Astronomers witnessed a cosmic explosion that released energy equivalent to 400 billion suns. It was caused by a supermassive star being torn apart by a black hole.

The event, officially designated AT2024wpp (and informally named Whippet), was first discovered by astronomers as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility sky survey. It immediately attracted attention due to its similarity to the cosmic explosion AT 2018cow, which was 10–100 times brighter than an average supernova.

Whippet also resembled another class of objects called “Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient” (LFBOT). This is an incredibly bright burst of light visible at distances of up to billions of light-years, which usually lasts for several days and emits high-energy radiation ranging from the blue end of the spectrum to ultraviolet and X-rays. Although several dozen such phenomena have been detected, LFBOTs remain poorly understood, although scientists associate them with the destruction of stars.

To solve the mystery of Whippet, researchers observed it using the Liverpool Telescope in the Canary Islands and the Swift spacecraft. They confirmed that its spectrum was shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum and that the object emitted X-rays, as expected from an LFBOT. This, combined with the fact that Whippet had an extremely high temperature, led to the conclusion that the event was caused by a black hole tearing apart a star with its gravity.

Further investigation by Whippet revealed a powerful shock wave propagating from the central source at about 20% of the speed of light, colliding with the surrounding gas. These shock waves dissipated in about six months when they reached the outer gas bubble left over from the destroyed star.

However, scientists have not yet fully understood all the circumstances surrounding Whippet. The team discovered helium moving away from the source at a speed of about 21 million km/h. This suggests that some densely bound structure survived tidal disruption and is moving at a speed of about 2% of the speed of light.

The team believes that this could be a stream of material ejected by the core of a doomed star when it was “spaghettified” by the black hole at the center of Whippet. Another possibility is that this stream of helium was generated by a third body in the system when it was exposed to particles and X-rays ejected by the black hole that had just “devoured” the star.

Earlier, we talked about how the black hole at the center of the Milky Way keeps its explosive past hidden.

• According to Space.com

• Posted in News, Science

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11-01-2026 om 21:20 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been exploring the Red Planet for more than 13 years, has sent back a stunning new panorama. Taken from the summit of Mount Sharp, the image reveals a stark but breathtaking view of the landscape bathed in the rays of the setting sun.

Observation point

In November 2025, the rover’s navigation cameras captured black-and-white images over two Martian days (sols). Specialists combined them into a single composite panorama, using blue and yellow tones to highlight changes in lighting. This technique helps to better see the details of the terrain.

Curiosity took this image from the top of a ridge overlooking a unique area known as the Boxwork. This is a maze of mineral ridges created billions of years ago by underground waters flowing through cracks in the rock. Softer rocks eroded over time, leaving behind hard “veins.” Such structures are key evidence of Mars’ wet past.

Image taken by the Curiosity rover on July 25, 2025.

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The rover recently drilled into this ridge to collect a rock sample for analysis. In the foreground of the panorama, you can see tracks from its wheels and traces of previous drilling. Curiosity’s goal is to study how the planet evolved from a wet environment, potentially suitable for microbial life, to a dry desert.

Maximum efficiency

Despite its age, the Mars rover has gained new autonomous capabilities thanks to software updates. This allows it to plan its research more effectively and collaborate with orbital spacecraft, optimizing the performance of its aging energy system.

The panorama from Mount Sharp is not only an impressive sight, but also a reminder of the persistent work of the research robot. Each new sample and photograph brings science closer to solving the main mystery: whether there was ever life on Mars.

Earlier, we reported on how the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers simultaneously faced severe challenges.

• According to Space

• Posted in News, Tech

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

11-01-2026 om 20:29 geschreven door peter  

Deep-sea trenches are deep depressions at the bottom of the Earth’s oceans, which are unique features of our planet in the Solar System. They were formed as a result of the movement of tectonic plates and can reach depths of 10-11 km, creating one of the most amazing landscapes on our planet – the hadal zone.

Space at the bottom

There are places on our planet whose gloomy mystery can rival the darkness of space itself. Usually, these include Antarctic glaciers, where life is almost impossible, or the polar deserts on some islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, which are often compared to Mars.

However, there are places on Earth that are almost as inaccessible to humans as outer space, even though they are as far away from it as possible. These are deep-sea trenches – narrow and long depressions at the bottom of the world’s oceans, whose bottoms are never reached by sunlight. Their landscape resembles that of a celestial body, and their few inhabitants resemble aliens.

However, to truly understand the depth of the trenches, you need to observe what happens when you gradually walk along the seabed, going deeper and deeper.

First, they determine the area between the highest point that gets underwater during high tide and the one that remains dry during low tide. This is called the littoral zone, and it is usually a narrow strip along the coast that sometimes gets a few kilometers wide. A great example of a littoral zone is a bunch of Ukrainian estuaries: looking at them, it is clear that the littoral zone is an area that makes any other part of the seabed seem deep.

Next comes the continental shelf – a section of the seabed where the depth slowly decreases to 200 m. The northern part of the Black Sea or the English Channel area, where the depth may not exceed hundreds of meters, tens of kilometers from the coast, are typical example. In essence, the shelf is part of the continental mass submerged by the ocean. Between the sedimentary rocks and basalt, as in much drier places, there is a layer of granite.

If you continue further, you will reach the continental slope, where the bottom descends at a much greater angle and quickly reaches a depth of 2-3 km. The continental slopes are particularly pronounced. For example, off the coast of North America.

Further down, the angle of the seabed decreases again, and abyssal plains stretch to depths of 4-5 km. These are huge depressions, comparable in size to entire countries, bounded by continental slopes. Sunlight rarely reaches their bottom, and despite the fact that bathyscaphes have repeatedly descended there, we still know less about these areas than we do about the surface of the Moon.

Deep-sea trenches are located even deeper than abyssal plains. The term “hadal zone” is used to describe the fauna of this landscape. There is no need to talk about flora, as it is practically non-existent at depths greater than 5 km. These are truly abysses, where the bottom slopes steeply downward and no light penetrates.

Formation of oceanic trenches

The fact that all the deepest areas of the ocean are shaped like narrow, elongated strips stretching along the coasts of continents or island arcs can be explained by the peculiarities of their formation. As is well known, the Earth’s crust consists of large blocks – tectonic plates. They move along the viscous, relatively plastic outer layer of our planet’s mantle, and it is this movement that causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The crust of plates can be continental, i.e., contain the aforementioned layer of granite, or oceanic, i.e., consist only of basalt and sedimentary rocks. Some plates consist of both types, while others consist only of oceanic crust.

In most cases, the transition from the continental slope to the ocean depths involves the same tectonic plate. However, sometimes two different lithospheric blocks are encountered here: one with a continental crust and the other with an oceanic crust. In this case, the oceanic plate begins to subduct beneath the continental plate and partially melts. As a result, a deep depression is formed.

Its slopes are always gentler on the side of the subducting oceanic plate and steeper on the continental side. This is the structure we call a deep-sea oceanic trench. At the same time, the plate subducts very slowly, so from the outside it may seem like a completely calm place.

The way deep-sea trenches are formed determines their extremely uneven distribution across the surface of our planet. They are always located in tectonically active zones, mainly in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, which surrounds the largest ocean on our planet.

Mariana Trench

In fact, all ten of the deepest ocean trenches are located in the Pacific Ocean. There are more than thirty of them in total. For comparison, there are only three large trenches in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and none at all in the Arctic Ocean.

However, the most famous of the Pacific trenches is the Mariana Trench, which is also considered the deepest in the world. Its depth is estimated differently, but usually the value of 11,022 m is given. It is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, near the islands of the same name. Its bottom is so inaccessible that humans first reached it only in 1960, just a year before they first set foot on the surface of the Moon. Until recently, the number of people who had visited the bottom of this trench was smaller than the number who had visited our natural satellite.

The water pressure at this depth is 108.6 MPa, which is 1,072 times greater than normal atmospheric pressure at sea level. However, microorganisms, crustaceans, and even fish have been found there. None of them is found anywhere else except this place, and they have never seen the light of the sun or stars. Their living conditions resemble those in space.

In addition, despite its inaccessibility, the Mariana Trench already bears the negative traces of human activity. Heavy toxic waste settles there and, together with river water, flows into the oceans.

Other trenches

Everyone knows about the Mariana Trench. However, the rest are no less amazing than it. Tonga, Philippine, Kermadec, Izu Ogasawara, Kuril-Kamchatka, North New Hebridean, Bougainville, and Japan – all of them are deep enough to completely submerge Mount Everest.

Although the Mariana Trench is the deepest, the title of the longest on Earth belongs to another Pacific structure – the Peru-Chile Trench. It stretches along the coast of South America for 5,900 km, where the Nazca Plate dives under the South American Plate.

The deepest and largest trench in the Indian Ocean is the Sunda Trench, which stretches for 4-5 thousand km along the coast of Indonesia. Its maximum depth is 7,729 m near the island of Bali.

The ocean trenches of the Atlantic Ocean are generally relatively short in length, as they are formed by small tectonic plates. The deepest of these is the Puerto Rico Trench, with a maximum depth of 8,742 m. This is only slightly less than the height of Mount Everest.

It would seem that ocean trenches have nothing to do with astronomy. However, when considering the planets of the Solar System, among the unique phenomena available only on Earth, along with the biosphere, it is worth mentioning them. After all, nowhere else do lithospheric plates move, and even more so, there are no places where they collide under a layer of liquid.

• Posted in Articles, Questions

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11-01-2026 om 20:10 geschreven door peter  

To Keep Water Liquid, the Red Planet Needed to Freeze

By Andy Tomaswick 

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

10-01-2026 om 23:47 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

10-01-2026 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

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10-01-2026 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

After years of delays and debate, the United States Congress has passed a NASA budget that omits any plan to retrieve several rock and soil samples collected and stored by the Perseverance Rover, including Martian rocks that may contain signs of past or present extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet.

According to the new compromise spending bill for the current fiscal year, it appears Congress has given in to the White House’s demands that resources needed to complete the planned Mars Sample Return (MSR) program be explicitly excluded from any approved budget. While the bill still awaits a final vote in Congress and the President’s signature, NASA officials are sending signals that the MSR program is effectively dead.

“The agreement does not support the existing Mars Sample Return program,” the bill states.

Victoria Hamilton, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and chair of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, described the death of MSR as “deeply disappointing” while also questioning the veracity of the current administration’s stated goals.

“When we’ve got memos coming out saying we want to be the dominant power in space, I wonder how we leave something this ambitious behind,” Hamilton said.

Escalating Cost of Retrieving Martian Rocks has Haunted the MSR Program

Before NASA launched Perseverance in July 2020, mission planners had struggled with the concept of retrieving the samples the rover was tasked with collecting through its mission. Since then, the interplanetary explorer has collected dozens of samples and stored them for the planned future return.

Artist’s concept of the Mars ascent rocket, one component of the effort to collect and send samples of Martian rock back to Earth

(NASA/Public Domain).

During that time, the cost for MSR has continued to rise, with 2024 estimates reaching $11 billion. Regardless of the potential scientific value, the extraordinarily large share of NASA’s science budget that the single mission was projected to consume left planetary scientists working on other stalled or underfunded projects wondering whether the MSR was worth the broader scientific cost.

Repeated threats from Congress to scrap the ambitious yet costly program altogether resulted in a new, stripped-down plan released in January 2025 that came closer to the original $7 billion estimate. Now, it appears even that plan was still too rich for the current administration’s taste, resulting in its explicit exclusion from the new bill.

Funding Could Aid Other Missions and Keep Hopes of MSR Alive

As advocates of the MSR program try to regroup and seek other alternatives to bring the Martian rocks back to Earth to study, NASA’s proposed $7.25 billion science budget offers some hope that a future mission may not be completely off the table.

For example, the bill, which cuts roughly 1% from the 2025 budget, allocates $110 million for a “Mars Future Missions” program to continue developing the key technologies needed for any future sample-return mission. These include further development of landing systems that can survive the thin atmosphere during descent, which has proven challenging and costly for previous missions.

Assuming the bill is signed into law, other missions that have waited patiently for MSR to run its course may see new signs of life. For example, recent discoveries on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and in the atmosphere of Venus have led to plans for missions to further explore those tantalizing findings. These include plans to explore potential subsurface oceans on Enceladus and Europa for extraterrestrial life.

Is the Search for Extraterrestrial Life on Mars Dead?

Although the newly proposed NASA science budget adds hope to the search for life on other moons and planets, proponents of MSR note the tantalizing cache of samples already collected by the rover since its 2021 arrival.

In 2024, mission operators spotted a surface feature containing mineral deposits called “leopard spots” in a dry riverbed that leads to Jezero crater. NASA scientists note that on Earth, these types of leopard spots are often left by microbial organisms interacting with the rock, making the Chevaya Falls sample arguably the best candidate for containing signs of past life on Mars.

Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said scientists eagerly await the opportunity to examine these samples in Earth labs equipped to determine if they do hold signs of extraterrestrial life. Elhman also pointed to the potential for other scientific discoveries that the dozens of samples gathered by Perseverance may hold.

“A rock with a potential biosignature is awaiting return now, and other rocks hold breakthrough discoveries,” the UC Boulder scientist explained.

Unless Congress has an unexpected last-minute change of heart, the new budget has left mission planners wondering about the fate of the samples, as the rover has nearly finished filling its collection tubes.

“We’d really like to hear from NASA sooner than later that they will work with the community on a plan to get these samples,” Hamilton said.

• 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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{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

10-01-2026 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

The object’s unique appearance offers astronomers a unique look at the evolution of galaxies early in their formation process and could provide new insights into the mysterious nature of nonluminous dark matter.

“A Tale of a Failed Galaxy”

The absence of stars within Cloud-9 served as a key observation, according to principal investigator Alejandro Benitez-Llambay of the Milano-Bicocca University in Milan, Italy.

“In science, we usually learn more from the failures than from the successes,” Benitez-Llambay said in a statement. “In this case, seeing no stars is what proves the theory right.”

Characterizing Cloud-9 as the cosmic remnant that conveys “a tale of a failed galaxy,” Benitez-Llambay said the discovery offers astronomers a rare glimpse of “a primordial building block of a galaxy that hasn’t formed.”

A Cosmic “RELHIC”

Cloud-9 represents a new class of objects known as Reionization-Limited H I Clouds (RELHICs), where “H I” represents neutral hydrogen. Combined, the term was devised by astronomers to convey the presence of a hydrogen cloud that formed early in the universe, and which had not yet produced any stars.

Like cosmic phantoms, these kinds of objects were long hypothesized, but had never been directly observed until now. Before the recent Hubble observations, astronomers may have mistaken Cloud-9 for a faint dwarf galaxy invisible to telescopes on Earth, as they lack the sensitivity required to detect any stars that might have been lurking in its gaseous body.

“With Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, we’re able to nail down that there’s nothing there,” said Gagandeep Anand of STScI, the lead author of a new study detailing the discovery.

A Window to the Dark Side

“We know from theory that most of the mass in the universe is expected to be dark matter, but it’s difficult to detect this dark material because it doesn’t emit light,” according to Andrew Fox, a member of the discovery team with the European Space Agency’s Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy/Space Telescope Science Institute (AURA/STScI).

Comparing the cosmic relic to “a window into the dark universe,” Fox said that Cloud-9 has offered he and his international colleagues behind the discovery “a rare look at a dark-matter-dominated cloud.”

A New Theory Emerges

According to current theories, RELHICs may represent clouds composed of dark matter that have failed to accumulate the amount of gas required to form stars. Based on its presence alone, astronomers now hypothesize that Cloud-9 may be the first detection of a variety of small, dark matter-rich failed galaxies that are likely found throughout the universe.

These unique structures have likely evaded detection in the past because traditional observation methods make them very difficult to spot, as they are void of bright objects like stars.

Another unique feature about Cloud-9 is that the clouds it possesses are smaller and more uniform when compared to hydrogen cloud formations observed closer to the Milky Way. Cloud-9 is also closer to possessing a perfect spherical shape, which also contributes to its unique appearance.

With a neutral hydrogen core approximately 4,900 light-years in diameter, based on radio signals emanating from the object. This leads astronomers to conclude that Cloud-9 has a mass roughly one million times greater than that of our Sun. If this estimate is correct, that would mean that the dark matter the object possesses would be equivalent to five billion solar masses.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/astronomy/ }

10-01-2026 om 21:37 geschreven door peter  

A staggering 250,000 kilometers per hour was the speed at which the comet had rushed through the inner solar system near the Sun–a reminder of how extreme velocities set interstellar visitors apart from homegrown comets. That velocity set the stage for NASA’s newly released close‑up views of 3I/ATLAS, captured by three spacecraft at Mars as the object swept just 18 million miles from the planet, a very unusually intimate pass for an object born around another star.

The sharpest imaging came from the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which resolved a compact coma appearing as a bright, pixelated sphere at about 19 miles per pixel. While modest in appearance, these data provided crucial constraints on both nucleus size and dust environment. MAVEN’s ultraviolet instrument added a layer of chemical insight to the campaign, as its design for probing tenuous atmospheric gases lent itself to detecting hydrogen signatures tied to water breakdown, thus providing an upper limit on the comet’s deuterium‑to‑hydrogen ratio, an important tracer of the comet’s formation region. Composition-sensitive ultraviolet data of this sort are extremely rare for interstellar objects.

This multi‑spacecraft campaign corresponds to an unprecedented solar system–wide effort. Per ESA, twelve NASA assets have imaged 3I/ATLAS since July, including heliophysics missions that could observe the comet near the Sun when Earth-based telescopes couldn’t track it through the intense glare. Those vantage points allowed for continuous monitoring as 3I/ATLAS passed behind the Sun, enabling high‑cadence studies of its evolving tail geometry. Newly processed images from SOHO and NASA’s PUNCH mission showed the dust tail in late September and early October, capturing distinct jets that intensified after perihelion in late October.

3I/ATLAS as seen from Mars.

Photo shared by NASA Photograph: (NASA)

The pace of the observations then quickened when the James Webb Space Telescope joined the campaign. Its infrared spectrograph measured an unexpected chemical signature: the coma contains nearly eight times as much CO₂ as water vapor. This inversion of the typical cometary ratio is unlike almost every well‑studied solar system comet. “I have never seen such a strong CO2 peak in a comet spectrum,” said Martin Cordiner of NASA Goddard. Because Earth’s atmosphere blocks the relevant infrared wavelengths, only Webb could uncover this composition, hinting that 3I/ATLAS may preserve ice chemistry inherited from a star-forming environment very different from the Sun’s.

Such chemical fingerprints are complemented by orbital analyses that suggest great age. As NASA’s Tom Statler pointed out, the comet may have originated in a system older than the solar system itself: “gives me goose bumps to think about.” Its hyperbolic trajectory confirms that it is indeed an interstellar visitor, and integrations backward in time of its motion indicate it approached from the constellation Sagittarius with a heliocentric velocity in excess of 58 km/s. Investigations using the stellar data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft demonstrate that the distribution of the velocity of the comet is indicative of objects that have been ejected from the Milky Way thin disk-a stellar population which contains long‑lived, moderately metal‑poor systems. These results support early theoretical predictions that 3I/ATLAS may have formed billions of years ago.

Amateur astronomers have seized the moment as the comet moves through the predawn sky. Observers say small telescopes can capture a faint, fuzzy glow-an accessible signpost of cosmic material that spent eons drifting between stars before its brief appearance near Earth. Indeed, as NASA’s acting astrophysics director Shawn Domagal‑Goldman put it, “Everyone that is in control of a telescope wants to look at it because it’s a fascinating and rare opportunity.”

Meanwhile, the scientific race goes on, as ESA’s Juice spacecraft conducts its own observations. The main antenna is now serving as a heat shield near the Sun, delaying data return until February, but its unusual geometry also means it will provide some of the highest‑quality post-perihelion measurements. When those data do arrive, they will be joining a rapidly growing archive of multi-wavelength studies and form the most complete portrait ever assembled of an interstellar comet during one solar system passage.

{ Modern Engineering Marvels }

10-01-2026 om 20:07 geschreven door peter  

An artist’s illustration of the massive, fast-spinning asteroid 2025 MN45, discovered in the first data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. 

(Image credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/P. Marenfeld)

Scientists analyzing the first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have discovered the fastest-spinning asteroid in its size class yet.

The record-breaking space rock, called 2025 MN45, is larger than most skyscrapers on Earth at about 2,300 feet (710 meters) wide. The massive rock completes a rotation in about 113 seconds — making it the fastest-spinning known asteroid over 1,640 feet (500 meters) in diameter.

The research, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters Wednesday (Jan. 7), is part of an asteroid survey aimed at improving our understanding of how these small bodies formed and evolved.

The study is the first peer-reviewed paper from the Rubin Observatory's LSST Camera — the largest digital camera in the world — which will repeatedly scan the Southern Hemisphere's night sky over 10 years to create an unprecedented time-lapse movie of the universe.

Rocks that roll

Asteroids are essentially large space rocks, and many are remnants of how our solar system appeared early in its 4.5 billion-year-old history, before the evolution of planets and moons. Therefore, by studying asteroids, scientists can figure out how our solar system changed over the eons.

Scientists found 2025 MN45 using the preliminary data release from the Rubin Observatory, which has already revealed thousands of previously unknown asteroids around the solar system after just seven nights of observations. (The 10-year LSST survey has yet to formally begin, but is expected to start in the next few months.)

The asteroid's remarkably fast spin excited the team, as it provides clues about the ancient rock’s composition.

"Clearly, this asteroid must be made of material that has very high strength in order to keep it in one piece," Sarah Greenstreet, an assistant astronomer at the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, said in a statement. "It would need a cohesive strength similar to that of solid rock."

"This is somewhat surprising," added Greenstreet, who also leads a Rubin working group about near-Earth objects and interstellar objects, "since most asteroids are believed to be what we call 'rubble pile' asteroids, which means they are made of many, many small pieces of rock and debris that coalesced under gravity during solar system formation or subsequent collisions."

Thousands more to come

In general, fast-spinning asteroids could have reached that state after a collision with another space rock, the study team said. It is also possible that 2025 MN45 is a remnant of a much larger asteroid that was shattered by a cosmic crash.

Most asteroids in the solar system are in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But most fast-spinning asteroids that astronomers have observed are much closer to Earth, simply because they are easier to see, the study authors noted. 2025 MN45 is a main-belt object, where most asteroids (as they are loose piles of rubble) must take at least 2.2 hours to rotate in order to avoid fragmentation. Anything that rotates faster than that "must be structurally strong," they wrote.

That said, 2025 MN45 is not the only fast spinner in the main asteroid belt. In addition to 2025 MN45, Rubin's first dataset includes 16 "super-fast" rotators, each of which has a rotational period of between 13 minutes and 2.2 hours, as well as two "ultra-fast" rotators with spins of less than two minutes each. All of these asteroids are also longer than 100 yards (90 m), and all but one of the newfound asteroids lives in the main belt.

The commissioning data from Rubin, which was released last June, underwent a deeper look in the new paper, which was also discussed Wednesday at a news conference at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Phoenix.

The huge set of observations has about 1,900 never-before-seen asteroids, according to the statement. There will be many more to come when Rubin formally begins its 10-year survey of the sky in the coming months.

In particular, the initial results suggest that crashes may not be the only way asteroids reach extreme speeds, perhaps pressing astronomers to develop new explanations.

{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

09-01-2026 om 21:24 geschreven door peter  

{ https://scientias.nl/nieuws/astronomie-ruimtevaart/ }

09-01-2026 om 20:52 geschreven door peter  

The smell of space has been described as similar to the smell of something cooking on a charcoal grill. 

Rbkomar/Getty Images

{ https://science.howstuffworks.com/ }

09-01-2026 om 20:41 geschreven door peter  

CIA makes shocking statement about mysterious interstellar visitor that upends NASA's comet story

• MORE: The five unsolved mysteries of 2025 that captivated the world 

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

A shocking admission by the CIA has just reopened the mystery surrounding 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object speeding through our solar system.

Although NASA has claimed the object is an ordinary comet, an icy rock with a long tail of gas and dust, intelligence officials have refused to answer whether they investigated the possibility that 3I/ATLAS is an extraterrestrial craft. 

In response to a November 2025 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the supposed comet, the CIA said it could 'neither deny nor confirm the existence or nonexistence of records' regarding 3I/ATLAS.

The federal government had maintained that the object showed no signs of harboring alien life or that it was an artificially constructed spacecraft since it was detected in July 2025.

However, the CIA still decided to provide what is known as a 'Glomar response.' It's a way for the government to say, 'We're not going to tell you if we have information or not, because even admitting that could reveal sensitive secrets.' 

Harvard professor Avi Loeb has continued to challenge NASA's claims, highlighting that 3I/ATLAS has exhibited at least 12 strange behaviors that scientists have not been able to explain as natural occurrences.

Those anomalies include the object having a bright 'anti-tail' pointing in the opposite direction of a normal comet, course changes that defy the laws of gravity, and a nickel shell, which is a metal typically used by spacecraft to deflect heat.

'That this information is treated as sensitive enough to be classified by the CIA is surprising, given that NASA officials stated decisively at a press conference on November 19, 2025, that 3I/ATLAS is definitely a comet of natural origin,' Loeb said.

Amateur stargazers have taken clear images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (Pictured) using common telescopes during its journey through the solar system

The CIA has released a statement neither confirming nor denying any investigations into 3I/ATLAS, complying with a November 2025 FOIA request

As 3I/ATLAS nears Jupiter on March 16, the Harvard physicist said the new revelations by the US intelligence community suggest the government has secretly investigated the possibility that the object is a hostile threat, as he theorized last year. 

The Daily Mail has requested comment from both the CIA and NASA and is awaiting a response.

The FOIA request was submitted by UFO and government conspiracy researcher John Greenewald Jr, who noted in a post on X that he was filing an appeal to get a clearer answer from the CIA.

Greenewald Jr added that he has filed the same request for information regarding 3I/ATLAS with NASA and other US agencies and is still waiting for them to reply.

FOIA requests are part of US law that lets anyone, including citizens, journalists, and researchers, ask government agencies for documents or records on a specific topic.

The agency must give a response, but it can withhold revealing details if the information is classified for national security reasons or falls under certain exemptions.

'Very interesting, apparently CIA [director John] Ratcliffe knows something,' one person on social media alleged. 

The new revelations have come months after NASA completely dismissed the possibility of 3I/ATLAS being extraterrestrial in origin, with space agency administrator Nicky Fox saying they've found nothing 'that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet.'

However, NASA's November announcement created more doubt about the object's origins than it solved, as the agency was widely mocked for the blurry images it released of 3I/ATLAS.

Many critics quickly pointed out that amateur astronomers with common telescopes had been taking much clearer photographs of the alleged comet as it approached Earth in December, despite being over 200million miles from the object.

In comparison, NASA Mars orbiters were less than 20million miles away from 3I/ATLAS in early October 2025, but still only returned heavily pixelated images of the visitor, which caused some to claim it was a cover-up.

'NASA officials were encouraged to deliver the likely scientific interpretation, while at the same time, the serious consideration of a black swan event by the CIA was hidden from public view to prevent panic from taking hold for no good reason,' Loeb speculated in a statement published Monday.

A black swan event is a rare, totally unexpected happening that's highly unlikely but could have huge, world-changing consequences for the Earth.

In the case of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, Loeb said if the tiny chance that the object was artificial alien technology turned out to be true, it would be a massive shock with enormous implications for humanity, including proving aliens exist.

The cryptic response from the CIA adds another layer to the eight-decade conspiracy theory UFO believers have had, claiming that the US government has been concealing what it knows about extraterrestrial life.

Just days after Greenewald Jr's FOIA request was submitted in November, the hit documentary 'The Age of Disclosure' was released, interviewing 34 US government, military, and intelligence officials about their knowledge of an alleged UFO cover-up.

Despite the speculation, the US military and federal government have said there has never been any physical proof that UFOs or beings from other planets exist.

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

09-01-2026 om 18:34 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers spot record-breaking asteroid the size of seven football pitches - and it could be nudged towards Earth

• READ MORE:  NASA finds essential sugars on ancient asteroid Bennu

By XANTHA LEATHAM, EXECUTIVE SCIENCE EDITOR

Out in the depths of space, somewhere in between Mars and Jupiter, is a newly discovered asteroid that’s breaking records.

Astronomers have spotted a celestial rock the size of seven football pitches that is spinning faster than they’ve ever seen before.

The asteroid, named 2025 MN45, is 710 metres in diameter and completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes.

The fact that it spins so rapidly has baffled experts, who say it must consist of solid rock in order to maintain its shape.

‘Clearly, this asteroid must be made of material that has very high strength in order to keep it in one piece as it spins so rapidly,’ Sarah Greenstreet, who leads the Rubin Observatory’s Solar System Science Collaboration’s Near-Earth Objects and Interstellar Objects working group, said.

‘We calculate that it would need a cohesive strength similar to that of solid rock.

‘This is somewhat surprising since most asteroids are believed to be what we call “rubble pile” asteroids, which means they are made of many, many small pieces of rock and debris that coalesced under gravity during Solar System formation or subsequent collisions.’

While it is currently out in the asteroid belt, hundreds of millions of kilometres away, asteroids and comets have previously been ‘nudged’ into Earth’s neighbourhood by the gravity of nearby planets.

This artist’s illustration depicts 2025 MN45 — the fastest-rotating asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that scientists have ever found

The lightcurve of the asteroid - the y-axis shows the asteroid’s brightness, and the x-axis shows its phase, or where it is in its rotation

The sighting forms part of a much larger discovery, as scientists have detected 1,900 new asteroids cruising about our Solar System that have never been seen before.

Within this flurry are 19 super and ultra-fast rotating asteroids – with 2025 MN45 taking the new record for the fastest-spinning asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that astronomers have found.

For their study, researchers collected data over the course of about 10 hours across seven nights in April and May of last year.

They used the Rubin Observatory’s LSST Camera – the largest digital camera in the world – to capture the night sky.

‘Discoveries like this exceptionally fast-rotating asteroid are a direct result of the observatory's unique capability to provide high-resolution, time-domain astronomical data, pushing the boundaries of what was previously observable,’ Regina Rameika, from the US Department of Energy, said.

As asteroids orbit the Sun, they also rotate at a wide range of speeds, the researchers explained.

These spin rates not only offer clues about the conditions of their formation billions of years ago but also tell us about their internal composition and evolution over their lifetimes.

In particular, an asteroid spinning quickly may have been sped up by a past collision with another asteroid, suggesting that it could be a fragment of an originally larger object.

Most asteroids can be found orbiting our Sun between Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt

An illustration of the main asteroid belt, orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, where asteroid 2025 MN45 can be found

This image, one of the first released by Rubin Observatory, exposes a Universe teeming with stars and galaxies — transforming seemingly empty, inky-black pockets of space into glittering tapestries for the first time

‘Fast rotation also requires an asteroid to have enough internal strength to not fly apart into many smaller pieces, called fragmentation,’ the team said in a release.

‘Most asteroids are ‘rubble piles’, which means they are made of many smaller pieces of rock held together by gravity, and thus have limits based on their densities as to how fast they can spin without breaking apart.

‘For objects in the main asteroid belt, the fast-rotation limit to avoid being fragmented is 2.2 hours; asteroids spinning faster than this must be structurally strong to remain intact.

‘The faster an asteroid spins above this limit, and the larger its size, the stronger the material it must be made from.’

Within the main asteroid belt are space rocks ranging in size from 530km (329 miles) to just 10 metres (33 feet) in diameter.

‘Sometimes, asteroids and comets are nudged into Earth’s neighbourhood by the gravity of nearby planets,’ NASA says.

However, they explained that it is ‘highly unlikely’ an asteroid large enough to cause widespread damage will impact Earth for the next 100 years or more.

The new findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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

09-01-2026 om 18:09 geschreven door peter  

NASA has just revealed that the crew of the International Space Station was being evacuated for the first time in history after one of the astronauts suffered a medical emergency.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in a press conference Thursday that Crew-11 would not continue its mission until its scheduled return date in February, and that the steps for their safe return would be worked out over the next 48 hours.

'I've come to the decision that it's in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,' Isaacman revealed.

The announcement came less than a day after NASA cancelled a Thursday spacewalk due to the medical issue, with officials saying they were 'erring on the side of caution for the crew member'.

Crew-11 includes four astronauts: NASA's Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.

The group was recently joined by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who arrived at the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in November 2025.

Isaacman said that Williams will remain on the station with the Soyuz crew to maintain America's presence in space.

While the astronaut who suffered the medical issue was not revealed, NASA's chief medical officer Dr James Polk said the astronaut was not in any immediate danger and they were being cared for by their fellow crewmates until their return.

Crew-11 before launching to the ISS. Pictured (L to R): Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and NASA's Zena Cardman

NASA cancelled a planned spacewalk on Thursday involving the crew of the International Space Station (Pictured) over an unspecified medical issue involving one of the astronauts

Dr Polk added that the medical issue the astronaut suffered had nothing to do with the upcoming spacewalk or any other operations on board the station.

'It's mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity,' Polk explained without going into specific medical details. 

NASA officials noted that no special precautions would need to be taken to keep the ailing astronaut safe until their return and called their condition 'stable' until the evacuation plan is finalized. 

NASA has never had to bring an astronaut home for medical reasons, but an evacuation plan has been built into every ISS mission, with crew return vehicles kept on standby.

'We are looking for the correct opportunity to use our existing landing sites,' Isaacman said when asked if NASA would be making an emergency landing to get Crew-11 home faster.

'I´m proud of the swift effort across the agency thus far to ensure the safety of our astronauts,' the NASA chief added. 

The NASA administrator did note that the space agency did consider this a 'serious medical condition' which forced officials to conclude that the first ever evacuation was necessary.

However, Dr Polk stressed that the astronaut was not in immediate danger which would force NASA to consider rushing the evacuation into an unsafe flight window.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman (Left) and NASA chief medical officer Dr James Polk (Center) revealed on Thursday that Crew-11 would be returning as soon as possible 

JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui (center) was helping NASA astronaut Zena Cardman (left) and Mike Fincke prepare for the spacewalk before it was postponed 

'The crew member is absolutely stable, so I don't foresee massive changes to the timeline or their activities,' Polk said.

Crew-11 arrived at the ISS on August 1, 2025, meaning their return date had been scheduled for late February.

The four astronauts were supposed to leave after Crew-12 arrived on a SpaceX Dragon capsule no earlier than February 15.

Isaacman said that any decision to potentially move up the launch of Crew-12 would not impact the upcoming Artemis II mission planned for February 2026.

He called the two launches 'totally separate campaigns,' meaning there should be no issue in launching Artemis on time. Artemis II will be the first manned spaceflight to orbit the moon since 1972.

Meanwhile, the ISS is required to have astronauts aboard at all times, as they are essential to carry out maintenance, repairs, operate complex experiments, manage life support and perform spacewalks, tasks that automation cannot fully handle, ensuring constant human oversight for safety and scientific output.

Until now, there had never been a crew evacuated ahead of their scheduled departure time from the ISS, however, two spacewalks were recently cancelled because of various health issues among the astronauts.

A mission was cancelled in 2021 when Mark Vande Hei experienced a pinched nerve and was unable to travel outside the ISS.

Another spacewalk in 2024 was called off at the last minute because an astronaut experienced 'spacesuit discomfort'.

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

09-01-2026 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

Story by Tibi Puiu

 

Scientists have discovered a mysterious hole on the surface of Mars, and they have no idea what lies inside it.

This pit, located in the Arsia Mons region — one of Mars’ giant volcanoes — could potentially be a skylight leading to a vast network of lava tubes.

Lava tubes are natural caverns formed by flowing lava. Here on Earth, they provide shelter for many life forms, and on Mars, they could offer human explorers much-needed protection from the harsh Martian environment.

So, is this hole the key to unlocking a potential Martian habitat?

A Mysterious Martian Pit — Leading to Where?

There’s no shortage of environmental hazards out to kill any astronaut bold enough to dare set foot on Mars. With Mars having only 0.7% of Earth’s sea-level pressure, humans would have to don a full pressure suit or live inside a specialized chamber. Without these precautions, oxygen wouldn’t circulate in the bloodstream, with potentially fatal consequences.

Radiation, however, remains the primary concern. Although Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth, the absence of a magnetic field and its thin atmosphere mean it’s exposed to much higher radiation levels than Earth. The Mars Odyssey probe has shown radiation levels on Mars are at least 2.5 times higher than what astronauts face on the International Space Station. Furthermore, besides regular exposure to cosmic rays and solar wind, it receives occasional, lethal radiation blasts due to solar flares.

The Photos NASA Sent To Aliens

Any attempt to colonize the Red Planet will require measures to ensure radiation exposure is kept to a minimum. Some of the proposed ideas thus far involve habitats built directly into the ground or even above-ground habitats using inflatable modules encased in ceramics.

However, a promising alternative lies in Mars’ natural landscape. The planet is scattered with deep pits, caves, and lava tube structures that can act as a shield against radiation.

Collapsed sections of these tubes, called skylights, could provide access to these subterranean refuges. This is what scientists believe this newly identified pit could be. It was recently imaged by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The Nature of Martian Pits

Two images of the pit in Arsia Mons. The one on the left was taken a couple of years ago. The one on the right is more recent and shows a side wall, which may mean the hole is not an entrance to a lava tube or cave.

(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)© ZME Science

The newly examined pit measures only a few meters across and resides in the Tharsis region — a vast volcanic plain, thousands of kilometers across and elevated about 10 km above the planet’s mean elevation. This area was once very volcanically active, so scientists’ best guess is that the pit is a skylight to a lava tube.

However, that’s not the only option. In another image, you can see an illuminated sidewall, indicating it might just be a cylindrical pit. This raises the possibility that the hole may simply be a pit crater, similar to those found in Hawaii.

These craters form when cracks in volcanic rock widen and collapse, offering no access to underground chambers. In Hawaii, pit craters range from 6 to 186 meters deep and 8 to 1140 meters wide. The Arsia Mons pit is about 178 meters deep, Universe Today reports.

Lessons from the Moon

So, the big question now is: does this hole on Mars lead to a larger underground cavern? We don’t have a straight answer yet. But with time, scientists might be able to study and understand Martian pits as well as they do those on the Moon.

We understand lunar lava pits and tubes much better than those on Mars. Some lunar tubes are thermally stable and have boulder-covered floors. There are even plans for robots to explore these lunar caves, potentially housing astronauts in inflatable habitats.

Mars, with its weaker gravity, should support even larger lava tubes. This would provide extremely valuable shelter on a very unforgiving planet. Perhaps this is not all that different from how the first human explorers made bases in caves as they traveled across uncharted territory, colonizing the world.

However, unlike the Moon, we lack conclusive evidence of their existence on Mars. This intriguing pit on Arsia Mons is part of an ongoing search for Martian lava tubes. Future robotic missions designed to explore these potential underground worlds will be crucial in unlocking the secrets they hold.

Renewed Interest and New Discoveries

In November 2024, a breakthrough study on Earth provided some supporting evidence that Martian caves could act as time capsules. Researchers exploring lava tubes in Lanzarote, Spain, found that the tubes shielded minerals and organic compounds from weathering, effectively preserving “biosignatures” of past microbial life. This confirms that if life ever existed on Mars, a lava tube would be the most likely place to find its fossilized remains, protected from the harsh radiation on the surface.

Meanwhile, the region hosting the pit, Arsia Mons, received a stunning visual update in May 2025.

Arsia Mons, an ancient Martian volcano, was captured before dawn on May 2, 2025, by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter while the spacecraft was studying the Red Planet’s atmosphere, which appears here as a greenish haze.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU© ZME Science

NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter captured a rare panorama showing the volcano’s summit poking through a vast blanket of morning clouds. This image highlighted the extreme altitude of the Tharsis region (where the pit is located), reminding us that any habitat here would need to contend with not just radiation, but unique atmospheric weather patterns distinct from the rest of the planet.

But there could be other, even more interesting caves.

In late 2025, when scientists identified a potential new class of caves in the Hebrus Valles region. Unlike the volcanic tubes of Arsia Mons, these new candidates appear to be “karstic”—caves formed by the dissolution of bedrock by water. If confirmed, these wouldn’t just be shelters; they would be remnants of ancient aquifers, making them the ultimate “holy grail” for both human habitation and the search for alien life.

This article was originally published in 31 May, 2024, and has been reedited to include additional information.

This story originally appeared on ZME Science. Want to get smarter every day? Subscribe to our newsletter and stay ahead with the latest science news.

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{ ZME Science }

09-01-2026 om 16:36 geschreven door peter  

Jupiter's moon Europa lacks the undersea activity needed to support life, study suggests

by Chris Woolston, Washington University  }in St. Louis

The giant planet Jupiter has nearly 100 known moons, yet none have captured the interest and imagination of astronomers and space scientists quite like Europa, an ice-shrouded world that is thought to possess a vast ocean of liquid salt water. For decades, scientists have wondered whether that ocean could harbor the right conditions for life, placing Europa near the top of the list of solar system bodies to explore.

Europa's geology and tidal forces explained

For Byrne, a planetary scientist, Europa's appeal extends well beyond the question of life. "I'm really interested to know what that seafloor looks like," he said. "For all of the talk about the ocean itself, there has been little discussion about the seafloor."

Without a submarine, Byrne and co-authors had to combine known facts about Europa with inferences drawn from the geology of Earth and other bodies, including our own moon.

The ice shell on Europa is thought to be 15 to 25 km thick, and the ocean covers the entire moon to a depth of up to 100 km. Even though Europa is slightly smaller than our own moon, it likely holds much more water than Earth.

Beneath that ice and water lies a rocky core analogous to Earth's. While Earth's core still burns hot, Byrne and co-authors calculated that any heat from Europa's core would have escaped billions of years ago.

The team also calculated the gravitational forces from Jupiter, a pull that can be strong enough to keep a moon geologically alive. On its innermost large moon, Io, Jupiter's gravity roils tides and heats the rocks beneath the icy surface. Io, in fact, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system.

The tides on Io are especially violent because the moon has an erratic orbit that periodically takes it closer to Jupiter, but Europa's orbit is relatively stable and distant, lessening the chance for substantial tidal forces, Byrne explained.

"Europa likely has some tidal heating, which is why it's not completely frozen," Byrne said. "And it may have had a lot more heating in the distant past. But we don't see any volcanoes shooting out of the ice today like we see on Io, and our calculations suggest that the tides aren't strong enough to drive any sort of significant geologic activity at the seafloor."

Future missions and scientific curiosity

Europa's quiet seafloor geology doesn't provide much support for any contemporary life beneath the ice, Byrne said. "The energy just doesn't seem to be there to support life, at least today."

Byrne is still excited about future chances to explore Europa, especially the Europa Clipper spacecraft that will fly by the moon in the spring of 2031. That mission—conceived and championed in part by Bill McKinnon, the Clark Way Harrison Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences and interim director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences—will take close-up pictures of Europa's surface and provide more precise measurements of its ice cap and ocean.

"Those measurements should answer a lot of questions and give us more certainty," Byrne said.

Even if, eventually, modern Europa is found to be lifeless, Byrne won't be disappointed.

"I'm not upset if we don't find life on this particular moon," he said. "I'm confident that there is life out there somewhere, even if it's 100 light-years away. That's why we explore—to see what's out there."

• Provided by Washington University in St. Louis 

• Europa clipper captures Uranus with star tracker camera

{ https://phys.org/ }

09-01-2026 om 15:29 geschreven door peter  

Story by Cassian Holt

 

Scientists spot a massive object quietly shadowing Earth’s orbit

Far from the bright glare of the Moon, a much smaller companion has been quietly keeping pace with Earth, looping around the Sun in a complex dance that only looks like a shared orbit from our vantage point. Astronomers now recognize this object, designated 2025 PN7, as a quasi-moon, a tiny asteroid that appears to shadow our planet without being truly captured by its gravity. The discovery turns a routine scan of the sky into a reminder that even in our own celestial backyard, there are still neighbors we are only just meeting.

Despite the headline-friendly idea of a “massive” new world, the reality is more subtle and scientifically richer: 2025 PN7 is physically small but dynamically significant, a compact body whose path reveals how Earth interacts with the swarm of rocks that share its orbital neighborhood. In practical terms, this is a miniature object with outsized importance for understanding near-Earth space, planetary defense, and even the long-term story of how material moves through the inner Solar System.

Meet 2025 PN7, Earth’s tiny quasi-moon

The object at the center of this story is not a second Moon in any familiar sense, but a modest asteroid that happens to move in step with Earth around the Sun. Cataloged as 2025 PN7, it follows a path that keeps it relatively close to our planet over long stretches of time, so from certain perspectives it seems to hover near us like a faint, offbeat satellite. Astronomers classify such bodies as quasi-moons or quasi-satellites, a label that reflects their gravitational independence from Earth even as they trace a similar yearly journe

What makes 2025 PN7 stand out is not its bulk but its delicacy: observations indicate it measures just 19 units across, a scale that places it firmly in the “tiny companion” category rather than anything approaching a true second Moon. That compact size, combined with its subtle motion against the background stars, explains why it could orbit in this configuration for a long time before anyone noticed, and why its discovery has prompted a fresh look at how many other small neighbors might be sharing Earth’s path around the Sun.

How a “surprise sidekick” was finally spotted

Finding something as small as 2025 PN7 requires both patient sky coverage and sensitive detectors, and in this case the breakthrough came from a survey instrument built precisely for that task. The asteroid was discovered on July 30, 2025 by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope at Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii, a facility designed to sweep large swaths of the sky for moving points of light that betray the presence of near-Earth objects. That combination of wide-field imaging and repeated exposures allowed astronomers to pick out the faint track of this new body against the static star field.

In social media posts describing the find, researchers likened the object to a “surprise sidekick,” emphasizing that such a small body, only 19 units across, had been quietly accompanying Earth without drawing attention to itself. The discovery at Pan on the summit of Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii underscores how modern survey programs can reveal companions that would have been invisible to earlier generations of telescopes, even though they share our planet’s orbital neighborhood.

What makes a quasi-moon different from a real Moon

Although 2025 PN7 is already being described as a quasi-moon, that label can be misleading if it is taken to mean Earth has acquired a second natural satellite in the same sense as the familiar Moon. A true moon is gravitationally bound to its planet and orbits that planet directly, tracing a closed path around it while both bodies circle the Sun. In contrast, a quasi-moon like 2025 PN7 orbits the Sun, not Earth, and only appears to loop around our planet because its orbital period and shape are closely matched to ours.

The distinction becomes clearer when compared with other known quasi-satellites, such as (469219) Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3), which is described as a quasi-satellite of Earth that, in certain frames of reference, appears to orbit our planet even though it is really circling the Sun. Studies of Kamo have even suggested it may be a fragment of the Moon blasted into space, highlighting how quasi-moons can be both dynamically intriguing and compositionally revealing. By placing 2025 PN7 in this context, astronomers can use its motion to probe the subtle gravitational interplay between Earth, the Moon, and the swarm of near-Earth asteroids.

A companion hiding in plain sight for decades

Orbital reconstructions indicate that 2025 PN7 has likely been accompanying Earth for a long time, its path shaped by the same solar gravity that governs our own orbit. Astronomers analyzing its trajectory have concluded that this asteroid has been shadowing Earth for decades, maintaining a configuration that keeps it relatively close to our planet without ever becoming a conventional satellite. That long-term stability is part of what makes the object so scientifically valuable, since it offers a natural experiment in how small bodies can share a planet’s orbital space over extended periods.

Reports on the discovery emphasize that Astronomers now see 2025 PN7 as an asteroid that has been moving with Earth for decades, effectively hiding in plain sight because of its tiny size and the complexity of its apparent motion in the sky. The fact that such a long-standing companion could go unnoticed until now underscores both the limitations of past surveys and the growing power of new instruments to map the near-Earth environment in far greater detail.

Earth’s “New Cosmic Companion” and what it tells us

Beyond the orbital mechanics, 2025 PN7 has quickly taken on a more evocative identity as Earth’s New Cosmic Companion, a phrase that captures both its proximity and its novelty. Descriptions of the find frame it as The Story of Quasi Moon 2025 PN7, a narrative that situates this small body within a broader effort to catalog the subtle, often surprising structures that share our planet’s path around the Sun. By treating it as a character in that story, scientists and communicators alike are highlighting how even a 19-unit-wide rock can reshape our sense of the Solar System’s architecture.

Analyses of Earth and its New Cosmic Companion emphasize that quasi-moons like 2025 PN7 remind us that space is full of surprises, particularly in the near-Earth region where gravitational resonances can trap small bodies in unusual configurations. The Story of Quasi Moon 2025 PN7 is therefore not just about a single asteroid, but about the dynamic processes that populate our orbital neighborhood with temporary companions, some of which may eventually escape or collide with other objects as their paths evolve.

How surveys and interstellar visitors sharpen our view

The detection of 2025 PN7 is part of a larger revolution in how astronomers scan the sky, driven by systematic survey programs that repeatedly image wide fields to catch anything that moves. One example is the ATLAS project, which has already demonstrated its power by identifying Comet 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object discovered by a NASA-funded survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile. That discovery relied on a survey strategy that flags unusual trajectories, and the same philosophy underpins the work of facilities like Pan-STARRS1 that are now revealing quasi-moons and other subtle companions.

According to Comet 3I/ATLAS facts, the object was identified through a survey approach that can pick out faint, fast-moving bodies, including those on paths that indicate an origin outside the Solar System. That same survey mindset has also led astronomers to spot other strange visitors, such as the interstellar object discussed in a Jul video that describes something unusual moving through our Solar System and heading our way. By refining these techniques, researchers are better equipped to notice both dramatic interstellar interlopers and quiet, long-term companions like 2025 PN7.

From Oumuamua to 3I/ATLAS: context for small, strange objects

The excitement around 2025 PN7 also reflects a broader fascination with small, hard-to-classify objects that challenge our expectations about what orbits the Sun. Earlier interstellar visitors such as ʻOumuamua showed that not every passing body fits neatly into the categories of comet or asteroid, and subsequent detections have reinforced that lesson. In one widely discussed case, NASA confirmed that a mysterious object shooting through the Solar System was an interstellar visitor and even assigned it a new name, underscoring how quickly such discoveries can reshape scientific debates.

Reports on that event note that NASA experts concluded the object was not bound to the Sun in the long term, marking it as a traveler from beyond our planetary system. A similar story has unfolded with Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, which passed Earth and is now leaving the Solar System, headed out again after its brief visit. Coverage of Interstellar 3I/ATLAS highlights how even a relatively small body can carry crucial information about conditions in distant star systems, just as a quasi-moon like 2025 PN7 can illuminate the fine structure of our own orbital environment.

Why a tiny quasi-moon matters for planetary defense

On a practical level, the discovery of 2025 PN7 feeds directly into the growing field of planetary defense, which depends on a detailed inventory of near-Earth objects and their trajectories. Even though this particular asteroid is only 19 units across and poses no known threat, its detection proves that such small bodies can share Earth’s orbit for decades without being cataloged, a gap that matters when assessing impact risks. By refining the techniques that revealed this quasi-moon, astronomers improve their chances of spotting more hazardous objects of similar size or slightly larger before they come too close.

The broader survey ecosystem that caught 2025 PN7 is also responsible for identifying other unusual bodies, including the interstellar object highlighted in a An interstellar object video that describes something strange moving through our Solar System. Each of these detections, whether a fleeting visitor like 3I/ATLAS or a long-term companion like 2025 PN7, adds to a statistical picture of how many small objects cross Earth’s path and how their orbits evolve. In that sense, a tiny quasi-moon is not just a curiosity, but a data point that helps refine models used to protect the planet from future impacts.

The quiet revolution in mapping Earth’s orbital neighborhood

Stepping back, 2025 PN7 is part of a quiet revolution in how thoroughly we map the space around Earth, a process driven by better detectors, smarter software, and coordinated survey strategies. Where earlier generations of astronomers might have focused on bright planets and comets, today’s instruments are tuned to pick out faint, fast-moving specks that reveal a rich population of near-Earth asteroids, quasi-moons, and other transient companions. Each new detection, from Kamoʻoalewa to 3I/ATLAS to 2025 PN7, fills in another piece of a complex gravitational puzzle.

As I see it, the real story behind Earth’s so-called “second moon” is not about size or spectacle, but about the precision with which we can now track even a 19-unit-wide rock as it quietly shadows our orbit. The work that identified 2025 PN7, building on survey methods refined in projects like ATLAS and on analyses that recognized quasi-satellites such as Kamoʻoalewa, shows how far observational astronomy has come in just a few decades. It also hints at how many more subtle companions may still be waiting in the data, small in scale but large in what they can teach us about the constantly shifting architecture of our Solar System.

{ Morning Overview }

06-01-2026 om 22:46 geschreven door peter  

‘A window into the dark universe’: Astronomers spot an unexpected ‘ghostly object’ in the depths of space

• READ MORE: Scientists say dark energy may end our universe in a 'Big Crunch' 

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Scientists have discovered a new type of astronomical object, calling the strange entity a 'window into the dark universe'.

The object known as Cloud-9 is a completely starless, gas-rich cloud of dark matter located 14 million light-years from Earth.

The cloud's core is a vast, compact sphere of neutral hydrogen, about 4,900 light-years across.

That is more than 1,000 times greater than the distance between Earth and the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

However, despite containing abundant stellar fuel, astronomers have now used the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm that Cloud-9 contains no stars whatsoever.

Scientists say that makes the cloud a building block of a galaxy that never quite formed, left over as a relic from the early universe.

Co-author Dr Andrew Fox, of the European Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute, told the Daily Mail: 'You can think of it as a failed galaxy.

'A ghostly object that didn’t quite have enough mass to become self-gravitating and cross the threshold into star formation.'

Scientists have discovered a new type of astronomical object, a cloud of dark matter and hydrogen gas that contains no stars. Pictured: Magenta shows radio data from the gas cloud, and the dotted circle shows the peak of radio emissions

Cloud-9 is a previously theoretical type of object known as a Reionization-Limited H I Cloud, or 'RELHIC'.

What makes RELHICs unusual is that they are largely made up of dark matter, the invisible substance which makes up around 26 per cent of the universe's mass.

Although scientists can't directly observe dark matter, including the matter inside Cloud-9, they can tell that something with mass must be there because of the effects of gravity.

'The main piece of evidence for dark matter in this cloud is its size,' says Dr Fox,

'A cloud this size needs a source of gravity to hold it together. There are no stars to provide this gravity, and the neutral hydrogen gas does not contain enough mass, so dark matter must be the culprit. Without it, the cloud would simply fall apart.'

By looking at the radiation emitted by gases in the cloud, scientists estimate that the mass of hydrogen within is about one million times that of the sun.

However, for the cloud not to drift apart, Dr Fox and his colleagues estimate that it must contain around five billion solar masses of dark matter.

This discovery is extremely exciting for astronomers because RELHICs like Cloud-9 offer a snapshot into an exceptionally early moment in the universe's history.

Scientists say that the strange object (pictured), dubbed Cloud-9 and located 14 million light-years from Earth, is a failed galaxy that didn't have enough mass to produce stars 

Dr Fox says: 'Theories of galaxy formation predicted that there is a minimum threshold of dark matter required to ignite star formation and turn a dark cloud into a luminous galaxy.

'With Cloud-9, we have an example of an object just below this threshold, containing no stars.'

Although some scientists had thought that RELHICs might exist, they have proven exceptionally hard to find.

If the cloud were much larger, the gases would collapse into stars and form a galaxy; much smaller, and it would have fallen apart and blown away.

Co-author Dr Alejandro Benitez  Llambay, of the Milano-Bicocca University in Milan, told Daily Mail: 'Cloud-9 is a rare "middle ground" survivor.'

'According to our models, fewer than 10 per cent of halos in this mass range remain in such a pristine state, making Cloud-9 a "missing link" in our understanding of how galaxies are born.'

Likewise, since these objects don't contain any stars, RELHICs barely give off any of their own radiation and are exceptionally difficult to detect.

Cloud-9 was first spotted three years ago by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Guizhou, China.

If the cloud had more mass, the gases would have collapsed into stars and formed a galaxy like its neighbour, the M94 spiral galaxy (pictured). Cloud-9 had just enough mass to stay together, but not so much that it formed stars 

However, it is only now that researchers have been able to use the Hubble Telescope to confirm that it contains no stars, making it very likely to be a RELHIC.

Lead author Dr Gagandeep Anand, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, says: 'Before we used Hubble, you could argue that this is a faint dwarf galaxy that we could not see with ground-based telescopes. They just didn't go deep enough in sensitivity to uncover stars.

Read More

• Newly discovered galaxy cluster could rewrite our understanding of the universe, experts say 

'In science, we usually learn more from the failures than from the successes. In this case, seeing no stars is what proves the theory right. It tells us that we have found in the local universe a primordial building block of a galaxy that hasn't formed.'

The discovery of Cloud-9, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, also makes it likely that there are more RELHICs out there, even in our local neighbourhood.

China's FAST telescope is particularly good at spotting these kinds of dark gas clouds, so researchers hope to discover more in the future.

Dr Fox adds: 'There absolutely should be more RELHICs out there, and we are looking for more candidates. We need more cases to know whether Cloud-9 is an oddball with unusual properties, or alternatively, is fairly typical.'

Dark matter: The mysterious substance that makes up 85% of the universe that scientists cannot confirm

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 85 per cent of the universe.

The enigmatic material is invisible because it does not reflect light, and has never been directly observed by scientists.

Astronomers know it to be out there because of its gravitational effects on known matter.

The European Space Agency says: 'Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates.

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 27 per cent of the universe. It is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together

(artist's impression)

'That does not mean that the room around you does not exist.

'Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly.'

The material is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together.

Calculations show that many galaxies would be torn apart instead of rotating if they weren't held together by a large amount of dark matter.

Just five per cent the observable universe consists of known matter such as atoms and subatomic particles.

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

06-01-2026 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

'Artificial intelligence' myths have existed for centuries – from the ancient Greeks to a pope's chatbot

'Artificial intelligence' myths have existed for centuries — from the ancient Greeks to a pope's chatbot

Prometheus – Heinrich Füger (c.1817) 

(Image credit: Heinrich Füger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

It seems the AI hype has turned into an AI bubble. There have been many bubbles before, from the Tulip mania of the 17th century to the derivatives bubble of the 21st century. For many commentators, the most relevant precedent today is the dotcom bubble of the 1990s. Back then, a new technology (the World Wide Web) unleashed a wave of "irrational exuberance." Investors poured billions into any company with ".com" in the name.

Three decades later, another new technology has unleashed another wave of exuberance. Investors are pouring billions into any company with "AI" in its name. But there is a crucial difference between these two bubbles, which isn't always recognised. The World Wide Web existed. It was real. General Artificial Intelligence does not exist, and no one knows if or when it ever will.

In February, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, wrote on his blog that the very latest systems have only just started to "point towards" AI in its "general" sense. OpenAI may market its products as "AIs," but they are merely statistical data-crunchers, rather than "intelligences" in the sense that human beings are intelligent.

So why are investors so keen to give money to the people selling AI systems? One reason might be that AI is a mythical technology. I don't mean it is a lie. I mean it evokes a powerful, foundational story of Western culture about human powers of creation.

Perhaps investors are willing to believe AI is just around the corner because it taps into myths that are deeply ingrained in their imaginations?

The myth of Prometheus

The most relevant myth for AI is the Ancient Greek myth of Prometheus.

There are many versions of this myth, but the most famous are found in Hesiod'spoems Theogony and Works and Days, and in the play Prometheus Bound, traditionally attributed to Aeschylus.

Prometheus was a Titan, a god in the Ancient Greek pantheon. He was also a criminal who stole fire from Hephaestus, the blacksmith god. Hiding the fire in a stalk of fennel, Prometheus came to earth and gave it to humankind. As punishment, he was chained to a mountain, where an eagle visited every day to eat his liver.

Prometheus' gift was not simply the gift of fire; it was the gift of intelligence. In Prometheus Bound, he declares that before his gift humans saw without seeing and heard without hearing. After his gift, humans could write, build houses, read the stars, perform mathematics, domesticate animals, construct ships, invent medicines, interpret dreams and give proper offerings to the gods.

The myth of Prometheus is a creation story with a difference. In the Hebrew Bible, God does not give Adam the power to create life. But Prometheus gives (some of) the gods' creative power to humankind.Hesiod indicates this aspect of the myth in Theogony. In that poem, Zeus not only punishes Prometheus for the theft of fire; he punishes humankind as well. He orders Hephaestus to fire up his forge and construct the first woman, Pandora, who unleashes evil on the world.

The fire that Hephaestus uses to make Pandora is the same fire that Prometheus has given humankind.

In this 18th-century engraving, Prometheus constructs the first man.  

(Image credit: AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Greeks proposed the idea that humans are a form of artificial intelligence. Prometheus and Hephaestus use technology to manufacture men and women. As historian Adrienne Mayor reveals in her book Gods and Robots, the ancients often depicted Prometheus as a craftsman, using ordinary tools to create human beings in an ordinary workshop.

If Prometheus gave us the fire of the gods, it would seem to follow that we can use this fire to make our own intelligent beings. Such stories abound in Ancient Greek literature, from the inventor Daedalus, who created statues that came to life, to the witch Medea, who could restore youth and potency with her cunning drugs. Greek inventors also constructed mechanical computers for astronomy and remarkable moving figures powered by gravity, water and air.

The Pope and the chatbot

2,700 years have passed since Hesiod first wrote down the story of Prometheus. In the ensuing centuries, the myth has been endlessly retold, especially since the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus in 1818.

But the myth is not always told as fiction. Here are two historical examples where the myth of Prometheus seemed to come true.

Gerbert of Aurillac was the Prometheus of the 10th century. He was born in the early 940s CE, went to school at Aurillac Abbey, and became a monk himself. He proceeded to master every known branch of learning. In the year 999, he was elected Pope. He died in 1003 under his pontifical name, Sylvester II.

Rumours about Gerbert spread wildly across Europe. Within a century of his death, his life had already become legend. One of the most famous legends, and the most pertinent in our age of AI hype, is that of Gerbert's "brazen head." The legend was told in the 1120s by the English historian William of Malmesbury, in his well researched and highly regarded book, Deeds of the English Kings.

Gerbert was deeply learned in astronomy, a science of prediction. Astronomers could use the astrolabe to predict the position of the stars and foresee cosmological events such as eclipses. According to William, Gerbert used his knowledge of astronomy to construct a talking head. After inspecting the movements of the stars and planets, he cast a head in bronze that could answer yes-or-no questions.

First Gerbert asked the head:

"Will I become Pope?"

"Yes," answered the head.

Then Gerbert asked: "Will I die before I sing mass in Jerusalem?"

"No," the head replied.

In both cases, the head was correct, though not as Gerbert anticipated. He did become Pope, and he sensibly avoided going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. One day, however, he sang mass at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. Unfortunately for Gerbert, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme was known in those days simply as "Jerusalem."

Gerbert sickened and died. On his deathbed, he asked his attendants to cut up his body and cast away the pieces, so he could go to his true master, Satan. In this way, he was, like Prometheus, punished for his theft of fire.

Pope Sylvester II and the Devil 

(Image credit: Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

It is a thrilling story. It is not clear whether William of Malmesbury actually believed it. But he does try to persuade his readers that it is plausible. Why did this great historian with a devotion to the truth insert some fanciful legends about a French pope into his history of England? Good question!

Is it so fanciful to believe that an advanced astronomer might build a general-purpose prediction machine? In those days, astronomy was the most powerful science of prediction. The sober and scholarly William was at least willing to entertain the idea that brilliant advances in astronomy might make it possible for a Pope to build an intelligent chatbot.

Today, that same possibility is credited to machine-learning algorithms, which can predict which ad you will click, which movie you will watch, which word you will type next. We can be forgiven for falling under the same spell.

The anatomist and the automaton

The Prometheus of the 18th century was Jacques de Vaucanson, at least according to Voltaire:

Bold Vaucanson, rival of Prometheus,Seems, imitating the springs of nature,To steal the fire of heaven to animate the body.

Jacques de Vaucanson – Joseph Boze (1784) 

(Image credit: Joseph Boze, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Vaucanson was a great machinist, famous for his automata. These were clockwork devices that realistically simulated human or animal anatomy. Philosophers of the time believed that the body was a machine — so why couldn't a machinist build one?

Sometimes Vaucanson's automata were scientifically significant. He constructed a piper, for example, that had lips and lungs and fingers, and blew the pipe in much the same way a human would. Historian Jessica Riskin explains in her book The Restless Clock that Vaucanson had to make significant discoveries in acoustics in order to make his piper play in tune.

Sometimes his automata were less scientific. His digesting duck was hugely famous, but turned out to be fraudulent. It appeared to eat and digest food, but its poos were in fact prefabricated pellets hidden inside the mechanism.

Vaucanson spent decades working on what he called a "moving anatomy." In 1741, he presented a plan to the Lyons Academy to build an "imitation of all animal operations." Twenty years later, he was at it again. He secured support from King Louis XV to build a simulation of the circulatory system. He claimed he could build a complete, living artificial body.

There is no evidence that Vaucanson ever completed a whole body. In the end, he couldn't live up to the hype. But many of his contemporaries believed he could do it. They wanted to believe in his magical mechanisms. They wished he would seize the fire of life.

If Vaucanson could manufacture a new human body, couldn't he also repair an existing one? This is the promise of some AI companies today. According to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, AI will soon allow people "to live as long as they want." Immortality seems like an attractive investment.

Sylvester II and Vaucanson were great technologists, but neither was a Prometheus. They stole no fire from the gods. Will the aspiring Prometheans of Silicon Valley succeed where their predecessors have failed? If only we had Sylvester II's brazen head, we could ask it.

• This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

{ https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics }

05-01-2026 om 22:49 geschreven door peter