TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
February 23, 2026
Pleiades: The Seven Sisters Star Cluster
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen with the unaided eye even from the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured 18-hour exposure, taken from Bory Tucholskie, Poland covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwuzxPORs6k
Space Weather, Earthquake, Star Fails Pole Flip | S0 News and frens
Feb.23.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7ob30pYsYA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgw-O1sU7x0 (Stefan Burns: Deep Earthquakes Have Begun Battering Earth 💥 This Could Be Our Final Warning…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgdKdUPF8mo (TheEarthMaster: Major Deep Large Earthquake 7.1 Malaysia Region. Sunday 2/22/2026)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lqmid1tPek (BPEarthWatch: INCOMING BOMB CYCLONE)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NDJNR1t4o (Storm Chaser Jordan Hall LIVE: Bomb Cyclone SLAMS East Coast with Heavy Snow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9xLxx4Qoy8 (Ray's Astro: LIVE: The Sun Right Now ☀️ | Backyard Solar Imaging (Real-Time))
https://news.erau.edu/headlines/embry-riddle-professor-leads-space-weather-research-project
https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/smile-mission-set-for-launch-to-tackle-space-weather/66824/
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
https://spaceweather.com/
https://x.com/dfuji1/status/2025733019081011423
https://x.com/schumannbot/status/2025933696058929600
https://x.com/MrMBB333/status/2025620922971849186
https://x.com/StefanBurnsGeo/status/2025856004122956018
https://x.com/Eyes2TheStars/status/2025814017613144251
noice bun
NEW Interstellar Comet proves that 3I Atlas is NOT a natural comet!
Feb 22, 2026
A new comet from far outside our Solar System is quietly speeding past our planet.
It has a strange composition.
It has an anti-tail.
It has a velocity sufficient to carry it to Interstellar destinations.
So why is it a natural comet and 3I Atlas isn't?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OywtA8bUwZg
https://x.com/Astro_Angry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k-x0kvdUrk (Chuck's Asrtro: Live: Let's Capture NGC 2903)
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/scientists-plan-mission-intercept-comet-3i-atlas-1781035
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/join-the-search-for-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-within-the-galileo-project-273add935ca9
Red Panda Koala
@RedPandaKoala
🚨 Karla Turner on rumors of an imminent object in space headed towards Earth
"Later that same day, a disturbing rumor that was making its way through the UFO community with all the speed of a highly contagious virus.
Such rumors abounded in the ufological community. This one held that a recent public speaker had supposedly confided to a MUFON member that the Air Force was greatly concerned about a large unidentified object in space, apparently heading for earth.
When others had tried to track down the source of this rumor, the trail finally led back to some unnamed and retired Air Force officer who kept in contact with his friends still in the service.
They had told him that the large object was emitting a lot of radiation and was following an unusual trajectory which seemed to show intelligent control.
The military, so the rumor went, was concerned that the object was an artificial base of some sort and that it might be connected with the current upsurge in ET activity - the same kind of activity which was intruding into my family.
There was even speculation that whoever was controlling the object might be involved in some sort of conflict, that the object was a battle station, and that they could be preparing to use the earth as a staging ground in the conflict."
7:09 PM · Feb 22, 2026
https://x.com/RedPandaKoala/status/2025770029862777272
https://x.com/drew4worldruler/status/2025633547088707829
Arctic Blast Brightened the West Florida Shelf
Feb 23, 2026
In late January and early February 2026, surges of Arctic air funneled into eastern North America, causing cold and wintry conditions across much of the United States.
Snow and ice blanketed large swaths of the country, stretching as far south as Georgia, in a layer of white. Meanwhile, waters off the west coast of Florida lit up in brilliant shades of blue.
In this rare outbreak of intense winter weather, cold air infiltrated Florida and drove temperatures below freezing in several counties at the start of February.
This frigid intrusion not only caused beautiful phenomena in the atmosphere, forming cloud streets, but it also produced a colorful display in the shallow marine waters below, stirring up carbonate sediment from the seafloor.
On February 3, the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image (right) of brightened waters over the West Florida Shelf, a broad and shallow continental shelf region known as a carbonate ramp.
The blue color comes from suspended calcium carbonate (CaCO3) mud, which consists primarily of remnants of marine organisms that live on the shelf. For comparison, the left image shows the area on January 24, before the cold air arrived.
The mud was mostly kicked up by wind-stirred ocean waters during the cold air event, said James Acker, a data support scientist at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center.
Sediment suspension events like this are more typically associated with hurricane winds that churn the water, as with Melissa in 2025, but the winds brought by strong cold fronts can have a similar, if less dramatic, effect.
“Another interesting aspect of these events is that the cold air cools off the shallow water on the banks and makes it denser than the surrounding warmer open ocean water,” Acker said.
When this dense water sinks and flows offshore with the tides, it can carry some of the sediment out toward the shelf’s edge.
The detailed images above, acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9, offer a closer look at that process playing out. “Hammerhead” eddy features appeared along the slope of the West Florida Shelf, Acker noted.
These can form when narrow streams of denser chilled seawater carry sediment offshore, encounter slower-moving Gulf waters, and curl into pairs of counterrotating eddies, he said.
These types of features have been observed in other natural events—dust storms, for example—both on Earth and on Mars.
Other dynamics were at work near the Dry Tortugas on the southwestern side of the shelf, where the patch of bright water ends abruptly along a straight, sharp edge.
Here, sediment-laden water exited the shelf area through channels to the south, said sedimentologist Jude Wilber, and was immediately swept east by the Loop Current.
After Hurricane Ian stirred up sediment off Florida in 2022, Wilber and Acker noted a similar interaction between suspended material and the Loop Current.
The researchers used that event to improve satellite-based methods for estimating sediment concentrations in these plumes.
Scientists are interested in studying carbonate sediment suspension events because of their role in the planet’s carbon cycle.
They have shown that tropical cyclones are the primary mechanism by which carbon in shallow-water marine sediments is moved to deeper waters, where it can remain sequestered for a long time.
However, the contribution of cold fronts is less well understood. Acker and Wilber hypothesize that they act on a more local scale: they influence ocean color by stirring sediments but do not transport significant amounts of material to the deep ocean.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/arctic-blast-brightened-the-west-florida-shelf/
>call it astro-terrorism
US Embassy applauds Nigerian-born engineer, Wendy Okolo for leading NASA flight safety research
February 23, 2026
The Embassy of the United States, Abuja has commended Nigerian-born aerospace engineer Wendy Okolo for her pioneering contributions to aviation research at the NASA Ames Research Center.
In a post shared on its official X platform, the embassy described Okolo as a trailblazing Nigerian-American scientist whose work is advancing flight safety and control systems within the U.S. space agency.
Okolo earned her doctorate at just 26 years old, becoming the first Black woman to obtain a PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington.
She subsequently joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a research engineer.
At NASA’s Ames facility in Silicon Valley, she leads research efforts focused on flight safety, aircraft monitoring systems and control optimisation for advanced aerospace technologies.
Her work has positioned her as a respected voice in the global aerospace community.
The embassy noted that spotlighting Okolo’s achievements aligns with ongoing efforts to recognise the accomplishments of Nigerians and other immigrants who are making significant impacts in science, technology and other professional sectors in the United States.
Nigerians are widely acknowledged as one of the most highly educated immigrant groups in America, with many excelling in fields ranging from engineering and medicine to business and academia.
https://dailypost.ng/2026/02/23/us-embassy-applauds-nigerian-born-engineer-wendy-okolo-for-leading-nasa-flight-safety-research/
https://x.com/wendy_okolo
Flightradar24 expands global coverage with Aireon space-based ADS-B data
Updated: February 23, 2026
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Flightradar24 data now includes space-based ADS-B positions via Aireon
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Aircraft tracked via Aireon are highlighted in blue
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Space-based ADS-B positions help us cover remote areas like over the oceans
Flightradar24 is excited to expand its global flight tracking capabilities with the addition of Aireon space-based ADS-B data to the Flightradar24 platform, a major milestone in our commitment to truly global flight tracking coverage.
The integration of Aireon data marks an important step toward ensuring visibility in areas not already covered by Flightradar24’s world-leading terrestrial receiver network.
Covering the globe
Flightradar24’s terrestrial ADS-B network includes more than 55,000 receivers across all seven continents.
This community-powered network enables us to track hundreds of thousands of flights every day and provides industry-leading real-time flight visibility.
However, even the most extensive ground-based network has natural limitations — particularly over oceans, polar regions, and other remote areas.
Oceanic coverage and flight tracking over earth’s most remote areas is now fully possible thanks to the inclusion of Aireon’s space-based ADS-B data.
The natural combination of Flightradar24’s world-leading terrestrial network with Aireon’s expansive satellite constellation ensures Flightradar24 users get the best, most accurate view of global air traffic at all times.
How Aireon Data Appears on Flightradar24
When an aircraft is operating outside of Flightradar24’s terrestrial coverage or other satellite sources, position updates sourced from Aireon will be shown.
Aireon positions will be displayed in 15-minute increments when the aircraft is outside terrestrial coverage areas.
When an aircraft’s position is displayed with Aireon data, the aircraft icon will be highlighted in blue (as seen in the image above).
When clicking on a flight tracked via Aireon, you’ll see a banner below the aircraft photo noting Aireon as the source of the data.
Flightradar24 data integrated with Aireon
Flightradar24 data is also now available to Aireon customers via Aireon’s portfolio of commercial ADS-B data solutions, enabling global flight tracking, GNSS interference monitoring and mitigation, turbulence detection, flight event analytics, and enhanced search and rescue capabilities.
Get in touch to learn more about taking advantage of combined Aireon and Flightradar24 data.
https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/inside-flightradar24/flightradar24-expands-global-coverage-with-aireon-space-based-ads-b-data/