The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
20-08-2025
Cosmic Tunnels Connect Our Solar System to Distant Stars
Cosmic Tunnels Connect Our Solar System to Distant Stars
Scientists have discovered extraordinary "interstellar tunnels" that create direct pathways from our solar system to distant stellar regions, fundamentally changing our understanding of the space around Earth. Using advanced X-ray telescope data, researchers at the Max Planck Institute have mapped these cosmic channels that stretch across vast regions of the galaxy, revealing an intricate network connecting different star systems.
The breakthrough discovery emerged from analysis of data gathered by the eROSITA X-ray telescope, which orbits the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2. This sophisticated instrument provided researchers with the clearest view ever obtained of the soft X-ray background, allowing them to peer deep into the structure of interstellar space without interference from Earth's atmosphere or magnetosphere. The telescope's unique position enables continuous observation of cosmic phenomena that remain invisible to ground-based instruments.
Our solar system exists within an enormous cavity known as the Local Hot Bubble, a region of space approximately 300 light-years across filled with million-degree plasma. This cosmic bubble was carved out by a series of supernova explosions that occurred between 10 and 20 million years ago, creating what astronomers describe as a "supernova graveyard."
The research team, led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, analyzed thousands of X-ray measurements to create the most detailed map ever produced of this local cosmic environment. Their findings, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveal that this bubble is far from uniform in temperature and structure, reveals the Max Planck Institute report.
What makes this discovery particularly remarkable is the identification of tunnel-like structures extending from the Local Hot Bubble toward specific constellations. These channels appear as regions of exceptionally hot, low-density plasma that create pathways through the surrounding cooler interstellar medium.
3D model of the solar neighborhood. The color bar represents the temperature of the LHB as colored on the LHB surface. The direction of the Galactic Centre (GC) and Galactic North (N) is shown in the bottom right. The link to the interactive version can be found at the bottom of the page.
The most significant tunnel discovery points directly toward the constellation Centaurus, home to some of our nearest stellar neighbors including the Alpha Centauri system. This cosmic highway extends across vast distances, potentially connecting our Local Hot Bubble with distant star-forming regions where new solar systems are being born.
A second interstellar tunnel was identified leading toward the constellation Canis Major, linking our solar system with the Gum Nebula located approximately 1,500 light-years away. Co-author Dr. Michael Freyberg explained the implications: "What we didn't know was the existence of an interstellar tunnel towards Centaurus, which carves a gap in the cooler interstellar medium" explains a Daily Mail report.
These tunnels may form part of an extensive branching network that connects different star-forming regions throughout our local galactic neighborhood. The researchers believe this interstellar highway system is maintained by the explosive births and deaths of massive stars, which create powerful shockwaves and stellar winds that push gas and debris through space.
The formation of these interstellar tunnels demonstrates a process astronomers call "stellar feedback," where the life cycles of massive stars shape the structure of entire galaxies. When extremely massive stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, they collapse and explode as supernovae, creating expanding shells of superheated plasma that sweep through space at tremendous velocities.
Previous research has shown that the supernova explosions that created our Local Hot Bubble also collected gas and debris at their expanding edges, creating ideal conditions for new star formation. These new stars then produce their own jets of hot gases and radiation, which continue pushing outward until they encounter other stellar bubbles and star-forming regions.
The discovery also provides fascinating insights into our solar system's cosmic journey. According to co-author Dr. Gabriele Ponti:
"The sun must have entered the LHB a few million years ago, a short time compared to the age of the sun. It is purely coincidental that the sun seems to occupy a relatively central position in the LHB as we continuously move through the Milky Way."
The Ancient Mysteries of Time and Space ebook available from the Ancient Origins store.
Implications for Galactic Evolution
This network of cosmic tunnels represents a previously unknown aspect of galactic architecture that influences how matter and energy move between different regions of space. The researchers discovered that these pathways exhibit a distinct north-south temperature dichotomy, with the southern regions significantly hotter than their northern counterparts.
The thermal pressure measured within the Local Hot Bubble suggests it may be "open" toward high galactic latitudes, allowing material to flow freely between our local environment and the broader galactic halo. This connectivity could have profound implications for understanding how elements created in stellar cores are distributed throughout the galaxy, potentially affecting the formation of new planetary systems.
The eROSITA telescope's unprecedented sensitivity to soft X-ray emissions has revealed structures that remained invisible to previous generations of instruments. By operating from the L2 Lagrangian point, the telescope avoids contamination from Earth's magnetosphere, providing the cleanest possible view of these faint cosmic phenomena.
Top image: eROSITA telescope's all sky survey image.
SwRI scientists reviewed spectral data of sample material taken from near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu (pictured above) and compared them with spectral data of main belt asteroid Polana from the James Webb Space Telescope and found that they closely match. Image Credit: NASA
In 2020, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft completed its primary mission when it returned samples of asteroid Ryugu to Earth. In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx also completed its primary mission by returning samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth. Scientists in labs around the world have been studying those samples and have uncovered some surprises.
The Ryugu sample contained uracil, one of the four RNA nucleotides that are essential for life as we understand it. That discovery indicates that asteroids could've played a role in delivering the raw materials for life to Earth. The Bennu sample contained its own surprise. It contained unexpected phosphate compounds, which suggested that it could be a splinter from a small, ancient body with an ocean.
These findings show how complex asteroids can be, and that they're more than just chunks of space rock.
Asteroids are the fragments from collisions involving planetesimals. Each one is a puzzle piece that can help astronomers uncover our Solar System's history. One of the key endeavours in asteroid and Solar System science is determining which asteroids shared the same parent bodies, which can help illuminate the overall history of the Solar System.
Both are from the Polana collisional family in the main asteroid belt (MAB) between Mars and Jupiter. It took more than laboratory study of the samples to confirm it. The JWST played an important role, too, by obtaining both mid-infrared and near-infrared spectra from both asteroids.
"We present JWST Near Infrared Spectrograph and Mid-Infrared Instrument spectroscopy of the parent body of the family, (142) Polana, and compare it with spacecraft and laboratory data of both near-Earth asteroids," the authors write. "Spectral features at similar wavelengths in the spectra of Polana and those of Bennu and Ryugu support the hypothesis that both asteroids originated in the Polana family."
This figure shows the hydrogen content of asteroids determined by various techniques in other research. The Polana results are added from this study. Shaded regions show the range of H wt % for carbonaceous chondrites. Polana is similar to Bennu and Ryugu and unlike the CI and CM chondrites.
Image Credit: Arredondo et al. 2025. PSJ.
“Very early in the formation of the solar system, we believe large asteroids collided and broke into pieces to form an ‘asteroid family’ with Polana as the largest remaining body,” said lead author Arredondo in a press release. “Theories suggest that remnants of that collision not only created Polana, but also Bennu and Ryugu as well. To test that theory, we started looking at spectra of all three bodies and comparing them to one another.”
“They are similar enough that we feel confident that all three asteroids could have come from the same parent body,” Arredondo said.
Polana is much larger than both Ryugu and Bennu, at about 55 km in diameter. Bennu is only about 500 meters in diameter, and Ryugu is only about 850 meters in diameter. Polana is very dark, with an albedo of only 0.045, and is a Type F carbonaceous asteroid, a sub-group of the more common C-type asteroid.
The researchers think that after the collision that spawned them, Ryugu and Bennu were pushed out of their orbits close to Polana by Jupiter's immense gravity. As a result, the two smaller asteroids have been altered by their closer proximity to the Sun.
“Polana, Bennu and Ryugu have all had their own journeys through our solar system since the impact that may have formed them,” said SwRI’s Dr. Tracy Becker, a co-author of the paper. “Bennu and Ryugu are now much closer to the Sun than Polana, so their surfaces may be more affected by solar radiation and solar particles.
There are some differences between the three, especially around the depth and width of the 2.7 μm feature. This feature indicates hydrated minerals, or water-bearing minerals, and tells scientists something about an asteroid's history of thermal and aqueous alteration. "The differences in the depth and width of the 2.7 μm feature are more prominent between Polana and Ryugu than between Polana and Bennu. The cause of this difference is uncertain but could potentially be due to location in the early planetesimal or the effects of space weathering," the researchers write.
This figure compares NIRSpec Polana data to Bennu and Ryugu data. There are differences around the 2.7 micrometer feature that are likely due to space weathering.
Image Credit: Arredondo et al. 2025. PSJ.
“Likewise, Polana is possibly older than Bennu and Ryugu and thus would have been exposed to micrometeoroid impacts for a longer period,” Becker added. “That could also change aspects of its surface, including its composition.”
The differences could also stem from differences in the parent body.
"The differences in hydration between Bennu and Ryugu do not necessarily mean that they come from different parent bodies," the authors explain. "Differences between the similarly sized Bennu and Ryugu could be due to parent body partial dehydration due to internal heating. If Bennu came from surface material and Ryugu came from inner material, the parent body impact would produce different layers of compaction, which would cause them to have different macroporosities and levels of hydration."
In their conclusion, the authors state that despite differences, they're confident that all three bodies share the same parent body. "We find that similarities in the shapes and strengths of many of the spectral features across the NIR and MIR, including the prominent OH feature at 2.72 μm, support the hypothesis that Bennu and Ryugu could have originated in the new Polana family," they write.
Some regions of the spectra require further study to understand and explain, according to the authors.
"The analysis of the returned samples from both Bennu and Ryugu is ongoing, and future developments in the understanding of how surface processes manifest in NIR and MIR spectra will give additional insights into the interpretation of our Polana spectrum," they conclude.
Scientists studied Polana, a fairly large asteroid in the Main Belt, using a spectroscope installed on the James Webb Space Telescope. It turned out to be very similar to Bennu and Ryugu, which had previously been explored by spacecraft.
An article on the spectroscopy of Polana (142) was recently published in the Planetary Science Journal. Its authors claim that it has a common origin and forms a family with well-known objects such as Bennu and Ryugu.
The diameter of Polana is about 55 km. It was discovered back in the 19th century and has not been particularly noteworthy until now. Instead, Ryugu and Bennu were explored by spacecraft at close range, and material from the former was even brought back to Earth.
Spectral analysis of asteroids and their samples
A team of scientists led by Dr. Anicia Arredondo believes that in the early stages of the Solar System’s formation, large asteroids collided and broke into pieces to form a “family of asteroids,” the largest of which was Polana. Theories suggest that the remnants of this collision not only created Polana, but also Bennu and Ryugu. To test this theory, scientists began studying the spectra of all three bodies and comparing them with each other.
Arredondo and her team have applied for time on the James Webb Space Telescope to observe Polana using two different spectral instruments that focus on the near-infrared and mid-infrared spectra. Next, they compared this data with spectral data from physical samples of Ryugu and Bennu collected by two different space missions. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft encountered Ryugu in 2018 and collected samples that returned to Earth at the end of 2020. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft encountered Bennu in 2020 and collected samples that returned to Earth in late 2023.
Asteroid sizes
Bennu and Ryugu are considered asteroids on Earth because they orbit the Sun inside the orbit of Mars; however, they are not considered dangerous to Earth, with closest approaches of approximately 1.9 and 1 million miles, respectively.
Both Bennu and Ryugu are relatively small compared to Polana. Bennu’s diameter is approximately one-third of a mile, or roughly the same as that of the Empire State Building. Ryugu is twice as large, but Polana overshadows them both, being approximately 33 miles wide. Scientists believe that Jupiter’s gravity pushed Bennu and Ryugu out of their orbits near Polana.
Moon samples collected by the Apollo 17 mission have revealed new information about the Light Mantle, a distinctive bright band crossing the surface of the Moon. These are the remains of an ancient landslide that may be associated with the Tycho crater.
The last people on the Moon
Launched in December 1972, the Apollo 17 mission was the last flight in the Apollo program. As part of this program, NASA sent a scientist (geologist Harrison Schmitt) to the Moon for the first time, which largely determined its record “catch” of 110 kg of lunar soil samples, which were then delivered to Earth.
Harrison Schmitt on the Moon. Source: NASA
Light Mantle was one of the key objectives of the mission. This five-kilometer-long deposit, located at the foot of the two-kilometer-high South Massif mountain, has attracted the attention of scientists since its discovery. It is believed to be the remains of an ancient landslide. However, how exactly it formed and what allowed it to stretch for several kilometers was unknown.
The astronauts studied the Light Mantle by taking a series of cores. Some of them were placed in long-term storage in a sealed container in a special nitrogen storage facility. This was done with the expectation that in the future they could be studied using more advanced technologies and new scientific approaches that did not exist at that time.
Anatomy of a lunar landslide
This turned out to be the right decision. Over the next half-century, scanning technology took a huge leap forward, making it possible to examine samples in great detail. The research team took advantage of this circumstance. First, scientists simulated how landslides could occur on the Moon using rocks of similar composition. After that, they opened one of the sealed cores, analyzed its contents, and then compared it with the results of computer simulations.
A sample of lunar soil delivered by the Apollo 17 mission. It has been stored in a sealed container for over 50 years. Source: Dave Edey and Romy Hanna, UTCT, Jackson School of Geosciences/NASA
According to the researchers, analysis showed that the finer material covering the fragments in the core originated from them, rather than from the surrounding rock. This suggests that the debris broke apart and helped the landslide to “flow” like a liquid.
Although it is still unclear what exactly caused the landslide, one of the most likely causes was attributed to the impact of an asteroid that formed the Tycho crater. During the impact, countless rocks were thrown outwards and then fell back onto the Moon, forming small secondary craters. They diverge from Tycho with bright rays. Some of them stretch toward the Southern Massif.
The location where the lunar soil sample was collected. Source: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Scientists have suggested that some of the material ejected during the formation of Tycho may have struck the South Massif. This could have caused a landslide, which ultimately formed the Light Mantle.
In the past decade, astronomers have witnessed three interstellar objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System. This included the enigmatic 'Oumuamua in 2017, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019, and 3I/ATLAS in July 2025. This latest object also appears to be a comet based on recent observations that showed it was actively releasing water vapor as it neared the Sun. The detection of these objects, which were previously theorized but never observed, has piqued interest in the origins of ISOs, their dynamics, and where they may be headed once they leave the Solar System.
Since asteroids and comets are essentially material leftover from the formation of planets, studying ISOs could reveal what conditions are like in other star systems without having to send interstellar missions there. In a recent paper, Shokhruz Kakharov and Prof. Abraham Loeb calculated the trajectories of all three interstellar visitors to determine where they came and apply age constraints. Their results indicate these ISOs originated from different regions in the Milky Way's disk, and range in age from one to several billion years.
Kakharov is a graduate student at Harvard University's Astronomy Department whose work includes studies on interstellar objects, the trajectories of spacecraft like Voyager, direct imaging, and the flux of extragalactic dark matter. Prof. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Professor of Science at Harvard University and the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The paper that details their findings appeared online and is being reviewed for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Artist's impression of Project Dragonfly, a study for an interstellar spacecraft.
Credit: i4is
The discovery of 'Oumuamua kicked off a revolution in astronomy, confirming the existence of ISOs and inspiring efforts to study them closer. As Kakharov told Universe Today via email, they've also transformed our understanding of galactic dynamics and the formation of planetary systems:
Before 1I/'Oumuamua's discovery in 2017, we had no direct evidence that objects from other star systems could reach our solar system. These visitors provide unique samples of material from distant planetary systems, offering insights into the chemical composition and physical properties of exoplanetary material that we cannot obtain through remote observations alone. They also serve as natural probes of the interstellar medium and galactic dynamics, revealing the gravitational interactions that shape stellar populations over billions of years.
Since asteroids and comets are essentially material leftover from the formation of planetary systems, the study of ISOs enables the study of other star systems without having to mount interstellar missions. Currently, the only viable means for sending spacecraft to neighboring star systems involves gram-scale wafercraft and lightsails that are accelerated by direct energy arrays to a small fraction of the speed of light. Examples include Breakthrough Initiative's Starshot, and the Institute for Interstellar Studies' (i4is) Swarming Proxima Centauri concept.
While these mission concepts could reach the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) within a human lifetime, they would be very expensive to mount, and it would be decades before we learned what conditions are like in neighboring star systems. But as 'Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov, and 3I/ATLAS have demonstrated, ISOs pass through our Solar System regularly, each offering unique research opportunities. Determining where each ISO originated is the first step toward understanding the diversity and dynamics of stellar populations in the Milky Way. Said Kakharov:
Understanding ISO origins provides a deeper context for interpreting their physical and chemical properties. For example, knowing that 3I/ATLAS likely originated from an old stellar population suggests it may have experienced different evolutionary processes than younger objects. This information helps us understand the diversity of planetary system architectures and the conditions under which objects are ejected into interstellar space. Also, tracing their origins helps identify potential source regions and ejection mechanisms, whether through gravitational scattering, stellar evolution, or other dynamical processes.
For their purposes, Kakharov and Loeb ran a series of Monte Carlo numerical simulations using the GalPot galactic potential model, a software package designed to calculate the gravitational potential of a galaxy:
For each ISO, we generated 10,000 different possible trajectories by sampling from the observational uncertainties in their velocities and systematic uncertainties in the Solar motion relative to the Local Standard of Rest. We integrated each trajectory for 1 billion years in the Milky Way's gravitational potential to determine their maximum vertical excursions from the galactic plane. This statistical approach provides robust estimates of their orbital parameters and accounts for the significant uncertainties inherent in long-term orbital predictions.
From this, they were able to numerically integrate the trajectories of these three interstellar objects back in time and relate them to potential stellar populations. "Our analysis revealed that the three ISOs originate from distinct stellar populations with different ages and galactic locations," said Kakharov. Their results showed 3I/ATLAS is the oldest of the three, with a median age of 4.6 billion years, and originated from the Milky Way's thick disk. This component is thicker than the galaxy's thin disk (where our Sun resides) and is populated by older, lower metallicity stars.
1I/'Oumuamua is relatively young by comparison, about 1 billion years, and originated from the thin disk where new stars are still forming. 2I/Borisov falls between them in age, approximately 1.7 billion years old, and originated from the thin disk. "This diversity suggests that ISOs are ejected from planetary systems throughout the galaxy's history, not just from young, recently formed systems." These results also offer a preview of what's to come thanks to new observational facilities that will become operational in the coming years. Said Kakharov:
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will dramatically increase ISO detection rates, potentially finding dozens of new interstellar objects per year. Future missions like the European Space Agency's Comet Interceptor could potentially help with an ISO for in-situ analysis. These facilities will enable statistical studies of ISO populations, allowing us to understand their frequency, distribution, and diversity across different stellar environments.
The idea that it is the Earth that revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa, was known even to ancient Greek philosophers. And the most interesting thing is that it was based on calculations and observations that anyone can repeat on their own.
How to determine the distance to the Sun and Moon
Aristarchus of Samos
Usually, when talking about the heliocentric system of the world, Nicolaus Copernicus is mentioned. However, the outstanding Polish astronomer, although he did a lot to strengthen the idea of the Earth revolving around the Sun, was not its author.
This idea was well known in ancient times, and it is associated with the name of a completely different scientist, Aristarchus of Samos. He lived in the 3rd century BC and already then defended such a view of the structure of the world. Ancient authors actively discussed it: some supported it, others rejected it. But the fact remains – it was widespread and did not seem implausible.
And the most interesting thing is that it was based not on interpretations of sacred texts or empty speculation, but on observations, measurements, and calculations. Moreover, they were easily accessible for verification both then and now.
Heliocentric model. Source: www.daviddarling.info
It all started with the question of how far away the Moon and Sun are from Earth. It would seem that neither can be reached; they appear to be approximately the same size, and who knows how big they are. However, there is a way to determine this.
However, it requires accepting the fact that the Moon is a sphere that does not emit light itself, but only reflects sunlight. But it is not difficult to come to this conclusion even by simply observing the phases of our satellite. This is especially evident in the first days of the new moon, when a thin crescent and the rest of the sphere are visible, like a ghost. This phenomenon was later named Da Vinci’s glow.
Distances to the Sun and Moon
Assuming that the Moon is a sphere onto which the Sun’s rays fall, it follows that when it is half illuminated, the angle between the lines connecting the Moon and the Sun and the Moon and the Earth is a right angle. Even the ancient Greeks knew how to solve problems involving right-angled triangles.
If we measure the angle between the Moon and the Sun at this moment, its tangent will be the ratio of the distances from the Moon to the Sun and from the Earth to the Moon.
The positions of the Moon and Sun during quadrature. Source: Wikipedia
Aristarchus did not yet know what a tangent was, but he had the mathematical tools to calculate the required value, at least approximately. However, there is one major problem here. It is extremely difficult to determine the exact moment when the Moon is illuminated by the Sun exactly halfway (this configuration is called quadrature).
The angle to be measured is very close to 90°, and it is easy to make a mistake when measuring it. Aristarchus of Samos calculated it to be 87°. According to his calculations, the Sun was located 18 to 20 times farther from Earth than the Moon, whereas in reality the distance to the Sun is approximately 390 times greater.
However, this mistake did not prevent the scientist from coming to the correct conclusion that the Sun is much further away from us than the Moon. And since both appear to be approximately the same size in the sky, the daytime star must be about 19 times larger than the nighttime ornament.
Solar eclipse and the sizes of celestial bodies
But how much larger or smaller than Earth is the Moon itself? Aristarchus of Samos was aided by his observations of lunar eclipses and his understanding that they occur when the Moon passes into Earth’s shadow. The ancient Greek scientist believed that the Earth’s shadow was equal to its diameter, when in fact it is about 25% smaller because the Sun is not a point source of light.
Page from Aristarchus’ work. Source: Wikipedia
However, this error was not so significant. Aristarchus calculated that the duration of a total eclipse is 3.5 hours. He also knew that the period of the Moon’s rotation around the Earth is 27.3 days. Again, he did not know that the speed of its orbital motion is not constant. We can write the equation 2r/t = 2πR/T, where r is the radius of the Earth, t is the duration of the eclipse, R is the distance to the Moon, and T is its orbital period.
From this equation, it is easy to determine that the ratio of the distance to the Moon and the radius of the Earth (R/r) is approximately 59.6 – not far from the actual value. Using this ratio and the angular radius of the Moon, Aristarchus determined that its size is approximately three times smaller than that of Earth, which is quite close to the modern value of 0.273 times the radius of our planet.
Knowing this and the ratio of the distances from Earth to the Sun and from Earth to the Moon, we can calculate how much larger our star is than our planet. Aristarchus of Samos calculated that its radius was more than 19 times that of Earth, but less than 43 times. Of course, this was incorrect due to inaccurate angle measurements during the quadrature; however, it was still obvious that the Sun was much larger than the Earth.
Statue of Aristarchus of Samos near the University of Thessaloniki. Source: Wikipedia
Aristarchus also suggested that smaller bodies usually revolve around larger ones, which seems logical from a common-sense point of view. Modern astrophysicists, of course, could argue about how convincing this argument is.
However, Aristarchus once again came to the correct conclusion: the Earth does indeed revolve around the Sun. In ancient times, astronomers repeatedly measured the distances to the Sun and Moon. For example, in the 1st century BC, Posidonius calculated that it was located at a distance of 9,893 Earth radii from us. This was still half the actual value, but even so, our sun seemed like a real giant compared to our planet, which was an argument in favor of heliocentrism.
But eventually, the ancient Greeks and Romans lost interest in the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Historians still argue about the reasons for this. Perhaps religious issues were the cause, since in those days, belief in the immobility of the Earth was even more important for the authority of priests than it was during the Renaissance.
Another possible reason is purely scientific: the absence of visible annual parallax of stars. If the Earth revolved around the Sun, we would see it shift slightly as the seasons change. But nothing like that happens.
Aristarchus of Samos himself explained this, correctly assuming that the stars are simply very far away, which is why their parallax is small. However, this was only confirmed in the 19th century. Until then, it was a real problem that constantly cast doubt on heliocentrism. Be that as it may, it became dominant in scientific thought many centuries after the end of the classical era.
Space is littered with cosmic wanderers. Some are stars booted from the grip of a companion they once had. Others are rogue comets and asteroids on runaway trajectories with nowhere to go and no one chasing them. We typically call those interstellar objects. Then there are mysterious fragments booted from their solar system by the explosive culmination of their stars’ lives. That’s what Garrett Levine at Yale University is looking for.
"At the end of a star's lifetime, it's losing mass, and everything's going haywire in its system," Levine tells Inverse. "Some stuff might fall onto the star, and some might leave the system, and it's the latter we're looking at."
These fragments are called jurads (named for the late astronomer Michael Jura), and short of using god-like powers to shatter a planet light years away and peer inside, they’re the best way to get even a glimpse of how planets form in distant star systems, and if they’re chemically like any of the planets in our Solar System. To find these jurads, Levine and his colleagues are using one of the most ambitious projects in astronomy: the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). This program will use the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile (whose potential with the group’s research is what Levine calls the “scientific opportunity of a lifetime”), to image the entire visible sky for an unparalleled survey of what is lurking in and beyond our Solar System. If the researchers can spot a jurad, astronomers around the world can point a telescope at it, and this might reveal the secrets of how planets form beyond our Solar System.
Cosmic Backyard is an Inverse series that explores the cutting-edge research looking into the depths of the cosmos. This work is pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the universe, and our place in it.
Tracing an Interloper
In 2017, a mysterious object swept through our Solar System. Called ‘Oumuamua, its trajectory showed that it came from outside our Solar System, and was on its way back out. While debate After 'Oumuamua's discovery, astronomers speculated about the existence of another kind of object from exoplanetary systems. Researchers call these objects jurads and they are most often icy bodies like comets, but potentially asteroids or fragments of planets pushed to the outskirts of their star’s system. They seem to roam freely around the galaxy after their home stars died and their gravity weakened as they subsequently lost mass.
The comets and asteroids of our Solar System are ancient leftovers of the processes that gave birth to Earth and its sibling worlds, and so can shed light on our Solar System's ancient history. Interstellar objects could similarly shed light on the formation of exoplanets and, "originating from varied environments, can not only reveal how common or unique our Solar System is, but also how comets change over time," Dennis Bodewits, an astrophysicist at Auburn University in Alabama who is not affiliated with Levine’s research, tells Inverse.
Whereas a typical interstellar object could have been flung out of its home star system at any time — comets are flung out of our own Solar System regularly — jurads are fragments that are flung out upon the death of their star.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will open its eyes to the night skies in 2024. As data pours in, the telescope could catch a jurad flying in.
"It's a really incredible opportunity to gain crucial information about extrasolar systems," study co-author Aster Taylor, an astrophysicist at the University of Michigan, tells Inverse. "Interstellar objects, including jurads, are basically our only chance to take samples from another stellar system. It's hard to express how exciting that is for me, as an astrophysicist."
All in all, investigating objects from another star helps address the "big and general question that many astronomers would like to answer — whether our Solar System is typical, an outlier, or in-between," Levine says. "There are many ways to attack this question, and our study is one example."
An illustration of ‘Oumuamua.
NASA
It Works On Paper
To figure out if they could find jurads with the Rubin Observatory, Levine and company first modeled Oort Clouds, the giant swarms of icy rocks around stars where comets are usually believed to originate. (The research was outlined in a recent study in the Planetary Science Journal.) They estimated how many objects that Oort Clouds around stars about one to eight times the Sun's mass might release in their end stages. They also modeled if astronomers would be able to tell if an object came from before or after a star’s death.
When our Sun and roughly 97 percent of all stars die, all that will be left is their core, and this leftover object is called a white dwarf. Previous research suggested that each white dwarf is expected to kick out up to an Earth's amount of mass.
They found that it was possible to distinguish jurads from objects kicked out before a star died. As stars reach their ends, they grow bright and blast out gusts of gas. This can drive off hyper-volatile molecules such as carbon monoxide, and stellar winds could deposit dust that covers the entire jurad surface, they say.
However, LSST is currently expected to only discover about 15 interstellar objects over the course of its roughly 10-year observational campaign. As such, given what scientists currently know about exoplanetary systems, Levine and his colleagues say it's not impossible but not likely that LSST will detect a jurad.
Still, Pedro Bernardinelli, an astrophysicist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the work, notes there are many uncertainties with analyses of this kind. "This is not a problem with the work — it is rather a problem with our understanding of planetary formation, and how similar or not our own Solar System is to others," he notes. As such, "I would not take as a prophecy that LSST will never find such objects."
"It's a very exciting time to be in astronomy and astrophysics," Levine says. "We're at a point where we've answered a lot of questions, but like all good fields of science, once we've answered a question, usually two or three more pop up."
Extraterrestrial life NASA scientists discovered a way in which life could form in our solar system outside the Earth, questioning the preconceived necessary elements for the development of organisms.
The beginning of life Protocells are a type of primitive precursor to the organisms on Earth. If they develop on Titan, it would add order and complexity to the moon’s conditions, key elements for life.
Titan’s conditions Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere. It is also the only object, aside from Earth, that researchers are certain contains liquid on its surface.
Atmosphere Most of Titan’s atmosphere is made of Nitrogen. It was challenging to study due to its gold haziness until NASA sent its Cassini spacecraft to study Saturn and its moons.
Photo: Jenny McElligott/eMITS
Photo: Jenny McElligott/eMITS
Lakes and rivers Instead of water, Titan’s lakes and rivers are filled with other liquids, NASA explained in a press release. They have hydrocarbons like ethane and methane.
A different form of life Those conditions complicate the perspective of life in Titan as we know it. Water was central to the development of organisms on Earth.
Weather However, thanks to Cassini’s data, NASA now knows that Titan has meteorological patterns, and those patterns influence the surface rivers and lakes.
Rain The second most significant element in Titan’s atmosphere is methane, which forms clouds and rain. The falling liquid erodes the surface to create more rivers.
Vesicles The falling drops are also the central element behind NASA’s new theoretical path toward protocells on Titan by forming vesicles, cell-like compartments.
Amphiphiles The process involves amphiphiles, molecules that can self-organize into vesicles by joining into one compartment that encapsulates some liquid inside, as well as the molecules.
Droplets This process can occur on Titan thanks to rain. When it hits the surface of rivers and lakes, it can lift droplets from their surface, where the amphiphiles reside.
Falling back down When these droplets fall back down into the surface of the liquid, they can hit other amphiphiles and form vesicles, a form of organized molecule which can lead to different forms.
Photo: Christian Mayer (Universität Duisburg-Essen) and Conor Nixon (NASA Goddard)
Interaction The vesicles could interact with the liquid and other vesicles, competing for resources, which fuels evolution and other forms of organized organisms.
Life in an unexpected form The prospect of this process on Titan challenges the science’s preconceived conditions for life. Particularly, the need for liquid water on the surface of a world.
Reconsidering the conditions It would amplify the scope of what scientists consider ideal conditions for life. It could change all the research around the topic.
More to explore If Titan can hold life, other planets and moons with similar conditions could also do so. A NASA press release said the next mission, Dragonfly, will clarify that in late 2034.
Astronomers have solved a decade-long cosmic puzzle after discovering what appears to be the mythical "Eye of Sauron" lurking in the distant universe. The stunning revelation comes from 15 years of ultra-precise radio telescope observations that have finally explained why a seemingly slow-moving celestial object has been one of the brightest sources of high-energy gamma rays and cosmic neutrinos ever detected.
The breakthrough report, just published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, centers on PKS 1424+240, a blazar located billions of light-years from Earth that had long perplexed scientists. This active galaxy, powered by a supermassive black hole consuming matter at its core, stood out as the brightest known neutrino-emitting blazar identified by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory while simultaneously glowing with very high-energy gamma rays detected by ground-based Cherenkov telescopes.
The cosmic enigma lay in a fundamental contradiction known as the "Doppler factor crisis." While the blazar's extraordinarily bright emissions suggested it should have fast-moving jets of plasma, radio observations showed these jets appeared to move sluggishly - contradicting established theories that only the fastest jets could produce such exceptional luminosity.
Yuri Kovalev, lead author of the study and Principal Investigator of the MuSES project at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, described the moment of discovery.
"When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning. We have never seen anything quite like it - a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us."
The research team utilized the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), employing a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) that connects radio telescopes across the globe to form a virtual telescope the size of Earth. This provides the highest resolution available in astronomy, enabling scientists to study the finest details of distant cosmic jets with unprecedented clarity.
The solution to this cosmic puzzle lies in an extraordinary geometric alignment. The team discovered that PKS 1424+240's jet is pointed almost directly toward Earth, allowing astronomers to peer straight down its barrel - a viewing angle of less than 0.6 degrees. This near-perfect alignment creates what researchers term "looking into the jet cone," an exceptionally rare observational opportunity.
This head-on geometry produces dramatic effects due to special relativity. Jack Livingston, a co-author at the Max Planck Institute, explained the phenomenon:
"This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more. At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects - a classic optical illusion."
The research team's polarized radio signals revealed the structure of the jet's magnetic field, showing a likely helical or toroidal configuration resembling the fictional Eye of Sauron from J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." This toroidal magnetic field structure plays a crucial role in launching and collimating the plasma flow while accelerating particles to extreme energies.
The "Eye of Sauron": plasma jet in the blazar PKS 1424+240, showing the toroidal magnetic field structure.(Y.Y. Kovalev et al.)
Cosmic Particle Accelerators
This discovery has profound implications for understanding how the universe's most powerful particle accelerators operate. The findings confirm that active galactic nuclei containing supermassive black holes function not only as electron accelerators but also as proton accelerators - the likely source of the high-energy neutrinos detected by IceCube.
Cosmic neutrinos are nearly massless particles that travel at nearly the speed of light and can pass through entire planets without interaction. Their detection provides unique insights into the most violent processes in the universe, making PKS 1424+240's neutrino emissions particularly significant for astrophysics.
The blazar's extreme relativistic beaming effects, with a Doppler factor reaching approximately 32, make it persistently bright and maintain high average flux levels. This places PKS 1424+240 among the top 1% of gamma-ray sources while simultaneously making it the brightest blazar in terms of high-energy neutrino emission.
Radio telescope data showing the detailed structure of PKS 1424+240.(MOJAVE Program/VLBA/Y.Y. Kovalev et al.)
Breakthrough in Multimessenger Astronomy
The MOJAVE program (Monitoring Of Jets in Active galactic nuclei with VLBA Experiments) represents a decades-long effort to monitor relativistic jets in active galaxies. Anton Zensus, Director at the Max Planck Institute and co-founder of the program, reflected on the significance:
"When we started MOJAVE, the idea of one day directly connecting distant black hole jets to cosmic neutrinos felt like science fiction. Today, our observations are making it real."
This achievement strengthens the connection between relativistic jets, high-energy neutrinos, and magnetic field structures in cosmic accelerators, marking a significant milestone in multimessenger astronomy - the study of cosmic phenomena using multiple types of signals including electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, and neutrinos.
The research suggests that only a few percent of jets are viewed within a degree of our line of sight, making PKS 1424+240 an extraordinarily rare find. Future observations of similar VHE-emitting blazars will be crucial for developing quantitative models of neutrino production in cosmic jets and better understanding the role of relativistic beaming in gamma-ray emission.
Top image: Looking inside the plasma jet cone of the blazar PKS 1424+240 with a radio telescope of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA).
A artist's picture of Ganymede's magnetosphere. Illustration Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI); Science Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Saur (University of Cologne, Germany)
We already know a decent amount about how planets form, but moon formation is another process entirely, and one we’re not as familiar with. Scientists think they understand how the most important Moon in our solar system (our own) formed, but its violent birth is not the norm, and can’t explain larger moon systems like the Galilean moons around Jupiter. A new book chapter (which was also released as a pre-print paper) from Yuhito Shibaike and Yann Alibert from the University of Bern discusses the differing ideas surrounding the formation of large moon systems, especially the Galileans, and how we might someday be able to differentiate them.
The Galilean moons form what is known as the circum-Jovian disc (CJD), and analogue of the circum-stellar disc (CSD) that surrounds the Sun, but instead has Jupiter at its center. The other 93+ non-Galilean moons around Jupiter also define the CJD, but their creation might be different due to the size differentials.
According to the paper, there are three main differences between the formation of planets and the formation of moons. Moon formation happens on a much faster time scale - around 10-100 times faster than planet formation. The system itself is also always gaining additional material from the CSD and losing it to whatever is at the center of the disk, which in the CJD’s case is Jupiter. And finally, there aren’t nearly as many examples of systems with multiple large moons as there are planetary systems, at least since the discovery of exoplanets 30 years ago. Jupiter and Saturn remain our only examples of large moon systems, and it will be awhile before any multi-exo-moon system will be found.
Fraser discusses the formation of our own Moon, which was dramatically different than that of the Galileans.
So what we can tell about the formation of these moon systems from the two we know about. The paper breaks the process down into a three-step process. First is the formation of the CJD, which includes gas and dust as well as moons. This was originally supported by a “minimum mass model” developed in the 1980s that assumed the disc was static and contained approximately the overall mass of the Galilean moons. In 2002, a new theory was developed that modeled the CJD as a “gas-starved disc” where the original CJD was relatively material poor but had plenty of additional material added to it by gravitational capture from the CSD.
That gravitational capture is believed to have played a key role in the formation of the Galilean moons and marks the second phase of their creation. However, Jupiter is a planet, and one of the requirements of a planet is that it clears its orbital path. Since Jupiter is the largest planet, it does so very effectively, which includes what astronomers consider “pebbles” (but on Earth could be considered a decent-sized boulder a few meters across).
One way for moons to accrete given this paucity of small material is by using even smaller material - small dust particles can make their way into the CJD without being disrupted by Jupiter, though there’s some debate about how effective this process is. Another method would be "planetesimal capture” where Jupiter’s gravity well catches the core of what would have ended up being a planet, but then ends up simply being one of the giant planet’s moons. They could have been gravitationally disturbed by Saturn, and then slowed in their orbit by running through the gas cloud surrounding early Jupiter that made up the CJD.
Fraser discusses the missions that will explore Jupiter's moons in more detail.
There are some differences in the Galilean moons themselves that can be used to prove or disprove these different formation theories. For example, Callisto isn’t in resonance with Jupiter at all, unlike the rest of its Galilean brethren. One potential theory for that is that Jupiter’s fourth moon was formed under different conditions, or maybe was hit by its own impactor that knocked it from its natural course. Callisto is again an outlier as it’s only partially “differentiated” (meaning it has a separate core, mantle, and outer shell), unlike its three compatriots. Some pebble accretion models think that Callisto is still early on in its formation journey and will eventually begin to look more like its peers.
But ultimately those questions, and many more about the formation of large moon systems, will be hard to answer without more data. The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) mission will help shed some light on those questions, but even then it's still only one, or at the most two, data sets that we have available. Until exoplanet hunting telescopes become powerful enough to start finding exomoons as often as they currently find planets, many of these formation theories will remain untested. That data will eventually come along someday, and when it does it will help us understand some important parts of our own solar system better.
A scene from a visualization of the Lee-Lincoln scarp in Taurus-Littrow on the Moon. This scarp is evidence of moonquakes that sent rocks and landslides across the surface. Seismometers left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts recorded hundreds of events between 1969 and 1977, including 28 shallow moonquakes. The study narrowed the locations of these quakes and found that many of them occurred near scarps, implying that the forces creating the scarps also caused the quakes, and they continue to shape the lunar surface. The Lee-Lincoln scarp was only about 13 kilometers from one of the epicenters identified by the scientists. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Our Moon is a seismically active world with a long history of quakes stretching back to its early history. It turns out those quakes can and will affect the safety of permanent base structures for anybody planning to explore and inhabit the Moon. That's one conclusion from a study of quakes along the Lee-Lincoln fault in the Taurus-Littrow valley where the Apollo 17 astronauts landed in 1972. “The global distribution of young thrust faults like the Lee-Lincoln fault, their potential to be still active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing contraction should be considered when planning the location and assessing stability of permanent outposts on the Moon,” said Smithsonian senior scientist emeritus Thomas R. Watters, lead author of the paper.
They base their work on evidence of moonquakes in the region over the past 90 million years, largely in material gathered by the Apollo astronauts. Chunks of rocks and landslides are mute proof of the power of magnitude 3.0 quakes to shift the surface materials around. Along with other active faults on the Moon, the Taurus-Littrow rocks and landslides show that our lunar companion is likely still geologically active.
Why Lunar Seismicity?
Here on Earth, we get earthquakes all the time. By some estimates, our planet shakes about 55 times a day, although many of these tremors are so weak we don't feel them. They happen largely due to plate tectonics and volcanic activity. Plates slip past each other very gradually, which releases energy that gets dissipated as an earthquake. We all know about the really famous spots on Earth for that kind of action - the San Andreas Fault line, the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, and parts of southeast Asia, for example. Volcanic activity also spurs earthquakes when underground magma causes "shudders" as it moves. Recent events such as the ongoing Kilauea eruptions in Hawai'i and those near Grindavik, Iceland, cause swarms of earthquakes as a result of that magma movement.
However, that's not how it works on the Moon. The two most likely causes for lunar quakes are tidal pulling and the continual cooling and shrinking of the Moon. The tidal quakes happen because Earth's gravity pulls on the Moon, which results in deep quakes up to hundreds of miles inside. Weaker quakes originate closer to the surface and those are generally thought to be due to lunar shrinkage. Since the Moon formed billions of years ago, it has lost about 150 feet of its diameter due to the gradual cooling after its birth. There are also very minor temblors that happen when a meteoroid slams into the surface, or when surface rocks react to heating and cooling from the Sun. All this activity describes a world that is constantly shaking and shuddering.
This artist’s concept shows the Moon’s hot interior and volcanism about 2 to 3 billion years ago. It is thought that volcanic activity on the lunar near side (the side facing Earth) helped create a landscape dominated by vast plains called mare, which are formed by molten rock that cooled and solidified. As the Moon has continued to cool, it has shrunk and its surface contracted. That causes scarps and fault lines to form.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Quakes and Risks
To understand the risk of quakes to future bases, Watters and research partner Nicholas Schmerr of the University of Maryland, studied materials from the Apollo 17 landing site. These rock samples, along with other details about rock falls and landslides on the Moon, told them that there are thousands of young thrust faults on the Moon. They point to a continual evolution of surface units, many caused by earthquake activities that create lunar thrust faults. That happens when rocks are compressed and one block is pushed up over another, generally as a result of the ongoing contraction of the Moon.
According to Watters and Schmerr, mission planners are going to have to consider those fault lines and the ongoing related lunar quakes when planning bases on the Moon. Short-term missions, like the Apollo landing, which had astronauts on the Moon for nearly 2 weeks, didn't face much danger from a quake or two. However, permanent bases face significant chances of damage during a quake, simply due to numbers. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr pointed out. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
Taurus-Littrow valley taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The valley was explored in 1972 by the Apollo 17 mission astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. They had to zig-zag their lunar rover up and over the cliff face of the Lee-Lincoln fault scarp that cuts across this valley.
Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Planning for Quakes
It's not just habitats and science missions that could be damaged by lunar quakes. Russia, China, and the U.S. are planning to put nuclear power plants on the Moon. Such facilities could supply all the power anyone needs for bases and exploration, but they come with a safety price and could be quite susceptible to quake damage. That's why any these and other places need to be built with tough safety margins, and not located near any active fault lines. That's going to be a tall order, considering the extent of quakes and the numbers of fault lines that thread through the Moon.
This is why the scientists' study of lunar paleoseismology is so important. Gathering evidence of past quakes (going back many millennia), as well as more recent ones, is going to help chart the safest places to build bases, habitats, and power plants. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr added. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
A scene from a visualization of the Lee-Lincoln scarp in Taurus-Littrow on the Moon. This scarp is evidence of moonquakes that sent rocks and landslides across the surface. Seismometers left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts recorded hundreds of events between 1969 and 1977, including 28 shallow moonquakes. The study narrowed the locations of these quakes and found that many of them occurred near scarps, implying that the forces creating the scarps also caused the quakes, and they continue to shape the lunar surface. The Lee-Lincoln scarp was only about 13 kilometers from one of the epicenters identified by the scientists. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Our Moon is a seismically active world with a long history of quakes stretching back to its early history. It turns out those quakes can and will affect the safety of permanent base structures for anybody planning to explore and inhabit the Moon. That's one conclusion from a study of quakes along the Lee-Lincoln fault in the Taurus-Littrow valley where the Apollo 17 astronauts landed in 1972. “The global distribution of young thrust faults like the Lee-Lincoln fault, their potential to be still active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing contraction should be considered when planning the location and assessing stability of permanent outposts on the Moon,” said Smithsonian senior scientist emeritus Thomas R. Watters, lead author of the paper.
They base their work on evidence of moonquakes in the region over the past 90 million years, largely in material gathered by the Apollo astronauts. Chunks of rocks and landslides are mute proof of the power of magnitude 3.0 quakes to shift the surface materials around. Along with other active faults on the Moon, the Taurus-Littrow rocks and landslides show that our lunar companion is likely still geologically active.
Why Lunar Seismicity?
Here on Earth, we get earthquakes all the time. By some estimates, our planet shakes about 55 times a day, although many of these tremors are so weak we don't feel them. They happen largely due to plate tectonics and volcanic activity. Plates slip past each other very gradually, which releases energy that gets dissipated as an earthquake. We all know about the really famous spots on Earth for that kind of action - the San Andreas Fault line, the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, and parts of southeast Asia, for example. Volcanic activity also spurs earthquakes when underground magma causes "shudders" as it moves. Recent events such as the ongoing Kilauea eruptions in Hawai'i and those near Grindavik, Iceland, cause swarms of earthquakes as a result of that magma movement.
However, that's not how it works on the Moon. The two most likely causes for lunar quakes are tidal pulling and the continual cooling and shrinking of the Moon. The tidal quakes happen because Earth's gravity pulls on the Moon, which results in deep quakes up to hundreds of miles inside. Weaker quakes originate closer to the surface and those are generally thought to be due to lunar shrinkage. Since the Moon formed billions of years ago, it has lost about 150 feet of its diameter due to the gradual cooling after its birth. There are also very minor temblors that happen when a meteoroid slams into the surface, or when surface rocks react to heating and cooling from the Sun. All this activity describes a world that is constantly shaking and shuddering.
This artist’s concept shows the Moon’s hot interior and volcanism about 2 to 3 billion years ago. It is thought that volcanic activity on the lunar near side (the side facing Earth) helped create a landscape dominated by vast plains called mare, which are formed by molten rock that cooled and solidified. As the Moon has continued to cool, it has shrunk and its surface contracted. That causes scarps and fault lines to form.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Quakes and Risks
To understand the risk of quakes to future bases, Watters and research partner Nicholas Schmerr of the University of Maryland, studied materials from the Apollo 17 landing site. These rock samples, along with other details about rock falls and landslides on the Moon, told them that there are thousands of young thrust faults on the Moon. They point to a continual evolution of surface units, many caused by earthquake activities that create lunar thrust faults. That happens when rocks are compressed and one block is pushed up over another, generally as a result of the ongoing contraction of the Moon.
According to Watters and Schmerr, mission planners are going to have to consider those fault lines and the ongoing related lunar quakes when planning bases on the Moon. Short-term missions, like the Apollo landing, which had astronauts on the Moon for nearly 2 weeks, didn't face much danger from a quake or two. However, permanent bases face significant chances of damage during a quake, simply due to numbers. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr pointed out. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
Taurus-Littrow valley taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The valley was explored in 1972 by the Apollo 17 mission astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. They had to zig-zag their lunar rover up and over the cliff face of the Lee-Lincoln fault scarp that cuts across this valley.
Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Planning for Quakes
It's not just habitats and science missions that could be damaged by lunar quakes. Russia, China, and the U.S. are planning to put nuclear power plants on the Moon. Such facilities could supply all the power anyone needs for bases and exploration, but they come with a safety price and could be quite susceptible to quake damage. That's why any these and other places need to be built with tough safety margins, and not located near any active fault lines. That's going to be a tall order, considering the extent of quakes and the numbers of fault lines that thread through the Moon.
This is why the scientists' study of lunar paleoseismology is so important. Gathering evidence of past quakes (going back many millennia), as well as more recent ones, is going to help chart the safest places to build bases, habitats, and power plants. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr added. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
This artist’s concept depicts planet TRAPPIST-1 d passing in front of its turbulent star, with other members of the closely packed system shown in the background. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)
When global events set our minds to wondering if humanity has what it takes to persist, it's natural to wonder about other worlds, other life, other intelligent species, and if those others might be better suited to survive whatever Great Filters they face. Those are fanciful thoughts, but there's an underpinning of nuts-and-bolts thinking to them. It starts with identifying which planets in habitable zones around other stars might actually be habitable.
That begins with liquid water and a life-friendly atmosphere that can contain it.
The discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system generated a lot of excitement a few years ago. It contains seven roughly Earth-like worlds, and three or perhaps four of them are in the red dwarf's compact habitable zone. One of them, TRAPPIST-1 d, could host water on its surface, or at least on parts of its surface, according to some research. But without a suitable atmosphere, a planet can't retain surface water, and new observations from the JWST show that TRAPPIST-1 d does not have an Earth-like atmosphere.
The TRAPPIST-1 system compared to our Solar System. TRAPPIST-1 d is on the inner edge of the star's habitable zone.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The JWST observed two consecutive transits of TRAPPIST-1 d with its NIRSpec/PRISM instrument in November, 2022. Researchers from Canada, the UK, France, and the USA analyzed the data from those transits and concluded that the promising exoplanet does not have an Earth-like atmosphere. Their results are in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal titled "Strict Limits on Potential Secondary Atmospheres on the Temperate Rocky Exo-Earth TRAPPIST-1 d." The lead author is Caroline Piaulet-Ghorayeb of the University of Chicago and Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) at Université de Montréal.
"While TRAPPIST-1 d may prove a barren rock illuminated by a cruel red star, the outer planets TRAPPIST-1e, f, g, and h, may yet possess thick atmospheres." - co-author Ryan MacDonald, University of St. Andrews.
"The nearby TRAPPIST-1 system, with its seven small rocky planets orbiting a late-type M8 star, offers an unprecedented opportunity to search for secondary atmospheres on temperate terrestrial worlds," the authors write in their research. "Here we present the first 0.6–5.2 μm NIRSpec/PRISM transmission spectrum of TRAPPIST-1 d from two transits with JWST."
TRAPPIST-1 d is right at the inner edge of TRAPPIST-1's habitable zone. It's a great target for transmission spectroscopy, and these JWST observations provide the first detailed transmission spectrum of the planet's atmosphere. Unfortunately, the spectrum is flat, meaning there are no detectable atmospheric features.
“Ultimately, we want to know if something like the environment we enjoy on Earth can exist elsewhere, and under what conditions. While the James Webb Space Telescope is giving us the ability to explore this question in Earth-sized planets for the first time, at this point we can rule out TRAPPIST-1 d from a list of potential Earth twins or cousins,” said lead author Piaulet-Ghorayeb in a press release.
The JWST failed to detect the types of molecules present in Earth's atmosphere like methane, carbon dioxide, and water. However, that doesn't completely rule out an atmosphere; there are a couple of other possibilities.
“There are a few potential reasons why we don’t detect an atmosphere around TRAPPIST-1 d. It could have an extremely thin atmosphere that is difficult to detect, somewhat like Mars. Alternatively, it could have very thick, high-altitude clouds that are blocking our detection of specific atmospheric signatures — something more like Venus. Or, it could be a barren rock, with no atmosphere at all,” Piaulet-Ghorayeb said.
Studying TRAPPIST-1 d and its atmosphere is about more than just ruling out its habitability. There's a greater scientific endeavor involved.
A visual comparison of Solar System orbits, TRAPPIST-1 orbits, and Galilean moon orbits.
Image Credit: By ESO/O. Furtak - http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1706b/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56526718
Red dwarfs, or M dwarfs, like TRAPPIST-1 are common, and are likely the most plentiful type of star in the Milky Way. They're known to host their share of rocky worlds where we can reasonably wonder if life persists. But red dwarfs are also known for their violent flaring, and TRAPPIST-1 is no exception. It flares every couple of days, and each year it emits between four and six superflares. This powerful flaring activity could shred any planetary atmospheres, rendering the TRAPPIST-1 planets inhabitable.
However, there's considerable uncertainty around red dwarf flaring and habitability. Some research shows that the planets couldn't retain atmospheres in the face of the coronal mass ejections coming from the star. But it's at least possible that some of these planets could retain their atmospheres. For example, powerful planetary magnetic fields could provide a protective barrier from the star's flaring. The JWST opens a path to understanding red dwarf flaring effects on atmospheres.
“Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments are allowing us to delve into the atmospheres of these smaller, colder planets for the first time,” said Björn Benneke of IREx at Université de Montréal, a co-author of the study. “We’re really just getting started using Webb to look for atmospheres on Earth-sized planets, and to define the line between planets that can hold onto an atmosphere, and those that cannot.”
The only features in the JWST's spectra are attributed to stellar contamination rather than atmospheric absorption. "Our precise transmission spectrum can be fully explained by stellar contamination alone, and therefore enables us to rule out cloud-free or thick atmosphere scenarios across a wide range of potential atmospheric metallicities," the authors write.
This artist's illustration of TRAPPIST-1 d is from several years ago when scientists wondered about its nature and if it could support liquid water.
Updated Feb. 2018, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76364484
A low molecular weight atmosphere is harder for a planet to retain, and these observations ruled out those types of hydrogen-dominated atmospheres. The observations also ruled out thicker atmospheres like Venus' or Titan's. The only things left are extremely thin atmospheres unlikely to bolster habitability, or atmospheres dominated by high clouds that mask molecular absorption features from the JWST. But the research effectively rules them out.
"Therefore, we conclude that
thick cloud-free hydrogen-rich atmospheres are ruled out by our transmission spectrum;
thin H2-rich alternatives are strongly disfavored when considering TRAPPIST-1 d in the context of its formation and evolution under stellar irradiation; and
high-altitude clouds or hazes are not expected to form on TRAPPIST-1 d if it has a low-metallicity atmosphere," the researchers explain.
This work almost certainly eliminates TRAPPIST-1 d from a list of potentially habitable, water-supporting exoplanets. This is Nature, so TRAPPIST-1 d's elimination isn't absolutely certain. "Our observations cannot yet completely exclude other potential atmosphere scenarios for TRAPPIST-1 d which were predicted in the literature," the authors explain, noting that other research involving climate models hints at the possibility that the tidally-locked planet could form high-altitude water clouds at its terminator, blocking atmospheric absorption signals from view.
But what about the other planets in the system?
“All hope is not lost for atmospheres around the TRAPPIST-1 planets,” Piaulet-Ghorayeb said. “While we didn’t find a big, bold atmospheric signature at planet d, there is still potential for the outer planets to be holding onto a lot of water and other atmospheric components.”
However, the outer planets aren't the juicy scientific targets that planet d is. They're further from the star, and colder. Even the JWST's powerful instruments struggle in those conditions. While detailed spectra aren't available for those worlds, the researchers still reached some conclusion.
"We find that even complete atmosphere loss for TRAPPIST-1 d would not preclude atmosphere presence for the outer HZ planets TRAPPIST-1 e, f, and g," the authors write in their conclusion. Contrary to the inner planets, it's possible that these outer planets held onto their water "even if they initially accreted only a few Earth oceans of volatiles."
“Our detective work is just beginning. While TRAPPIST-1 d may prove a barren rock illuminated by a cruel red star, the outer planets TRAPPIST-1e, f, g, and h, may yet possess thick atmospheres," added Ryan MacDonald, a co-author of the paper, now at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom, and previously at the University of Michigan. “Thanks to Webb we now know that TRAPPIST-1 d is a far cry from a hospitable world. We're learning that the Earth is even more special in the cosmos."
Being a human being means bearing witness to humanity's greatest, most triumphant moments of accomplishment and unity, but also to the depraved actions we take against one another. The minds of thinking people are bound to wonder if there are other worlds out there that host life. Each potentially habitable world is a glimmer of hope that humans, with all their struggles, are not the only intelligent species out there.
If we look to the heavens, and to exoplanets, for some kind of reprieve from humanity's troubles, TRAPPIST-1 d won't provide it. If this research is correct, its stricken from the list of hope-inspiring exoplanets.
What invaded our solar system? On July 1st, NASA's ATLAS telescope in Chile identified an unusual object soaring through our solar system. It was later determined that this strange celestial object originated from beyond our little corner of the universe.
Traveling at a remarkably high speed Originating from the constellation Sagittarius, scientists observed that the object traveled at a speed of more than 60 kilometers per second, or about 37 miles per second. That is incredibly fast!
A rare phenomenon According to researchers, this was the third interstellar visitor of this type ever identified by humanity, as highlighted by National Geographic.
Researchers gave the object a name Named 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object was classified by researchers as a comet. However, a NASA webpage on the new interstellar object reported that the comet's size and physical properties are still being investigated.
What we know about the size of 3I/ATLAS Comet 3I/ATLAS's size was estimated at 10 to 20 kilometers (6 to 12 miles) in diameter, but could be smaller if it is composed of ice, which means the comet would also reflect more light.
Could 3I/ATLAS impact Earth? 3I/ATLAS reportedly does not pose a risk to the Earth and will pass by far from our planet at a distance of about 1.6 astronomical units (equivalent to about 240 million kilometers or 250 million miles), NASA reported.
The comet will pass close to Mars The newly discovered interstellar comet's closest approach to the Sun is expected to occur around October 30th, when it will be slightly closer to the orbit of Mars, according to current research on 3I/ATLAS.
A seven billion year old space rock According to astronomers, 3I/ATLAS might have formed long before our solar system existed. The comet reportedly has an estimated age of seven billion years, Deutsche Welle reported.
Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
The oldest comet ever observed Matthew Hopkins, lead author of a study on 3I/ATLAS, and an astronomer at the University of Oxford, explained in a statement published by the Royal Astronomical Society that the newly discovered interstellar object is very likely the oldest comet ever observed by humanity.
3I/ATLAS will be visible until September 3I/ATLAS should remain visible in the night sky through ground-based telescopes until September 2025. After that, it will be too close to the Sun to be observable from Earth.
Proximity to the Sun Deutsche Welle also reported that as the comet approaches the Sun, the heat from sunlight will warm its surface and trigger cometary activity, releasing gas and dust, with a bright 'aura' around it and a visible tail.
We might be able to see the comet again 3I/ATLAS is expected to reappear on the other side of the Sun sometime in early December 2025, which will allow researchers to gather even more observations about the comet, NASA reported.
A unique opportunity to expand our knowledge "This is an object from a part of the galaxy we've never seen up close before," Professor Chris Lintott, co-author of the study, was quoted as saying by the Royal Astronomical Society.
The evolution of the comet Researchers are excited since interstellar comets like 3I/ATLAS can carry valuable clues about the origin of the universe and the star systems where these types of cosmic objects originate before making their way to us.
The world is watching "We're in an exciting time: 3I is already showing signs of activity," noted study co-author Dr. Michele Bannister, of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, according to the Royal Astronomical Society.
The world's biggest telescopes are already investigating "The gases that may be seen in the future as 3I is heated by the Sun will test our model," Dr. Bannister added. "Some of the biggest telescopes in the world are already observing this new interstellar object."
Understanding the formation of the universe As highlighted by National Geographic, the researchers' goal is to identify the comet's composition in order to study how planets form, how other star systems evolve, and the diversity of materials present in the universe.
Scientists have examined scientific articles and media publications from the last 30 years devoted to the search for extraterrestrial life. They analyzed in which aspects and promises scientists were overly optimistic, and in which journalists distorted everything.
Is there life on other planets?
Research into extraterrestrial life
So far, no life has been found beyond Earth, but publications about the prospects for such research continue to appear one after another. And not only in scientific publications, but also in popular media. At the same time, it is difficult to give a simple answer as to whether modern science is really sure of its existence.
Researchers from Leiden University attempted to figure this out. In a study recently published in PLOS One, they took a bunch of studies, press releases, and newspaper articles on the subject from 1996 to 2024 and analyzed what they were overly optimistic about and what they were not.
The total number of articles analyzed was 630. Most of them were in English, although there were also publications in Spanish and Portuguese. In particular, sources included The New York Times (United States), The Guardian (United Kingdom), Folha and Estadão (Brazil), Público (Portugal), and El País (Spain).
Is there any exaggeration?
Researchers found that most often the distortion concerned the conditions necessary for life to exist outside Earth, i.e., the question of the “key condition.” However, speculation about the results of research and the prospects for detecting life was relatively rare.
The study showed that expectations regarding technology helping to find life beyond Earth are relatively high. They appear in about a third of news articles, a fifth of press releases, and a tenth of scientific articles. The promise of rapid development in astrobiology in the near future was also quite widespread. Approximately one-fifth of press releases and news articles contained such content.
However, there are very few promises to find extraterrestrial life in publications, at least in those that appeared in peer-reviewed journals. There is much more manipulation in newspaper publications. Press releases remained largely neutral except for the part about the research results, which were usually exaggerated.
The study also reveals that expectations for the search for life are more closely linked to the study of exoplanets than to the study of the Solar System, and are much higher than for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
There is indeed a lot of speculation. However, according to the authors of the study, this is not such a bad thing. After all, there is so much unknown in the Universe, and in order to develop new bold theories, we need to move beyond what we see here and now.
The exact location of the most distant known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0. Source: Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach via CNN Newsource
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected traces of oxygen in the extremely distant and ancient galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0, whose light has been traveling toward us for 13.4 billion years. This means that we see it as it was when the Universe was less than 300 million years old. Previously, it was believed that heavy elements such as oxygen could not have appeared at that time.
The discovery indicates that at least two generations of stars have already been born and died in this galaxy, scattering “metals” (as astronomers call all elements heavier than helium) throughout space. This is very fast by cosmic standards and contradicts older models, which assumed that such enrichment would take hundreds of millions of years.
ALMA was able to determine the distance to this galaxy very accurately, with an error of only 0.005%. It turned out that the gas in it contained about 20% of the “metals” found in the Sun, and the movements of the ionized gas hinted at a large halo of dark matter.
“I was amazed by the unexpected results, because they opened up a new perspective on the early phases of galaxy evolution,” said Stefano Carniani from the Scuola Normale Superiore University in Pisa.
This discovery is forcing scientists to rethink their theories about the formation of the first galaxies. Perhaps the star systems of that time formed and exploded much faster and more energetically than researchers had assumed.
Scientists plan to study this galaxy using the James Webb Telescope and the future Very Large Telescope to understand whether it was a cosmic “wunderkind” or whether there were many such early and mature galaxies in the Universe.
It went through the roof, HAVC duct, and left a hole in the floor the size of a cherry tomato.
Planetary geologist Scott Harris concluded the space rock formed 4.56 billion years ago, roughly 20 million years before Earth.
'It belongs to a group of asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that we now think we can tie to a breakup of a much larger asteroid about 470 million years ago,' Harris said.
The homeowner said he continues to find specks of space dust scattered around his living room from the impact.
The meteorite shot through a man's home in Georgia. He gave the fragments to scientists who revealed their findings this week
The 23 gram fragment showed the meteorite is about 20 million years older than Earth
'A mysterious extraterrestrial visitor now has a permanent home and identity, thanks to University of Georgia (UGA) researchers,' the team shared in a press release.
'Multiple fragments, which tore through a residential roof in Henry County, were turned over to a UGA planetary geologist and impact expert to determine.'
Before breaking into fragments small enough to analyze, the meteor, known as a bolide, was recorded entering Earth's atmosphere at an incredible cosmic velocity.
This massive space rock hurtled toward McDonough at speeds exceeding the speed of sound.
'When they encounter Earth, our atmosphere is very good at slowing them down,' Harris said.
'But you're talking about something that is double the size of a 50-caliber shell, going at least 2,236 miles per second. That's like running 10 football fields in one second.'
Using optical and electron microscopy to examine the fragments, Harris identified the meteorite as a Low Metal (L) ordinary Chondrite.
This classification indicates the meteorite likely formed 4.56 billion years ago in an oxygen-rich environment.
The meteorite still had enough impact to go through a man's roof and his HVAC duct, leave a solid dent in his floor and make a sound and vibration equivalent to a close-range gunshot
The tiny space rock was traveling at amazing speeds, enough to smash through a roof, HVAC duct and ceiling
This is the 27th meteorite recovered in Georgia in history, and the sixth witnessed fall.
Harris said the fragment broke the sound barrier when it entered the Earth's atmosphere.
Several metro Atlanta city and county officials relayed reports of a 'fireball' sighting from the sky on June 26
'I'm not crazy! I just saw a huge ball of fire fall from the sky in East Tennessee around the Cherokee National Forest!' a firefighter wrote on X.
'Anyone else see it? Right around 12:20pm ET. Very cool but a little unnerving given the current times!'
While some speculated it could have been a falling aircraft, the firefighter described it as 'like a mini sun falling with a tail of fire.'
In Georgia, one resident said they not only saw the object, but heard it pass overhead and felt the ground shake when it hit.
The National Weather Service confirmed the many reports across the Southeast US saying: 'It is not certain, but the satellite-based lightning detection shows a streak within cloud-free sky over the NC/VA border, over Gasbury, VA.
'This streak was detected between 12:51 to 12:56 pm.'
Hundreds of reports of a possible fireball were submitted to the American Meteor Society website from Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, which are still pending.
A flaming object was seen streaking across the skies of several southern states, sparking panic and confusion, as no explosion or fire were reported on the ground
'This was the middle of the day, and it just came out of nowhere,' according to one fireball report on the American Meteor Society from Perry, Georgia.
A report submitted by Ashley R from Suwanee, Georgia read: 'I thought it was a missile.'
Brian S from Alpharetta, Georgia said: 'It was full daylight, no clouds, and still it was very bright. I heard a muffled and slight boom sound, maybe 30 seconds later, but that could be unrelated.'
He added that he saw a 'smoke trail that quickly fell apart.'
Marc Tozer of Georgia shared on Facebook: 'Stone mountain here and it made a booming sound, house shook with a long rumble. Dogs went crazy.'
Another Georgia local posted: 'House totally rumbled, sounded like a log rolling off the roof, thought nukes were coming...'
WRDW, an Atlanta news source, reported that black smoke was seen south of I-20, although it may be from a controlled burn, first responders said.
Scientists are urging NASA to send a message to a mysterious interstellar object before it is too late.
The object, known as 3I/ATLAS, is traveling on a rare retrograde path and will reach its closest point to the sun on October 29, 2025, which Harvard physicist Avi Loeb suggested could be an ideal window for a covert approach on Earth.
The physicist told the Daily Mail that he wants to beam, 'Hello, welcome to our neighborhood. Peace!'
'The only way to reach it now is with a beam of light,' Loeb explained, suggesting a radio message could be sent in hopes of detecting a response.
Loeb warned that if the object is an alien probe, it could reach Earth by Christmas 2025, giving humanity only months to prepare for a possible encounter.
However, he also acknowledged the risks, noting that any intelligent life aboard might see the signal as a threat.
'A visitor to our backyard, like 3I/ATLAS, can easily enter our home planet, Earth, within a travel time of less than a few months,' Loeb said.
A Harvard physicist is calling on NASA to beam a message to the interstellar object hurting through space before it is too late
'There were claims of a tail,' Loeb said, 'but since 3I/ATLAS is accelerating and its current size is not much larger than the angular resolution of Earth-based telescopes, it is not easy to avoid fictitious elongation of the image as a result of the object's motion.'
He also questioned the object's unusual lack of gas emissions and its precise, retrograde trajectory, which aligns suspiciously well with the inner solar system.
Loeb has developed what he calls the 'Loeb Scale', a ranking system to evaluate the likelihood that an object is artificial, and gave 3I/ATLAS a six out of ten.
That suggests it is more likely than not to be engineered, though he emphasized that this score may change as more data becomes available.
'During an exchange with 3I/ATLAS, we could use the Turing Test as a measure of the intelligence with which we communicate, as long as the two sides develop a common language for communication,' Loeb shared in a blog post.
'Our side of the communication channel can be assisted by our most advanced artificial intelligence systems to decode the messages we receive.
The scientist noted that there is not enough data to rule out that the object is not of alien origin and Earth should communicate with it as a precaution
Avi Loeb has remained adamant that something about 3I/ATLAS does not add up. He said its retrograde orbit, meaning it's moving against the flow of the solar system, is oddly aligned with Earth's path
'But as anyone who went on a blind date knows, exchanging text messages could be a very different experience than an actual encounter 'in person.''
Among his more provocative theories, Loeb suggested 3I/ATLAS could be an alien mothership releasing small probes to intercept Earth.
'The more likely scenario from an engineering perspective involves a mothership that releases mini-probes which perform a reverse Oberth maneuver to slow down at perihelion and intercept Earth,' Loeb wrote.
This type of maneuver uses the sun's gravitational pull at the object's closest approach to adjust the trajectory efficiently, enabling the probes to reach Earth without large amounts of fuel.
Chris Lintott, an astronomer at the University of Oxford, dismissed Loeb's theory as 'nonsense on stilts,' calling it 'an insult to the exciting work going on to understand this object.'
However, Loeb said his analysis remains rooted in observational data.
His latest paper, based on ground-based telescope readings between July 2 and 29, revealed reddening colors in 3I/ATLAS, usually interpreted as surface dust or organic compounds.
Loeb noted that spectroscopic data from this and three previous studies show no signs of atomic or molecular gas in a coma, a feature typically expected in comets.
While the reddening may suggest dust, it could also mean the object simply has a naturally red surface, much like D-type asteroids or other ancient space rocks.
'Continued monitoring around perihelion is necessary to track changes in activity and color,' the study concluded, 'which will provide insights into the evolution of interstellar materials under solar radiation.'
The Eye of Sauron is an integral part of the Lord of the Rings series.
The flaming, floating fiery eyeball, positioned atop a dark tower in Mordor, is a symbol of the Dark Lord's all–seeing power and vigilance.
Now, experts have detected a similarly terrifying vision in real life.
But rather than looking for Frodo or the Ring, it seems to be peering directly at us from deep space.
The image is of a phenomenon called a cosmic jet, which is an extremely powerful stream of plasma and energy emitted from celestial objects.
This particular one comes from a blazar – a type of galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole.
The PKS 1424+240 blazar is one of the brightest in the sky despite being located billions of light–years away.
And as well as a foreboding picture, the discovery may have helped researchers solve a decades–long cosmic puzzle.
Using 15 years of ultra–precise radio observations, researchers were able to stitch together a deep image of the jet at unparalleled resolution
Fans of fantasy might notice that the image bears a striking resemblance to the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings
The blazar has long baffled astronomers as its cosmic jet appeared to move slowly, despite it being one of the brightest sources of high–energy gammas rays and cosmic neutrinos ever observed.
This contradicted the belief that only the fastest jets could be behind such exceptional brightness.
Using 15 years of ultra–precise radio observations from the Very Long Baseline Array – a system of 10 radio telescopes – researchers were able to stitch together a deep image of the jet at unparalleled resolution.
'When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning,' lead author Yuri Kovalev, from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, said.
'We have never seen anything quite like it—a near–perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us.'
Since the jet is aligned almost exactly in the direction of Earth, its high–energy radio emissions are dramatically amplified.
'This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,' co–author Jack Livingston said.
'At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects—a classic optical illusion.'
Far from being a flattering moniker, the Eye of Sauron represents the Dark Lord's terrifying omnipotence and terrible gaze in J. R. R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings novels
This head–on view also gave scientists the extremely rare opportunity to peer directly into the heart of the blazar's jet.
Radio signals helped the team map out the structure of the jet's magnetic field, revealing it is likely helical (a spiral) or toroidal (doughnut–shaped).
This structure likely plays a key role in accelerating particles to extreme energies, the researchers said.
Black holes are so dense and their gravitational pull is so strong that no form of radiation can escape them - not even light.
They act as intense sources of gravity which hoover up dust and gas around them. Their intense gravitational pull is thought to be what stars in galaxies orbit around.
How they are formed is still poorly understood. Astronomers believe they may form when a large cloud of gas up to 100,000 times bigger than the sun, collapses into a black hole.
Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes, which are found at the centre of every known massive galaxy.
Alternatively, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the sun's mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses.
When these giant stars die, they also go 'supernova', a huge explosion that expels the matter from the outer layers of the star into deep space.
This artist’s concept depicts planet TRAPPIST-1 d passing in front of its turbulent star, with other members of the closely packed system shown in the background. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)
When global events set our minds to wondering if humanity has what it takes to persist, it's natural to wonder about other worlds, other life, other intelligent species, and if those others might be better suited to survive whatever Great Filters they face. Those are fanciful thoughts, but there's an underpinning of nuts-and-bolts thinking to them. It starts with identifying which planets in habitable zones around other stars might actually be habitable.
That begins with liquid water and a life-friendly atmosphere that can contain it.
The discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system generated a lot of excitement a few years ago. It contains seven roughly Earth-like worlds, and three or perhaps four of them are in the red dwarf's compact habitable zone. One of them, TRAPPIST-1 d, could host water on its surface, or at least on parts of its surface, according to some research. But without a suitable atmosphere, a planet can't retain surface water, and new observations from the JWST show that TRAPPIST-1 d does not have an Earth-like atmosphere.
The TRAPPIST-1 system compared to our Solar System. TRAPPIST-1 d is on the inner edge of the star's habitable zone.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The JWST observed two consecutive transits of TRAPPIST-1 d with its NIRSpec/PRISM instrument in November, 2022. Researchers from Canada, the UK, France, and the USA analyzed the data from those transits and concluded that the promising exoplanet does not have an Earth-like atmosphere. Their results are in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal titled "Strict Limits on Potential Secondary Atmospheres on the Temperate Rocky Exo-Earth TRAPPIST-1 d." The lead author is Caroline Piaulet-Ghorayeb of the University of Chicago and Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) at Université de Montréal.
"While TRAPPIST-1 d may prove a barren rock illuminated by a cruel red star, the outer planets TRAPPIST-1e, f, g, and h, may yet possess thick atmospheres."
- co-author Ryan MacDonald, University of St. Andrews.
"The nearby TRAPPIST-1 system, with its seven small rocky planets orbiting a late-type M8 star, offers an unprecedented opportunity to search for secondary atmospheres on temperate terrestrial worlds," the authors write in their research. "Here we present the first 0.6–5.2 μm NIRSpec/PRISM transmission spectrum of TRAPPIST-1 d from two transits with JWST."
TRAPPIST-1 d is right at the inner edge of TRAPPIST-1's habitable zone. It's a great target for transmission spectroscopy, and these JWST observations provide the first detailed transmission spectrum of the planet's atmosphere. Unfortunately, the spectrum is flat, meaning there are no detectable atmospheric features.
“Ultimately, we want to know if something like the environment we enjoy on Earth can exist elsewhere, and under what conditions. While the James Webb Space Telescope is giving us the ability to explore this question in Earth-sized planets for the first time, at this point we can rule out TRAPPIST-1 d from a list of potential Earth twins or cousins,” said lead author Piaulet-Ghorayeb in a press release.
The JWST failed to detect the types of molecules present in Earth's atmosphere like methane, carbon dioxide, and water. However, that doesn't completely rule out an atmosphere; there are a couple of other possibilities.
“There are a few potential reasons why we don’t detect an atmosphere around TRAPPIST-1 d. It could have an extremely thin atmosphere that is difficult to detect, somewhat like Mars. Alternatively, it could have very thick, high-altitude clouds that are blocking our detection of specific atmospheric signatures — something more like Venus. Or, it could be a barren rock, with no atmosphere at all,” Piaulet-Ghorayeb said.
Studying TRAPPIST-1 d and its atmosphere is about more than just ruling out its habitability. There's a greater scientific endeavor involved.
A visual comparison of Solar System orbits, TRAPPIST-1 orbits, and Galilean moon orbits.
Image Credit: By ESO/O. Furtak - http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1706b/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56526718
Red dwarfs, or M dwarfs, like TRAPPIST-1 are common, and are likely the most plentiful type of star in the Milky Way. They're known to host their share of rocky worlds where we can reasonably wonder if life persists. But red dwarfs are also known for their violent flaring, and TRAPPIST-1 is no exception. It flares every couple of days, and each year it emits between four and six superflares. This powerful flaring activity could shred any planetary atmospheres, rendering the TRAPPIST-1 planets inhabitable.
However, there's considerable uncertainty around red dwarf flaring and habitability. Some research shows that the planets couldn't retain atmospheres in the face of the coronal mass ejections coming from the star. But it's at least possible that some of these planets could retain their atmospheres. For example, powerful planetary magnetic fields could provide a protective barrier from the star's flaring. The JWST opens a path to understanding red dwarf flaring effects on atmospheres.
“Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments are allowing us to delve into the atmospheres of these smaller, colder planets for the first time,” said Björn Benneke of IREx at Université de Montréal, a co-author of the study. “We’re really just getting started using Webb to look for atmospheres on Earth-sized planets, and to define the line between planets that can hold onto an atmosphere, and those that cannot.”
The only features in the JWST's spectra are attributed to stellar contamination rather than atmospheric absorption. "Our precise transmission spectrum can be fully explained by stellar contamination alone, and therefore enables us to rule out cloud-free or thick atmosphere scenarios across a wide range of potential atmospheric metallicities," the authors write.
This artist's illustration of TRAPPIST-1 d is from several years ago when scientists wondered about its nature and if it could support liquid water.
Updated Feb. 2018, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76364484
A low molecular weight atmosphere is harder for a planet to retain, and these observations ruled out those types of hydrogen-dominated atmospheres. The observations also ruled out thicker atmospheres like Venus' or Titan's. The only things left are extremely thin atmospheres unlikely to bolster habitability, or atmospheres dominated by high clouds that mask molecular absorption features from the JWST. But the research effectively rules them out.
"Therefore, we conclude that (1) thick cloud-free hydrogen-rich atmospheres are ruled out by our transmission spectrum; (2) thin H2-rich alternatives are strongly disfavored when considering TRAPPIST-1 d in the context of its formation and evolution under stellar irradiation; and (3) high-altitude clouds or hazes are not expected to form on TRAPPIST-1 d if it has a low-metallicity atmosphere," the researchers explain.
This work almost certainly eliminates TRAPPIST-1 d from a list of potentially habitable, water-supporting exoplanets. This is Nature, so TRAPPIST-1 d's elimination isn't absolutely certain. "Our observations cannot yet completely exclude other potential atmosphere scenarios for TRAPPIST-1 d which were predicted in the literature," the authors explain, noting that other research involving climate models hints at the possibility that the tidally-locked planet could form high-altitude water clouds at its terminator, blocking atmospheric absorption signals from view.
But what about the other planets in the system?
“All hope is not lost for atmospheres around the TRAPPIST-1 planets,” Piaulet-Ghorayeb said. “While we didn’t find a big, bold atmospheric signature at planet d, there is still potential for the outer planets to be holding onto a lot of water and other atmospheric components.”
However, the outer planets aren't the juicy scientific targets that planet d is. They're further from the star, and colder. Even the JWST's powerful instruments struggle in those conditions. While detailed spectra aren't available for those worlds, the researchers still reached some conclusion.
"We find that even complete atmosphere loss for TRAPPIST-1 d would not preclude atmosphere presence for the outer HZ planets TRAPPIST-1 e, f, and g," the authors write in their conclusion. Contrary to the inner planets, it's possible that these outer planets held onto their water "even if they initially accreted only a few Earth oceans of volatiles."
“Our detective work is just beginning. While TRAPPIST-1 d may prove a barren rock illuminated by a cruel red star, the outer planets TRAPPIST-1e, f, g, and h, may yet possess thick atmospheres," added Ryan MacDonald, a co-author of the paper, now at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom, and previously at the University of Michigan. “Thanks to Webb we now know that TRAPPIST-1 d is a far cry from a hospitable world. We're learning that the Earth is even more special in the cosmos."
Being a human being means bearing witness to humanity's greatest, most triumphant moments of accomplishment and unity, but also to the depraved actions we take against one another. The minds of thinking people are bound to wonder if there are other worlds out there that host life. Each potentially habitable world is a glimmer of hope that humans, with all their struggles, are not the only intelligent species out there.
If we look to the heavens, and to exoplanets, for some kind of reprieve from humanity's troubles, TRAPPIST-1 d won't provide it. If this research is correct, its stricken from the list of hope-inspiring exoplanets.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
