Checking those Monday triples.
TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
April 13, 2026
NGC 602 and Beyond
The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the featured picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp multi-colored view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfaZhgtaDh4
Planet Mystery, US Quake Swarm, Solar Watch | S0 News and frens
Apr.13.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WSugEM_B4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IQac5gOZmI (ESA: Proba-3 captures movement in the Sun’s corona)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D2ROvic3EA (MrMBB333: Are you SERIOUS? YES, this is REALLY happening!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TbDGdwIktg (Time For Truth: Deadly Floods Devastate Dagestan Twice — Cities Under Water, Homes Collapse, Thousands Evacuated)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJLIFROGOE (Time For Truth: 7.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Indonesia: Tsunami Triggered, Hundreds of Aftershocks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BzlsJ9RvY (EarthMaster: Swarm of Earthquakes Juan De Fuca Ridge. This activity will further stress the Cascadia area. Sunday)
https://www.space.com/science/a-worst-case-solar-storm-could-knock-out-satellites-gps-and-power-grids-report-warns
https://spacedaily.com/sd-n-the-u-k-just-spelled-out-what-a-carrington-class-solar-storm-would-cost-and-the-numbers-should-change-policy/
https://eos.org/editor-highlights/how-sediment-magnetism-captures-the-south-atlantic-anomaly
https://meteoagent.com/schumann-resonance-forecast
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes-volcanoes/news/299847/Volcano-earthquake-report-for-Monday-13-Apr-2026.html
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
https://spaceweather.com/
Dramatic footage of massive green fireball streaking across UK skies sparks wild theories: ‘Remnants of Artemis?’
April 13, 2026, 6:54 a.m. PT
Wild footage shows a massive green fireball streaking across the UK Monday morning, prompting stunned witnesses to quip it was linked to the Artemis II mission.
Video captured by one resident showed a bright green glow, followed by two huge flashes in quick succession before the fireball burned out seconds later.
The cosmic phenomenon was spotted in several towns and cities, sparking a flurry of reaction online.
“See we go round the moon and now we have space rocks been thrown at us,” one Facebook user quipped, referring to the historic Artemis II mission.
“Probably a bit of the spacecraft they mislaid,” another joked.
“Could it be remnants of Artemis?” a third chimed in.
Other witnesses suggested the fireball was a rogue firework or low-flying aircraft.
“I saw that. It was bright green. It was massive. I thought it was a firework at first it seemed so close,” an onlooker said.
The ball of light was likely a meteor, and sightings have been reported across the US recently.
Last week, a fireball was seen blazing across several states along the East Coast, prompting hundreds of spectators to file meteor sightings reports.
In March, NASA confirmed a meteor sighting above Texas – and a meteorite, which splintered off a fireball, ended up smashing into a woman’s roof.
https://nypost.com/2026/04/13/world-news/dramatic-moment-massive-green-fireball-streaks-across-the-skies-in-uk/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15728291/Huge-GREEN-fireball-streaks-sky-Britain.html
extra fireballs, meteors, and comets
https://finway.com.ua/en/how-meteorites-can-contribute-the/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuhrYtoQKzU (Angry Astronaut: ESA captures best 3I Atlas photos yet, and they're loaded with weirdness!)
hopefully that didn't and in Horsell Common
Artemis anomalies and observations
WTF?! Artemis 2 Astronaut's STRANGE Post Mission Remarks Glitch
Apr 12, 2026
(2nd half of video trails off into Trump and Candace stuff)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fAaWF6vPro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p12KZLidhgY (Godrules: Something Strange Happened on the Way to the Moon (Artemis Mission))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzqbbe02X0 (Ray's Astro: I Finally Understood the REAL ARTEMIS Plan… What They Don’t Explain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_EFzLI2rag (Avi Loeb: This Is How Far Artemis II Really Went…)
moar anomalies
m**e
@MikeErroni
A friend sent this FOX News clip of a UFO flyby during the Artemis II descent.
12:00 PM · Apr 11, 2026
https://x.com/MikeErroni/status/2043041632979931445
https://x.com/uBF2fV1cVQxRjQo/status/2042856055856914865
https://x.com/DeepHumanBeing/status/2042764985898819781
https://x.com/DavidM66626845/status/2042761339769180457
https://x.com/BoatrekLive/status/2042703722803872027
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
@NASAAdmin
With Artemis II complete, we’re preparing to roll Artemis III into the VAB. Artemis III will rendezvous with our partners in earth orbit as we continue building toward the @NASAMoonBase.
Artemis missions will launch every year, with Artemis IV landing on the Moon in 2028.
5:31 AM · Apr 13, 2026
https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2043668520752300151
https://www.today.com/video/nasa-s-jared-isaacman-on-what-s-next-for-artemis-ii-261225029729
https://abcnews.com/Technology/nasa-administrator-artemis-ii-1st-step-moon-base/story?id=131983922
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhgeLRjCkGA
https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2043660915162132582
https://x.com/US3rdFleet/status/2043458850280648947
https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2043444930400461252
Hubble Spies an Active Spiral
Apr 13, 2026
A luminous swirl set against the deep black of space, the barred spiral galaxy IC 486 glows with a soft, ethereal light in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image.
IC 486 lies right on the edge of the constellation Gemini (the Twins), around 380 million light-years from Earth. Classified as a barred spiral galaxy, it features a bright central bar-shaped structure from which its spiral arms unfurl, wrapping around the core in a smooth, almost ring-like pattern.
Hubble’s keen eye reveals subtle variations in color across the galaxy. The pale, luminous center is dominated by older stars, while faint bluish regions in the surrounding disk trace pockets of more recent star formation.
Wisps of dust thread through the galaxy’s structure, gently obscuring light and tracing regions of increased molecular gas where new stars are likely to form.
At the galaxy’s center a noticeable white glow outshines the starlight around it. This is light from IC 486’s active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is powered by a supermassive black hole more than 100 million times the mass of the Sun.
Every sufficiently large galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center, but some of these black holes are particularly ravenous, assembling vast amounts of gas and dust into swirling accretion disks from which they feed.
The intense heat generated by the orbiting disk of material generates intense radiation, including X-rays, which can outshine the entire rest of the galaxy. In these cases, the galaxy is known as an active galaxy, with an AGN at its center.
The data used to make this image comes from two separate observing programs — #17310 (PI: M. J. Koss) and #15444 (PI: A. J. Barth) — with similar aims:
to survey nearby active galaxies like IC 486 and record detailed, high-quality images of their central black holes and the stars near the core of the galaxy.
By combining Hubble’s sharp imaging capabilities with large comprehensive samples, these programs enable detailed comparisons of how stars, gas, dust, and black holes interact in galaxy centers.
A key goal of this work is to understand how galaxies grow by linking their large-scale structures, such as bars and spiral arms, to activity in their nuclei.
To achieve this, the research teams leverage both expert classifications and citizen science through Galaxy Zoo, with datasets they will ultimately release to the public.
In parallel, researchers are using the same images to test how well large language models and other machine learning techniques can reproduce or extend human classifications, offering a new way to scale galaxy morphology studies to the largest surveys that telescopes like Euclid and the Vera Rubin Observatory are preforming, and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will perform.
Beyond IC 486, distant background galaxies and foreground stars pepper the image. Some stars appear with characteristic diffraction spikes, while the more diffuse, reddish smudges are far more distant galaxies scattered across the cosmos.
Though it may appear calm and orderly, IC 486 is a dynamic system shaped by gravity and stellar evolution. Over millions of years, its structure will continue to evolve as stars are born, age, and fade, contributing to the ongoing story of galactic life in the universe.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-spies-an-active-spiral/
Megaberg Ends Its Long Odyssey at Sea
Apr 13, 2026
Iceberg A-23A ranks among the giants known to have broken, or “calved,” from Antarctica.
Though several other icebergs in the satellite era have been larger, A-23A was remarkable for its longevity. After spending its early days in the Weddell Sea, its journey came to an end in the South Atlantic Ocean, months shy of its 40th birthday.
These images show the iceberg at the start and end of its lifespan. The MSS (Multispectral Scanner System) on Landsat 5 captured the top image on November 10, 1986, shortly after Iceberg A-23 broke from the Filchner Ice Shelf.
(The main section was later renamed A-23A after a smaller piece split off.) It is pictured here with several other major icebergs from the same calving event. A-23A outlived all of them.
The second image, captured by the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21 satellite on April 3, 2026, shows what remained of the iceberg at the end of its journey.
By this point, the ice had drifted into warmer waters north of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands—more than 2,300 kilometers (2,000 miles) north of where the iceberg first calved.
Drifting Toward Disintegration
Iceberg A-23A’s final months brought abundant drift, melt, and breakage.
It exited the U.S. National Ice Center’s area of analysis during the week of February 6, 2026, and was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Argentinian Meteorological Service as it drifted into maritime traffic lanes, according to the center’s ice analysts.
Jan Lieser of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology and Christopher Shuman of the University of Maryland (retired) have long been tracking the iceberg with remote sensing.
They estimated that by March 27, 2026, A-23A had shrunk to just over 170 square kilometers (66 square miles)—a small fraction of the more than 6,000 square kilometers (2,300 square miles) it spanned in 2020 as it lay grounded off the Antarctic coast.
Large pools of deep-blue meltwater collected on its surface and likely contributed to its ultimate collapse, visible on March 31.
Clouds obscured some satellite observations of the berg’s final days. “I noticed in recent weeks how Mother Nature seemed to keep a veil (of clouds) over the dying iceberg as if trying to give it some privacy at this stage,” Lieser said.
There were still enough observations, however, to capture glimpses of its death throes, as well as the many stages of its long, winding journey.
Iceberg A-23A “came of age” during a period of advances in Earth observation.
The Landsat program, ongoing since the early 1970s, captured detailed images throughout the iceberg’s life, while the Terra and Aqua satellites—imaging Earth since the early 2000s—offered broader, daily snapshots as sunlight and clouds allowed.
By the time A-23A broke free from the seafloor in 2022 and began drifting north, a vastly expanded fleet of missions was available to observe its journey—capturing everything from detailed images of its shifting shape to its effects on the surrounding environment.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station added their own close-up perspective, while the newer PACE satellite identified the iceberg’s ripple effects on marine ecosystems. The video below brings together some of NASA’s most striking views of the drifting giant’s journey.
“The technology that allows us to tell ‘iceberg stories’ is a tribute to the engineers and funding that put crucial sensors into orbit to collect those data and make them accessible,” Shuman said.
“Through time, these efforts have allowed us to understand the general patterns of iceberg movement around Antarctica, especially in the last handful of decades.”
Lingering Mysteries of Iceberg Motion
With all the images and data that A-23A and other bergs have left behind, scientists now have even more questions about the factors driving iceberg motion, from ocean currents to the shape of the seafloor.
Lieser is particularly interested in the small- to medium-sized bergs that break from the giants, as they pose significant hazards to shipping. These smaller bergs, such as the trail near A-23A on March 1, are also notoriously difficult to track, as well as to model in terms of their expected drift.
The megabergs generated by Antarctica’s vast ice shelves also still carry plenty of mystery.
In the case of A-23A, Lieser and Shuman wonder what the bathymetry looks like where it became stuck shortly after calving in 1986 and how the iceberg later became ensnared by a rotating vortex of water, or Taylor column, north of the South Orkney Islands.
“We certainly do know a fair bit about the general drift patterns of icebergs and the general environment,” Lieser said. “But when it comes to individual pieces—large and small—and their tracks, there's still a fair bit to learn.”
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/megaberg-ends-its-long-odyssey-at-sea/
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Has Detected an Unusual Signal from the Early Universe—Could It Be Home to the First Stars?
April 13, 2026
A discovery made possible by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may have revealed, for the first time, evidence of a variety of stars that date back to just 400 million years after the Big Bang.
The discovery, if confirmed, could offer the most convincing data yet for what astronomers call Population III stars, potentially moving the study of these primordial stellar features beyond the realm of theory and into real astronomical observation.
The discovery has revealed what is believed to be the best evidence to date for the existence of these stars, which were discovered encircling an ancient celestial companion object during recent Webb observations, as detailed in a pair of studies that appeared on the arXiv preprint server.
Unlike stars we normally observe in the night sky, Population III stars describe a unique class of stellar bodies, whose formation arises almost entirely from hydrogen and helium.
Their genesis occurred long before the presence of heavier elements—namely oxygen, iron, and carbon—would begin to populate the universe after being created within the hot bodies of massive stars.
As these ancient stars emptied their elemental fuel stores, they eventually would have exploded as massive supernovae.
Those cosmic-scale explosions dispersed the heavy elements forged in their interiors throughout the early cosmos, giving rise to the formation of a large majority of the celestial objects in our universe.
An Odd Signal Emerges
From the heart of GN-z11, one of the universe’s brightest galaxies, an odd signal appeared two years ago, which quickly captured the attention of University of Cambridge researcher Roberto Maiolino.
With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRSpec-IFU near-infrared spectroscopy instrument, a nearly-invisible signal in the form of a faint emission line became discernible—an observation that, before Webb, would have been impossible for astronomers. The detection revealed the presence of a companion object astronomers dubbed Hebe, and its distinctive emission line indicated a very specific signature: that of double ionized helium.
This is significant, since the double photoionization of helium to occur requires a very large source of radiation energy.
The signal was also very pure, evincing no detections of metallic sources, which pointed to an intriguing possibility: that Maiolino and his colleagues had discovered the first direct evidence of ancient Population III stars.
Additional Webb detections would eventually confirm the helium signal the team discovered, which has now been resolved into its two primary components.
Adjacent Research
Meanwhile, Elka Rusta at the University of Florence and colleagues now report an independent similar detection, and from the same cosmic location.
Like the research by Maiolino’s team, no evidence of heavier elements present in the emissions was discernible.
With the help of theoretical modeling, Rusta’s team believes that these enigmatic ancient stars possessed a top-heavy mass distribution based on analysis of the helium/hydrogen ratios of the companion object Hebe; this reveals a likelihood that the primordial stars encircling it are anywhere from ten to 100 times the mass of our Sun.
Fundamentally, this places them well within the predicted ranges for the universe’s earliest stars.
Going forward, the two teams hope to make additional observations which, with the help of the Webb Telescope and its successors in the coming years, could help to reveal additional evidence for the presence of Population II stars in this ancient region of the cosmos.
For now, though, the dual studies reported by the independent teams are offering astronomers the most compelling evidence yet for their existence, offering an even deeper look into the early days of our universe than many would have ever imagined possible.
The recent study by Roberto Maiolino et al, “The search for Population III: Confirmation of a HeII emitter with no metal lines at z=10.6,” and Elka Rusta and colleagues’ paper, “The Pristine HeII Emitter near GN-z11: Constraining the Mass Distribution of the First Stars,” both appeared on the preprint arXiv server.
https://thedebrief.org/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-has-detected-an-unusual-signal-from-the-early-universe-could-it-be-home-to-the-first-stars/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20362
NASA supercomputer made very worrying prediction for when the world will end
Updated 12:00 13 Apr 2026 GMT+1
We're probably more worried right now about the world ending than ever before but a NASA supercomputer has speculated when we might kick the bucket as a species.
Considering the current goings on between Iran and the US, with Donald Trump and JD Vance both hinting at the potential for it to go nuclear, it's natural to be concerned about how long the Earth might have left.
As much as we might be ignoring climate change as a society, there's no doubt that the damage to the ozone layer is also having a big impact, most noticeably with the ice caps melting.
Scientists seem to be more focused on finding somewhere else to live than our own planet, with the recent Artemis II mission set to pave the way towards humans visiting Mars in the future, a planet which Elon Musk apparently wants us to live on.
In the past, we've been safe in the knowledge that we have about five billion years to go until the Sun will reach its red giant phase, expanding to 200 times its size and swallowing Earth. Fun.
But, with the help of a NASA supercomputer, scientists now reckon there will be no life on Earth around to see that. The computer has spat out a date for the extinction of all living things on Earth significantly less far into the future.
A group of cheery scientists ran 400,000 simulations to work out when all life on planet Earth will die.
According to a study titled 'The future lifespan of Earth’s oxygenated atmosphere', the fate of life on Earth is tied directly to the evolution of the Sun.
Over billions of years, the Sun will continue to expand and emit more heat, slowly transforming Earth into an increasingly hostile environment.
While we might joke about needing some warmer weather here in the UK, the heating of the planet could soon make it inhospitable, but the NASA supercomputer fortunately reckons that it might take until the year 1,000,002,021.
By that point, even the most resilient microorganisms won't make it, as the oceans will have evaporated, the atmosphere will have thinned, and surface temperatures will make life impossible. But humans certainly won't make it as long as that.
Rising temperatures, declining oxygen levels, and deteriorating air quality will likely be the end of our species on this planet at least, and we're already starting to see signs of these changes across the Earth, suggesting that more struggles aren't far away at all.
“For many years, the lifespan of Earth’s biosphere has been discussed based on the steady brightening of the Sun,” said Kazumi Ozaki, the study’s lead author.
Before, Ozaki said estimates gave life around two billion years, but newer models pretty much cut that period in half.
“If true,” he wrote: “One can expect atmospheric O₂ levels will also eventually decrease in the distant future.”
In other words, anything that needs oxygen to survive will be gone in about a billion years but considering the current state of the world, it will feel like a miracle if our ancestors make it that far, as even our AI overlords might not be able to survive in a world without electricity.
https://www.ladbible.com/news/technology/nasa-supercomputer-worrying-prediction-world-end-technology-465331-20260412
https://www.uniladtech.com/science/space/nasa/nasa-supercomputer-reveals-timeline-end-of-the-world-580413-20260413
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00693-5