offer a striking explanation for these anomalies and their role in shaping Earth’s ability to support life.

The illustration shows a cutaway revealing the interior of early Earth with a hot, melted layer above the boundary between the core and mantle.

Image credit: Yoshinori Miyazaki / Rutgers University.

The two enigmatic structures, known as large low-shear-velocity provinces and ultra-low-velocity zones, sit at the boundary between Earth’s mantle and its core, nearly 2,900 km (1,800 miles) beneath the surface.

Large low-shear-velocity provinces are continent-sized blobs of dense, hot rock.

One sits beneath Africa; the other is perched under the Pacific Ocean.

Ultra-low velocity zones are thin, molten patches clinging to the core like lava puddles.

Both types of structures slow seismic waves dramatically, signaling unusual composition.

“These are not random oddities,” said Dr. Miyazaki, co-author of a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

“They are fingerprints of Earth’s earliest history.”

“If we can understand why they exist, we can understand how our planet formed and why it became habitable.”

“Billions of years ago, Earth was covered by a global ocean of magma.”

“As it cooled, scientists expected the mantle to form distinct chemical layers, similar to frozen juice separating into sugary concentrate and watery ice.”

“But seismic studies show no such strong layering. Instead, large-low shear velocity provinces and ultra-low velocity zones form irregular piles at the planet’s base.”

“That contradiction was the starting point. If we start from the magma ocean and do the calculations, we don’t get what we see in Earth’s mantle today. Something was missing.”

The team’s model suggests that over billions of years, elements such as silicon and magnesium leaked from the core into the mantle, mixing with it and preventing strong chemical layering.

This infusion could explain the strange composition of large low-shear-velocity provinces and ultra-low-velocity zones, which can be seen as solidified remnants of what the scientists termed a basal magma ocean contaminated by core material.

“What we proposed was that it might be coming from material leaking out from the core,” Dr. Miyazaki said.

“If you add the core component, it could explain what we see right now.”

“The discovery is about more than deep-Earth chemistry.”

“Core-mantle interactions may have influenced how Earth cooled, how volcanic activity unfolded and even how the atmosphere evolved.”

“That could help explain why Earth has oceans and life, while Venus is a scorching greenhouse and Mars is a frozen desert.”

“Earth has water, life and a relatively stable atmosphere.”

“Venus’ atmosphere is 100 times thicker than Earth’s and is mostly carbon dioxide, and Mars has a very thin atmosphere.”

“We don’t fully understand why that is. But what happens inside a planet, that is, how it cools, how its layers evolve, could be a big part of the answer.”

By integrating seismic data, mineral physics and geodynamic modeling, the authors reconceived large low-shear velocity provinces and ultra-low-velocity zones as vital clues to Earth’s formative processes.

The structures may even feed volcanic hotspots such as Hawaii and Iceland, linking the deep Earth to its surface.

“This work is a great example of how combining planetary science, geodynamics and mineral physics can help us solve some of Earth’s oldest mysteries,” said study co-author Dr. Jie Deng, a researcher at Princeton University.

“The idea that the deep mantle could still carry the chemical memory of early core–mantle interactions opens up new ways to understand Earth’s unique evolution.”

“Each new piece of evidence helps fill in gaps in Earth’s early history, turning scattered clues into a clearer picture of its evolution.”

“Even with very few clues, we’re starting to build a story that makes sense,” Dr. Miyazaki said.

• J. Deng et al. 2025. Deep mantle heterogeneities formed through a basal magma ocean contaminated by core exsolution. Nat. Geosci 18, 1056-1062; doi: 10.1038/s41561-025-01797-y

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

19-12-2025 om 22:22 geschreven door peter  

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is rapidly moving away from us. Can we 'intercept' it before it leaves us forever? - PART I

3I/ATLAS has passed its closest point to Earth, meaning we will soon lose sight of it for good. Some scientists want to send a spacecraft to chase down the alien comet — or the next interstellar object.

Astronomers want to send a spacecraft to "intercept" 3I/ATLAS or the next interstellar object. Doing so would help researchers learn more about distant star systems in the Milky Way. 

(Image credit: Nicholas Forder/Future)

We've watched it speed through the solar system using the most powerful telescopes in human history. We've studied its light with probes whipping around the sun and robots marooned on Mars. Countless eyes watched it make its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 19 — and yet, for all of this, the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS remains little more than a blur of gas, shrouded in mystery.

Since its discovery in early July, 3I/ATLAS has been studied more enthusiastically than practically any other celestial object in recent memory. Still, for all its fame, much remains unknown about it. The comet’s origins, from somewhere far across our galaxy, may never be known. Its true age, size, composition, and shape are also poorly constrained.

But how can we learn more about this alien interloper — or indeed, the next one — when we’re already studying it with everything we’ve got?

Some scientists are proposing a bold solution: We have to "intercept" it with a spacecraft.

Doing so would not only help us to better understand its key characteristics but also photograph its surface and potentially collect our first-ever interstellar samples, which could help reveal how alien exoplanets form, how common our type of solar system is and maybe even help answer the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe.

"We only have one shot at this object and then it's gone forever," Darryl Seligman, an astronomer at Michigan State University and the lead author of the first paper published about 3I/ATLAS, previously told Live Science. "So we want as much information from all of our observatories as we can possibly get."

Alien interlopers

On July 1, astronomers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) revealed they had spotted a mysterious object traveling toward us from beyond Jupiter, at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h). ATLAS, which automatically scans the skies using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa, was hunting for potential threats to Earth. It found something else entirely.

Less than 24 hours later, NASA confirmed that the speeding blur of light was an interstellar object — an alien asteroid or comet that originated outside the solar system — and named it 3I/ATLAS. It was only the third-ever detection of an interstellar object in our solar system, after the anomalous space rock 'Oumuamua in 2017 and Comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.

Despite the rapid spread of unfounded theories that the object could be an alien probe, early observations confirmed that 3I/ATLAS is a comet — potentially the oldest of its kind ever seen — that likely originated from the Milky Way's "frontier" region.

Interstellar visitors like this are exciting to astronomers because they are one of the few opportunities we have to explore neighboring star systems, which would take generations and the invention of sci-fi technology to reach aboard a spacecraft.

"ISOs are relics from planetary formation, so studying these objects and comparing them to what we have closer to us [could] lead to an interesting view of how other planetary systems in the galaxy formed," Pedro Bernardinelli, a planetary scientist at the University of Washington's DiRAC Institute, told Live Science in an email.

But our Earth-based observatories, and even orbiting spacecraft such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), can only tell us very rough information like general size, shape and composition. To really reveal ISO secrets, we will need to get much, much closer — possibly even close enough to grab a fragment.

Doing so won't be easy, but given the valuable insights it could reveal about the star systems beyond our own, it would be well worth the effort, experts say.

"Each one of these ISOs is a little piece of low-hanging fruit from a tree that can tell us a great deal about the trees growing in some other neighborhood," Wesley Fraser, an astronomer with the National Research Council Canada, previously told Live Science.

Giving chase

But the time to catch this speeding comet is fast approaching. 3I/ATLAS is now reaching its closest point to Earth, around 168 million miles (270 million km) miles away. From there it will move quickly away from us and will likely be beyond Neptune within another year.

Because it is now too late to intercept 3I/ATLAS within the inner solar system, most researchers agree that there is now only one viable option to study this object: to chase it down as it leaves the solar system.

This would require the spacecraft to carry out what researchers call "Oberth maneuvers," where a probe is gravitationally slingshotted around massive objects, such as the sun, to pick up enough speed to allow it to catch up to and intercept an ISO at a specific point along its predicted trajectory.

This idea was first proposed in 2022 to catch up with the first known interstellar object, 'Oumuamua. The plan, dubbed Project Lyra, was to launch a probe in 2028 that would intercept and investigate that object, after completing an Oberth maneuver around Jupiter.

But this chaser method has a huge limitation: Scientists would need to wait decades for data to come back. For example, if Project Lyra launched a spacecraft in 2030, it would not intercept 'Oumuamua until 2052 at the earliest, Adam Hibberd, a researcher with the U.K.-based nonprofit Initiative for Interstellar Studies (I4IS) who worked on Project Lyra, told Live Science.

So far, Project Lyra has not moved past the planning stage — making a 2028 launch highly unlikely — but the project could still reach 'Oumuamua if launched in 2030 or 2033, Hibberd said. This means we would likely still have plenty of time to chase down 3I/ATLAS, if we want to.

Future propulsion methods, such as a solar sail, could drastically cut the travel time of missions like this from decades down to just a few years, he added. But these technologies are decades away from becoming a reality themselves.

{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

19-12-2025 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is rapidly moving away from us. Can we 'intercept' it before it leaves us forever?- PART II

3I/ATLAS has passed its closest point to Earth, meaning we will soon lose sight of it for good. Some scientists want to send a spacecraft to chase down the alien comet — or the next interstellar object.

Playing "hide-and-seek"

But given that 3I/ATLAS will be very hard to chase down, some astronomers argue that we shouldn't bother hunting it. Rather we should prepare to intercept the next interesting ISO.

By launching an interceptor spacecraft and parking it in a gravitationally stable position around Earth, known as a Lagrange point, we could, in theory, be ready to quickly intercept a passing object, they argue.

This idea, also first proposed in 2022, has been dubbed the "hide-and-seek" approach. However, unlike Project Lyra, it is much closer to becoming a reality.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing the Comet Interceptor mission, which is currently scheduled to launch in 2029, on board the same rocket as ESA's Ariel space telescope, said Colin Snodgrass, an astronomer at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who specializes in comets and was the deputy project investigator on the proposal for this mission.

The Comet Interceptor probe isn't specifically aimed at interstellar visitors. Instead, it's designed to hunt nonperiodic comets like Comet Lemmon, which has been visible in the night sky, alongside 3I/ATLAS, in recent months. These comets drift toward the sun every few hundred or thousand years and have poorly defined orbital pathways around the sun.

When ESA researchers spot a comet they can reach, they will "fire the rockets, get to the right place in space to cross the path of the comet and have this fast flyby encounter, where we go shooting past the comet, getting as much data as we can," Snodgrass told Live Science.

And while the mission is not designed to study interstellar objects, the project will be perfectly placed to intercept them.

"The whole science team is very much in agreement that if an interstellar object was to pop up, we wouldn't let that opportunity go by," Snodgrass said.

The main advantage of the hide-and-seek approach is that we wouldn't have to wait decades for a probe to catch up to its target. Additionally, we'd be reaching it at the best time to study it. That's because interstellar comets, like 3I/ATLAS, soak up more solar radiation when in the inner solar system — which, in turn, means they give off more light, gas and dust, giving us a better chance to learn about their composition.

However, a hide-and-seek mission might not be able to catch all the objects we care about. For example, ESA's Comet Interceptor probe would have been unlikely to reach 3I/ATLAS, had it been in orbit when the ISO was first discovered, because the comet was too far away from us, a recent study from Snodgrass and others found.

Collision course

A major limitation of both the chaser and hide-and-seek missions is that ISOs travel too fast for their respective spacecraft to travel alongside, or rendezvous with, these objects.

This makes it "almost impossible" for the probes to directly obtain samples from the objects' surfaces as NASA did during its OSIRIS-REx mission, which successfully landed a probe on the asteroid Bennu in 2020 and collected samples that were later returned to Earth, Hibberd said. Due to fuel limitations, it is also unlikely that these samples could be easily returned to Earth, especially during a chaser mission, he added.

However, there is a third option that could yield valuable interstellar samples: the "impactor" method.

Similar to NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which successfully deflected the asteroid Dimorphos after smashing into the space rock in 2022, an interceptor probe could also be sent to crash into an ISO, Hibberd suggested. While this probe would be destroyed, a second spacecraft could be deployed to analyze the debris field and potentially even collect leftover fragments of the alien object, he added.

But an impactor mission would need to overcome serious technical challenges. First, ISOs travel much faster than solar system objects, like Dimorphos, meaning it's more difficult to smash them apart. Second, this method would likely work only on an asteroid, not on comets, which have hard, icy shells. And third, a collision could accidentally send chunks of debris on a collision course with Earth, like DART did. As a result, most of the experts who talked to Live Science, including Hibberd, agreed that it is probably too risky to attempt an impactor mission until more research has been done on the subject.

The perfect mission

If money were no object, we could pursue all of these options. But if an agency like NASA has the budget for only one such mission, which one should be selected?

A chaser mission would allow astronomers to target a specific object they know they want to study, while a hide-and-seek mission would be limited to objects that happened to pass nearby. On the other hand, the hide-and-seek mission could reliably predict objects' locations in the inner solar system, whereas the chaser method would target objects in the dark, more chaotic outer solar system, where it would be harder to find and photograph them, Snodgrass said.

Another issue is that signals from a more distant chaser mission would take longer to send and receive, so mission operators would be unable to monitor and adjust an ISO flyby in real time or fix technical difficulties easily — a difficulty NASA faces with its distant Voyager probes, Snodgrass said.

There is also the matter of money. Project Lyra would likely cost the same as NASA's New Horizons mission, which flew by Pluto in 2015 and cost at least $700 million, Hibberd said. Meanwhile, ESA's Comet Interceptor mission has a budget of around $150 million, Snodgrass said.

As a result, most researchers who spoke to Live Science agreed that a hide-and-seek interceptor would likely be the best way of studying an ISO up close.

But if this is the method we end up using, how should we design the resulting spacecraft to maximize its chances of collecting useful data?

While ESA's Comet Interceptor is relatively inexpensive, a dedicated ISO interceptor mission — with a bigger budget — would allow us to launch a faster probe that could carry more fuel and thus travel farther. However, the craft doesn't need to be fancy.

A "fairly stripped-back" probe with a decent camera and a few spectrographs, capable of analyzing the light given off by the different gases, would be more than enough to collect sufficient data from any flyby, Snodgrass said.

If the probe were intercepting a comet, and not an asteroid, it could also be fitted with a device to catch specks of dust from the comet's coma or tail during a superclose approach, just as NASA's Stardust probe did with "Comet Wild 2" in 2004.

Assuming that the interceptor hasn't depleted its fuel reserves and can be returned to Earth, this may be the only reliable way of actually getting our hands on interstellar samples, Snodgrass said.

To intercept or not to intercept

Once the "perfect" interceptor is in position around Earth, researchers will have to choose which ISO to go after. And because any spacecraft is unlikely to be reusable, it may get only one shot at picking the right target.

We may soon be spoiled for choice. ISOs may be far more common than we realize. "There are likely thousands of other ISOs in the solar system right now," Fraser said. "We just can't see them because they are too faint, too far and too fast."

But thanks to the newly operational Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is designed to spot more small and dim objects in the outer solar system, we are likely to find many more ISOs in the coming decades and, more importantly, spot them much earlier on their journey toward us, which would give us a better chance of studying them.

The first thing to consider is whether to go after an asteroid or a comet. Because comets become more active near the sun and present the most likely route for collecting interstellar samples, they would likely take priority, Snodgrass said.

The next consideration would be the target's distance from Earth. As we have already seen, ESA's Comet Interceptor may have struggled to reach 3I/ATLAS on its journey through the inner solar system. Therefore, it might pay to wait for an ISO that is on a favorable trajectory relative to Earth.

{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

19-12-2025 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

NASA's Galileo spacecraft first photographed a bizarre spider-like structure lurking within a large crater on Europa during a close flyby of the moon on March 29, 1998. 

(Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

A mysterious, spider-like structure lurking on Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, Europa, may finally have a proper explanation nearly 30 years after it was discovered. The arachnid imposter has also been given a demonic new name.

In March 1998, NASA's Galileo spacecraft — which studied Jupiter and its major moons between 1995 and 2003 — made a close flyby of Europa, a frozen ocean moon often considered one of the most likely places for extraterrestrial life to exist in the solar system. During this flyby, the probe mapped out a roughly 13.7-mile-wide (22 kilometers) impact structure, dubbed Manannán Crater, on the moon's icy surface, and found something strange lurking within it.

Hidden inside a deep pit near the crater's center was a sprawling dendritic shape. The researchers initially believed the dark feature was caused by the extreme gravitational force exerted on Europa by Jupiter, which is responsible for carving multiple fracture lines across the water world's surface. Other experts have since proposed that it was created by eruptions from hydrothermal vents on the floor of Europa's subsurface ocean. However, neither of these explanations fully explain this unusual shape.

But in a new study, published Dec. 2 in The Planetary Science Journal, researchers proposed an alternative explanation: that the Jovian spider formed in a similar way to how dark dendritic patterns on Earth, known as "lake stars," typically do. These features form when snow falls on frozen lakes and water seeps up through tiny holes in the ice.

With this in mind, the researchers used a similar technique to partially recreate the Manannán Crater's mysterious shape in the lab. The study team also finally named Europa's arachnid-like asterisk Damhán Alla, meaning "spider" or "wall demon" in Irish. (Manannán is a Celtic god from Irish mythology, which partly inspired the new name.)

"Lake stars are really beautiful, and they are pretty common on snow or slush-covered frozen lakes and ponds," study lead-author Laura Mc Keown, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida, said in a statement. "It is wonderful to think that they may give us a glimpse into processes occurring on Europa and maybe even other icy ocean worlds in our solar system."

However, rather than water rising through tiny holes, as happens when lake stars form on Earth, Damhán Alla was likely birthed by an asteroid impact — which created a small crack in Europa's icy shell that enabled salty water to seep upward and paint the spider-like pattern on the surface. (This asteroid impact likely happened after the Manannán Crater was already formed.)

The researchers also noted similarities between Damhán Alla and the infamous "spiders on Mars," which are dusty deposits on the Martian surface that look like swarming spiders when viewed from above. These fake arachnids, known as araneiform terrain, form when submerged carbon dioxide ice sublimates, or turns directly into a gas. Mc Keown's team has previously recreated these features on Earth too.

The similarities in shape between Damhán Alla and the spiders on Mars are due to how "fluid flows through porous surfaces," Mc Keown said. In theory, similar spider features could also form on other frozen ocean worlds, such as Saturn's moon Enceladus, Jupiter's other moon Ganymede and the dwarf planet Ceres, which resides in the asteroid belt beyond Mars.

Mc Keown is now setting up a new laboratory, which will focus on studying how these various spider-like features may form on different solar system moons. She hopes to be able to provide valuable insight that could help inform NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which launched in October 2024 and will arrive to extensively study Jupiter's watery moon in 2030.

"The significance of our research is really exciting," Mc Keown said. "Surface features like these can tell us a lot about what's happening beneath the ice. If we see more of them with Europa Clipper, they could point to local brine pools below the surface," she added.

And these pools could be a good place to start looking for signs of extraterrestrial life.

{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

19-12-2025 om 21:13 geschreven door peter  

Celestial citrus! Scientists are baffled by a LEMON–shaped planet that 'defies explanation'

• READ MORE: Scientists find 'slushy tunnels' on Titan that could harbour life

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Scientists have been baffled by a bizarre lemon–shaped planet that 'defies explanation'.

The Jupiter–size planet was discovered by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and is so strange that it challenges everything we know about how planets form.

Dubbed PSR J2322–2650b, the gas giant has an exotic carbon and helium atmosphere that is unlike any other known exoplanet.

Soot clouds float through the super–heated reaches of its upper atmosphere and condense into diamonds deep in the planet's heart.

This unusual composition is made even stranger by the fact that this planet doesn't orbit a star like our sun.

Instead, this world orbits a type of neutron star known as a pulsar – the ultra–dense core of a dead star that compresses the mass of the sun into something the size of a city.

Located 750 light–years from Earth, this pulsar is constantly bombarding its captive planet with gamma rays and stretching it under gravity into a unique 'lemon' shape.

This produces some of the most extreme temperature differences ever seen on a planet, with temperatures ranging from 650°C (1,200°F) at night to 2,030°C (3,700°F) in the day.

Scientists have been baffled to discover a bizarre lemon–shaped planet that defies everything we know about planetary formation 

Even by the standards of exotic exoplanets, PSR J2322–2650b stands out as exceptionally odd.

And, in a new paper, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers used the JWST to reveal that the planet is even stranger.

Co–author of the study Dr Peter Gao, of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory, says: 'I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was "What the heck is this?"

'It's extremely different from what we expected.'

Of the 6,000 or so known exoplanets, this is the only gas giant that orbits a neutron star.

This is hardly surprising given that neutron stars tend to tear their neighbours apart with gravity or evaporate them with a bombardment of powerful radiation.

PSR J2322–2650b is also extraordinarily close to its star at just one million miles (1.6 million km) away, compared to the distance of 100 million miles (160 million km) between Earth and the Sun.

That means a year on this strange world takes just 7.8 hours as it whizzes around the neutron star at incredible speed.

The planet, dubbed PSR J2322–2650b, orbits a type of neutron star called a pulsar – the ultra–dense core of a dead star that compresses the mass of the sun into something the size of a city

But what really makes the planet a total anomaly is the composition of its atmosphere.

Co–author Dr Michael Zhang, of the University of Chicago, says: 'This is a new type of planet atmosphere that nobody has ever seen before.

'Instead of finding the normal molecules we expect to see on an exoplanet — like water, methane, and carbon dioxide — we saw molecular carbon, specifically C3 and C2.'

This is really weird because, at temperatures as high as they are on the planet, carbon should bond with any other atoms in the atmosphere.

That means molecular carbon can only be dominant when there is almost no oxygen or nitrogen present.

Out of the roughly 150 planets that scientists have analysed in depth, not a single one has molecular carbon in its atmosphere.

However, scientists still genuinely have no idea how such a weird planet could have formed.

'Did this thing form like a normal planet? No, because the composition is entirely different,' says Dr Zhang.

This pulsar is constantly bombarding its captive planet with gamma rays and stretching it under gravity into a unique 'lemon' shape (artist's impression)

Likewise, the planet couldn't have formed by stripping the outer layers of a star since the nuclear reactions in stellar cores don't make pure carbon.

Dr Zhang adds: 'It's very hard to imagine how you get this extremely carbon–enriched composition. It seems to rule out every known formation mechanism.'

Currently, the researchers' best theory is that carbon and oxygen crystallised in the planet's interior as it cooled.

The pure carbon crystals might have then floated to the top and mixed with helium, which is what the scientists would be seeing in their data.

However, co–author Professor Roger Romani, of Stamford University, says that this doesn't solve all the problems.

He says: 'Something has to happen to keep the oxygen and nitrogen away. And that's where the mystery comes in.

'But it's nice not to know everything. I'm looking forward to learning more about the weirdness of this atmosphere. It's great to have a puzzle to go after.'

Scientists study the atmosphere of distant exoplanets using enormous space satellites like Hubble

Distant stars and their orbiting planets often have conditions unlike anything we see in our atmosphere. 

To understand these new world's, and what they are made of, scientists need to be able to detect what their atmospheres consist of.  

They often do this by using a telescope similar to Nasa's Hubble Telescope.

These enormous satellites scan the sky and lock on to exoplanets that Nasa think may be of interest. 

Here, the sensors on board perform different forms of analysis. 

One of the most important and useful is called absorption spectroscopy. 

This form of analysis measures the light that is coming out of a planet's atmosphere. 

Every gas absorbs a slightly different wavelength of light, and when this happens a black line appears on a complete spectrum. 

These lines correspond to a very specific molecule, which indicates it's presence on the planet. 

They are often called Fraunhofer lines after the German astronomer and physicist that first discovered them in 1814.

By combining all the different wavelengths of lights, scientists can determine all the chemicals that make up the atmosphere of a planet. 

The key is that what is missing, provides the clues to find out what is present.  

It is vitally important that this is done by space telescopes, as the atmosphere of Earth would then interfere. 

Absorption from chemicals in our atmosphere would skew the sample, which is why it is important to study the light before it has had chance to reach Earth. 

This is often used to look for helium, sodium and even oxygen in alien atmospheres.  

This diagram shows how light passing from a star and through the atmosphere of an exoplanet produces Fraunhofer lines indicating the presence of key compounds such as sodium or helium 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

19-12-2025 om 15:19 geschreven door peter  

Bon voyage! Interstellar comet 3l/ATLAS safely passes Earth and is now whizzing towards Jupiter

• READ MORE: Nasa's wise scientist finally 'finds the Star of Bethlehem' 

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

The interstellar comet that has had scientists around the world mesmerised for months safely passed Earth this morning. 

At roughly 06:00 GMT, 3I/ATLAS reached its closest point to Earth, coming within 168 million miles (270 million km) of our planet.

To put that into perspective, that is still nearly twice the average distance between Earth and the sun.

The comet is now whizzing towards Jupiter, where it will make a relatively close pass of the gas giant at a distance of 33 million miles (53 million km) on March 16, 2026.

From there, 3I/ATLAS will make its way past the orbit Saturn by July, without coming close to the planet, and cross the orbit of Uranus in June 2027.

In 2028, the interstellar object will travel beyond the last of the planets as it shoots by Neptune at 137,000 miles per hour (221,000 km/h).

Astronomers predict that the comet will reach the orbit of Pluto in April 2029, before striking out into the outer reaches of the solar system.

Finally, 3I/ATLAS will wave goodbye to our stellar neighbourhood as it returns to interstellar space sometime in the mid 2030s.

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS safely passed Earth this morning, reaching its closest distance to our planet at 168 million miles (270 million km) away 

3I/ATLAS was discovered in July and marks only the third time that astronomers have been able to find an object that formed around another star in our own solar system

3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1 by the NASA-funded ATLAS telescope in Chile.

When scientists traced back the approaching object's trajectory, they made the startling discovery that it had arrived from outside the solar system.

This was just the third time astronomers had detected a visitor from another solar system, following 1I Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I Borisov in 2019.

Scientists believe that 3I/ATLAS formed around a distant star around eight billion years ago.

That makes the comet older than our solar system, and the oldest thing that we have ever been able to study close up.

On October 3, the comet reached its closest distance to Mars as it passed just 19 million miles (30 million km) from the Red Planet.

Then, on October 29, the interstellar object reached its closest point to the sun at a distance of 130 million miles (210 million km).

While some immediately leapt to wild conclusions about alien spacecraft, this was actually a fantastic opportunity for scientists to learn more about the history of the galaxy. 

Astronomers believe that 3I/ATLAS is around eight billion years old, making it older than our own solar system 

All of the objects behaviour is consistent with that of a comet heating up and releasing gas and dust as it approaches the sun 

3I/ATLAS' journey through the solar system

July 1: 3I/ATLAS is discovered by the ATLAS telescope in Chile

October 3: The object passes Mars at 19 million miles (30 million km)

October 29: 3I/ATLAS reaches perihelion, passing the sun at 130 million miles (210 million km)

December 19: Object reaches its closest distance from Earth at 168 million miles (270 million km)

March 16, 2026: 3I/ATLAS passes Jupiter

July 2026: 3I/ATLAS reaches Saturn's orbit

June 2027: Object crosses the orbit of Uranus

2028: The comet passes the last planet as it reaches Neptune's orbit

2029: The object passes Pluto and heads for interstellar space 

Mid 2030s: 3I/ATLAS leaves the solar system 

All that time, telescopes on Earth and out in space were redirected towards gathering information about the interstellar traveller.

NASA even used spacecraft orbiting Mars, normally used for recording the planet's surface, to capture data about the passing object.

Professor Chris Lintott, an astronomer from the University of Oxford, told Daily Mail: 'We've been scrambling to observe 3I/ATLAS with everything we've got since it was discovered.

'So far, it's a fairly normal, active comet - plenty of carbon monoxide, some water, a sprinkling of Nickel.'

As comets approach the sun, their outer layers of ice and dust evaporate into a glowing cloud known as a coma and several long tails stretching out in different directions.

The closer 3I/ATLAS got to the sun, the brighter and more active the coma and tails became, and the more layers of the comet's outer surface were burned away.

'Because it's being heated by the Sun, it's changing all the time, and it'll take some time to work out what it's really made of,' says Professor Lintott.

'One idea is that it's like a baked Alaska, with a crunchy outer layer affected by the billions of years it spent in outer space, surrounding a nice fresh ice core.'

Scientists have been 'scrambling' to observe the comet ever since it was discovered. This diagram shows all the spacecraft the European Space Agency has repurposed for investigating the object  

NASA was able to use spacecraft in orbit around Mars to capture to spectrum of light coming from the glowing cloud of gas and dust surrounding the comet (pictured) 

And, while it might take scientists months to comb through all the data, researchers have already learned enough to decisively conclude that it is not an alien spacecraft.

All of the object's supposedly anomalous behaviours, such as changing trajectory or producing jets of sublimating gas, are entirely consistent with what we know about comet behaviour.

Dr Matthew Genge, an expert on near-Earth objects and astrobiology from Imperial College London, says: 'Suggestions that 3I/Atlas was an alien spacecraft on route to Earth have thus been shown to be very wrong indeed.'

However, one of the most important lessons that scientists have learned from this encounter is that we need to be better prepared for the next interstellar object.

Interstellar objects are not particularly rare, as scientists predict there are around a billion billion billion of them in the galaxy, we are just very bad at spotting them.

But as telescopes like the newly-completed Vera C Rubin Observatory start to survey the sky, we should start to find many more.

Professor Mark Burchell, a space scientist from the University of Kent, told Daily Mail: 'Now we know how to spot them, it gets easier each time.

'The next science goal to my mind is to prepare to see a 'fresh' comet from the outer solar system, which means parking a spacecraft in space in advance.'

Having passed Earth, 3I/ATLAS is now whizzing towards Jupiter, where it will make a relatively close pass of the gas giant at a distance of 33 million miles (53 million km) on March 16, 2026

Read More

• Maven, we have a problem: NASA loses contact with spacecraft orbiting Mars for more than a DECADE 

Normally, it takes years to plan, build, and launch a new spacecraft - which isn't possible within the window we have to catch an interstellar object.

Yet with a spacecraft waiting out in space, scientists could simply redirect this interceptor craft to catch suitable comets when they approach.

Professor Burchell says this might be much harder to do with interstellar objects, since they are so much rarer than comets.

But if scientists were suitably prepared, the potential for learning about the formation of the galaxy could be incredible.

Explained: The difference between an asteroid, meteorite and other space rocks

An asteroid is a large chunk of rock left over from collisions or the early solar system. Most are located between Mars and Jupiter in the Main Belt.

A comet is a rock covered in ice, methane and other compounds. Their orbits take them much further out of the solar system.

A meteor is what astronomers call a flash of light in the atmosphere when debris burns up.

This debris itself is known as a meteoroid. Most are so small they are vapourised in the atmosphere.

If any of this meteoroid makes it to Earth, it is called a meteorite.

Meteors, meteoroids and meteorites normally originate from asteroids and comets.

For example, if Earth passes through the tail of a comet, much of the debris burns up in the atmosphere, forming a meteor shower.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

19-12-2025 om 15:08 geschreven door peter  

Saturn's moon could harbour ALIEN life: Scientists discover 'slushy tunnels' on Titan – and they might be habitable

• READ MORE: 'Wall demon' discovered on Jupiter's moon that could hint at life

By JONATHAN CHADWICK, ASSISTANT SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 

Saturn's largest moon Titan has 'slushy tunnels' beneath its surface that could potentially harbour alien life, a new study shows.

Scientists at NASA and the University of Washington have analysed data captured by the Cassini space probe, which completed more than 100 targeted flybys of Titan. 

They reveal that the faraway moon has 'a slushy high–pressure ice layer' similar to the melting Arctic that could hide extraterrestrial life. 

What's more, it means Titan may not have a waterworld–style liquid ocean under its frozen surface as previously thought. 

'Instead of an open ocean like we have here on Earth, we're probably looking at something more like Arctic sea ice or aquifers,' said study author Professor Baptiste Journaux at the University of Washington. 

'[This] has implications for what type of life we might find, the availability of nutrients, energy and so on.'

Around 3,200 miles in diameter, Titan is described by NASA as an icy world whose surface is completely obscured by a golden hazy atmosphere. 

It is the sole other place in the solar system known to have an Earth–like cycle of liquids raining from clouds, flowing across its surface, filling lakes and seas, and evaporating back into the sky – akin to the water cycle of our planet. 

The six infrared images of Titan above were created by compiling data collected over the course of the Cassini mission. They depict how the surface of Titan looks beneath the foggy atmosphere, highlighting the variable surface of the moon

Titan's frozen surface is thought to have water beneath it. According to the study, this is neither uniformly liquid, nor frozen solid, but slushy. This illustration shows the various ways Titan might respond to Saturn's gravitational pull depending on its interior structure. Only the slushy interior produced the bulge and lag observed in the new study

NASA's spacecraft Cassini launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in October 1997 and spent two decades observing Saturn and its moons. 

As Titan circled Saturn in an elliptical (not perfectly circular) orbit, the moon was observed changing shape depending on where it was in relation to Saturn. 

In 2008, researchers proposed that Titan must possess a huge ocean beneath the surface to allow such significant 'stretching and smushing'. 

'The deformation we detected during the initial analysis of the Cassini mission data could have been compatible with a global ocean,' Professor Journaux said.

'But now we know that isn't the full story.' 

For the study, scientists performed a reanalysis of radiation data acquired by Cassini using improved modern techniques. 

Interestingly, they found that Titan's shape–shifting or 'flexing' occurs about 15 hours after the peak of Saturn's gravitational pull. 

This time delay allowed scientists to estimate how much energy it takes to change Titan's shape, allowing them to make conclusions about the moon's interior. 

Titan, imaged by the Cassini orbiter, December 2011. A thick shroud of organic haze permanently obscures Titan's surface from viewing in visible light

Cassini is depicted here in a NASA illustration. Cassini launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in October 1997

Titan: Basic facts 

• Parent planet: Saturn
• Discovered: March 25, 1655 
• Type: Icy moon 
• Diameter: 3,200 miles 
• Temperature: Around –297 degrees Fahrenheit 
• Orbital period: Nearly 16 Earth days
• Mass: 1.8 times Earth's moon

Essentially, the amount of energy lost, or dissipated, in Titan was 'very strong' and much greater than would be observed if Titan were to have a global liquid ocean. 

'That was the smoking gun indicating that Titan's interior is different from what was inferred from previous analyses,' said study author Flavio Petricca at NASA. 

According to the study, Titan's frozen exterior hides more ice giving away to pockets of meltwater (water formed by the melting of snow and ice) near a rocky core. 

The model they propose in their paper, published in Nature, features more slush and quite a bit less liquid water on Titan than previously thought. 

The discovery of a slushy layer on Titan has 'exciting implications' for the search for life beyond our solar system as it expands the range of environments considered habitable.   

Although the idea of a liquid ocean on Titan was a promising indication of life there, researchers believe the new findings might improve the odds of finding it. 

Analyses indicate that the pockets of freshwater on Titan could reach 68°F (20°C) – which is the optimal temperature for life on Earth to thrive. 

Any available nutrients would be more concentrated in a small volume of water, compared to an open ocean, which could facilitate the growth of simple organisms.

Below Titan's frozen exterior is more ice giving way to slushy tunnels and pockets of meltwater (water formed by the melting of snow and ice) near a rocky core

Read More

• 

More could be revealed about the moon's habitability after NASA's upcoming Dragonfly mission to Titan launches in July 2028. 

The Dragonfly lander is expected to launch in July 2028 and take six years to reach Titan, arriving by 2034.

Scientists are still reaping the rewards of the rich data obtained by the Cassini robotic spacecraft, which was active for nearly 20 years after launching in October 1997.

Cassini's mission ended in September 2017 when it was deliberately flown into Saturn's upper atmosphere before it ran out of fuel.

In 2019, Cassini data revealed that a lake on Titan is rich with methane and 300 feet deep.

WHAT DID CASSINI DISCOVER DURING ITS 20-YEAR MISSION TO SATURN?

Cassini launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1997, then spent seven years in transit followed by 13 years orbiting Saturn.

An artist's impression of the Cassini spacecraft studying Saturn 

In 2000 it spent six months studying Jupiter before reaching Saturn in 2004.

In that time, it discovered six more moons around Saturn, three-dimensional structures towering above Saturn's rings, and a giant storm that raged across the planet for nearly a year.

On 13 December 2004 it made its first flyby of Saturn's moons Titan and Dione.

On 24 December it released the European Space Agency-built Huygens probe on Saturn's moon Titan to study its atmosphere and surface composition.

There it discovered eerie hydrocarbon lakes made from ethane and methane.

In 2008, Cassini completed its primary mission to explore the Saturn system and began its mission extension (the Cassini Equinox Mission).

In 2010 it began its second mission (Cassini Solstice Mission) which lasted until it exploded in Saturn's atmosphere.

In December 2011, Cassini obtained the highest resolution images of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

In December of the following year it tracked the transit of Venus to test the feasibility of observing planets outside our solar system.

In March 2013 Cassini made the last flyby of Saturn's moon Rhea and measured its internal structure and gravitational pull.

Cassini didn't just study Saturn - it also captured incredible views of its many moons. In the image above, Saturn's moon Enceladus can be seen drifting before the rings and the tiny moon Pandora. It was captured on Nov. 1, 2009, with the entire scene is backlit by the Sun

In July of that year Cassini captured a black-lit Saturn to examine the rings in fine detail and also captured an image of Earth.

In April of this year it completed its closest flyby of Titan and started its Grande Finale orbit which finished on September 15.

'The mission has changed the way we think of where life may have developed beyond our Earth,' said Andrew Coates, head of the Planetary Science Group at Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London.

'As well as Mars, outer planet moons like Enceladus, Europa and even Titan are now top contenders for life elsewhere,' he added. 'We've completely rewritten the textbooks about Saturn.'

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19-12-2025 om 13:15 geschreven door peter  

a Main Target in the Search for Life Beyond Earth

One of 274 moons orbiting Saturn, Titan has long fascinated scientists due to its unique surface features. For example, Titan is the only solar system body besides Earth that may potentially have liquids on its surface, in the form of methane and ethane. The moon also experiences periodic rainfall, making it the only moon known to experience precipitation that reaches its surface.

But unlike Earth’s oceans, Titan’s lakes, rivers, and rains are made of hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane, not liquid water. When combined with its icy surface temperature of –290 degrees Fahrenheit (–179°C), it is considered unlikely that life could exist in any of those liquid environments.

When NASA scientists first analyzed data from Cassini’s decade-plus mission to Saturn and its moons, the initial readings suggested that a large, liquid-water ocean may exist beneath Titan. The discovery fueled speculation about possible extraterrestrial life forms living in such an ocean, including whether more complex life could exist under such conditions.

More recently, evidence has mounted that several other solar system moons, including Saturn’s “Death Star” moon Mimas and Jupiter’s Ganymede and Europa, may also have massive seawater oceans underneath their icy shells. Those discoveries have once again increased optimism that future missions to those space bodies could discover the first irrefutable evidence of life beyond Earth.

New Models Predict ‘Slushy’ Interior Instead of a Liquid Ocean

In the new analysis, the team set out to characterize Titan’s potential subsurface ocean. Specifically, they wanted to understand the degree to which the moon stretches in response to Saturn’s gravitational pull and the duration of that stretching to determine the energy required. The team said this is critical because the moon’s stretching was the first major clue that led researchers to propose the possibility of an ocean back in 2008.

“The deformation we detected during the initial analysis of the Cassini mission data could have been compatible with a global ocean,” explained Baptiste Journaux, a University of Washington assistant professor of Earth and space sciences.

Still, the researcher explained, the moon’s “degree of deformation” depends on Titan’s internal structure.

“A deep ocean would permit the crust to flex more under Saturn’s gravitational pull, but if Titan were entirely frozen, it wouldn’t deform as much,” Journaux said.

Where previous models had supported the possibility of an ocean beneath Titan, the team’s newest models added a component not included in earlier versions: the timing of the deformations. The NASA-led team said that adding this variable was critical, since a closer analysis of the Cassini data showed that Titan’s most considerable deformation occurs roughly 15 hours after Saturn’s peak gravitational pull.

After adding this delay to the updated models, the team found that much more energy was being dissipated in Titan than previously estimated. This increased energy dissipation allowed them to make more informed inferences about the moon’s interior structure. Specifically, the long deformation delay indicated the interior structure was much thicker and viscous than simple water, since more energy was needed to cause a change in Titan’s shape.

“Nobody was expecting very strong energy dissipation inside Titan,” said the study’s leader, Flavio Petricca, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “That was the smoking gun indicating that Titan’s interior is different from what was inferred from previous analyses.”

Journaux said the results suggest Titan’s icy surface has a thick, slushy layer beneath that requires more energy to deform than water does.

“Instead of an open ocean like we have here on Earth, we’re probably looking at something more like Arctic sea ice or aquifers,” the researcher explained.

Improved Odds of Finding Extraterrestrial Life?

When discussing the new analysis, Journaux said that a slushier Titan interior could have “implications for what type of life we might find.” For instance, a thicker or more viscous environment might lead to nutrients gathering in small areas of water rather than being dispersed throughout an entire global ocean. The team said this increased nutrient density could “facilitate the growth of simple organisms.”

The new model also suggested that these theoretical pockets of nutrient-dense water could reach 68 degrees Fahrenheit in highly localized, transient briny areas under specific conditions, influenced by Saturn’s gravity. The researchers said this warmer environment could also increase the chances of extraterrestrial life on Titan.

“The discovery of a slushy layer on Titan also has exciting implications for the search for life beyond our solar system,” Journaux said. “It expands the range of environments we might consider habitable.”

The team said their updated models suggest that future missions to Titan, such as NASA’s Dragonfly Mission, which includes Journaux as part of the team, may not discover “fish wriggling through slushy channels.” Instead, if a future mission does find signs of life on Saturn’s enigmatic moon, it may resemble the simpler life forms found on Earth’s polar ecosystems.

• The study “Titan’s strong tidal dissipation precludes a subsurface ocean” was published in Nature.
• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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19-12-2025 om 12:36 geschreven door peter  

Scientists reveal what ancient Martians might have looked like - as NASA announces strongest evidence yet for life on the Red Planet

• READ MORE: NASA finds clearest sign of life on Mars

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Yesterday, NASA made the startling announcement that its scientists have uncovered the 'clearest evidence' yet for the existence of life on Mars.

Last year, NASA's Perseverance rover discovered that a dry riverbed just north of the Martian equator is dotted with rusty circular markings known as 'leopard spots'.

According to NASA administrator Sean Duffy, the space agency now believes these marks could have been left by ancient lifeforms which lived billions of years ago.

Now, scientists have revealed what these alien organisms might have looked like. 

Any life that evolved on Mars would have had to contend with harsh radiation, weak gravity, and temperatures that can swing between 20°C (70°F) in the day and -153°C (-225°F) at night. 

However, the scientists behind this groundbreaking research say that it is still possible for some forms of life to evolve. 

If there were life on Mars, it would almost certainly consist of very simple microbial organisms like bacteria.

In the unlikely case that more complex life did evolve somewhere on the Red Planet, it would need to develop special adaptations to survive this impossibly harsh climate.

NASA has revealed the 'clearest evidence' yet for the existence of life on Mars, as it claims that 'leopard spots' on Martian rocks could have been created by ancient microbes

Scientists say that Mars' Jezero Crater was once filled with water that would have been 'clement' for microbial life to develop. Pictured: AI-generated impression 

What did NASA find on Mars?

While investigating a region known as the 'Bright Angel', NASA's Perseverance rover spotted a group of unusual markings that resemble leopard spots.

Scientists call these spots 'reaction fronts', and they are points of contact where chemical and physical reactions have occurred in the past. 

Critically, Perseverance's on-board lab found that these spots contained two iron-rich minerals: Vivianite, which is found in decaying organic matter, and greigite, which is produced by microbes on Earth.

Dr Keyron Hickman-Lewis, an Earth scientist from Birkbeck, University of London and co-author of the NASA report, told Daily Mail: 'The kinds of organic–mineral associations observed at Bright Angel that are reported in this paper are known to be generated by microbial life on Earth, and so it is a very promising observation to see something so similar on Mars.

'Certainly, I think that this is the most compelling potential evidence of life on Mars found to date.'

The scientists can't yet rule out that these spots could be caused by non-biological processes, and Dr Hickman-Lewis says that this is not a 'smoking gun'.

However, after spending a year reviewing the evidence and looking for alternative explanations, the researchers are now confident enough to say that this could be a 'biosignature', an elusive sign which proves the existence of life.

These signs of life were found by the Perseverance rover in a region called 'Bright Angel'. Researchers say that chemicals found in the leopard spots are produced by biological processes on Earth 

Although Mars is now a barren desert, billions of years ago, it would have been covered with rivers and lakes that could have supported life 

Dr Hickman-Lewis adds: 'The Mars 2020 team does not use the term "potential biosignature" lightly.'

What would this life look like?

The potential signs of life were found in a region called Jezero Crater, an impact basin just north of the equator.

Although it is now a barren wasteland, billions of years ago, the Jezero Crater was filled with water that could have been home to life.

If life did exist in these waters, the most plausible explanation is that it was some sort of simple microorganism.

Dr Hickman-Lewis says: 'The environment in which these potential biosignatures were found seems to be a low-temperature water-rich setting and therefore very clement for microbial life.'

In their paper, published in Nature, the researchers suggest that microbes could have fed on the naturally occurring carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus in the rocks.

These microbes would have then 'excreted' the minerals which we now see as leopard spots.

NASA Administrator Sean Duffy (center) revealed that a sample collected by Perseverance is the 'clearest sign of life' on Mars ever found in 30 years

The Jezero Crater, where the potential signs of life were found, was once a river delta. Observations from orbiting spacecraft show patterns of sediment that are similar to those made by rivers on Earth.

Pictured: AI-generated impression 

As microbes fed on the carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus in the rocks, they might have released iron-rich chemicals which permanently stained the rocks to leave 'leopard spots'. Pictured: AI-generated impression 

The conditions on the surface would have been incredibly harsh, but the researchers say that life still could have eked out a simple existence.

Dr Sanjeev Gupta, an Earth scientist from Imperial College London and member of the research team, told Daily Mail: 'There was liquid water present at the surface at the time billions of years ago, so it was a habitable environment. 

'This would have been simple microbial life. We can say much more than that.'

Since we can only see the possible traces left behind by these microorganisms, it's difficult to know what they might have looked like or how they behaved.

However, it is possible to make some very general predictions based on parallels from Earth.

Professor Michael Garrett, an astronomer from the University of Manchester and Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics who was not involved in the study, told Daily Mail: 'Think of hardy bacteria, similar to terrestrial extremophiles that thrive in very salty, cold, or low-oxygen conditions here on Earth.

'Good analogues are the microbial mats in very salty lakes or microbes that live kilometres underground in Earth’s crust or in the high desert in Chile.

'These examples show us that life can be tough, minimalistic, and persistent even in places where surface conditions are brutal.'

Scientists say that the best parallels for what life might have looked like are the microbial mats that form in extremely salty lakes on Earth. Pictured: AI-generated impression 

It is unlikely that more complex life could have evolved since Mars' climate changed rapidly about a billion years after the first microbes could have appeared. This means complex organisms like animals probably didn't have time to develop.

Pictured: AI-generated impression 

Could more complex life have evolved? 

If these leopard spots really are biosignatures, then the researchers say it's unlikely that they only existed in one place.

Perseverance is currently studying very ancient rocks outside of the Jezero Crater to look for signs of more widespread life.

However, it is extremely unlikely that more complex life evolved anywhere on the Red Planet.

The researchers think that microbes emerged on Mars around the same time that life was getting started on Earth.

However, after about one billion years, Mars' climate began to change rapidly as solar winds stripped away its atmosphere - leaving the planet very cold and dry.

Professor Garrett says: 'Those harsh conditions on Mars after 1 billion years would put strong limits on body size and complexity of any lifeform.

'It took really complex life, like animals, another 3 billion years before they appeared on the Earth, where the conditions were much better to support energy-hungry complex life forms.'

If complex life had emerged, it would have needed to develop adaptations like thick skin or live underground to avoid the intense radiation of the Martian surface. Pictured: AI-generated impression 

On Earth, some of the first animals to evolve were simple filter feeders. Filter feeders also survive in extreme environments such as hydrothermal vents, so complex Martian life might have followed a similar evolutionary trajectory. Pictured: AI-generated impression 

Read More

• Earth-sized planet just 40 light-years away could have an atmosphere capable of sustaining life 

In the unlikely case that more complex life did evolve, Mars' harsh conditions would also put strong constraints on what it might look like.

'It would need to be adapted to survive the intense UV radiation from the Sun, extreme cold, and limited liquid water - we don’t really see complicated animal life in such environments,' says Professor Garret.

He adds: 'If they were present, they would need protection from the UV radiation from the sun – maybe a thick skin, for example, or perhaps mostly living under the Martian soil.'

That means complex life might resemble creatures on Earth that live in exceptionally harsh environments, such as desert-dwelling lizards or the simple filter-feeders that survive near hydrothermal vents.  

MARS: THE BASICS

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a 'near-dead' dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. 

Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence that it was even more active in the past. 

It is one of the most explored planets in the solar system and the only planet humans have sent rovers to explore.

One day on Mars takes a little over 24 hours and a year is 687 Earth days.

Facts and Figures 

Orbital period: 687 days

Surface area: 55.91 million mi²

Distance from Sun: 145 million miles

Gravity: 3.721 m/s²

Radius: 2,106 miles

Moons: Phobos, Deimos

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18-12-2025 om 22:53 geschreven door peter  

The mystifying 3I/ATLAS interstellar comet is blazing toward Earth and will in a matter of days come as close to our planet as it ever will.

The impending cosmic rendezvous – if you want to call it that, since 3I/ATLAS will still be pretty far away – has been anticipated for months ever since the strange visitor was first spotted in Earth's neighborhood. Since its discovery in our solar system in July, 3I/ATLAS has passed within the orbit of Mars and come within 130 million miles of the sun.

Now, the ancient space object is due to approach Earth – offering the world's scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study a comet that formed in an entirely different part of our Milky Way. Of course, the public may also have an interest in spotting the object that many sincerely believe could be an alien spaceship.

Want to know how you can track and glimpse 3I/ATLAS as it comes near Earth? Here's everything to know.

• 3I/ATLAS: NASA's Hubble telescope gets another look at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS

What is 3I/ATLAS? Why scientists say it's an interstellar comet

The object known as 3I/ATLAS made news in July 2025 when it was confirmed to be the third object ever discovered originating outside Earth's solar system. When it was spotted, 3I/ATLAS was traveling 137,000 mph, according to NASA.

Observations of 3I/ATLAS' speed and trajectory confirmed to astronomers that it formed in another star system and was ejected into interstellar space – the region between the stars, according to NASA. For possibly billions of years, the comet has drifted on a journey from the general direction of the constellation Sagittarius in the center of the Milky Way that recently brought it into our solar system.

• Related video: Here’s everything you need to know about 3I/ATLAS (The Weather Channel

Though astronomers don’t yet know exactly how big 3I/ATLAS could be, estimates range from a few hundred feet to a few miles across, according to the European Space Agency. But data from the Hubble Space Telescope helped astronomers estimate the size of the comet’s solid, icy nucleus as anywhere from about 1,400 feet to 3½ miles in diameter.

Unlike comets bound to the sun's gravity, 3I/ATLAS is traveling on a hyperbolic orbit that eventually will carry it out of the solar system and back into interstellar space.

Are there photos of 3I/ATLAS? See all NASA images of comet

On Nov. 19, NASA released a trove of never-before-seen images of 3I/ATLAS that revealed new characteristics of the object.

A look at all of the photos NASA has released of 3I/ATLAS since its discovery, including detailed explanations of each, are available below.

Will 3I/ATLAS hit Earth? How close will it get?

The comet, which is not a danger to Earth, is projected to pass within about 170 million miles of our planet Dec. 19. That's nearly twice the distance of Earth to the sun and more than 700 times the distance of Earth to the moon.

Will you be able to see 3I/ATLAS from Earth? Where is it now?

Though 3I/ATLAS is not visible to the naked eye, viewers with even a small telescope can observe the comet in the predawn sky until spring 2026, according to NASA.

During the comet's closest approach to Earth, skywatchers looking east to northeast could catch the comet right under the star Regulus – one of the brightest stars visible to Earth – in the constellation Leo, according to NASA's December skywatching guide.

The agency's online simulation Eyes on the Solar System shows the location and path of 3I/ATLAS as it moves through our solar system.

"Look for observatories and skywatching events in your local area," Chelsea Gohd, a science communicator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, explained in a video.

Is 3I/ATLAS an alien spaceship? NASA leaders reject extraterrestrial conspiracy

The strange outsider's jaunt through Earth's cosmic neighborhood has sparked plenty of conspiracy theories.

One particularly infamous idea – put forth by a Harvard astrophysicist named Avi Loeb – is that 3I/ATLAS could be an alien spaceship. Though Loeb has conceded on the publishing platform Medium that the object is "most likely a comet of natural origin," he has not ruled out the possibility that it could be extraterrestrial technology.

NASA authorities, though, have sought to put that notion to rest.

In a social media exchange with reality TV star Kim Kardashian in October, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy affirmed: "No aliens. No threat to life here on Earth."

Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, also rejected the alien conspiracy theory at a news conference in November, saying, "We certainly haven't seen any technosignatures or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet."

Hubble, James Webb among fleet of instruments to study comet

Scientists who are eager to study planetary material that formed from another star have for months trained ground and space telescopes on 3I/ATLAS. The Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope have returned images and data from the comet.

Hubble's latest sighting of the interstellar object came Nov. 30, NASA said in a December blog post.

At the time, 3I/ATLAS was about 178 million miles from Earth. Because Hubble was tracking the comet as it moved across the sky, stars in the background appear as streaks of light, NASA said.

• Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
• This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Where is 3I/ATLAS now? How to track interstellar comet as it nears Earth

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{ USA TODAY }

17-12-2025 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

3I/ATLAS Still Shows an Anti-Tail, as it Gets Closer to Earth

Avi Loeb

An image of 3I/ATLAS, taken on December 13, 2025 at 21:30:26 UTC with a 0.26-meter telescope in Rayong, Thailand. The field of view spans 0.72 million kilometers on a side at the distance of 3I/ATLAS from Earth, 271 million kilometers. The bottom three panels show the projected brightness map in false colors and black & white, respectively. The top panel shows a rotational-gradient brightness map with a Larson-Sekanina filter. A prominent anti-tail, uncommon for comets, points in the direction of the Sun towards the lower left.

(Image Credit: Teerasak Thaluang)

As of today, December 14, 2025, the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is at a distance of about 270.5 million kilometers from Earth. Its images are delayed by a quarter of an hour, as it takes light from 3I/ATLAS 15 minutes to reach us. On December 19, 2025, 3I/ATLAS will get closest to Earth at a perigee distance of 268.9097 (+/-0.0060) million kilometers.

The latest image of 3I/ATLAS was taken by Teerasak Thaluang on December 13, 2025 at 21:30:26 UTC with a 0.26-meter telescope in Rayong, Thailand (as reported here). The rotational-gradient brightness map shows a prominent anti-tail, uncommon for comets, pointing in the direction of the Sun.

Whereas an anti-tail had been seen for solar system comets as a temporary perspective effect when the Earth crossed the comets’ orbital plane, this is clearly not the case with 3I/ATLAS. The anti-tail was apparent in the first Hubble Space Telescope image, taken on July 21, 2025, when 3I/ATLAS was approaching the Sun from a geocentric distance of 2.98 times the Earth-Sun separation (AU) — as reported here and analyzed here, and was also apparent in the second Hubble image taken on November 30, 2025, when 3I/ATLAS was receding away from the Sun at a distance of 1.91 AU from Earth — as reported here. The anti-tail was also apparent in thousands of images taken in between these dates.

The anti-tail of 3I/ATLAS is therefore not a perspective effect. It is a real physical jet, with a glow extending from 3I/ATLAS towards the Sun. Its nature is a mystery because gas and micrometer-dust particles are expected to be pushed away from the Sun by solar radiation pressure and the solar wind, creating the appearance of a tail — as routinely seen in solar-system comets. There was no mention of this mystery at the NASA press conference about 3I/ATLAS on November 19, 2025 (accessible here).

To explain the physics of the anti-tail of 3I/ATLAS, I have written three scientific papers. The first two of these peer-reviewed papers, co-authored with Eric Keto (accessible here and here), associate the anti-tail with scattering of sunlight by fragments of ice shed from the sun-facing side of 3I/ATLAS. These tiny ice particles evaporate before they get pushed back significantly by the solar radiation pressure and so they never appear as a conventional cometary tail. The third (single-authored) paper, published on December 8, 2025 here, associates the anti-tail with a swarm of objects that lag behind 3I/ATLAS because of its non-gravitational acceleration away from the Sun (as reported by JPL Horizons here). Analysis of the latest Hubble image could potentially favor one of these explanations.

By recognizing anomalies, we can learn something new. By ignoring them, we remain ignorant.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

{ https://medium.com/ }

17-12-2025 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

The Sun’s magnetic field controls its flare activity and, consequently, magnetic storms on Earth. However, it has a very complex structure. Recently, scientists have used artificial intelligence to map it.

Features of measuring the Sun’s magnetic fields

Researchers at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) are helping to change the way scientists study the Sun. A team led by the University of Hawaii has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can map the Sun’s magnetic field in three dimensions with unprecedented accuracy, supporting research related to the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope built and managed by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO) on Haleakalā.

“The Sun is the most powerful source of space weather that can affect everyday life on Earth, especially now that we rely so heavily on technology,” said Kai Yang, a postdoctoral researcher at IfA who led the work. “The Sun’s magnetic field causes explosive phenomena such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. This new technique helps us understand what causes these phenomena and improves space weather forecasts, allowing us to warn of dangers earlier in order to protect the systems we use every day.”

The Sun’s magnetic field controls eruptions that can disrupt satellites, power grids, and communications on Earth. However, this field is difficult to measure, which complicates the creation of accurate maps. Instruments can show how the field tilts, but not whether it is directed toward or away from us, like when you look at a rope from the side and don’t know which end is closer.

Another problem is height. When scientists look at the Sun, they see several layers at once, making it difficult to determine how high each magnetic structure is. Sunspots complicate this task because their strong magnetic fields bend the surface downward, creating a depression.

Discovery based on artificial intelligence and a 3D map of the Sun’s magnetic field

IfA researchers, in collaboration with the National Solar Observatory and the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research High Altitude Observatory, have created a new machine learning system that combines real data with fundamental laws of physics. Their Haleakalā Disambiguation Decoder algorithm is based on a simple rule: magnetic fields form loops and do not begin or end. Based on this, artificial intelligence can determine the true direction of the field and estimate the correct height of each layer.

This method works well on detailed computer models of the Sun, including quiet regions, bright active regions, and sunspots. Its accuracy is particularly useful for understanding high-resolution images obtained with the Daniel K. Inovie Solar Telescope.

Thanks to this new machine learning tool, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope can help scientists create a more accurate 3D map of the Sun’s magnetic field. It also reveals related features, such as vector electric currents in the solar atmosphere, which were previously very difficult to measure. Together, this gives us a clearer picture of what causes powerful solar flares.

Thanks to these achievements, researchers can see the Sun’s magnetic landscape more accurately and improve predictions of solar activity, which affects life on Earth.

• According to phys.org

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

16-12-2025 om 22:19 geschreven door peter  

The 'three norths' have left England! Once-in-a-lifetime alignment of true, magnetic, and grid north moves into the North Sea - three years after they combined in the country for the first time since records began

• READ MORE: Unravelling the mystery of the giant 'scar' cutting across Scotland

By JONATHAN CHADWICK, ASSISTANT SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 

After a three-year journey together through the heart of the country, the 'three norths' have left England. 

The historic triple alignment of 'true', 'magnetic' and 'grid' north – the three definitions of what north is – met on the south coast of Dorset back in November 2022 before travelling northwards.

On December 13, 2025, the alignment left England at Berwick-upon-Tweed and moved into the North Sea, say experts at the British Geological Survey (BGS). 

It will reach Scotland in a few months before eventually leaving the British National Grid – but for how long exactly is unknown. 

This alignment – the first here since records began – has been called a 'once-in-a-lifetime occurrence' as it may be several hundred years before it comes to Britain again.

'It's been a privilege to be able to observe this phenomenon over the past few years,' said Dr Ciarán Beggan, geophysicist at BGS.

'Although part of geospatial history, there is no impact for navigators, pilots and captains once the alignment leaves.' 

Although the concept of 'north' may seem straightforward, there are actually three definitions –  true north, magnetic north and grid north. 

This map displays a series of locations along the alignment line, from Langton Matravers in November 2022 to Berwick-upon-Tweed this month 

True north is the direction to the geographic north pole, while grid north is where the vertical blue lines shown on Ordnance Survey (OS) maps converge. 

Meanwhile, 'magnetic north' is the direction that a compass needle points as it aligns with the Earth's magnetic field – controlled by molten iron deep down in Earth's core.

For just over three years, there has been a point in England where the three versions of north have aligned (as of Saturday this point has entered the North Sea).

At this location, a compass, an Ordnance Survey map and the Earth's axis would all have been aligned with each other – and in agreement on which way was north. 

The historic alignment started at Langton Matravers, west of Swanage in Dorset in November 2022 before heading up into Devizes in Wiltshire in May 2023. 

It then passed through Lower Dowdeswell in Gloucestershire in September 2023, Woodgate Valley Country Park in Birmingham (January 2024), Leek in Staffordshire (May 2024) and Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire (October 2024). 

By April 2025 it reached Eggleston in the North Pennines, followed by Flotterton in Northumberland in August and Berwick-upon-Tweed, England's northernmost town, in December.

This 'special line' where true north and grid north align is the 2°W longitude meridian (pictured), and it is along this line that magnetic north has coincided

The three norths

However, its journey through Britain is not quite done – once it has travelled through the North Sea it will hit land again at the end of October 2026 in Drums, just south of Newburgh in Scotland. 

After passing through the large village Mintlaw in Aberdeenshire, its last stop in Scotland will be Fraserburgh around mid-December 2026, before it returns to the North Sea.

Once over the North Sea, the three norths are expected to continue northwards before leaving the Ordnance Survey National Grid, also known as the British National Grid. 

They will also stay in alignment for another couple of years before magnetic north separates from true north and grid north. 

According to the experts, the alignment's progress has slowed slightly since the initial predictions back in 2022. 

When it crossed the coast at Berwick-upon-Tweed, it had racked up about 358 miles (576km) of travel in 1127 days.

That's about 1,676 feet (511 metres) per day, or about 0.23-inch (5.9 mm) per second, or about 0.013 miles per hour.

Dr Beggan said the three norths combining in Britain has been 'a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence' largely due to the wandering magnetic north. 

November 2022: The red line shows magnetic north, while the blue 'special line' is true north and the grid north line which are perfectly aligned as they made landfall at the village of Langton Matravers just west of Swanage, Dorset, (pictured)

Magnetic north is the direction compasses point and the location where the Earth's magnetic field points vertically downward. The direction of magnetic north changes continually due to natural changes in the magnetic field 

Magnetic north moves slowly – about 30 miles per year – so it may be several hundred years before this alignment comes around again. 

'The magnetic field is not predictable in the long term, so we don't know how many hundreds of years it will take for this historic alignment to occur again,' said Dr Beggan.

Earth's magnetic field is created by the movement of liquid iron in the Earth's outer core, some 1,800 miles below our feet.

The iron is super hot (more than 5,432 degrees Fahrenheit) and as runny as water meaning it flows very easily.

As the liquid flows, it drags the magnetic field with it – meaning the magnetic north and south poles are constantly drifting around. 

The alignment began back in 2014, when magnetic north became east of grid north for some locations in Britain for the first time in more than 350 years. 

This affected navigators using a compass, who needed to adjust their bearing by subtracting instead of adding the difference between magnetic and grid north. 

 { https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

16-12-2025 om 22:10 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

15-12-2025 om 21:51 geschreven door peter  

2.8 Days to Disaster - Why We Are Running Out of Time in Low Earth Orbit

By Andy Tomaswick

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

15-12-2025 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

2.8 Days to Disaster - Why We Are Running Out of Time in Low Earth Orbit

By Andy Tomaswick

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

15-12-2025 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

The Geminid meteor shower peaks overnight on December 13-14. It’s a great year for the Geminids! Join EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd for details.

The biggest meteor shower of the YEAR peaks this evening- December 13-14- with up to 150 shooting stars every hour – here's the best time to see it

• READ MORE: NASA discovers a rock on Mars that 'doesn't belong there'

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

he biggest meteor shower of the year is almost here – and you won't want to miss it.

The Geminid Meteor Shower will reach its dazzling peak tonight, with up to 150 shooting stars visible every hour.

This celestial display is famous for its bright, multi–coloured meteors that light up the sky in yellow, red, green, and blue.

The shower is active until December 20, but will be at its most spectacular this evening.

The best times to watch this incredible show will be between midnight and 02:00 am local time, but they will start to appear any time after dark.

And with the crescent moon at just 26 per cent of its normal brightness, keen stargazers should be in for a great view of the approaching meteors.

All you need to see tonight's show will be your own eyes, a warm coat, and a bit of patience – with no need for specialist binoculars or telescopes.

So, here's everything you need to know to watch the Geminid Meteor Shower tonight.

The best meteor display of the year is not far away as the Geminids reach their dazzling peak tonight. Here's everything you need to know to see them. Pictured: The Geminids over Broadway Tower, Worcestershire

What are the Geminids?

Dr Greg Brown, astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, told Daily Mail: 'Space is not quite as empty as we might think. As objects like asteroids and comets roam through our solar system, they leave behind trails of dust and gas.

'The Earth regularly passes through these trails, sweeping up vast numbers of bits of debris like bugs on the windscreen of a car.'

As our planet crashes through this minefield, chunks of rock and dust crash down into our atmosphere, where they burn up with a bright flash.

During the Geminids, particles as small as a grain of sand race through the upper atmosphere at speeds up to 43 miles per second (70 km/s).

Since this cloud of debris is always in the same location, the meteor shower always occurs at the same time of year.

However, the Geminids are unique in that they come from the rocky asteroid 3200 Phaethon, rather than an icy comet like most other meteor showers.

Since this asteroid is rich in metals, the resulting meteors can flare in a stunning array of colours as they burn up in the atmosphere.

The Geminids are unique in that they are the debris from a rocky asteroid called 3200 Phaethon (artist's impression), rather than an icy comet

Due to the metals from 3200 Phaethon, the Geminids have a distinctive coloured glow and can flash yellow,  green, or blue. Pictured: A Geminid meteor over Arizona, USA

What are meteors?

'Like burning chemicals in your secondary school science lab, the colour of the flame is dependent on the chemicals that burn,' says Dr Brown.

'While many of the meteors will still be white, if elements like sodium and calcium are present, then coloured displays of yellow and violet can occur.'

How to see the Geminid Meteor Shower this evening

The best thing about meteor showers like the Geminids is that the best way to see them is without any special equipment.

Using anything like binoculars or a telescope will only restrict your field of view, so all you need is your own eyes and a bit of patience.

The Geminids appear to emerge from a single point, known as the radiant, located in the constellation Gemini from which they get their name.

You can find Gemini by looking up and left over the 'shoulder' of Orion and searching for the bright star Castor.

However, for the best view, you should focus your eyes a little to the side of the constellation so that the meteors appear in your more light–sensitive peripheral vision.

The Geminids will appear to emerge from the constellation Gemini, near the bright star Castor. To get the best view, wait until 2:00 am local time when this constellation is highest in the sky 

Dr Shyam Balaji, of King's College London, told Daily Mail: The best time to view the Geminid meteor shower is around 2 am local time when the radiant point is highest in the sky.

'However, you can start watching from mid–evening onward.'

In good conditions, viewers can expect to see upwards of 100 shooting stars an hour, or one or two every minute.

When viewing conditions are poor, you will be able to see fewer stars in the sky, so it's important to make sure you find the right stargazing location.

Dr Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director at the Royal Astronomical Society: 'With a meteor shower what you want is the widest possible view – you want to be lying down, looking up at the broad panoply of stars, and watching for meteors.

'The best view is if you're away from sources of light pollution, so try and get away from at least direct lights in towns and cities, ideally out in the countryside.

'Obviously you also need a clear sky – if it’s cloudy you're not going to see anything.'

You should soon start to see short streaks of light that last for a second or two.

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Under optimal conditions, you may see as many as 150 shooting stars per hour. To get the best view, make sure to find a place with a clear view of the sky and limited light pollution. Pictured: The Geminid Meteor shower seen from Virginia, USA 

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After a week of stormy weather, the Met Office is forecasting light cloud cover and only sporadic rain for Sunday night 

Meteors usually aren't visible for long enough for you to point them out to someone else, so you will need to keep your eyes peeled.

Luckily, after a week of storms, the weather conditions for Sunday night are looking better for sky watching.

Read More

 Is life out there? NASA finds essential sugars on ancient asteroid Bennu 

The Met Office forecasts largely clear skies over the East of England and Scotland, with some patches of cloud over the South West and Wales.

Thanks to the waning crescent moon, the sky should also be dark enough for some excellent views of the Geminid Meteor Shower.

However, if you do miss out on the shower's spectacular peak, there will be opportunities to see the Geminids until December 20, albeit at a reduced rate.

Following that, keen fireball hunters will be able to catch the weaker but reliable Ursid Meteor Shower, peaking on December 22.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

15-12-2025 om 18:41 geschreven door peter  

EarthExists, a private research collective working across astrophysics, chemistry, and planetary dynamics, claims to have uncovered evidence that governments anticipated the arrival of the interstellar object 31/ATLAS more than two decades ago, secretly building space programs designed to track and follow it long before the public was aware. 

Credit image: ESA showing a X-ray image of 31/Atlas.

Below is a brief summary of EarthExists’ analysis. You can read the full interesting reports Here and Here. 

A secret planetary defense system activated in 2025, and it wasn’t built for asteroids and it activated right on schedule. 

In 2025, a classified surveillance architecture quietly came online. Not by accident. Not as a test. It activated exactly when it was supposed to. The target? 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object behaving nothing like a comet. 

This plan started 20 years ago. In 2005, an obscure aerospace paper outlined a system called CASSANDRA which you can read Here. Publicly, it was described as theoretical. Privately, it read like a construction manual. 

Designed to: Detect objects at extreme distances. Track them continuously beyond Earth orbit. Maintain persistent custody for decades and coordinate multiple classified sensor platforms. 

In 2006, it vanished from public discussion but in 2025, it went live. CASSANDRA is not a program, it’s a memory system. A centralized intelligence architecture designed to never lose track of anomalous objects, even if it takes decades. 

At the moment they activated CASSANDRA, unfamiliar system names appeared: 

• ORACLE VI 
• Space situational awareness platform 
• Assets positioned at Lagrange Point 1 
• ARGUS-VIS 
• Persistent classified sensor system 
• Adapted from terrestrial surveillance 
• UMBRA-3/C  
• No public record exists 

These systems don’t track debris. They track active targets. At all, a billion-dollar planetary surveillance network isn’t built for just a ordinary asteroid, comet or if you want to call it a rock. You build it if: You detected something decades ago or you received a signal predicting arrival. Either way; 3I/ATLAS was expected. 

Then the silence and cover-up began: A U.S. government shutdown. NASA communications go dark. No explanations. No updates. SETI quietly updates post-detection protocols IAWN flags 3I/ATLAS as a planetary defense concern No press conference. No announcement. Blurry images. 

C/2025 N1 UMBRA-3/1C CASSANDRA / ORACLE VI | ARGUS-VIS |

On October 3, 2025, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the perfect viewing angle. 

HiRISE engaged the target across four optical bands. Captured in 14-bit depth. But the public images were reduced to 8-bit. 98.5% of the data was stripped out by NASA. What you saw wasn’t the real and clear image of 31/Atlas. It was the filter. You can read it Here. 

But four days after perihelion, two possible leaked images appear. Labeled: CASSANDRA / ORACLE VI / ARGUS-VIS which you can see Here. 

11/11/2025 TELESCOPE STACKED IMAGE of 3I/ATLAS via — Ray’s Astrophotography

They show structured, geometric emissions coming from 3I/ATLAS. Not chaotic gas jets. Not random ice sublimation. 

Independent analysis indicates: Controlled matter ejection. Active trajectory adjustment. Emission geometry incompatible with natural models. This object isn’t tumbling through space. It’s maneuvering. 

Cassandra Document Report — The Cassandra Team Summer Session Program 2005.

Conclusion: CASSANDRA activated on time. The object displayed controlled behavior. The highest-quality data remains classified. This is not a comet. It is an artificial interstellar probe on a mission and Earth’s planetary defense system was built waiting for it. This comes as Earth prepares for its closest approach with 31/Atlas on December 19, 2025.

Source: EarthExists

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

15-12-2025 om 16:58 geschreven door peter  

The 3I Atlas Enigma: A Psychological, Sociological, and Scientific Exploration

By Seth H. Feinstein - MUFON State Director/ Photo analysis Team

Introduction

The discovery of 3I/Atlas on July 1, 2025, by the ATLAS telescope in Chile has opened one of the most intriguing chapters yet in the study of interstellar visitors. Only the third confirmed interstellar object ever observed—after ‘1I/ Oumuamua and 2/I Borisov—3I Atlas displays characteristics that are both comet-like and anomalous. Its hyperbolic trajectory confirms it came from outside the solar system, yet its composition and behavior challenge conventional expectations.

For the UFO/UAP research community, 3I Atlas has become a compelling case study. Not because it is alien, but because it highlights how scientific uncertainty intersects with public fascination, expert hypotheses, and the psychology of belief.

1. What We Know About 3I Atlas

3I Atlas exhibits a coma and a tail, suggesting active outgassing, though unusually high CO₂ levels dominate it. It's extremely fast, and an unbound orbit confirms its interstellar origin.

Most scientists interpret 3I Atlas as an icy body ejected from another star system, likely a fragment of a distant planetary system disrupted long ago.

Still, the combination of CO₂-dominance, high speed, and non-gravitational movement leaves room for debate—and curiosity.

This NASA image shows the trajectory as the 3I Atlas travels through the solar system

2. Why Speculation Has Flourished

Speculation thrives when:

 - The data is incomplete

 - The object is distant

 - Prior interstellar objects exhibited anomalies

 - Experts publicly entertain alternative possibilities

3I Atlas checks all four boxes.

Adding to the intrigue, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has proposed that 3I Atlas could be an extraterrestrial artifact, though he emphasizes this as a hypothesis, not a conclusion. The UFO

community naturally pays attention when credible scientists discuss technological possibilities.

3. What the Experts Are Saying

• Avi Loeb

Loeb suggests that the object's unusual trajectory could be consistent with a reverse Solar Oberth maneuver, a technique advantageous for a probe using the Sun’s gravity for acceleration. He also notes that the jet-like features might be consistent with technological thrusters.

However, Loeb repeatedly clarifies:

“By far, the most likely explanation is that 3I Atlas is a natural interstellar comet.”

• Steven Greer

Greer urges caution. He suggests that 3I Atlas is more likely a stray asteroid or rock, though he does not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial debris. He warns that narratives around the object could be leveraged to generate unnecessary fear.

• Richard Dolan

Dolan considers Loeb’s hypothesis plausible enough for serious inquiry, noting the object's alignment with the ecliptic plane and unusual trajectory. He stresses that while the object is not proven to be technological, the anomalies justify close study.

• Marc Dantonio (MUFON Chief Photo Analyst)

Dantonio’s analysis emphasizes solid data: high CO₂ content, water ice, carbon monoxide, carbonyl sulfide, and possible cyanogen. He urges against sensationalism, focusing on what is known, rather than speculation.

• Michio Kaku

Kaku shocked many when he stated the newest images show:

- No tail or outgassing, despite a close approach to the Sun

- Apparent acceleration

- No visible mass loss

-An unexplained orbital shift

These observations have prompted some astronomers to ask whether 3I Atlas might be something constructed, not natural.

4. Why People Want 3I Atlas to Be Manufactured

Curiosity about 3I Atlas reveals deep psychological dynamics:

-Humans seek patterns and threat detection—a survival instinct.

-Uncertainty creates discomfort, pushing people toward definitive explanations.

- Believing in non-human intelligence gives life meaning, wonder, and purpose.

 -Conspiracy narratives offer order in a chaotic world.

 -UAPs fill a cultural space once occupied by traditional belief systems.

= Witnessing or believing in anomalies gives individuals a sense of belonging to a select group.

3I Atlas becomes a symbol - of mystery, potential, and our collective desire to understand our place in the cosmos.

5. Group Dynamics and the Pull Toward Negativity

UAP communities often form around high-intensity, ambiguous subjects. This fosters:

- Group bonding through shared threat narratives

 -Polarization, where groups amplify their dominant emotion

 -Worst-case thinking fueled by uncertainty

 -Rumor and mistrust in the absence of transparent data

These patterns are natural—but they must be recognized and managed to maintain scientific integrity.

6. Worst-Case Scenarios: Reality vs. Imagination

Hollywood has shaped public imagination for decades, presenting aliens as invaders. Films like Independence Day, Alien, The Thing, Signs, and War of the Worlds fuel fears that extraterrestrial technology equals danger.

In reality, the likelihood that 3I Atlas is:

- A piloted craft

-A deliberate probe

- Or a threat to Earth is extremely small.

A more grounded concern would be a close approach generating increased meteor activity.

The greater risks lie in public reaction—panic, misinformation, secrecy, or premature conclusions.

7. Final Thoughts: Why This Mystery Matters

My involvement began through the MUFON Photo Analysis Team. While others focus on the hard science, my contribution is more a psychological and sociological context surrounding our fascination with 3I Atlas.

This case reminds us that:

- Curiosity is healthy

- Speculation can inspire scientific breakthroughs

- Data, not fear, should guide us

- Wonder fuels discovery

Even if 3I Atlas turns out to be entirely natural, the process of studying it enriches astronomy, interdisciplinary sciences, and the UAP field.

The journey matters—and it moves humanity forward.

RELATED VIDEOS

{ Mufon.com }

14-12-2025 om 21:37 geschreven door peter  

Gemini was an American program in the 1960s, during which 12 launches of spacecraft of the same name were carried out. Its main goal was to teach people and technology to rendezvous and dock in space. In the future, this allowed the next important step to be taken – sending Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.

Why was the Gemini program created?

Exactly 60 years ago, on December 15, 1965, four astronauts were in Earth’s orbit at the same time for the first time. This happened during the flight of the Gemini-6 and Gemini-7 spacecraft. At one point, the ships were less than 2 meters apart, and the astronauts could clearly see each other through the portholes.

They did all this for a reason, but to understand the purpose and significance of that meeting in orbit, we need to go back to the first half of the 1960s. The space race is in full swing. The USSR won the first stage – the launch of the first satellite and the first man into orbit – but the US is hot on its heels. The Americans need to achieve something that their opponents can only dream of.

The next goal, the achievement of which will provide a reliable advantage, has already been defined – a flight to the Moon. A general flight plan for the Apollo program has already been approved, but it involves several things that NASA has not done before: maneuvers in orbit, rendezvous and docking of spacecraft in orbit, and extravehicular activities.

And all this had to be worked out in safer conditions. So, in parallel with the construction of Apollo spacecraft, landing modules, and giant Saturn 5 rockets, it was decided to implement a much simpler and less ambitious program called Gemini.

It was based on the ship of the same name, which was an enlarged version of the previous Mercury manned orbital vehicle. It differed from it in that it was a two-seater, had a docking hatch, and improved capabilities for orbital maneuvers. A modified Titan II ballistic missile was used for launches, which made it possible to minimize preparation time for the program’s implementation.

First flights

A separate selection of astronauts was conducted for the Gemini program in 1962. Initially, there were 508 pilots, whose number was gradually reduced until there were only seven left, who began to be trained for flights with the future goal that these same people might then fly to the Moon.

However, it all started with unmanned missions. The first one took place on April 8, 1964. The main goal was to check how the spacecraft would enter orbit and activate all its systems. This task was completed in 4 hours and 50 minutes, but the spacecraft remained in orbit for another four hours before burning up in the atmosphere. It simply did not have a heat shield.

It was tested along with the entire Earth return system during the subsequent Gemini-2 mission. It took place on January 19, 1965, and lasted only 18 minutes and 16 seconds. In fact, it was just a suborbital flight, during which the rocket left the atmosphere, the spacecraft separated, and landed.

Both flights were deemed successful, and two astronauts, Virgil Grissom and John Young, were sent into orbit on the next Gemini-3 mission. The latter died during ground tests for Apollo-1. The second flew to the Moon and on the shuttle, and left NASA in the 21st century. But back in March 1965, their mission was simple: to orbit our planet several times and land safely in a designated area. At that time, even that was not easy, but they did everything right.

Next was the Gemini-4 mission, which took place from June 3 to 7. The main event during this mission was the first American spacewalk. It was performed by Edward White while his colleague James McDivitt remained in the cabin. Soviet cosmonauts had made their first spacewalk just three months earlier, on March 18. The gap in the space race had narrowed to a minimum.

Record-breaking flights

The Americans managed to pull ahead during the next flight, which was carried out by the Gemini-5 spacecraft. Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad managed to break the flight duration record set in 1963 by Valery Bykovsky on Voskhod-5. The Americans spent 7 days, 22 hours, and 55 minutes in orbit. Also during this flight, fuel cells for providing electrical power were tested for the first time.

At the same time, astronauts attempted to perform a rendezvous maneuver with another spacecraft for the first time. For this purpose, an Agena rocket was launched from the ground – essentially just an empty upper stage of a launch vehicle. However, this task was not successful.

Then December 1965 arrived. Initially, two manned launches were planned, during the first of which (Gemini-6) Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford would again attempt to rendezvous with another Agena, but the launch of the latter, which was supposed to take place before their launch, was unsuccessful.

Therefore, plans had to be revised. Initially, on December 4, Gemini-7 was launched into space with Frank Borman and James Lovell on board. They had their own mission – to set a new record for flight duration and stay in space for 14 days. They accomplished it.

However, at the same time, it was decided that Gemini-6 would be launched into space on December 15, and shortly thereafter, the ships would attempt to rendezvous. They succeeded, demonstrating that NASA could handle one of the most difficult tasks during a flight to the Moon – the rendezvous of modules in space.

But getting close does not mean docking. That was the next big task, and it was accomplished by Neil Armstrong and David Scott aboard Gemini-8. The flight took place in March 1966, and this time, Agena successfully entered orbit, was successfully “caught”, and docked. The Apollo program was getting closer and closer.

Completion of the Gemini program

After that, there were four more flights under the Gemini-9 program. The flight was originally supposed to involve Elliot See and Charles Bassett, and was scheduled to take place in May 1966. However, on February 28, both pilots were killed in a T-38 training aircraft accident. Their places were taken by substitutes Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan.

But that was not the end of the trouble. Agena, whose docking was one of the main objectives of the mission, again failed to reach orbit, so they had to wait for a replacement. The launch was postponed, and this time the astronauts managed not only to approach it, but also to make two spacewalks.

Gemini-10, with John Young and Michael Collins on board, launched on July 18, 1966. This time, the astronauts managed to rendezvous with two target rockets. In addition, they performed two spacewalks.

Gemini-11, with Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon, launched in September of the same year, 1966. This time, the goal of the flight was to set a new record. The spacecraft traveled 1,374 km from Earth. In addition, the astronauts performed a spacewalk and conducted a series of experiments.

It was clear that everything that could be worked out on Gemini had already been worked out, and it was time to move on to Apollo. However, NASA management decided to work out the rendezvous, docking, and spacewalk procedures one more time. This is what the Gemini-12 crew did in November 1966.

The Gemini program ended, but not because it failed. On the contrary, it proved to be very successful, as American astronauts and engineers gained the most important thing – practical experience not only of flying in space, but also of purposeful work in it. This experience later came in handy not only during trips to the Moon, but also for the entire exploration of outer space.

Interestingly, when the Soviet Union learned about the Gemini and Apollo programs, it immediately perceived them as a threat to its leadership in space.

Soviet engineers attempted to implement a program very similar to Gemini, called Voskhod. And it even had some success. It was by stepping out of one of these spacecraft into open space that Alexei Leonov became the first person to do so. However, even in the Soviet Union, they understood that removing the ejection seat from the small Vostok to convert it from a single-seat spacecraft into a two- or even three-seat spacecraft was a very bad decision.

And most importantly, it is unclear why such risks were taken, since Gemini was valuable primarily as the first step toward Apollo, and by 1966-67, it was clear that the Soviet space program was not keeping up with it. In the end, Soviet cosmonauts did gain the same experience that allows them to feel at home in space. There, they reoriented their space program toward the exploration of Earth’s orbit.

But it is interesting in the Gemini program. These “basic orbital maneuvering exercises,” without which neither the station could be built, nor other planets could be reached, were completed by the USSR and the US back in the 1960s. But since then, despite the fact that many countries have declared themselves spacefaring nations, only one of them has been able to repeat this feat. We are talking about China, which in the 21st century was able to implement the Shenzhou and Tiangong programs. It seems that the Gemini “training” program is not so simple after all.

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14-12-2025 om 18:36 geschreven door peter