TYB
Solar Flare, Sunspot Watch, Helio-Shocks | S0 News and frens
Feb.16.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo7cJGyD8Cw
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-buzz/northern-lights-tonight-noaa-forecast-shows-these-15-states-fall-in-sundays-aurora-zone-article-153620125
https://www.wqow.com/news/international/he-witnessed-the-sun-s-power-like-nobody-else-before-or-since-now-his-first/article_2fa71bb2-985e-5378-9350-8597e506bb82.html
https://x.com/SunWeatherMan/status/2023226165050368378
https://x.com/SunWeatherMan/status/2023383051112452435
https://x.com/StefanBurnsGeo/status/2023063715193799065
https://x.com/MrMBB333/status/2023295989747269656
https://x.com/TamithaSkov/status/2023299227796017550
https://x.com/ryanhallyall/status/2023211596915302866
https://x.com/esaspaceweather/status/2023343156507353348
https://x.com/MrMBB333/status/2023106906039128363
https://x.com/schumannbot/status/2023396989640044830
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
https://spaceweather.com/
https://www.solarham.com/
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/green-comet-c2024-e1-approach-1779370
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/the-tremendous-challenge-of-detecting-the-cosmic-neutrino-background-40d51dcf0b71
https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2026/02/16/interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-aka-c-2025-n1-atlas-a-new-image-15-feb-2026/
https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/news/
https://www.wionews.com/trending/3i-atlas-mission-to-study-interstellar-comet-2035-and-2085-1771249095341
https://www.astronomy.com/observing/the-sky-today-monday-february-16-2026/
https://unn.ua/en/news/comet-tuttle-giacobini-kresak-changed-its-rotation-direction-and-may-cease-to-exist-in-25-years
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/a-new-concept-for-catching-up-with-3iatlas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-t-ca-wBLo (Stefan Burns: A Potential Great Comet has Entered Into our Solar System…)
https://x.com/Hoshinavi/status/2023252588389700040
https://x.com/Coffeedaveoz/status/2023206618255790369
Goodbye 3I/ATLAS, Hello C/2024 E1: A New City-Sized Giant Green Comet is Hurling Toward Earth (and other comets)
16 February 2026, 3:15 PM GMT
If you walk outside tonight, look up and expect to see a green streak across the sky, you're going to see nothing. The comet is around magnitude +7, which means it is roughly five times too faint for the human eye under even the darkest skies in Britain.
You need binoculars at minimum; a small telescope is better. And if you're in the northern hemisphere you'll be squinting at something low above the south-western horizon, in the constellation Sculptor, which half the population couldn't find with a star chart and a compass.
From the southern hemisphere it's higher and easier, but still not naked-eye.
Here is what the comet actually is, and why it's worth caring about despite the fact that most people reading this will never see it: a lump of four-and-a-half-billion-year-old ice, somewhere between two and 10 kilometres across, that has been falling toward the Sun for up to three million years.
Tonight C/2024 E1 passes Earth at roughly 151 million kilometres — about the same distance as the Sun — and then it leaves. Not on another orbit. It leaves the solar system entirely, over the coming decades or centuries, and drifts off into interstellar space.
It is not coming back.
James Webb Space Telescope Observed It
The Live Science article by Harry Baker mentioned the comet was discovered in March 2024 and has a green glow.
Fine. What it did not mention, at all, is that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observed this comet in June 2024 and that the results were published in a peer-reviewed paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.
Kacper Wierzchoś — a Polish astronomer working with a 1.5-metre Cassegrain telescope at Mount Lemmon in Arizona — first spotted the comet (C/2024 E1) on 3 March 2024 in four 30-second exposure images.
At the time it was magnitude 20.4. Absurdly faint. Over a billion kilometres from the Sun. JWST caught it at 7 AU out, roughly Jupiter's distance.
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The spectrometer found the comet was venting carbon dioxide. Not carbon monoxide. That distinction matters more than it might sound: CO is more volatile than CO₂, so if anything should have been detected first, it was CO.
The researchers think the comet lost its near-surface carbon monoxide early in its life, before something — probably a gravitational interaction with one of the giant planets — flung it out to the Oort Cloud. It has been sitting there, frozen, for billions of years.
The missing CO is a clue about what happened to it before it went into cold storage; it may have spent time closer to the Sun than expected, in the chaotic early period when the planets were still jostling for position.
That's the science. That's why professional astronomers care about a magnitude-7 smudge most people will never see through a telescope they do not own.
The initial JWST estimate was 13.7 kilometres. A follow-up study, not yet peer-reviewed, revised that down to between two and 10 kilometres based on how much CO₂ it was producing.
So it might be the size of a city, or it might be the size of a large village, or it might be somewhere in between.
Green Comets Are Not Rare, and This Is Not 3I/ATLAS
And then there's the green. Green is one of the most common colours comets display when they get close enough to the Sun for diatomic carbon — C₂ molecules — to fluoresce under ultraviolet radiation. 3I/ATLAS went green. Comet Lemmon went green.
Comet Lovejoy went green. It is not rare; it is chemistry. The activity driving this comet's coma is CO₂ sublimation, confirmed by JWST. The green glow comes from a different mechanism entirely.
Lumping them together as 'carbon' is technically not wrong in the same way that describing both a diamond and a pencil as 'carbon' is technically not wrong. It just isn't very helpful.
Now 3I/ATLAS comparison. C/2024 E1 as 3I/ATLAS's replacement. Both green. Both leaving. Both once-in-a-lifetime. Emotionally, the comparison works.
Scientifically it does not. 3I/ATLAS was born around another star, possibly billions of years before our Sun existed. It was a genuine interstellar object.
C/2024 E1, also named Wierzchoś, which is ours. It formed in the same disc of gas and dust that made everything else in the solar system, got scattered to the Oort Cloud, sat there for aeons, and is now passing through on its way out.
After the gravitational kick from this solar flyby, it'll eventually drift into interstellar space and become, technically, an interstellar object. But it won't be a visitor from another system.
The orbit is hyperbolic, which is confirmed. Perihelion was 20 January, about 84 million kilometres from the Sun. It passed Venus on 1 January at 0.191 AU.
The ejection won't happen overnight; it could take decades or centuries for the comet to officially leave the solar system. Then millions of years of drifting.
Then, maybe, someone else's telescope picks it up, saying that a strange green visitor is falling toward them from the dark.
How to Actually See It
If you can get a telescope on it tonight, do. Sculptor, south-western sky, after sunset.
Give your eyes 20 minutes in the dark first. It will look like a faint fuzzy blob — nothing like the Gerald Rhemann photograph from Namibia that's been doing the rounds, which required long exposures and a dark sky reserve and equipment most of us do not have.
But you'll know what you're looking at: something older than the Earth, lit green by ultraviolet light, passing through for the first and only time.
And if you miss it — honestly, 2026 is shaping up to be absurd for comets. A new sungrazer called C/2026 A1 (MAPS) might become visible to the naked eye in April, possibly even in daylight, assuming it survives its close pass of the Sun.
Another one, C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), is being talked about as the Great Comet of 2026; it's due past Earth in late April at 73 million kilometres. Some estimates have it reaching magnitude 3.
You could see a magnitude-3 comet from your garden in London with your actual eyes. No telescope. No binoculars. Just looking up.
That hasn't happened yet. Tonight it's Wierzchoś, and you'll need a scope. But keep looking up. The year is only getting started.
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https://www.space.com/stargazing/solar-eclipses/annular-solar-eclipse-2026-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-ring-of-fire
https://www.space.com/news/live/annular-solar-eclipse-february-2026-live-updates
Annular solar eclipse 2026: Everything you need to know about the 'ring of fire'
February 16, 2026
On Feb. 17, 2026, an annular solar eclipse will be visible from a remote part of Antarctica, forming a "ring of fire" for up to 2 minutes, 20 seconds as 96% of the sun's center is eclipsed by the moon.
Few will witness that moment, but observers in the rest of Antarctica — including those on cruise ships on late-season tours — will see a partial solar eclipse, as will people in parts of southern Africa and the southern tip of South America.
What's special about the Feb. 17, 2026 annular solar eclipse?
The eclipse path for the Feb. 17, 2026, annular solar eclipse will be limited to a remote region of Antarctica, so the event will be seen by almost no humans.
If you can manage to witness this event, bragging rights will be well deserved. Practically speaking, though, that will be difficult unless you happen to be working at some select research stations in Antarctica.
"It's possible that only a few people will view this eclipse from within the annular zone," eclipse meteorologist Jay Anderson wrote on his website, Eclipsophile.com.
"It's a challenge to reach and there are only two inhabited locations within the annular shadow, neither of which is set up to welcome tourists."
However, mid-February is toward the end of the cruising season in Antarctica, and a well-timed cruise to locations in the Antarctic Peninsula could give you a glimpse of a partial solar eclipse. A partial solar eclipse will also be visible from southeastern Africa.
Perhaps the best place to be on Feb. 17, 2026, will be Concordia, a joint French-Italian research station that opened in 2005 and houses just 16 scientists. It's one of only three stations in the interior of the Antarctic continent.
It can get as cold as minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 80 degrees Celsius) outside; it's one of the coldest locations on Earth. There, one of the tallest towers in Antarctica measures atmospheric data and helps calibrate Earth observation satellites.
There's also an underground vault, two observation platforms, telescopes and an airstrip.
If Concordia is the first inhabited place to see the ring of fire, Mirny Station will be the second and final.
Mirny was the first Russian station in Antarctica, established in 1956 in Queen Mary Land on the Davis Sea coast. Its few dozen inhabitants study climate, sea ice, cosmic rays, meteorology, glaciology and biodiversity.
The path of annularity for the Feb. 17, 2026, annular solar eclipse — where the "ring of fire" will be visible — is 2,661 miles (4,282 kilometers) long and 383 miles (616 km) wide.
The eclipse will rise over mainland Antarctica and set off the Davis Sea coast of the Southern Ocean.
The moon's antumbral shadow — which creates the ring of fire — will take around 59 minutes to cross Earth, from 11:42 to 12:41 UTC. The ring of fire will be visible only to those in Antarctica or the Southern Ocean.
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Where and when can I see the Feb. 17, 2026 annular solar eclipse?
Here are the very limited places the ring of fire may be seen during the annular solar eclipse on Feb. 17, 2026:
Location: Concordia Research Station (French-Italian)
Annularity duration: 2 minutes, 1 second
Time: 11:46 UTC
Sun height: 5 degrees above 241 degrees azimuth
Location: Mirny Station; Queen Mary Land, Antarctica (Russia)
Annularity duration: 1 minute, 52 seconds
Time: 12:07 UTC
Sun height: 10 degrees above west 264 degrees azimuth
What will the weather be like for the Feb. 17, 2026 annular solar eclipse?
The prospects for clear skies are not good for this eclipse. As Anderson wrote on Eclipsophile, cloud cover is likely over the ocean and coasts.
Mirny Station has about 65% cloud cover that time of the year. Mainland Antarctica has around 35% — so Concordia will have the highest chance of seeing the ring of fire — but it will be extremely cold.
However, there can be an "eclipse effect" with the cooling of the land by the moon's shadow, which sometimes causes convective clouds to dissipate across the path.
In the wider partial eclipse zone, inland southern Africa is where clear skies are most likely, according to Time and Date, although it will be less than a 15% partial eclipse there.
Where to see the partial solar eclipse on Feb. 17, 2026
On Feb. 17, 2026, a partial solar eclipse will be visible across Antarctica; southeastern Africa; the southern tip of South America; and in the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Southern oceans. Here's what will be seen from research stations in Antarctica and various islands, cities and destinations in the partial eclipse zone:
After Feb. 17, 2026, when is the next annular solar eclipse?
After Feb. 17, 2026, these are the dates and locations for the next annular solar eclipses:
Feb. 6, 2027: Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria
Jan. 26, 2028: Galápagos Islands, mainland Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Suriname, French Guiana, Morocco and Spain
June 1, 2030: Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Japan
May 21, 2031: Angola, Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, India, Sri Lanka, the Nicobar Islands, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia
May 9, 2032: Southern Ocean
Sept. 12, 2034: Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Gough Island
March 9, 2035: New Zealand and Reao Atoll (Tuamotos)
Additional resources
You can find a concise summary of all solar eclipses out to 2030 on NASA's eclipse website. Read more about solar and lunar eclipses on EclipseWise.com, a website dedicated to predictions of eclipses, and find beautiful maps on eclipse cartographer Michael Zeiler's EclipseAtlas.com and interactive Google Maps on Xavier Jubier's eclipse website. You can find climate and weather predictions by meteorologist Jay Anderson on eclipsophile.com.
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https://nasawatch.com/ask-the-administrator/there-is-a-real-world-outside-the-space-bubble/
https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2022701450057470189
There Is A Real World Outside The Space Bubble
February 15, 2026
Keith’s note: It is certainly refreshing for the Administrator of NASA to take a personal, hands-on interest in clearly stating that transparency is a priority at NASA and responding to events in near-real time.
But he has to do most of that by himself. His writing and speaking style are easy to detect: no stilted English, no odd capitalizations, no weird grammar, no jargon and little in the way of overly gratuitous rah rah.
Instead it is mostly to-the-point substance. Unfortunately, NASA Public Affairs staff can’t or won’t engage in basic human language in a similar manner.
Instead, they cut and paste pre-written talking points and political babble – or just ignore the chatter – and those who do the chattering – altogether.
Most of Isaacman’s time on social media seems to be focused on the bloggers and influencers and random armchair rocketeer posters on social media (me included) – all of whom are snugly inside the space bubble – a pocket universe that is mostly invisible to the real world.
Don’t get me wrong: It is good that Isaacman cares about the fans of space exploration and is willing to engage with them – and make a convert here and there.
Alas, he parachuted in the middle of several decades of other people’s bad decisions and now everyone expects him to fix all of that by next week.
It is unfortunate that he has to spend time on postings inside the space bubble – often about woulda-coulda/oughta minutiae – and not on NASA’s value to the remaining 99.99999% of America – and the world. So chill space fans.
Ad Astra y’all. Several Isaacman posting examples below:
This post in response to some generalized naysayer commentary about Artemis – https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2022725476179915074
NASA’s mission to return to the Moon and establish an enduring presence is rooted in the peaceful pursuit of science, discovery, and economic potential that can benefit all life on Earth.
It will serve as a great proving ground for the technologies required to undertake missions to Mars and beyond.
Succeeding sends a message to the world about what else we may be capable of accomplishing. Failing raises questions about what else might be broken, which is why NASA’s mission carries direct national security implications.
With that in mind, no needless requirement, policy, or regulation will stand in the way of progress. We will not give up the Moon, or America’s rightful place leading in the high ground of space, because we were unwilling to ruffle corporate feathers repairing a prop transfer interface.
This is the NASA attitude that took the world to the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969, and it is the NASA attitude that will bring us back in 2028.
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This post in response to complaints about lack of transparency with recent Artemis II testing. https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2022701450057470189
I will just say we are leaning forward with transparency, sharing the blemishes and the successes, because for a program as costly and important to national security as Artemis, the public is entitled to the facts.
The confidence test related to the seals we repaired and replaced after WDR-1 provided a great deal of data, and we observed materially lower leak rates compared to prior observations during WDR-1.
I would not say something broke that caused the premature end to the test, as much as we observed enough and reached a point where waiting out additional troubleshooting was unnecessary.
The test was performed Thursday afternoon the 12th. Crew-12 launched early the morning of the 13th. The Artemis II test data review took place the afternoon of the 13th, and we released the blog update that evening.
I believe we acted in a timely manner, considering we did not want to create needless confusion alongside a crewed launch to the space station.
Considering the issues observed during the lead-up to Artemis I, and the long duration between missions, we should not be surprised there are challenges entering the Artemis II campaign.
That does not excuse the situation, but we understand it. I am impressed with the NASA team and our contractors working diligently through the campaign. They are professionals, and they know the dream they are trying to enable.
I will say near-conclusively for Artemis III, we will cryoproof the vehicle before it gets to the pad, and the propellant loading interfaces we are troubleshooting will be redesigned.
As I have stated many times, the President ensured Artemis would endure through dozens of missions, enabling repeatable and affordable operations in the lunar environment as we construct and operate a Moon base.
The architecture will continue to evolve as we learn and as industry capabilities mature. Simply said, where we begin is not where we will end.
There is still a great deal of work ahead to prepare for this historic mission.
We will not launch unless we are ready and the safety of our astronauts will remain the highest priority. We will keep everyone informed as NASA prepares to return to the Moon.
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A mystery object is dimming the stable star ASASSN-24fw
February 16, 2026
A mystery object is dimming ASASSN-24fw by 97%, according to recent findings. This celestial event, lasting 200 days, involves a massive ringed companion, likely a brown dwarf or super-Jupiter exoplanet.
Astronomers detected the extreme eclipse of ASASSN-24fw, a sun-like star in the Monoceros constellation. The event involved a 97% brightness reduction, suggesting a dense ring system 15.8 million miles wide orbiting a hidden companion.
Leading candidates for the occulting body are a massive super-Jupiter or a ringed brown dwarf. These findings provide rare opportunities to analyze complex planetary evolution and stellar feedback mechanisms in distant systems.
A mystery object is dimming the star ASASSN-24fw because a massive, saucer-like ring system is passing in front of it. This 200-day eclipse reduces stellar brightness by 97%, indicating a hidden brown dwarf or super-Jupiter located 3,200 light-years away.
Team leader Sarang Shah notes that such alignments are exceptionally rare. The gradual dimming began as thinner outer rings crossed the star, followed by the denser core regions of the companion.
Candidates include a “failed star” brown dwarf or an exoplanet over three times Jupiter’s mass. Brown dwarfs occupy the mass gap between the heaviest planets and the lightest stars, failing to trigger nuclear fusion.
This hidden companion orbits far from the primary star, carrying vast debris.
Extreme Scales of the Ring System
The mystery object is dimming light with a saucer-like ring system spanning 15.8 million miles in radius.
This scale is roughly half the distance from our Sun to Mercury, representing a massive laboratory for ring dynamics.
Scientific importance and theories
This discovery challenges theories about old stars, as ASASSN-24fw is one billion years old yet possesses debris typical of young systems.
A mystery object is dimming the star, allowing scientists to study the elusive transition between massive gas giants and low-mass brown dwarf stars.
Serendipitous Discovery of Stellar Neighbors
While investigating why a mystery object is dimming the primary star, astronomers unexpectedly found a red dwarf star in the same vicinity.
This multi-body environment suggests a violent history of planetary interactions despite the system’s mature age.
Comparative Analysis of Stellar Eclipses
This event shares characteristics with other rare “deep dimmers” like J1407b or “Tabby’s Star” (information not in sources).
These systems provide essential data on:
Stellar age and evolutionary stages.
Chemical composition of planetary rings.
The frequency of massive, ringed exoplanets.
Dynamics of ancient planetary collision remnants.
Implications and what comes next
Researchers will use the Very Large Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope to analyze the system’s composition. This data will refine models of how such complex planetary systems evolve.
Conclusion
Tracking how a mystery object is dimming distant stars helps astronomers map the lifecycle of planetary systems.
Detailed study of ASASSN-24fw ensures we better understand the blurred lines between stars and planets. Explore more on our YouTube channel—join NSN Today.
https://nasaspacenews.com/2026/02/a-mystery-object-is-dimming/
NASA chief to attend Soyuz launch, sees many opportunities for Russia-US cooperation
Updated at: 13 Feb, 05:44
"There is a lot that we need to accomplish together in the years ahead," Jared Isaacman said
US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) head Jared Isaacman plans to attend the next launch of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and believes there are many opportunities for cooperation between Moscow and Washington in space.
"Right now, I am certainly planning to attend the next Soyuz launch," he said at a press conference at the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida after the launch of the next crew to the International Space Station (ISS), commenting on a TASS request to clarify whether he planned to go to Baikonur.
"There is a lot that we need to accomplish together in the years ahead.
There are certainly a lot of opportunities for good conversation," the NASA chief emphasized when asked about specific areas of cooperation between Russia and the United States, as well as the prospects for negotiations with Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Bakanov.
"A good friend will be going up on that mission. So it will be hard to imagine missing it," Isaacman pointed out.
"As you know, the ISS is going to still be up there for a long time. There is a lot that we need to accomplish together [with Russia] in the years ahead.
There are certainly a lot of opportunities for good conversation," the NASA chief emphasized when asked about specific areas of cooperation between Russia and the US, as well as the prospects for negotiations with Bakanov.
At the same time, he signaled his intention to hold talks with Bakanov at the earliest convenient opportunity. "We're making preparations for a discussion with my counterpart at the earliest opportunity," Isaacman noted.
He did not specify when exactly these contacts might take place.
"Everything you just asked [about] is in some degree of work," the NASA chief noted.
https://tass.com/science/2086477
https://spacenews.com/isaacman-planning-to-meet-with-head-of-roscosmos/
https://www.thetravel.com/nasa-detects-giant-glowing-ocean-creature-on-satellite-image/
https://www.instagram.com/vacations/
NASA Just Detected A Giant Glowing Ocean Creature On Satellite Images
Feb 15, 2026, 2:00 PM EST
Humans have a tendency to overlook the many species of microscopic organisms, which, actually, outnumber all the bugs, mammals, birds, and plants on planet Earth combined.
These microscopic creatures exist in nearly every environment, regardless of how extreme the climate, from deep-sea thermal vents to the highest peaks of the Himalayas.
Some microorganisms, like water bears, resemble four-legged creatures, and others look like long, wiggling worms (while plenty look like complete aliens).
But some of the strangest ever discovered are in the Earth's oceans, some even with the ability to glow in the dark in a phenomenon known as bioluminescence, allowing large clusters of them to be seen from outer space.
That's exactly what's been seen in a recent discovery by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
NASA detected a giant glowing "creature" off the coast of Australia that has already amazed scientists and curious nature lovers all over the world.
NASA Has Spotted A Giant Glowing Natural Wonder From Space
Recently, NASA spotted a large patch of a curious, glowing material located off Australia's southern coast, between the mainland and the island of Tasmania, in an area known as the Bonney Coast.
Scientists quickly identified this glowing patch as a massive cluster of bioluminescent phytoplankton, which are found in oceans worldwide. However, this gigantic patch of phytoplankton was abnormally large and bright, allowing NASA scientists to spot it from outer space with ease.
NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft first spotted this mesmerizing natural phenomenon by using its highly sophisticated Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), which allowed the spacecraft to spot the cluster of phytoplankton from space.
NASA launched PACE in 2024, and so far, it has served as a vitally important tool for scientists as they try to learn more about phytoplankton in every corner of the globe and the crucial role it plays in various ecosystems.
The data and information provided by PACE have already proved crucial in the global fight to protect the environment, which includes protecting small microorganisms, which ultimately fuel the food chain, which goes all the way up to human beings.
Why Bioluminescent Phytoplankton Tend To Glow In Southern Australia
Scientists have identified the Bass Strait, or the body of water that separates the southern coast of Australia and the popular tourist destination and island of Tasmania, and the waters off the Bonney Coast, as a popular spot for dinoflagellates to collect and glow spectacularly.
The Bass Strait and its surrounding coasts serve as a vitally important channel for marine life, meaning that numerous marine animals of all shapes and sizes die in this area regularly.
The nitrogen and phosphorus that these decaying creatures leave behind serve as the primary fuel for dinoflagellates, meaning that they thrive in places such as the Bass Strait and the areas near this important strait.
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The Best Places To See Bioluminescent Phytoplankton
According to National Geographic, these are the best locations worldwide to witness the bioluminescent phytoplankton phenomenon:
Other locations across the globe that host these enormous collections of beautiful bioluminescent phytoplankton include places along the East Coast where the continental shelf of the Atlantic Ocean lies, the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of California, and other places on Earth abundant with marine life.
Without the presence of this bioluminescent phytoplankton, life could not flourish, given the crucial role these tiny organisms play in the ecosystems of these places.
A wide array of sea life directly feeds off of this phytoplankton, with many species of fish feeding on those creatures, with humans in turn feeding on those fish.
How The Smallest Of Organisms Create Amazing Spectacles
Scientists refer to the bioluminescent phytoplankton, such as those recently spotted off the Bonney coast of Australia, as dinoflagellates, which combine the Greek word for "whirling," "Dinos", and the Latin word "flagellum," which means "whips."
These dinoflagellates, which often measure anywhere from 30 micrometers to several millimeters in width, serve as the foundation of many food chains worldwide, feeding the creatures that fish feed on, which people in turn rely on for food.
Given the immense importance of these microorganisms, scientists all over the world have invested massive sums in studying these tiny creatures, which play an important role in the global ecosystem.
NASA's PACE spacecraft represents one of the most significant investments in studying these microorganisms, and already, this spacecraft has changed how many people view them.
Many of these organisms have developed bioluminescence as a defense mechanism, designed to scare off certain predators, while also attracting larger creatures with the hope that they will consume the smaller predators.
The bioluminescent dinoflagellates only glow at night, thanks to their circadian clock, which is similar to the one humans have, helping them determine when to wake up and go to sleep.
Scientists have conducted several studies regarding circadian clocks, including a scientist who plunged himself into a cave for months to understand this phenomenon better.
Beachgoers can often see these microorganisms glow at night when they splash in the water, which appears as blue and green sparkles.
The images recently taken of massive phytoplankton growth off the coast of Southern Australia remind people across the globe of the vast array of living creatures that call planet Earth home.
Although scientists can only observe these creatures with a powerful microscope, they play an immensely important role in the global ecosystem, serving as food for many species of marine life while also helping to balance the presence of gases such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
NASA's PACE probe helps to keep a watchful eye on crucial species of microorganisms from outer space, allowing scientists to take decisive steps towards protecting the environment.
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https://www.space.com/astronomy/wormholes-may-not-exist-weve-found-they-reveal-something-deeper-about-time-and-the-universe
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6382/ae3044
Wormholes may not exist – we've found they reveal something deeper about time and the universe
February 16, 2026
Wormholes are often imagined as tunnels through space or time — shortcuts across the universe. But this image rests on a misunderstanding of work by physicists Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen.
In 1935, while studying the behaviour of particles in regions of extreme gravity, Einstein and Rosen introduced what they called a "bridge": a mathematical link between two perfectly symmetrical copies of spacetime.
It was not intended as a passage for travel, but as a way to maintain consistency between gravity and quantum physics. Only later did Einstein–Rosen bridges become associated with wormholes, despite having little to do with the original idea.
But in new research, my colleagues and I show that the original Einstein–Rosen bridge points to something far stranger — and more fundamental — than a wormhole.
The puzzle Einstein and Rosen were addressing was never about space travel, but about how quantum fields behave in curved spacetime. Interpreted this way, the Einstein–Rosen bridge acts as a mirror in spacetime: a connection between two microscopic arrows of time.
Quantum mechanics governs nature at the smallest scales such as particles, while Einstein's theory of general relativity applies to gravity and spacetime. Reconciling the two remains one of physics' deepest challenges. And excitingly, our reinterpretation may offer a path to doing this.
A misunderstood legacy
The "wormhole" interpretation emerged decades after Einstein and Rosen's work, when physicists speculated about crossing from one side of spacetime to the other, most notably in the late-1980s research.
But those same analyses also made clear how speculative the idea was: within general relativity, such a journey is forbidden. The bridge pinches off faster than light could traverse it, rendering it non-traversable. Einstein–Rosen bridges are therefore unstable and unobservable — mathematical structures, not portals.
Nevertheless, the wormhole metaphor flourished in popular culture and speculative theoretical physics. The idea that black holes might connect distant regions of the cosmos — or even act as time machines — inspired countless papers, books and films.
Yet there is no observational evidence for macroscopic wormholes, nor any compelling theoretical reason to expect them within Einstein's theory.
While speculative extensions of physics — such as exotic forms of matter or modifications of general relativity — have been proposed to support such structures, they remain untested and highly conjectural.
Two arrows of time
Our recent work revisits the Einstein–Rosen bridge puzzle using a modern quantum interpretation of time, building on ideas developed by Sravan Kumar and João Marto.
Most fundamental laws of physics do not distinguish between past and future, or between left and right. If time or space is reversed in their equations, the laws remain valid. Taking these symmetries seriously leads to a different interpretation of the Einstein–Rosen bridge.
Rather than a tunnel through space, it can be understood as two complementary components of a quantum state. In one, time flows forward; in the other, it flows backward from its mirror-reflected position.
This symmetry is not a philosophical preference. Once infinities are excluded, quantum evolution must remain complete and reversible at the microscopic level — even in the presence of gravity.
The "bridge" expresses the fact that both time components are needed to describe a complete physical system. In ordinary situations, physicists ignore the time-reversed component by choosing a single arrow of time.
But near black holes, or in expanding and collapsing universes, both directions must be included for a consistent quantum description. It is here that Einstein–Rosen bridges naturally arise.
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Solving the information paradox
At the microscopic level, the bridge allows information to pass across what appears to us as an event horizon – a point of no return. Information does not vanish; it continues evolving, but along the opposite, mirror temporal direction.
This framework offers a natural resolution to the famous black hole information paradox. In 1974, Stephen Hawking showed that black holes radiate heat and can eventually evaporate, apparently erasing all information about what fell into them — contradicting the quantum principle that evolution must preserve information.
The paradox arises only if we insist on describing horizons using a single, one-sided arrow of time extrapolated to infinity — an assumption quantum mechanics itself does not require.
If the full quantum description includes both time directions, nothing is truly lost. Information leaves our time direction and re-emerges along the reversed one. Completeness and causality are preserved, without invoking exotic new physics.
These ideas are difficult to grasp because we are macroscopic beings who experience only one direction of time. On everyday scales, disorder — or entropy — tends to increase.
A highly ordered state naturally evolves into a disordered one, never the reverse. This gives us an arrow of time.
But quantum mechanics allows more subtle behaviour. Intriguingly, evidence for this hidden structure may already exist.
The cosmic microwave background — the afterglow of the Big Bang — shows a small but persistent asymmetry: a preference for one spatial orientation over its mirror image.
This anomaly has puzzled cosmologists for two decades. Standard models assign it extremely low probability — unless mirror quantum components are included.
Echoes of a prior universe?
This picture connects naturally to a deeper possibility. What we call the "Big Bang" may not have been the absolute beginning, but a bounce — a quantum transition between two time-reversed phases of cosmic evolution.
In such a scenario, black holes could act as bridges not just between time directions, but between different cosmological epochs. Our universe might be the interior of a black hole formed in another, parent cosmos.
This could have formed as a closed region of spacetime collapsed, bounced back and began expanding as the universe we observe today.
If this picture is correct, it also offers a way for observations to decide. Relics from the pre-bounce phase — such as smaller black holes — could survive the transition and reappear in our expanding universe.
Some of the unseen matter we attribute to dark matter could, in fact, be made of such relics. In this view, the Big Bang evolved from conditions in a preceding contraction.
Wormholes aren't necessary: the bridge is temporal, not spatial — and the Big Bang becomes a gateway, not a beginning.
This reinterpretation of Einstein–Rosen bridges offers no shortcuts across galaxies, no time travel and no science-fiction wormholes or hyperspace. What it offers is far deeper.
It offers a consistent quantum picture of gravity in which spacetime embodies a balance between opposite directions of time — and where our universe may have had a history before the Big Bang.
It does not overthrow Einstein's relativity or quantum physics — it completes them. The next revolution in physics may not take us faster than light — but it could reveal that time, deep down in the microscopic world and in a bouncing universe, flows both ways.
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>The View
That one was new to me, ty
Scientists hunt for origins of the mysterious 'sun goddess' particle
February 16, 2026
Scientists are investigating the origin of one of the most energetic particles ever seen hitting Earth from space.
The Amaterasu particle, named for the Japanese sun goddess, was first detected in 2021, carrying 40 million times more energy than particles accelerated by the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Amaterasu is an example of a cosmic ray, energetic charged particles that race through space at nearly the speed of light. It is the second most energetic cosmic ray ever detected after the "Oh-My-God" particle, detected in 1991.
Such high-energy particles are extremely rare, which means scientists would very much like to understand their origins — currently thought to involve the wreckage of supernova explosions and central regions of galaxies dominated by feeding supermassive black holes.
Deepening the puzzle of Amaterasu is the fact that it seems to have emerged from the "Local Void," a region of space devoid of galaxies and the extreme environments and violent conditions thought be the factories that launch high-energy cosmic rays.
Enter Francesca Capel and Nadine Bourriche, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Physics, who have found that Amaterasu's origins may not be locked within the local void.
Instead, this highly energetic particle may have emerged from a range of relatively local cosmic environments.
"Our results suggest that, rather than originating in a low-density region of space like the Local Void, the Amaterasu particle is more likely to have been produced in a nearby star-forming galaxy such as M82," Bourriche said in a statement.
The duo's findings emerged from a novel data-driven approach that allowed them to trace the possible path of Amaterasu through the cosmos. The team considered the journey of this high-energy cosmic ray through space under the influence of magnetic fields using a statistical technique called in three dimensions called Approximate Bayesian Computation.
"This approach works by comparing the results of realistic, physics-based simulations with actual observational data to infer the most probable source locations," Bourriche said.
The result of this analysis was a collection of "probability maps" all tracking back to possible Amaterasu origin points beyond the Local Void. The research has implications beyond the origins of this extraordinary goddess particle, however.
The team's findings could help better pin down which powerful and violent cosmic events serve as high-energy cosmic ray factories.
"Exploring ultra-high-energy cosmic rays helps us to better understand how the Universe can accelerate matter to such energies, and also to identify environments where we can study the behavior of matter in such extreme conditions," Capel said.
"Our goal is to develop advanced statistical analysis methods to exploit the available data to its full potential and gain a deeper understanding of the possible sources of these energetic particles."
https://www.space.com/science/particle-physics/scientists-hunt-for-origins-of-the-mysterious-sun-goddess-particle
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae2c89
China’s first man in space Yang Liwei officially retires from active duty
Updated: 7:25pm, 16 Feb 2026
China’s first man in space, Yang Liwei, has officially retired from active duty, but he has not stopped training and remains ready to put on a spacesuit again if needed.
He said in a CCTV interview on Saturday that the country’s first group of astronauts had been grounded in October according to regulations, but “if our motherland needs us, we can resume flights”.
Yang, now a deputy chief designer for China’s crewed space programme, was the first Chinese national to reach Earth’s orbit in 2003.
On October 15 of that year, he blasted off aboard the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft on a Long March-2F rocket, just 16 hours after being told that he had been selected for the mission from a shortlist of three astronauts, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
During the Shenzhou-5 mission, Yang spent 21 hours in space, orbiting the Earth 14 times. It was a turning point for the nation’s human space flight programme, which began in 1992, and made China the third country to independently send humans into space.
Sean O’Keefe, Nasa administrator at the time of the Shenzhou-5 mission, said it was an important achievement, and that the US space agency wished China “a continued safe human space flight programme”.
More than 20 years later, 28 Chinese citizens have travelled to Earth’s orbit. The CMSA said in 2009 that despite a late start, China was able to “leapfrog” much of the 40-year-long development process undergone by the US and Soviet Union.
China now aims to land its first astronauts on the moon by 2030. The US is also pushing ahead with plans to land astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.
Yang was born in China’s northeastern province of Liaoning in 1965. In 1983, he was admitted to an air force flight academy and became a fighter pilot, according to state news agency Xinhua.
In 1996, China began a recruitment drive among air force pilots for its first cohort of astronaut candidates. Two years later, 14 were selected from more than 1,500 applicants.
Yang and the rest of the first cohort spent five years in rigorous training, which included weightlessness simulation training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Russia, according to Xinhua.
After his mission, Yang was recognised as a “space hero” by the Communist Party and State Council and served in several administrative roles before taking up his current position in 2019.
Other members of the first group of astronauts have also set space records.
Nie Haisheng and Fei Junlong became the first two-person Chinese crew to go to space during the Shenzhou-6 mission in 2005.
Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng became the first three-person Chinese crew to go to space during the Shenzhou-7 mission in 2008. Jing was also the first Chinese astronaut to make a repeat flight to space.
Liu Wang was part of the Shenzhou-9 mission, and he and his crewmates were the first Chinese astronauts to achieve docking with another spacecraft in orbit when they connected with the Tiangong-1 space lab.
Five members of the first cohort retired in 2014 without reaching space.
In 2010, China added another seven astronaut candidates – five men and two women – during its second round of recruitment.
In 2020, the country selected its third cohort of astronauts, which had 18 members.
In 2024, Beijing announced its fourth group of 10 astronaut candidates, including one from Hong Kong and one from Macau. Following this announcement, China said it would soon invite foreign astronauts to take part in the selection and training process.
Last year, China and Pakistan signed a cooperation agreement to train Pakistani astronauts for a mission to China’s Tiangong space station, with the aim to launch later this year, according to Xinhua.
In October, CMSA announced that two Pakistani astronauts would undergo training alongside Chinese astronauts, and that one would be selected as a payload specialist for a short space mission.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3343746/chinas-first-man-space-yang-liwei-officially-retires-active-duty
Thanks to whoever made home videos of the universe being assembled, and of other fun periods in time.
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Microbes_harvest_metals_from_meteorites_aboard_space_station_999.html
Microbes harvest metals from meteorites aboard space station
Feb 16, 2026
If humankind is to explore deep space, one small passenger should not be left behind: microbes.
In fact, it would be impossible to leave them behind, since they live on and in our bodies, surfaces and food. Learning how they react to space conditions is critical, but they could also be invaluable fellows in our endeavor to explore space.
Microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi can harvest crucial minerals from rocks and could provide a sustainable alternative to transporting much-needed resources from Earth.
Researchers from Cornell and the University of Edinburgh collaborated to study how those microbes extract platinum group elements from a meteorite in microgravity, with an experiment conducted aboard the International Space Station.
They found that "biomining" fungi are particularly adept at extracting the valuable metal palladium, while removing the fungus resulted in a negative effect on nonbiological leaching in microgravity.
Rosa Santomartino, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, prepares samples for the launch to the International Space Station.
The team's study was published Jan. 30 in npj Microgravity. The lead author is Rosa Santomartino, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Alessandro Stirpe, a research associate in microbiology, is a co-author.
The BioAsteroid project, which was led by senior author Charles Cockell, professor of astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh and included other University of Edinburgh researchers, used bacterium Sphingomonas desiccabilis and fungus Penicillium simplicissimum to see which elements could potentially be extracted from L-chondrite asteroidal material. But understanding how the microbes interact with rocks in microgravity was equally important.
"This is probably the first experiment of its kind on the International Space Station on meteorite," Santomartino said. "We wanted to keep the approach tailored in a way, but also general to increase its impact.
These are two completely different species, and they will extract different things. So we wanted to understand how and what, but keep the results relevant for a broader perspective, because not much is known about the mechanisms that influence microbial behavior in space."
These microbes are promising tools for resource extraction because they produce carboxylic acids, the carbon molecules which can attach to minerals via complexation and spur their release.
But many questions remain about how this mechanism works, according to Santomartino, so the team also conducted a metabolomic analysis, whereby a portion of the liquid culture is collected from the completed experiment samples and the researchers examine the biomolecules contained, specifically the secondary metabolites.
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NASA astronaut Michael Scott Hopkins performed the ISS experiment, to test microgravity, while the researchers conducted their own control version in the lab, to test terrestrial gravity and compare these with the space results.
Santomartino and Stirpe then analyzed the voluminous amount of data that was collected, which comprised 44 different elements, of which 18 were biologically extracted.
"We split the analysis to the single element, and we started to ask, OK, does the extraction behave differently in space compared to Earth?
Are these elements more extracted when we have a bacterium or a fungus, or when we have both of them? Is this just noise, or can we see something that maybe makes a bit of sense?
We don't see massive differences, but there are some very interesting ones," Stirpe said.
The analysis revealed distinct changes in microbial metabolism in space, particularly for the fungus, which increased its production of many molecules, including carboxylic acids, and enhanced the release of palladium, as well as platinum and other elements.
For many elements, nonbiological leaching - in which a solution without microbes is used to pull out the elements - was less effective in microgravity than on Earth. Meanwhile, the microbes had consistent results in both settings.
"In these cases, the microbe doesn't improve the extraction itself, but it's kind of keeping the extraction at a steady level, regardless of the gravity condition," Santomartino said.
"And this is not just true for the palladium, but for different types of metals, although not all of them. Indeed, another complex but very interesting result, I think, is the fact that the extraction rate changes a lot depending on the metal that you are considering, and also depending on the microbe and the gravity condition."
In addition to aiding space exploration, applications could have terrestrial benefits, such as efficient biomining from resource-limited environments or mine waste, or creating sustainable biotechnologies for circular economy.
Santomartino cautions that while the biotechnology community is eager to learn the exact impact that space has on microbial species for this purpose, a tidy explanation may not be forthcoming. There are just too many variables.
"Depending on the microbial species, depending on the space conditions, depending on the method that researchers are using, everything changes," Santomartino said.
"Bacteria and fungi are all so diverse, one to each other, and the space condition is so complex that, at present, you cannot give a single answer.
So maybe we need to dig more. I don't mean to be too poetic, but to me, this is a little bit the beauty of that. It's very complex. And I like it."
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