Astronomy & Planetary Science Thread

[Star One]

Astronomers spot one of the largest spinning structures ever found in the Universe

An international team led by the University of Oxford has identified one of the largest rotating structures ever reported: a “razor-thin” string of galaxies embedded in a giant spinning cosmic filament, 140 million light-years away. The findings, published today (4 December) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, could offer valuable new insights into how galaxies formed in the early Universe.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1108139

[eeergo]

This discussion belongs to the Impacts of Large Satellite Constellations on Astronomy thread.

And this is nothing serious, just boost your telescope to 1,200km or slightly above it and you avoid nearly all constellations. 1,200km is still LEO.

"Just boost me up already Scotty" Or, as the wise man said: "We need more wood! Timber!"

Spot on prediction (then again, it wasn't hard):

"Space-based astronomy is the future, ground-based is unnecessary anyway" was the motto by megaconstellation proponents right? I guess the new directive is to add "Deep-space-based ONLY", or just get done with it and take away all qualifiers: "Astronomy is unnecessary anyway".

I'd have another easy one-liner solution too! And it also involving less boosting: instead of going up by 700 km or so, just de-boost your constellation 500 km down or so, and you avoid all sky nastiness with increased direct serviceability and virtually unlimited mission duration. Nothing serious.

[thespacecow]

This discussion belongs to the Impacts of Large Satellite Constellations on Astronomy thread.

And this is nothing serious, just boost your telescope to 1,200km or slightly above it and you avoid nearly all constellations. 1,200km is still LEO.

"Just boost me up already Scotty" Or, as the wise man said: "We need more wood! Timber!"

Spot on prediction (then again, it wasn't hard):

"Space-based astronomy is the future, ground-based is unnecessary anyway" was the motto by megaconstellation proponents right? I guess the new directive is to add "Deep-space-based ONLY", or just get done with it and take away all qualifiers: "Astronomy is unnecessary anyway".

Not "spot on" at all. 1,200km is not "Deep-space", as I said, it's literally LEO.

I'd have another easy one-liner solution too! And it also involving less boosting: instead of going up by 700 km or so, just de-boost your constellation 500 km down or so, and you avoid all sky nastiness with increased direct serviceability and virtually unlimited mission duration. Nothing serious.

Dream on, mega constellation is here to stay, they have already proven their value, and the value is far far higher than some space telescope that refuses to boost higher. In fact literally every country with space telescopes that is affected by this are also building their own mega constellation, nobody is going to make a big deal about this, rocks and glass houses and all that.

[Star One]

This discussion belongs to the Impacts of Large Satellite Constellations on Astronomy thread.

And this is nothing serious, just boost your telescope to 1,200km or slightly above it and you avoid nearly all constellations. 1,200km is still LEO.

"Just boost me up already Scotty" Or, as the wise man said: "We need more wood! Timber!"

Spot on prediction (then again, it wasn't hard):

"Space-based astronomy is the future, ground-based is unnecessary anyway" was the motto by megaconstellation proponents right? I guess the new directive is to add "Deep-space-based ONLY", or just get done with it and take away all qualifiers: "Astronomy is unnecessary anyway".

Not "spot on" at all. 1,200km is not "Deep-space", as I said, it's literally LEO.

I'd have another easy one-liner solution too! And it also involving less boosting: instead of going up by 700 km or so, just de-boost your constellation 500 km down or so, and you avoid all sky nastiness with increased direct serviceability and virtually unlimited mission duration. Nothing serious.

Dream on, mega constellation is here to stay, they have already proven their value, and the value is far far higher than some space telescope that refuses to boost higher. In fact literally every country with space telescopes that is affected by this are also building their own mega constellation, nobody is going to make a big deal about this, rocks and glass houses and all that.

I love the way you immediately default to saying that space telescopes value is far lower than mega constellations. On what metric are you working that out?

Also it seems increasingly likely from studies that the vast number of satellites re-entering the atmosphere from these constellations and the pollutants that pumps into the atmosphere contributes to damaging the ozone layer amongst other damage.

https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-satellites-are-due-to-burn-up-in-the-atmosphere-every-year-damaging-the-ozone-layer-and-changing-the-climate-251845#:~:text=The%20re%2Dentry%20of%20satellites,'%20in%20this%20time%2Dlapse.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2024GL109280

[eeergo]

"Just boost me up already Scotty" Or, as the wise man said: "We need more wood! Timber!"

Spot on prediction (then again, it wasn't hard):

"Space-based astronomy is the future, ground-based is unnecessary anyway" was the motto by megaconstellation proponents right? I guess the new directive is to add "Deep-space-based ONLY", or just get done with it and take away all qualifiers: "Astronomy is unnecessary anyway".

Not "spot on" at all. 1,200km is not "Deep-space", as I said, it's literally LEO.

I trust other more attentive (or just not self-deceiving) readers will appreciate the drift without resorting to extreme literalism.

Dream on, mega constellation is here to stay, they have already proven their value, and the value is far far higher than some space telescope that refuses to boost higher. In fact literally every country with space telescopes that is affected by this are also building their own mega constellation, nobody is going to make a big deal about this, rocks and glass houses and all that.

Funny how all of this business is so stone-cast, solid, established and unbreakable, yet proponents always find the need to forcefully, rabidly defensively underline its inevitability, especially after close to a decade of work on it - moreover in every occasion they get, in venues completely unrelated to their interests: such as this Astronomy thread in the Science topic. I wouldn't expect a sane Internet enthusiast back in the day to come out of the woodwork in a gardening forum where people complain about dot-com enterprises ripping out their front yard to install cables, yelling around "the future is nigh, all heathens repent, networks are inevitable". Actually, it would only reek of giant-with-mud-feet inferiority.

Of course, this only applies for A CERTAIN company's business, while the business itself could be anything and everything. Of course, all others attempting this are either doomed to fail or inconsequential, because of this funny little quirk you will not believe.

Just as an aside, another stone-chiseled, future-heralding, trust-me-bro business by a very respectful and established company has just been announced to be imploding, after $77B have been poured, or should I say fire-torched, into it. This is about twice as much as the sum of EVERY robotic space probe, ever, by the way. Yet another win for today's leaders with definitely eagle-eyed visions.

Just a factual addendum: no, not "every country with space telescopes affected by this is building their own megaconstellation", at least if you are not anumerical and don't consider a tens-to-hundreds-of-satellite constellation equivalent to one with tens-to-hundreds-of-thousands. Kinda similar to expecting nobody to make a fuss about Amazon deforestation when "every country with trees affected by climate change is using timber".

[thespacecow]

I love the way you immediately default to saying that space telescopes value is far lower than mega constellations. On what metric are you working that out?

The amount of resources as measured in funding allocated by society to space telescope vs mega constellation. Even if we ignore private funding, and just count government funding allocated by democratically elected governments, constellation funding far exceed the space telescopes in the paper.

For example compare the funding of IRIS2 to ARRAKIHS, or funding of SDA constellation to SPHEREx, there's an order of magnitude difference. And these are not the only government constellation being funded in US/Europe either.

You could also measure this by # of people helped/saved, or importance to national security.

Also it seems increasingly likely from studies that the vast number of satellites re-entering the atmosphere from these constellations and the pollutants that pumps into the atmosphere contributes to damaging the ozone layer amongst other damage.

https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-satellites-are-due-to-burn-up-in-the-atmosphere-every-year-damaging-the-ozone-layer-and-changing-the-climate-251845#:~:text=The%20re%2Dentry%20of%20satellites,'%20in%20this%20time%2Dlapse.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2024GL109280

I'm not seeing the increasing likeness, what I see is more people are doing numerical simulations based on assumptions, but every paper basically says they're not sure what the effect is and more research is needed.

In any case, every industrial process has negative environmental impacts, that's just a fact of life in an industrial society, this is hardly unique to constellations. And if all the countries agree the impact is too high, they can enact international treaties to mitigate this. Technology wise it's entirely possible to avoid burning satellite in the atmosphere, for example they can be collected and returned to Earth via reusable vehicles.

[thespacecow]

"Just boost me up already Scotty" Or, as the wise man said: "We need more wood! Timber!"

Spot on prediction (then again, it wasn't hard):

"Space-based astronomy is the future, ground-based is unnecessary anyway" was the motto by megaconstellation proponents right? I guess the new directive is to add "Deep-space-based ONLY", or just get done with it and take away all qualifiers: "Astronomy is unnecessary anyway".

Not "spot on" at all. 1,200km is not "Deep-space", as I said, it's literally LEO.

I trust other more attentive (or just not self-deceiving) readers will appreciate the drift without resorting to extreme literalism.

Or you can just admit you were wrong.

Dream on, mega constellation is here to stay, they have already proven their value, and the value is far far higher than some space telescope that refuses to boost higher. In fact literally every country with space telescopes that is affected by this are also building their own mega constellation, nobody is going to make a big deal about this, rocks and glass houses and all that.

Funny how all of this business is so stone-cast, solid, established and unbreakable, yet proponents always find the need to forcefully, rabidly defensively underline its inevitability, especially after close to a decade of work on it - moreover in every occasion they get, in venues completely unrelated to their interests: such as this Astronomy thread in the Science topic. I wouldn't expect a sane Internet enthusiast back in the day to come out of the woodwork in a gardening forum where people complain about dot-com enterprises ripping out their front yard to install cables, yelling around "the future is nigh, all heathens repent, networks are inevitable". Actually, it would only reek of giant-with-mud-feet inferiority.

Well this is not a gardening forum, this is a forum focused on spaceflight (literally in the name), and constellation is the biggest thing happening to spaceflight right now, so there's nothing strange about discussing it here.

Besides, as I said before, there's a specific thread for this discussion, and this entire discussion should be moved there. If OP or mod doesn't want to do that, that's not my problem.

Of course, this only applies for A CERTAIN company's business, while the business itself could be anything and everything. Of course, all others attempting this are either doomed to fail or inconsequential, because of this funny little quirk you will not believe.

Wrong. For example I'm pretty sure I didn't claim Chinese constellations are doomed to fail or inconsequential. And some of my initial posts on this forum is to defend Varda.

On the other hand, there're posters here who's literally against everything A CERTAIN company does, doesn't matter what exactly, could be anything and everything. I wonder why...

Just as an aside, another stone-chiseled, future-heralding, trust-me-bro business by a very respectful and established company has just been announced to be imploding, after $77B have been poured, or should I say fire-torched, into it. This is about twice as much as the sum of EVERY robotic space probe, ever, by the way. Yet another win for today's leaders with definitely eagle-eyed visions.

The difference here is that we have at least one constellation which is already cash flow positive and profitable, which validated the business case, unlike Metaverse.

Also constellations are being pursued by numerous companies and governments, not comparable to metaverse which is the project of a single company.

Just a factual addendum: no, not "every country with space telescopes affected by this is building their own megaconstellation", at least if you are not anumerical and don't consider a tens-to-hundreds-of-satellite constellation equivalent to one with tens-to-hundreds-of-thousands. Kinda similar to expecting nobody to make a fuss about Amazon deforestation when "every country with trees affected by climate change is using timber".

There's no formal definition of mega constellation, but NOIRLab says "with the advent of multiple large satellite constellations made up of hundreds or thousands of small, low-orbiting satellites meant primarily for broadband Internet access, the number of artificial satellites around Earth is projected to increase by several orders of magnitude in the next decade alone", so a constellation with a few hundred satellites is still considered "large".

And there are numerous articles from respectable news outlets calling OneWeb constellation - which is a hundreds-of-satellite constellation - "mega constellation", some examples:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/02/27/oneweb-poised-to-begin-deployment-of-broadband-mega-constellation/
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47374246
https://spacenews.com/amid-concerns-oneweb-gets-vague-about-constellations-cost/

So there's nothing wrong with calling a hundreds-of-satellite constellation "mega constellation", and thus my claim "every country with space telescopes affected by this is building their own megaconstellation" is 100% correct.

BTW, these hundreds-of-satellite constellations are usually at higher orbit too, which is more problematic for astronomy, as the paper says: "Satellites at higher altitudes may pose an even greater challenge because they can be visible for longer periods or even continuously, contaminating images obtained even at midnight"

So you're also wrong to imply the number of satellites is the sole consideration when it comes to impact on astronomy.

[Star One]

Close brush with 2 hot stars millions of years ago left a mark just beyond our solar system

Nearly 4.5 million years ago, two large, hot stars brushed tantalizingly close to Earth’s sun. They left behind a trace in the clouds of gas and dust that swirl just beyond our solar system—almost like the scent of perfume after someone has left the room.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2025/12/01/close-brush-2-hot-stars-millions-years-ago-left-mark-just-beyond-our-solar-system

Related paper:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae10a6

[Star One]

A new look at TRAPPIST-1e, an Earth-sized, habitable-zone exoplanet

"Based on our most recent work, we suggest that the previously reported tentative hint of an atmosphere is more likely to be 'noise' from the host star," Ranjan said. "However, this does not mean that TRAPPIST-1e does not have an atmosphere – we just need more data."

Ranjan pointed out that while James Webb is revolutionizing exoplanet science, the telescope was not originally designed to study small, Earth-like exoplanets.

"It was designed long before we knew such worlds existed, and we are fortunate that it can study them at all," he said. "There is only a handful of Earth-sized planets in existence for which it could potentially ever measure any kind of detailed atmosphere composition."

New answers could come from NASA's Pandora mission, currently in development and slated for launch in early 2026. Led by Daniel Apai, professor of astronomy and planetary sciences at the U of A Steward Observatory, Pandora is a small satellite designed to characterize exoplanet atmospheres and their host stars. Pandora will monitor stars with potentially habitable planets before, during and after they transit in front of their host stars.

https://news.arizona.edu/news/new-look-trappist-1e-earth-sized-habitable-zone-exoplanet

[StraumliBlight]

https://twitter.com/NASAWebb/status/1998422476292833651

NASA’s Webb Identifies Earliest Supernova to Date, Shows Host Galaxy [Dec 9]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has observed a supernova that exploded when the universe was only 730 million years old — the earliest detection of its kind to date. Webb’s crisp near-infrared images also allowed astronomers to locate the supernova’s faint host galaxy. The telescope took these quick-turn observations July 1 in support of an international group of telescopes that detected a super bright flash of light known as a gamma-ray burst in mid-March.

[JulesVerneATV]

China search for Earth 2.0: Four New Space Missions Hunting Our Next Home.
https://spaceeyenews.com/china-search-for-earth-2-0/

Hongmeng Moon project concept of the project is to launch an array of satellites to a lunar selenocentric orbit, to observe the sky at the heretofore unexplored ultralong wavelength part of the electromagnetic spectrum
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aac6c6

During the Chang'e-4 mission, the Longjiang-2 micro-satellite was launched into lunar orbit, as a pilot experiment for the lunar array idea
https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.09590

Hong Meng is an ancient Chinese hanzi picture character phrase that describes a primeval chaos of a primordial Universe.

missions are all part of China's drive to become a major power in space and establish itself at the forefront of space science, research, and exploration.
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-china-outlines-future-video-earth.html

and a Chinese solar mission known as Kuafu-2

Kuafu-1 was launched on October 2022
https://english.news.cn/20221009/c9b4d86483554c538124032173d73d51/c.html

Observatory Science with eXTP
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08367

Earth 2.0 Planet – China’s Bold Step Towards Exoplanet Discovery
https://www.palereddot.org/launch/

The Earth 2.0 (ET) Space mission
https://et.shao.ac.cn/

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=62444.0

[JulesVerneATV]

Mars clocks run ahead of Earth by microseconds each day
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Mars_clocks_run_ahead_of_Earth_by_microseconds_each_day_999.html

[Star One]

Flaring black hole whips up ultra-fast winds

Leading X-ray space telescopes XMM-Newton and XRISM have spotted an extraordinary blast from a supermassive black hole. In a matter of hours, the gravitational monster whipped up powerful winds, flinging material out into space at eye-watering speeds of 60 000 km per second.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/XMM-Newton/Flaring_black_hole_whips_up_ultra-fast_winds#

Gemini and Blanco Telescopes Unlock Clues to Origin of Longest Gamma-ray Burst Ever Observed

Data acquired with multiple NSF NOIRLab facilities indicate gamma-ray burst lasting over seven hours resides in a massive, extremely dusty galaxy

https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2531/?lang

[JulesVerneATV]

What Do Super Jupiters Look Like?
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/what-do-super-jupiters-look-like

Super-Jupiters have masses a dozen times that of Jupiter, but they are often illustrated as having a very Jupiter-like appearance. A new study finds that the classic banded-cloud look of Jupiter is very different from the look of the largest worlds.

[Star One]

Uranus and Neptune might be rock giants

The planets in the Solar System are typically divided into three categories based on their composition: the four terrestrial rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), followed by the two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and finally two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune).  According to the work carried by the UZH scientific team, Uranus and Neptune might actually be more rocky than icy. The new study does not claim the two blue planets to be one or the other type, water- or rock- rich, it rather challenges that ice-rich is the only possibility. This interpretation is also consistent with the discovery that the dwarf planet Pluto is rock-dominated in composition.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1109137

Astronomers find first direct evidence of “Monster Stars” from the cosmic dawn

For two decades, astronomers have puzzled over how supermassive black holes – some of the brightest objects in the universe – could exist less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Normal stars simply couldn't create such massive black holes quickly enough.

Now, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team has found the first compelling evidence that solves this cosmic mystery: “monster stars” weighing between 1,000 and 10,000 times the mass of our Sun existed in the early universe.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/110918

New research on flares from a hot-tempered star could inform the search for habitable planets

Like a toddler right before naptime, TRAPPIST-1 is a small yet moody star. This little star, which sits in the constellation Aquarius about 40 light-years from Earth, spits out bursts of energy known as “flares” about six times a day.

New research led by the University of Colorado Boulder takes the deepest look yet at the physics behind TRAPPIST-1’s celestial temper tantrums. The team’s findings could help scientists search for habitable planets beyond Earth’s solar system.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1108563

[Star One]

Astronomers capture close-up images of nova explosions on 2 dead stars in unprecedented detail

Two new stars, or nova eruptions, have been resolved in unprecedented detail by six optical telescopes operating in unison as an interferometer.

https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/astronomers-capture-close-up-images-of-nova-explosions-on-2-dead-stars-in-unprecedented-detail

Related paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02725-1

[JulesVerneATV]

Sun-watcher SOHO celebrates thirty years
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Sun_watcher_SOHO_celebrates_thirty_years_999.html

December 1995 the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) blasted into space - on what was supposed to be a two-year mission.

[Star One]

A spider-like scar haunts Jupiter's moon Europa — and scientists think they know why

A strange, spider-like scar on Jupiter's icy moon Europa may mark where salty water once surged up through its fractured crust.

https://www.space.com/astronomy/jupiter/spider-like-scar-on-europa-may-be-frozen-trace-of-salty-subsurface-water

[JulesVerneATV]

A strange, spider-like scar on Jupiter's icy moon Europa may mark where salty water once surged up through its fractured crust.

Alaska natural features

https://www.northlandscapes.com/portfolio/alaska-meltwater-pools
,
http://www.sitnews.us/1112News/110212/110212_ak_science.html
,
http://lakeice.squarespace.com/ice-stars/

[Star One]

Scott Manley - Can You Do Real Science With Backyard Telescopes?