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--- transportation:space [2025/11/17 03:52] – [Formation] timb
+++ transportation:space [2026/01/08 00:05] (current) – [Supernova] timb
@@ Line 1986: / Line 1986: @@
 https://spacefed.com/astronomy/is-the-sun-a-black-hole/
+===== Dark Energy =====
+==  Are Astronomers Wrong About Dark Energy? ==
+Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday November 22, 2025 12:36PM
+An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN:
+<blockquote>
+The universe's expansion might not be accelerating but slowing down, a new study suggests. If confirmed, the finding would upend decades of established astronomical assumptions and rewrite our understanding of dark energy, the elusive force that counters the inward pull of gravity in our universe...
+Last year, a consortium of hundreds of researchers using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in Arizona, developed the largest ever 3D map of the universe. The observations hinted at the fact that dark energy may be weakening over time, indicating that the universe's rate of expansion could eventually slow. Now, a study published November 6 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society provides further evidence that dark energy might not be pushing on the universe with the same strength it used to. The DESI project's findings last year represented "a major, major paradigm change ... and our result, in some sense, agrees well with that," said Young-Wook Lee, a professor of astrophysics at Yonsei University in South Korea and lead researcher for the new study....
+To reach their conclusions, the researchers analyzed a sample of 300 galaxies containing Type 1a supernovas and posited that the dimming of distant exploding stars was not only due to their moving farther away from Earth, but also due to the progenitor star's age... [Study coauthor Junhyuk Son, a doctoral candidate of astronomy at Yonsei University, said] "we found that their luminosity actually depends on the age of the stars that produce them — younger progenitors yield slightly dimmer supernovae, while older ones are brighter." Son said the team has a high statistical confidence — 99.99% — about this age-brightness relation, allowing them to use Type 1a supernovas more accurately than before to assess the universe's expansion... Eventually, if the expansion continues to slow down, the universe could begin to contract, ending in what astronomers imagine may be the opposite of the big bang — the big crunch. "That is certainly a possibility," Lee said. "Even two years ago, the Big Crunch was out of the question. But we need more work to see whether it could actually happen."
+</blockquote>
+https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/22/2034253/are-astronomers-wrong-about-dark-energy
@@ Line 2095: / Line 2116: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-dazzles-as-it-swoops-behind-the-sun-2000679815
+==  NASA really wants you to know that 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar comet ==
+A rundown of what we know of the third extrasolar object we’ve identified.
+John Timmer – Nov 19, 2025 2:44 PM
+Since early July, telescopes around the world have been tracking just our third confirmed interstellar visitor, the comet 3I/ATLAS—3I, for third interstellar, and ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) for the telescope network that first spotted it. But the object’s closest approach to the Sun came in late October during the US government shutdown. So, while enough people went to work to ensure that the hardware continued to do its job, nobody was available at NASA to make the images available to the public or discuss their implications.
+So today, NASA held a press conference to discuss everything that we now know about 3I/ATLAS, and how NASA’s hardware contributed to that knowledge. And to say one more time that the object is a fairly typical comet and not some spaceship doing its best to appear like one.
+https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/11/nasa-really-wants-you-to-know-that-3i-atlas-is-an-interstellar-comet/
+== View Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Through NASA’s Multiple Lenses ==
+Erin Morton - Nov 19, 2025
+NASA is in the midst of an unprecedented solar system-wide observation campaign, turning its spacecraft and space telescopes to follow comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. Twelve NASA assets have captured and processed imagery of the comet since it was first discovered on July 1, and several others will have opportunities to capture more images as the comet continues to pass through our solar system.
+By observing the comet from so many locations, NASA has an opportunity to learn about the ways that 3I/ATLAS differs from our solar system’s home-grown comets and give scientists a new window into how the compositions of other systems may differ from our own.
+https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/view-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-through-nasas-multiple-lenses/
+== Watch Live as Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Makes Its Closest Approach to Earth ==
+This will be your best chance to see 3I/ATLAS in the night sky.
+Ellyn Lapointe - December 18, 2025
+For the past five months, astronomers around the world have meticulously tracked a strange visitor from another solar system as it zips through our own. Now, it’s about to make its closest approach to Earth.
+Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will fly by our planet at a safe distance of 1.8 astronomical units (roughly 167 million miles or 270 million kilometers) at 1 a.m. ET on Friday, December 19, according to calculations by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That’s about twice the average difference between Earth and the Sun.
+You won’t be able to see 3I/ATLAS with the naked eye, but you could catch a fuzzy, faint glimpse of it in the predawn sky through a powerful pair of binoculars or a backyard telescope.
+If you want a clearer view, the Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 will host a livestream of the flyby starting at 11 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 18, and you can watch it below. This astronomical program, overseen by the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Italy, uses remotely controlled telescopes to provide real-time observations of space.
+https://gizmodo.com/watch-live-as-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-makes-its-closest-approach-to-earth-2000701321
+== Scientists Scanned 3I/ATLAS for Alien Signals. Here’s What They Found ==
+As this interstellar object approached its closest point to Earth, a massive radio telescope attempted to sniff out a technosignature.
+Ellyn Lapointe - January 2, 2026
+From the moment astronomers discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, they became fixated on one question: What is it? Months of research have led to overwhelming scientific consensus that it is a comet from beyond our solar system, yet some still speculate that this cosmic visitor isn’t natural at all.
+In July, shortly after the discovery, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb and colleagues proposed that 3I/ATLAS could be an alien spacecraft. Even as studies have contradicted this hypothesis, Loeb has continued to suggest that 3I/ATLAS may be technological. To set the record straight, astronomers recently conducted a “technosignature search” of the interstellar object, essentially scanning it for artificial radio signals.
+The study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, found “no credible detections of narrowband radio technosignatures originating from 3I/ATLAS.” In other words, the chances of this object being anything other than a comet are slim to none.
+https://gizmodo.com/scientists-scanned-3i-atlas-for-alien-signals-heres-what-they-found-2000704975
@@ Line 3372: / Line 3445: @@
 https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/11/jim_lovell_has_died/
+==== McClain, Anne =====
+== Woman Pleads Guilty to Lying About Astronaut Wife Accessing Her Bank Account From Space ==
+Astronaut Anne McClain was accused of "identity fraud" while in space.
+Matt Novak - November 17, 2025
+Who has jurisdiction to prosecute a crime committed in space? That was the novel question raised in 2019 when a woman accused her estranged spouse, an astronaut, of accessing her bank account without permission while the astronaut was aboard the International Space Station. Now the Earth-bound woman has pleaded guilty to lying to government investigators about her astronaut wife.
+Summer Heather Worden approached the FTC in 2019 and accused her then-wife, astronaut Anne McClain, of guessing her password to access Worden’s bank account. Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer, reportedly told the same story to the NASA Office of Inspector General, according to the Department of Justice.
+The couple was engaged in a custody dispute over their son, who was 6 years old at the time and had been conceived through IVF and a surrogate. McClain denied the charges that she’d accessed and changed the password to the bank account in a tweet from Aug. 2019.
+https://gizmodo.com/woman-pleads-guilty-to-lying-about-astronaut-wife-accessing-her-bank-account-from-space-2000686965
@@ Line 5689: / Line 5781: @@
 https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/16/jwst_star_planet_formation/
+== Webb telescope images an aging binary star system in the center of a four-layered cosmic dust shell ==
+The four-layered shell was emitted by the two stars over the last 700 years.
+Mariella Moon - Thu, November 20, 2025 at 6:00 AM PST
+NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has shown us images of space we’d never see otherwise, and one of the latest wonders it has captured is of an unusual star system in our galaxy with what the agency describes as “four serpentine spirals of dust.” Previous observations of the Apep system, named after the Egyptian god of chaos and located around 8,000 light-years away from Eath, showed only one shell. But as you can see in the mid-infrared image captured by Webb above, it actually has four shells, with the most outer one at the very edges of the image. These shells are made out of dense carbon dust emitted by the system’s two Wolf-Rayet stars over the last 700 years.
+Wolf-Rayets are massive stars nearing the end of their lives. They’re very rare, and scientists believe there are only a thousand in our galaxy. Apep happens to have two of them. Yinuo Han from Caltech and Ryan White from the Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia have recently published their own papers about the system. They combined measurements from Webb’s observations with years of data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile to determine that the two stars “swing by one another” once very 190 years. The stars then pass close to each other for 25 years, causing their strong stellar winds to collide and cast out huge amounts of carbon-rich dust within that timeframe.
+https://www.engadget.com/science/space/webb-telescope-images-an-aging-binary-star-system-in-the-center-of-a-four-layered-cosmic-dust-shell-140000485.html
@@ Line 6719: / Line 6825: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/rare-supernova-rips-open-a-star-revealing-its-hidden-anatomy-2000645510
+== Stunning 25-Year Timelapse Shows a Supernova Tearing Through Deep Space ==
+Decades in the making, NASA's X-ray timelapse shows a stellar explosion expanding into space at up to 2% the speed of light.
+Passant Rabie - January 7, 2026
+A mind-blowing video shows the remnant of an ancient cosmic explosion bleeding out into the universe, pushing against gas and other material, over the span of more than two decades.
+NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured 25 years’ worth of observations of Kepler’s supernova remnant, revealing the glowing debris field as it grows over time. Astronomers gathered X-ray data from 2000 to 2025 to create a stunning timelapse video, allowing them to visualize how supernovas develop over time and creep into their surrounding environments.
+https://gizmodo.com/stunning-25-year-timelapse-shows-a-supernova-tearing-through-deep-space-2000706993
@@ Line 7446: / Line 7562: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/if-this-planet-is-real-it-would-break-so-many-records-2000639772
+== Unprecedented Image Shows 2 Protoplanets Smashing Into Each Other, Forming Giant Dust Cloud ==
+First it was an exoplanet. Then it became a dust cloud. Now it's bringing a cosmic revelation.
+Gayoung Lee - December 18, 2025
+In 2004, astronomers spotted a planet-like object orbiting Fomalhaut, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. With further observations, however, it started to look more like a dust cloud—a decidedly less exciting outcome. Astronomers have now made an unexpected second observation around the same star: an apparent collision of two gigantic planetesimals—a decidedly incredible and important finding.
+Paul Kalas, who discovered the ex-exoplanet, has been tracking Fomalhaut since the object’s discovery in 2004. Accordingly, Kalas, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, knew better than anyone that the newly discovered dot, seen sparkling at the fringe of the star’s dust ring, definitely wasn’t there before. Further analysis strongly suggested that Kalas and his colleagues had captured two asteroid-like planetesimals smashing into each other. This in turn produced a bright dust cloud—something astronomers had never seen unfold in real time. The new findings were published today in Science.
+“I would have had to have been the luckiest astronomer in the world to see it,” Kalas told Gizmodo in a video call, “because these collisions only happen once every 100,000 years.”
+https://gizmodo.com/unprecedented-image-shows-2-protoplanets-smashing-into-each-other-forming-giant-dust-cloud-2000701287
@@ Line 7613: / Line 7746: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-confirm-4-rocky-exoplanets-in-earths-backyard-just-6-light-years-away-2000574818
+==== Exomoon ====
+== Astronomers Have Found 6,000 Exoplanets—but This Could Be the First Known Exomoon ==
+After decades of searching, astronomers may have finally stumbled upon the first moon known to exist beyond our solar system—and it's an absolute giant.
+Gayoung Lee - Published December 1, 2025
+In September, NASA officially confirmed the existence of a whopping 6,000 exoplanets—a feat so impressive that it’s bizarre to think that, by contrast, the number of confirmed exomoons tallies up to, well, zero. But that imbalance may shift soon if a new proposal by astronomers ends up being as effective as they claim.
+An upcoming Astronomy & Astrophysics paper describes how astronomers devised and utilized a novel, alternative approach for identifying exomoons, which successfully turned up a promising exomoon candidate orbiting HD 206893 B, a Jupiter-like exoplanet located about 133 light-years from Earth. Specifically, the team repurposed high-precision astrometry—a mathematical approach to mapping out stellar distances—to carefully evaluate any and all signals near the exoplanet.
+The object appears to be around 0.4 Jupiter masses, which is more than seven Neptune masses, and is still much smaller than HD 206893 B at 28 Jupiter masses. So it’s an absolutely gigantic exomoon orbiting an absolutely gigantic exoplanet. Well, if true. As the researchers themselves admit, the alleged exomoon will now have to face scrutiny from the wider astronomical community. Still, they argue, the observation cements astrometry as a promising tool for future exomoon searches. The paper by the collaboration, including lead author Quentin Kral of the Paris Observatory in France, is currently available as a preprint.
+https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-have-found-6000-exoplanets-but-this-could-be-the-first-known-exomoon-2000694077
@@ Line 8540: / Line 8692: @@
 https://www.unilad.com/technology/space/mars-declared-unsafe-humans-survive-four-years-356854-20240320
+==== Lake ====
+== New Mars Orbiter Manuever Challenges Theory: That May Not Be an Underground Lake on Mars ==
+Posted by EditorDavid on Monday November 24, 2025 04:34AM
+In 2018 researchers claimed evidence of a lake beneath the surface of Mars, detected by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument (or Marsis for short).
+But new Mars observations "are not consistent with the presence of liquid water in this location and an alternative explanation, such as very smooth basal materials, is needed." Phys.org explains
+<blockquote>
+Aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) uses higher frequencies than MARSIS. Until recently, though, SHARAD's signals couldn't reach deep enough into Mars to bounce off the base layer of the ice where the potential water lies — meaning its results couldn't be compared with those from MARSIS. However, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter team recently tested a new maneuver that rolls the spacecraft on its flight axis by 120 degrees — whereas it previously could roll only up to 28 degrees. The new maneuver, termed a "very large roll," or VLR, can increase SHARAD's signal strength and penetration depth, allowing researchers to examine the base of the ice in the enigmatic high-reflectivity zone. Gareth Morgan and colleagues, for their article published in Geophysical Research Letters, examined 91 SHARAD observations that crossed the high-reflectivity zone.
+Only when using the VLR maneuver was a SHARAD basal echo detected at the site. In contrast to the MARSIS detection, the SHARAD detection was very weak, meaning it is unlikely that liquid water is present in the high-reflectivity zone.
+</blockquote>
+https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/24/0623250/new-mars-orbiter-manuever-challenges-theory-that-may-not-be-an-underground-lake-on-mars
+==== Lightning ====
+== We’ve Detected Lightning on Mars for the First Time ==
+Scientists analyzed 28 hours of recordings over two Martian years, listening for electrical signals.
+Passant Rabie - November 26, 2025
+Dust devils on Mars could be brewing electric currents, and scientists may have just heard them strike the arid landscape in a first-of-its-kind discovery.
+Planetary scientists detected new evidence of lightning on Mars in sounds and electrical signals captured by the Perseverance rover, suggesting the Red Planet’s dusty surface causes electrification. Astronomers have long theorized that lightning exists on Mars but have thus far failed to find direct evidence of it. The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, further deepens our understanding of Mars’ atmosphere and may have implications for future human-led missions to the neighboring planet.
+https://gizmodo.com/weve-detected-lightning-on-mars-for-the-first-time-2000691996
@@ Line 8556: / Line 8747: @@
 The InSight Lander has quite literally kept its ear to the ground since landing on Mars in November 2018, as it records the Martian subsurface for any rumblings in the form of seismic waves. While InSight has been hard at work detecting marsquakes, NASA’s Mars Exploration Program announced yesterday that the lander had detected its first meteoroid impacts, in the form of four rocks that slammed into Mars’ Elysium Planitia between 2020 and 2021.
-https://gizmodo.com/nasa-insight-mars-lander-meteoroid-impact-sound-1849557035
+[[https://gizmodo.com/nasa-insight-mars-lander-meteoroid-impact-sound-1849557035|https://gizmodo.com/nasa-insight-mars-lander-meteoroid-impact-sound-1849557035]]
@@ Line 8613: / Line 8803: @@
 https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/no-nasa-hasnt-found-life-on-mars-yet-but-the-latest-discovery-is-intriguing/
+== Microbe That Could Turn Martian Dust into Oxygen ==
+Ashish Gupta - September 11, 2025
+When we talk about the possibility of humans living on Mars, one of the biggest challenges is not the rockets or the habitats, but something far more basic: how to breathe. Carrying oxygen tanks across space is not practical for long-term survival. This is where a tiny microbe might make a huge difference.
+Scientists have been studying an extremophile, a type of microorganism that can survive in very harsh environments. This particular one is known as Chroococcidiopsis. It has shown the ability to grow on materials that are similar to Martian soil, and in the process, it produces oxygen. That means if it can be cultivated in future Mars colonies, it could support human breathing needs directly on the Red Planet.
+Researchers tested this by using soil that mimics Martian regolith. The results were promising. The bacteria did not just survive, it actively thrived, pulling nutrients from the soil and releasing oxygen as part of its natural process. What makes it even more interesting is that it does not require rich Earth-like soil to function. Even in the limited resources available on Mars, it can manage to carry out its work.
+https://scienceclock.com/microbe-that-could-turn-martian-dust-into-oxygen/
 == Common Yeast Can Survive Martian Conditions ==
@@ Line 8627: / Line 8829: @@
 https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/10/15/032207/common-yeast-can-survive-martian-conditions
@@ Line 9422: / Line 9626: @@
 ... they found that the lunar core is very similar to that of Earth â" with an outer fluid layer and a solid inner core. According to their modeling, the outer core has a radius of about 362 kilometers (225 miles), and the inner core has a radius of about 258 kilometers (160 miles). That's about 15 percent of the entire radius of the Moon. The inner core, the team found, also has a density of about 7,822 kilograms per cubic meter. That's very close to the density of iron. [...]
-<blockquote>
+</blockquote>
 The research has been published in Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05935-7).
@@ Line 10968: / Line 11172: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/betelgeuses-newfound-sidekick-is-weirder-than-we-thought-2000676681
+== Betelgeuse’s Hidden Companion May Finally Be Revealing Itself ==
+With this new evidence, the existence of “Betelbuddy” is closer than ever to being confirmed.
+Ellyn Lapointe - January 6, 2026
+The bizarre dimming patterns of Betelgeuse, an enormous red supergiant star in the constellation Orion, have bewildered astronomers for decades. Now, researchers are closer than ever to proving that a companion star is the cause of this strange behavior.
+Researchers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) detected a pattern of changes in Betelgeuse using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. They observed changes in the star’s spectrum—the various colors of light emitted by its composition of elements—and in the speed and direction of gases in its outer atmosphere driven by a trail of denser material.
+These changes are the direct result of the companion star, Siwarha, plowing through Betelgeuse’s outer atmosphere. The dense trail the researchers observed is Siwarha’s wake, appearing just after the star crosses in front of Betelgeuse every six years.
+“It’s a bit like a boat moving through water. The companion star creates a ripple effect in Betelgeuse’s atmosphere that we can actually see in the data,” lead author Andrea Dupree, an astronomer at the CfA, said in a NASA release. “For the first time, we’re seeing direct signs of this wake, or trail of gas, confirming that Betelgeuse really does have a hidden companion shaping its appearance and behavior.”
+https://gizmodo.com/betelgeuses-hidden-companion-may-finally-be-revealing-itself-2000706185