TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 13, 2025
Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula
Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round? Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star featured here at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Watch Coverage of Ax-4 Crew Departure from the International Space Station
July 11, 2025
Axiom Space, NASA, and SpaceX will provide live, joint coverage of the hatch closure and undocking of the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) crew from the International Space Station as they begin their journey back to Earth.
Pending favorable weather conditions, the four-person international crew is scheduled to undock from the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module no earlier than Monday, July 14, at 7:05 a.m. ET.
The crew will begin their journey home aboard SpaceX Dragon “Grace,” with splashdown off the coast of California.
Mission teams will continue to closely monitor weather conditions at potential splashdown sites to ensure a safe and successful recovery of both the spacecraft and crew.
Coverage of the Ax-4 crew, Dragon’s re-entry, and splashdown will be available on axiom.space/live and SpaceX, beginning about an hour ahead of splashdown.
More details will be provided closer to undocking; you can find updates here.
The Ax-4 crewmembers, led by Commander Peggy Whitson of the U.S., includes Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, Mission Specialist Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
For each of these countries, this mission has realized the return to human spaceflight, with all three nations sending astronauts to space for the first time in more than 40 years.
Additionally, this marks the first time astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary have conducted a mission on board the International Space Station.
Ax-4 crew return coverage will include three separate segments—hatch closure, undocking, and splashdown. All segments will be available at axiom.space/live.
Hatch closure and undocking coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change):
MONDAY, JULY 14
4:30 a.m. ET – Coverage for hatch closure begins (axiom.space/live, NASA+)
4:55 a.m. ET – Final crew ingress followed by hatch closing
6:45 a.m. ET – Coverage resumes for undocking (axiom.space/live, NASA+, SpaceX)
7:05 a.m. ET – Undocking
https://www.axiomspace.com/mission-blog/ax4-departure-coverage
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-provide-coverage-of-axiom-mission-4-departure-from-station/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn_WnKyp1E0
Britain’s next war could begin in space, warns top military commander
13 July 2025 8:30am BST
Britain’s next war is “highly likely” to begin in space, a top military commander has said.
Major General Paul Tedman, head of UK Space Command (UKSC), said that the “space domain” will become increasingly important in the coming years, and called for more investment to protect the country from extraterrestrial threats.
Space is one of the fastest-growing areas of military development, and was dominated by Russia in the lead-up to its invasion of Ukraine, when the Kremlin hacked Ukrainian satellites.
Foreign powers now look to control the space above the air domain before launching fighter jets, and both the UK and US are developing weapons that could be used in space.
Maj Gen Tedman said Britain must be more wary of threats to its satellites, and invest more in a domestic space capability.
Asked by the political magazine The House whether the next war would begin in space, he said: “It’s highly likely.
You need to be able to control the space domain in order to secure the air domain, and that will provide you freedom of manoeuvre in the land and the maritime domain.
“Then if you agree with that assertion, then the logic would point to that you need to secure the space domain before you can do anything.”
He said that Sir Keir Starmer’s Government “does get it” and the space sector received significant investment in the recent Strategic Defence Review (SDR).
But he warned the UKSC has “a long way to go until we are at the mass and the spend that the other domains get in these big reviews that happen”.
The UKSC was founded in 2021, and is staffed by members of all three traditional services from an RAF base in High Wycombe, Bucks.
Air Marshal Allan Paul Marshall, the Ministry of Defence’s air and space commander, said in March that the UK would look to create a blend of space technology that combines UK-only resources, equipment procured with allies, and privately developed software and hardware from the civil defence sector.
“We can’t afford to have sovereign everywhere,” he said. “We need to work out where we have interoperability with allies and where we need to access other capabilities. I’m very happy to buy in services.”
Maj Gen Tedman said that the UK would look to plug any gaps in its defences first when allocating money from the SDR, including the ability to strike against hostile forces in space.
He added that there was a “space blindness” among the public that made it more difficult to make the case for his sector when speaking to voters.
“It’s challenging to bring enthusiasm to the British public about space and its importance,” he said.
“If you want to talk about investment into the Army, you can go and visit a tank. If you want investment into the air force, you can go and see a jet.
It’s really difficult for me to demonstrate how we would invest money and show the investment in space.”
The UK launched its first spy satellite, Tyche, last July from a SpaceX rocket in California.
The MoD is hoping to develop a series of satellites that will operate as a network, and give British forces intelligence and high-resolution imagery from around the world.
The UK also runs a military space sensor at RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire, which provides 24/7 missile warning and space surveillance to the British military.
The radar could detect an object the size of a bottle of water up to 3,000 miles into space.
However, the UK’s enemies are also developing their capabilities, and Russia reportedly placed a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in orbit last year.
The UN passed a resolution in 1963 banning the use of weapons of mass destruction in space, and 116 countries including Russia have signed the Outer Space Treaty, which bans nuclear missiles outside of the Earth’s orbit.
The treaty also commits countries to only use the Moon for peaceful purposes.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/13/britains-next-war-could-begin-space-top-military-commander/
>>23319044 LB
Israel’s most-advanced communications satellite successfully launched into space
July 13, 2025 8:20 am
Dror-1 communications satellite in an undated image (IAI)
Israel’s Dror-1 communications satellite has been successfully launched into space from Cape Canaveral.
The Israel Aerospace Industries satellite was taken into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 two-stage rocket. The first stage of the booster, which has now been used 13 times, landed back on earth on a platform at sea.
The second stage is currently pushing the satellite into space, and in a short while, the payload canopy will open.
The satellite will then open up its solar panels and dishes, and begin to maneuver into its permanent position. It should take some two weeks to reach the permanent position, after several orbits around earth.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israels-most-advanced-communications-satellite-successfully-launched-into-space/
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=commercial-gto-1
https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth-may-have-at-least-6-minimoons-at-any-given-time-where-do-they-come-from
Earth may have at least 6 'minimoons' at any given time. Where do they come from?
July 13, 2025
Half a dozen fragments of the moon may briefly orbit Earth at any given time, before moving on to circle the sun, new research suggests — but the minimoons' small size and quick pace make them challenging to spot.
When objects collide with the moon, they send up a shower of material, some of which manages to escape into space. Although there may be an occasional large chunk, most are fast-moving and smaller than 6.5 feet (2 meters) in diameter.
The bulk of the lunar material falls into orbit around the more gravitationally attractive sun.
But some of the debris may occasionally be pulled into an orbit around Earth before returning to circle the sun, researchers explained in a study published in the journal Icarus.
It's "kind of like a square dance, where partners change regularly and sometimes leave the dance floor for a while," Robert Jedicke, a researcher at the University of Hawaii and lead author of the study, told Space.com by email.
A piece of the moon
Although the International Astronomical Union doesn't have an official definition, previous research suggested that a minimoon could be an object that is at least temporarily bound to Earth, makes at least one revolution of the planet, and is closer than about four times the Earth-moon distance at some point in its orbit.
Minimoons can come from anywhere in the solar system, but a 2018 study suggested most come from the region of the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The recent appearance of minimoons from the moon, however, is calling that finding into question.
In 2016, the Pan-STARRS1 asteroid survey telescope in Hawaii spotted a 131- to 328-foot-wide (40 to 100 meters) near-Earth object identified as Kamo'oalewa, or "469219 Kamo'oalewa," orbiting the sun in sync with Earth.
Later studies revealed that Kamo'oalewa was a slice of the moon excavated between 1 million and 10 million years ago in the crash that formed the Giordano Bruno crater.
Earlier this year, astronomers announced that a second temporary terrestrial satellite appeared to have a lunar origin. Discovered last year, the object — called 2024 PT5 — looks more like the moon than an asteroid.
Together, these two objects suggest that the moon could be birthing its own tiny moons. So Jedicke and his colleagues decided to calculate just how many lunar minimoons might exist.
Relying on simulations of how particles blown from the moon might behave, they found that many of the particles blasted into space could be captured at least temporarily by Earth, and about a fifth of them were likely to become minimoons.
The new findings nominally predict that 6.5 lunar-born satellites may be circling Earth at a time. The individual objects are changeable; if they could be counted today, and then again in a year, some would be new objects.
A typical minimoon dances around Earth for an average of about nine months, Jedicke said, and these minimoons are constantly replenished from the material traveling in an Earth-like orbit.
1/2
But when it comes to nailing down the predicted number of minimoons, Jedicke cautioned that the uncertainty is "ginormous — many orders of magnitude."
That's due to many unknowns, including the size of a crater formed by an impact and the size and speed distribution of the ejected material.
"If there were that many [temporarily bound objects], the telescopic surveys would probably detect more of them," Jedicke said. "So the nominal prediction is almost certainly wrong. That's science."
Because science builds on new information, identifications of more lunar minimoons and a better understanding of their size distribution will help to refine that prediction and provide new insight into the crater formation process.
Small objects, big challenges
Due to their size, the tiny, temporary moons are challenging to spot. The problem relates to both their size and their speed.
With most of the fragments ranging from 3 to 7 feet (1 to 2 m) in diameter, even the most seasoned instruments can struggle to detect them. Jedicke compares them to a car or an SUV.
"Detecting objects in that size range means they have to be close so they are bright, but if they are close, it means they also appear to be moving quickly across the sky," Jedicke said.
"It is incredible that modern telescopic surveys have the ability to detect such small objects up to millions of kilometers away."
In massive sky surveys, computers usually work to pull out motion. When minimoons are close enough to be seen, their rapid motion may leave trails, rather than spots, on images of the sky.
"Trails are more difficult for computer algorithms to identify," Jedicke said.
But all is not lost. The new research suggests that 2020 CD3 was visible to the Catalina Sky Survey on only two of the roughly 1,000 nights the object was in range.
The successful detection bodes well for future observations. Once the objects have been identified, tracking becomes easier because astronomers know where and when to look for the minimoons.
These brief visitors could also have intriguing commercial applications, since they would require the least amount of fuel to visit, Jedicke said.
Instead of flying to the asteroid belt to extract water, minerals and other commercially desirable elements, companies could find ways to snag the transients as they briefly orbit Earth.
From a scientific perspective, minimoons and their kin "may help reveal how the solar system formed and continues to evolve," Jedicke said.
Understanding how lunar debris was flung off of the moon during an impact can help researchers better understand and estimate damage due to asteroid impacts on Earth.
2/2
Feast your eyes on the shortlisted pics for the 2025 ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards
July 13, 2025
Behold! The 2025 ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards shortlist has been released, showcasing a spectacular array of astrophotography images ranging from solar prominences and auroras to distant galaxies and beguiling nebulas.
For the past 17 years, the Royal Observatory Greenwich — supported by astronomy camera maker ZWO — has called on the global photography community to compete in an open competition celebrating the majesty and variety of our night sky.
The 2025 competition saw photographers from 69 countries submit over 5,500 entries to compete in a plethora of diverse categories to gain recognition and, naturally, prize money.
The overall winner of the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the year will bag a £10,000 (about $13,560 U.S.) grand prize, while the photographers who come out on top in each individual category receive £1,500 (about $2,030 U.S.) for their valiant efforts.
"At ZWO, we believe that astrophotography is not only a way to record the cosmos, but also a way to inspire curiosity, foster education and build communities that transcend borders," said ZWO founder Sam Wen in a press release revealing the shortlisted images. "Everyone deserves a chance to connect with the universe — and through our support, we hope to bring that experience to more people."
The winners of each category will be announced in an awards ceremony in September later this year, with the victorious entries — and select runners-up — later being exhibited at the National Maritime Museum in London.
Read on to see the spectacular images shortlisted for the 2025 ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the year awards!
cont.
https://www.space.com/stargazing/feast-your-eyes-on-the-shortlisted-pics-for-the-2025-zwo-astronomy-photographer-of-the-year-awards-photos
https://www.space.com/astronomy/experts-ask-where-the-center-of-the-universe-is
https://theconversation.com/where-is-the-center-of-the-universe-252695
Experts ask where the center of the universe is
July 13, 2025
About a century ago, scientists were struggling to reconcile what seemed a contradiction in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
Published in 1915, and already widely accepted worldwide by physicists and mathematicians, the theory assumed the universe was static – unchanging, unmoving and immutable.
In short, Einstein believed the size and shape of the universe today was, more or less, the same size and shape it had always been.
But when astronomers looked into the night sky at faraway galaxies with powerful telescopes, they saw hints the universe was anything but that. These new observations suggested the opposite – that it was, instead, expanding.
Scientists soon realized Einstein's theory didn't actually say the universe had to be static; the theory could support an expanding universe as well.
Indeed, by using the same mathematical tools provided by Einstein's theory, scientists created new models that showed the universe was, in fact, dynamic and evolving.
I've spent decades trying to understand general relativity, including in my current job as a physics professor teaching courses on the subject.
I know wrapping your head around the idea of an ever-expanding universe can feel daunting – and part of the challenge is overriding your natural intuition about how things work.
For instance, it's hard to imagine something as big as the universe not having a center at all, but physics says that's the reality.
The space between galaxies
First, let's define what's meant by "expansion." On Earth, "expanding" means something is getting bigger. And in regard to the universe, that's true, sort of.
Expansion might also mean "everything is getting farther from us," which is also true with regard to the universe. Point a telescope at distant galaxies and they all do appear to be moving away from us.
What's more, the farther away they are, the faster they appear to be moving. Those galaxies also seem to be moving away from each other. So it's more accurate to say that everything in the universe is getting farther away from everything else, all at once.
This idea is subtle but critical. It's easy to think about the creation of the universe like exploding fireworks: Start with a big bang, and then all the galaxies in the universe fly out in all directions from some central point.
But that analogy isn't correct. Not only does it falsely imply that the expansion of the universe started from a single spot, which it didn't, but it also suggests that the galaxies are the things that are moving, which isn't entirely accurate.
It’s not so much the galaxies that are moving away from each other – it's the space between galaxies, the fabric of the universe itself, that’s ever-expanding as time goes on.
In other words, it's not really the galaxies themselves that are moving through the universe; it's more that the universe itself is carrying them farther away as it expands.
A common analogy is to imagine sticking some dots on the surface of a balloon. As you blow air into the balloon, it expands. Because the dots are stuck on the surface of the balloon, they get farther apart.
Though they may appear to move, the dots actually stay exactly where you put them, and the distance between them gets bigger simply by virtue of the balloon’s expansion.
Now think of the dots as galaxies and the balloon as the fabric of the universe, and you begin to get the picture.
Unfortunately, while this analogy is a good start, it doesn’t get the details quite right either.
1/2
The 4th dimension
Important to any analogy is an understanding of its limitations. Some flaws are obvious: A balloon is small enough to fit in your hand – not so the universe. Another flaw is more subtle. The balloon has two parts: its latex surface and its air-filled interior.
These two parts of the balloon are described differently in the language of mathematics. The balloon's surface is two-dimensional. If you were walking around on it, you could move forward, backward, left, or right, but you couldn’t move up or down without leaving the surface.
Now it might sound like we're naming four directions here – forward, backward, left and right – but those are just movements along two basic paths: side to side and front to back. That’s what makes the surface two-dimensional – length and width.
The inside of the balloon, on the other hand, is three-dimensional, so you’d be able to move freely in any direction, including up or down – length, width and height.
This is where the confusion lies. The thing we think of as the "center" of the balloon is a point somewhere in its interior, in the air-filled space beneath the surface.
But in this analogy, the universe is more like the latex surface of the balloon. The balloon’s air-filled interior has no counterpart in our universe, so we can’t use that part of the analogy – only the surface matters.
So asking, "Where's the center of the universe?" is somewhat like asking, "Where's the center of the balloon's surface?”
There simply isn’t one. You could travel along the surface of the balloon in any direction, for as long as you like, and you'd never once reach a place you could call its center because you’d never actually leave the surface.
In the same way, you could travel in any direction in the universe and would never find its center because, much like the surface of the balloon, it simply doesn’t have one.
Part of the reason this can be so challenging to comprehend is because of the way the universe is described in the language of mathematics.
The surface of the balloon has two dimensions, and the balloon’s interior has three, but the universe exists in four dimensions. Because it’s not just about how things move in space, but how they move in time.
Our brains are wired to think about space and time separately. But in the universe, they’re interwoven into a single fabric, called “space-time.” That unification changes the way the universe works relative to what our intuition expects.
And this explanation doesn’t even begin to answer the question of how something can be expanding indefinitely – scientists are still trying to puzzle out what powers this expansion.
So in asking about the center of the universe, we’re confronting the limits of our intuition. The answer we find – everything, expanding everywhere, all at once – is a glimpse of just how strange and beautiful our universe is.
2/2
'Pebble' beaches around young stars join together to form planets
July 13, 2025
A key method of forming planets finally has observational evidence, thanks to a network of radio telescopes in the U.K. that have resolved the existence of a huge abundance of centimeter-sized pebbles that will stick together and grow into planets around two young stars.
"This is potentially enough to build planetary systems larger than our own solar system," said Katie Hesterly of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Observatory, the headquarters of which is based at Jodrell Bank radio observatory in the U.K., in a statement.
The Taurus Molecular Cloud is one of the closest star-forming regions to us, some 430 light-years away.
Around many of the baby stars, which are bursting out of the molecular cloud as their ultraviolet radiation cuts through the gas, are protoplanetary disks.
These are disks of gas and dust from which planets condense.
Exactly how planets form is still an area of ongoing research. One popular model that can help explain the existence of gas giants is that of pebble accretion.
This posits that dust in the disk congeals and condenses into centimeter-sized pebbles that then rapidly accumulate, accreting to form large rocky super-Earth-sized bodies that are massive enough to wield sufficient gravity to pull in lots of gas from the disk.
However, there have been problems with this model. Some simulations struggle to get the pebbles to accrete to one another rather than smashing apart when they collide. It's also not clear what role they play in the formation of smaller planets.
And until now, while millimeter-scale dust particles have been detected in protoplanetary discs at submillimeter wavelengths by ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, centimeter-scale pebbles had not.
Enter e-MERLIN, a radio interferometer connecting seven radio telescopes in the U.K. with a super-fast optical-fiber network centered on the Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire.
Cold, centimeter-scale pebbles in protoplanetary disks radiate at radio wavelengths of about 4 centimeters (1.6 inches), which e-MERLIN is able to resolve.
Targeting two stars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud — DG Tau and HL Tau — e-MERLIN detected centimeter-sized pebbles throughout their protoplanetary disks.
"These observations show that disks [such as] DG Tau and HL Tau already contain reservoirs of planet-forming pebbles out to at least Neptune-like orbits," said Hesterly.
The findings were made as part of PEBBLeS, the Planet Earth Building Blocks – a Legacy eMERLIN Survey led by Jane Greaves of the University of Cardiff.
"Through these observations, we're now able to investigate where solid material gathers in these disks, providing insight into one of the earliest stages of planet formation," said Greaves.
Spotting these pebbles isn't easy.
Not only do you need a radio observatory that can observe at wavelengths down to just 4 cm, as e-MERLIN can, but once the pebbles form then according to theory they should rapidly start to stick together and build planetary cores.
"As the grains clump together to make planets, the surface area of a given mass gets smaller and harder to see," said Jodrell Bank's Anita Richards.
Although Hesterly said that e-MERLIN "is showing what's possible," once operational the SKA will be able to resolve what's happening in these protoplanetary disks in much greater detail.
"The SKA telescope will take it further," said Hesterley. "When science verification with the SKA-Mid telescope begins in 2031, we'll be ready to study hundreds of planetary systems to help understand how planets are formed."
Hesterley presented the results at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting, which is running from July 7 to July 11.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/pebble-beaches-around-young-stars-join-together-to-form-planets
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/birth-solar-system-revealed-planet-pebbles
Space Needle Official Addresses Crack in Glass Floor with Wild Football Analogy to Prove the Strength of the Glass
July 12, 2025 07:00AM EDT
The 605-foot-tall Space Needle is still “absolutely safe to visit” despite a video revealing a crack in the Seattle attraction’s glass floor.
Addressing a visitor’s July 1 Instagram video showing the crack on the observation deck, a Space Needle official told PEOPLE that the crack is on a top layer similar to a screen protector on a phone.
“The viral video circulating is old footage that shows a crack in the scuff plate on our glass floor, The Loupe. Scuff plate is like a screen protector on your cellphone,” says Genny Boots, Space Needle’s PR manager.
“It’s a non-load-bearing, aesthetic protective layer that is meant to scuff, scratch, and even sometimes crack, all while keeping the 10 layers of structural glass clear for a breathtaking view 500-feet down,” Boots adds.
“We replace the scuff plate about twice a year.”
The official compared the strength of the glass to the city’s football team.
“Our glass floor is so strong, you could invite the entire Seattle Seahawks’ defense — and all of the offenses they would face in the course of a season — to take a group photo on the glass floor without breaking a sweat,” Boots explains of the Space Needle, which opened in 1962.
The Space Needle was built in 400 days and cost $4.5 million to build.
Safety of the structure is paramount.
“Our technicians and engineers check the building every day for safety, and our team of glasskeepers maintain all 176 tons of glass at the Space Needle so our guests enjoy the 360-degree views of downtown Seattle, Mount Rainier and the Puget Sound,” she explains.
The red aircraft warning beacon at the top is 605 feet off the ground, and there are 848 stairs from the ground to the observation deck.
In May, as part of a years-long modernization project, the Space Needle launched Skyliner, a new floor-to-ceiling glass, double-deck outdoor elevator. Two more elevators will be modernized in 2027 and 2028.
“Construction like this at the Space Needle is like assembling a rocket in the sky,” Karen Olson, Space Needle’s chief operating officer, said in a statement at the time.
“We are doing work on the Space Needle that has never been done before, at 500 feet in the air.”
https://people.com/space-needle-crack-glass-floor-absolutely-safe-11770526
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLlACacBKBj/
https://news.arizona.edu/news/emissary-interstellar-space
An emissary from interstellar space
July 12, 2025
A recently discovered extraterrestrial "visitor" is hurtling toward the inner solar system at 130,000 miles per hour and has quickly captured the attention of astronomers and space enthusiasts around the world, including here at the University of Arizona.
Dubbed 3I/ATLAS, it is only the third object known to have crossed into the solar system from interstellar space. Carson Fuls is director of the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded project at the university's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
University of Arizona News spoke with Fuls to learn more about the mysterious object traversing our solar system on its journey through interstellar space.
What is special about interstellar objects such as 3I/ATLAS visiting our solar system?
Zoom out and consider that our sun, every planet, asteroid, comet, even every shooting star that you've ever seen, was formed all together as part of our solar system.
This object came from an entirely different solar system. We have no idea which one, or how long this thing has been traveling through the void, but it is an actual piece of another star system.
The nearest star is four light years away, so 3I/ATLAS has traveled light-years to get here. It's early, and we're still gathering data about it, but this object looks a lot like the comets from our solar system.
This is exciting because if other star systems resemble our own, then perhaps there are Earth-like planets out there as well. For now, we don't really know.
What do we know about 3I/ATLAS? What might it look like?
The latest observations show this object has a coma (cloud of gas), so it is a comet. This is expected, as comets are thought to be routinely whipped out of their star systems by close approaches to planets.
Right now, 3I/ATLAS is estimated to be about 4.5 kilometers [2.8 miles] in diameter, although this is difficult to estimate because a comet's nucleus is obscured by the cloud of gas and dust around it.
The shape is incredibly hard to determine right now, as we would need to peer underneath the coma. We may be able to get a better idea once the comet heads out and stops sublimating vapor, but for now, it's a mystery.
Is 3I/ATLAS visible to amateur observers, or will it be at some point?
While this object will never be visible to the naked eye, it will be fairly bright this fall and visible to an average backyard telescope, most likely around Nov. 1.
1/2
How do we know 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar visitor and not just a comet of our own?
We know because of how fast this object travels. The rest of our solar system is trapped in a dance around the sun. Most comets that we discover head into the inner solar system and then back out to the outer solar system.
Even if they get a little kick by passing by Jupiter on their way out and leave forever, they are not traveling that fast. This object is cruising.
There is no possible way that our sun could pull it back into an orbit, and there is no way it ever was. It's not even close. It is simply traveling too fast to be a part of our solar system.
Are interstellar objects fundamentally different from solar system dwellers?
Not that we know of. So far, this object would appear to just be another comet discovery if it wasn't for its hyperbolic orbit.
What is known about the origin of this object? Is there a location in nearby space that is more likely to be their place of origin than others?
All we can do is guess at how common visitors like this are to our solar system. This one came from the direction of the galactic center, which makes sense, as it harbors a higher density of stars, but these objects could really come from any direction.
This does show that we are getting better at discovering the small bodies in our solar system. With the new generation of surveys coming online, we expect the pace of these types of discoveries to pick up, but by how much, we can only guess.
How is the Catalina Sky Center involved in observing 3I/ATLAS?
As a planetary defense program, we got to work observing this object to see if it was coming close to Earth or not. Once it was determined that this object poses no threat to Earth, we moved on to observing other targets.
While we are all excited by the prospect of a new interstellar visitor, we are laser-focused on our mission of discovering and tracking NEOs (near-Earth objects), so our work with 3I/ATLAS ended.
Do interstellar objects hold clues about the universe that we could not figure out otherwise?
Absolutely! Either way, we learn something. If we find an object with a composition that does not match the comets of our solar system, our models of solar system formation must account for that possibility in other star systems.
However, at this point, this object does match what our comets look like, which means that we have evidence for a common formation mechanism of comets around other stars. Both are exciting!
2/2
Dozens arrested after UK brands Palestine Action a ‘terror group’
13 Jul, 2025 04:44
More than 70 people were arrested across the UK on Saturday on suspicion of supporting the activist group Palestine Action, which was recently designated a terrorist organization.
The Metropolitan Police said 41 people were arrested in London, where protesters gathered in Parliament Square to demonstrate against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Some held signs reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” Arrests were also made in Manchester, Cardiff, and Leeds.
It has been illegal to be a member of Palestine Action or to show support for the group since Saturday, when the new designation came into effect.
On Friday, the High Court rejected an attempt by the group’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, to suspend the ban. Ammori’s lawyer, Raza Husain, called the decision “an ill-considered, discriminatory and authoritarian abuse of statutory power.”
Parliament voted to crack down on the pro-Palestinian group after its activists broke into the Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton in central England in June and sprayed red paint on two military planes used for refueling and transport.
The activists claimed at the time that the aircraft supported surveillance flights “in support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military operation in response to the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
https://www.rt.com/news/621401-uk-arrests-action-palestine/