Categories

XMM-Newton sees comet 3I/ATLAS in X-ray light

The European Space Agency’s X-ray space observatory XMM-Newton observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on 3 December for around 20 hours. During that time, the comet was about 282–285 million km from the spacecraft.

Go to Source

NASA announces plan to map Milky Way with Roman Space Telescope

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has released detailed plans for a major survey that will reveal our home galaxy, the Milky Way, in unprecedented detail. In one month of observations spread across two years, the survey will unveil tens of billions of stars and explore previously uncharted structures.

Go to Source

[…]

Radio observations find nothing at Omega Centauri’s heart

Omega Centauri dominates the southern sky as the Milky Way’s largest and brightest globular cluster, a dense sphere containing roughly 10 million stars. Earlier this year, astronomers found evidence that an intermediate mass black hole hides within the cluster’s core, revealed by seven stars moving far too quickly to remain bound unless something massive holds […]

Interstellar comet keeps its distance as it makes its closest approach to Earth

A stray comet from another star swings past Earth this week in one last hurrah before racing back toward interstellar space.

Go to Source

Hubble catches another glimpse of 3I/ATLAS

On July 1st, 2025, the third interstellar object (ISO) ever detected was seen making its way through our solar system. Shortly after being alerted by automated detection systems, astronomers at the European Space Agency (ESA) began using observatories in Hawaii, Chile, and Australia to get a better look at the interstellar interloper. Since then, 3I/ATLAS […]

Image: Hubble captures the death of a low-mass star in the Calabash Nebula

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an uncommon sight—the death of a low-mass star—in this image of the Calabash Nebula released on Feb. 3, 2017.

Go to Source

EscaPADE explorer sort of goes to Mars

On 13 November, the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamic Explorers (EscaPADE) mission launched to space on the New Glenn rocket provided by Blue Origin.

Go to Source

Did a rogue planet reshape our solar system?

The giant planets weren’t always where we find them today. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed in a more compact configuration and later underwent a violent reshuffling that scattered them to their current positions. Exactly what triggered this chaos remains uncertain, but researchers at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux and the Planetary Science Institute now […]

Measuring radio leaks from 36,000 kilometers up

Radio astronomy has a pollution problem. Satellites thousands of kilometers overhead, designed to broadcast communications or relay data, are increasingly contaminating the frequencies astronomers use to study the universe. While much attention has focused on SpaceX’s Starlink and other low Earth orbit constellations, what about the satellites much farther away?

Go to Source

[…]

Video: Lunar impact flash detected on the moon by Armagh Observatory and Planetarium

On 12 December 2025 at 03:09:36 UTC, astronomers at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP) have captured what is believed to be the first video recording of a lunar impact flash in Ireland, and the second recorded from the UK.

Go to Source

Astronomers find planetary and stellar companions to two ultracool dwarfs in Taurus

Astronomers from the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Manoa and elsewhere have observed the Taurus star-forming region, which resulted in the discovery of planetary-mass and stellar companions of two ultracool dwarf stars. The new finding was presented in a paper published December 4 on the pre-print server arXiv.

Go to Source

Clues to the origin of hot Jupiters hidden in their orbits

The first exoplanet ever discovered in 1995 was what we now call a “hot Jupiter,” a planet as massive as Jupiter with an orbital period of just a few days. Today, hot Jupiters are thought to have formed far from their stars—similar to Jupiter in our solar system—and later migrated inward.

Go to Source

[…]

Thank the JWST for confirming the first runaway supermassive black hole

What could force a supermassive black hole (SMBH) out of its host galaxy? They can have hundreds of millions, even billions of solar masses. What’s powerful enough to dislodge one of these behemoths?

Go to Source

The moon-forming event: Why it was by explosive ejection rather than a giant impact

One of the oldest unsolved riddles in planetary science concerns the origin of the moon. Over a century ago, George Darwin proposed that tidal and centrifugal forces on a rapidly rotating proto-Earth caused the moon to be spun off into an Earth orbit.

Go to Source

SpaceX sets $800 billion valuation, confirms 2026 IPO plans

SpaceX has authorized an insider share sale that values Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker at about $800 billion, according to a company message seen by Bloomberg on Dec. 12.

Go to Source