APOD from 2025-04-08
#Moon Visits Sister Stars
The Moon's orbit led to an occultation of the Pleiades star cluster, a rare event where it passes in front. This epoch lasts from 2023-2029, with the next in 2042. A composite image from Spain highlights the cluster's blue glow.
HD image at https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250408.html#space #astronomy #planets
What if we spend decades building advanced telescopes to search for #life on other #planets and come up empty-handed?
If scientists examine 40–80 planets and find no signs of life, they can confidently conclude that fewer than 10–20% of similar planets harbor life.
However, this depends heavily on how certain we are about each observation.
Such a finding would enable scientists to put a meaningful upper limit on the prevalence of life in the #universe.
https://astrobiology.com/2025/04/what-if-we-find-nothing-in-our-search-for-life-beyond-earth.html
ICYMI: National park rangers in #Utah are preserving something incredible: truly dark skies that reveal the cosmos in all its glory. What makes this special: Dark sky initiatives support #wildlife, human #health, and our connection to the universe. 
Learn more: https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/moab-dark-skies-vs-light-pollution
20-Year Hubble Study of Uranus Yields New Atmospheric Insights https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/20-year-hubble-study-of-uranus-yields-new-atmospheric-insights/ #NASA #AstrophysicsDivision #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #HubbleSpaceTelescope #PlanetaryEnvironmentsAtmospheres #PlanetaryScience #Planets #TheSolarSystem #Uranus
APOD from 2025-03-31
Parker: The Solar System from Near the Sun
NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured a time-lapse from inside #Mercury's orbit, showing coronal streamers, a Coronal Mass Ejection, and #planets like Mercury and #Venus. Between #Earth and #Mars, #Comet Tempel 1 appears. The video also shows high-energy solar particles. This data helps us understand space weather impacts on Earth.
Video at https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250331.html#space #astronomy #saturn #jupiter #eclipse
#Scientists may have discovered how to extract #power from the rotation of #Earth. If the technique provided for all #electricity needs of our #world, it would slow the planet’s spin by 7 milliseconds over the next century.
Earth Day, Our Planet, Our Universe
#Boats, #Climate, #EarthDay, #Environment, #Fish, #Galaxies, #Planets, #Space, #Universe
Vintage ◦ Classic ◦ Historical | Art ◦ Design ◦ Inspiration | Restored ◦ Enhanced ◦ Remixed
Prints, T-Shirts, Stickers, & More by @rocketshipretro via RedBubble → https://bigplanetprints.com/go/t4CuuM
What happens when a newly formed #star captures material from a nearby cloud?
Gas, dust, and rocky materials swirl around recently formed #stars, creating a circumstellar disk that seeds the formation of #planets.
Recent observations of some of these disks reveal filamentary structures of material falling into the disk, feeding the planet-forming environment with new ingredients in a process known as “late-stage infall.”
#astronomy
https://aasnova.org/2025/03/21/a-late-stage-infall-renovation-mapping-the-circumstellar-disk-of-ab-aurigae/
For decades, scientists have debated how small #exoplanets form.
New model suggests that #planets form in narrow rings at specific locations in the #protoplanetary disk, making #planet formation more organized than previously believed.
Simulations also imply that up to about 1% of super-Earth and mini-Neptune systems could host Earth-like planets within the #habitable zone.
This implies an occurrence rate of approximately one Earth-like planet per 300 sun-like stars.
Oxygen discovered in most distant known galaxy
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2507/
#ycombinator #ESO #eso_org #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astronomie #Suedsternwarte #telescopes #detectors #comets #planets #stars #galaxies #nebulae #universe #NTT #VLT #VLTI #ALMA #ELT #La_Silla #Paranal #Garching #Chile
The nearest single star to Earth has four small planets.
Science News reports: "This is the second study in six months to find planets around Barnard’s star."
Small and Close-in #Planets are Uncommon Around A-type Stars: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ad9587 -> Twenty Thousand Stars Later, They Didn’t Find a Single Planet (and That’s Cool, Too!): https://aasnova.org/2025/03/18/twenty-thousand-stars-later-they-didnt-find-a-single-planet-and-thats-cool-too/
#science #scrambledeggs #pan #stars #gravity #fairyliquid #vortex #planets #solarsystem #washingup
Is it normal to start thinking about gravity, the way matter coalesces to form stars, and the way smaller objects orbit larger ones, when you’re washing your scrambled egg pan?
Then to start doing vortices experiments and filming it in Timelapse?
I might be a bit weird…
(13 Mar) 128 new moons discovered orbiting Saturn, nearly doubling the ringed planet’s total
Astronomers have discovered 128 never-before-seen moons orbiting Saturn — giving it almost twice as ...
https://s.faithcollapsing.com/hhkvo
Archive: ais: https://archive.md/wip/BukfD ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/vzxwd
#astronomy #planets #space
Barnard’s Star is a well-studied 10-billion-year-old M dwarf with a mass of 0.16 solar mass.
Finding #exoplanets around #Barnard’s #Star has been something of a white whale for astronomers for more than half a century.
The system of four small #planets around the star are in remarkably close quarters, with periods of just 2.34, 3.15, 4.12, and 6.74 days.
The current data rule out the presence of habitable-zone planets with masses greater than 0.57 Earth mass.
https://astrobiology.com/2025/03/barnards-star-hosts-four-tiny-planets.html
Though this system has hoodwinked astronomers with planetary signals before, researchers say they're confident they have detected three new #planets and confirmed another around Barnard's #Star.
After peering at Barnard's Star over 112 nights, scientists found compelling evidence of four particularly small #exoplanets, each just some 20 to 30 percent the size of Earth.
The planets are considerably smaller than Mars, which is about half Earth's size.
#astronomy
https://mashable.com/article/planets-discovery-barnards-star-cosmic-neighbor
Hacker News 
