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--- transportation:space [2025/11/27 05:55] – [Meteor] timb
+++ transportation:space [2026/01/08 00:05] (current) – [Supernova] timb
@@ Line 2138: / Line 2138: @@
 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 6792: / 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 7519: / 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 7686: / 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 8724: / 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 8738: / Line 8829: @@
 https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/10/15/032207/common-yeast-can-survive-martian-conditions
@@ Line 9533: / 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 11079: / 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