TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
April 20, 2026
Comet R3 PanSTARRS over a Himalayan Valley
The best way to see comet R3 PanSTARRS’s long tail is with a camera. This week, the recently brightened comet appears in northern skies to the east just before dawn, but is only barely visible to the unaided eye. The many-degree ion tail captured on long duration camera exposures is not unusual for a comet - it is primarily due to the Earth's nearly sideways view of the tail as it points away from the Sun. In the featured image taken last week, Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) showed off its flowing tail through a valley between two peaks in the Himalayan mountains of India. The comet passed its closest to the Sun yesterday. As it nears its closest approach to Earth next week, a bushy dust tail may become visible. The comet is slowly moving out of northern skies and by the end of the month will be visible after sunset in southern skies as it fades and leaves our Solar System.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFjLsMz4uOU
Comet Almost Here, Big Earthquake, Space Weather | S0 News and 'where did the weekend go?' frens
Apr.20.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2LayVKIjFs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF7dZPtaJvA (S0: Comet PANSTARRS in One Week)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVPZ7uCETy8 (Stefan Burns: Breaking the 24,000 Year Cycle and Living Sky Astrology with Heather Ensworth)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M6KANWniqE (EarthMaster: 6.1 Earthquake Tonga Region. Largest aftershock in Nevada at 4.7 EQ Sunday update)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkIW1Cf22s (On the Pulse with Silki: EVACUATE‼️5 NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS‼️incl. FUKUSHIMA under Checkup after VIOLENT EARTHQUAKE and TSUNAMI)
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/04/20/japan/earthquake-tsunami-warning/
https://meteoagent.com/schumann-resonance-forecast
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes-volcanoes/news/300296/Volcano-earthquake-report-for-Monday-20-Apr-2026.html
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g2-moderate-geomagnetic-storm-levels-reached-1
https://spaceweather.com/
https://x.com/StefanBurnsGeo/status/2046237321155272879
Mysterious celestial object spotted over Kyiv night sky (Videos)
Mon, April 20, 2026 - 12:51
Ukrainians actively shared footage of the comet, but in reality, it was something different
A bright celestial object was spotted in the night sky over Kyiv. However, not everyone understood what it actually was.
RBC-Ukraine gives details about what people saw in the capital.
What was seen in the sky over Kyiv
Late in the evening on Sunday, April 19, 2026, local social media channels reported that what appeared to be a comet had been spotted over Kyiv.
Videos of the event were also shared with the public.
In footage published by the Kyiv Telegram channel, a bright celestial object can be seen rapidly moving over residential buildings in the capital and even above the railway station.
A visible glow followed it, somewhat resembling a tail.
The Telegram channel Kyiv INFO also reported that a comet was flying over the capital.
On the morning of Monday, April 20, researcher of anomalous phenomena Ihor Mekheda stated that, in fact, a bright meteor was observed over Kyiv during the night.
“Apparently, a large space rock from the Lyrid meteor shower entered the atmosphere and burned up,” he explained in a Facebook post.
The author of the post clarified that many people mistook it for a comet, but this is not the case.
“A comet can be seen in the east, about 50 minutes before sunrise,” Mekheda noted.
He also reminded that two years ago on this same date, a bright meteor was also observed over Kyiv, and its remnants fell near the village of Popilnia.
Features of the Lyrid meteor shower
According to information from NASA Science, the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower, one of the oldest known meteor showers, usually occurs in late April.
The Lyrids have been observed for about 2,700 years.
“The first recorded sighting of a Lyrid meteor shower goes back to 687 BC by the Chinese.,” NASA reported.
It is noted that the Lyrids are known for their fast and bright meteors, and during the peak of the shower, 10 to 20 Lyrid meteors per hour can be seen.
“Lyrids don’t tend to leave long, glowing dust trains behind them as they streak through the Earth's atmosphere, but they can produce the occasional bright flash called a fireball,” NASA added.
It is worth noting that, in general, meteors are formed from remnants of cometary particles and fragments of broken asteroids.
“When comets come around the Sun, they leave a dusty trail behind them. Every year, Earth passes through these debris trails, which allows the bits to collide with our atmosphere where they disintegrate to create fiery and colorful streaks in the sky,” experts explained.
It is clarified that the space debris fragments interacting with our atmosphere and creating the Lyrids originate from comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher (discovered by amateur astronomer Albert Thatcher on April 5, 1861).
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/mysterious-celestial-object-spotted-over-1776678606.html
https://t.me/kievreal1/115496
other space objects
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2026/04/20/spectacular-fireball-spotted-in-belgian-skies/
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/150th-anniversary-of-rare-meteorite-smashing-into-shropshire-countryside-set-to-be-marked-today-6911869
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-methane-emissions-1792675
NASA Astronaut Captures Stunning ‘Earthset’ Video On iPhone During Artemis II Mission
Updated Apr 20, 2026, 19:28 IST
During the Artemis II mission, NASA's astronaut Reid Wiseman captured a rare visual of 'Earthset' – where the Earth slowly disappears behind the Moon's horizon. This is the most historic yet breathtaking moment in the history of deep space exploration.
Reid Wiseman recently shared a 53-second video clip on his X platform (formerly Twitter). This shows the Earth's rarest moments from the moon, offering a unique perspective to human eyes.
In the video, Earth is seen to be covered in swirling clouds before completely vanishing. The visual is very similar to the iconic Earthrise, captured during the Apollo era in 1972, and offers a glimpse of Earth's rare aesthetic from deep space.
During the mission, NASA allowed its crew to carry their smartphones, which further enabled them to take pictures from their Orion spacecraft.
What makes the scene more remarkable is that it was reportedly captured on an iPhone with its 8x zoom, which highlights how the new-age technology has advanced in capturing space exploration.
"Only one chance in this lifetime… Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset" Wiseman said while sharing video on X
"I could barely see the Moon through the docking hatch window, but the iPhone was the perfect size to catch the view…this is uncropped and uncut with 8x zoom, which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye. "Enjoy", he added
This Artemis II marks a successful return of crew after their 10-day space exploration programme, which happened after five decades. The Orion spacecraft served the role of exploration vehicle, which carried the crew during the mission and brought them back safely.
The crew have used multiple devices, from professional DSLRs (Nikon) to smartphones, to capture the beauty of Earth from deep space and has captured their journey in the most unique way.
Get Latest News live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from Technology Science and around the world.
https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/nasa-astronaut-captures-stunning-earthset-video-on-iphone-during-artemis-ii-mission-watch-article-154120596
https://x.com/astro_reid/status/2046009031613907029
House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday, 22 April: “A Review of the President’s Budget Request for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Fiscal Year 2027” More below.
April 19, 2026
“The success of the Artemis II mission reaffirms how critical it is that the United States continues to lead the world in space exploration,” said Chairman Babin.
“I look forward to discussing the Fiscal Year 2027 budget request with the Administrator and how we can ensure NASA has the resources needed to maintain that leadership and advance its broader mission.”
DATE: Wednesday, April 22, 2026
TIME: 10:00 a.m.
PLACE: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building
WITNESS:
The Honorable Jared Isaacman, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
This notice is at the direction of the Chair. The hearing will be open to the public and press and livestreamed online at https://science.house.gov/.
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
2321 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
https://nasawatch.com/congress/annual-nasa-budget-cut-process-starts-up-again/
https://nasawatch.com/budget/celebrating-artemis-ii-with-budget-cuts/
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-04-19/renewed-threat-to-jpl-as-trump-administration-tries-again-to-cut-nasa
https://www.newsnationnow.com/morninginamerica/space-chief-fights-against-nasa-budget-cuts/
https://science.house.gov/2026/4/full-committee-hearing-nasa-budget
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-dazzles-with-young-stars-in-trifid-nebula/
https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/changes-in-the-trifid-nebula-1997-and-2026-observations/
https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/explore-the-trifid-nebula/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFwfV2A1ZgY
extra NASA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/130391067.cms
https://newspress.co.in/nasa-highlights-mercury-as-brightest-planet-in-aprils-rare-morning-alignment/
https://www.dvidshub.net/news/563096/space-white-sands-us-army-astronaut-speak-nm-museum-space-history-launch-pad-lecture
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/thailands-krabi-coast/
NASA’s Hubble Dazzles With Young Stars in Trifid Nebula
Apr 20, 2026
This shimmering region of star-formation, a close-up of the Trifid Nebula about 5,000 light-years from Earth, was captured in intricate detail by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
The colors in Hubble’s visible light image, which marks the 36th anniversary of the mission's launch on April 24, are reminiscent of an underwater scene filled with fine-grained sediments fluttering through the ocean’s depths.
Several massive stars, which are outside this field of view, have shaped this region for at least 300,000 years. (See them in a wider view.)
Their powerful winds continue to blow an enormous bubble, a small portion of which is shown here, that pushes and compresses the cloud’s gas and dust, triggering new waves of star formation.
This isn’t the first time Hubble has gazed at this scene. The telescope observed the Trifid in 1997 and now, 29 years later, it has leveraged almost its full operational lifetime to show us changes in the nebula on human time scales.
Why look at the same location again? In addition to seeing changes over time, Hubble is also equipped with an improved camera with a wider field of view and greater sensitivity that was installed during Servicing Mission 4.
Star formation in ‘Cosmic Sea Lemon’
Hubble’s view of the Trifid Nebula (also known as Messier 20 or M20) focuses on a “head” and undulating “body” of a rusty-colored cloud of gas and dust that resembles a marine sea lemon, or sea slug, that appears as if it is gliding through the cosmos.
The Cosmic Sea Lemon’s left “horn” is part of Herbig-Haro 399, a jet of plasma periodically ejected over centuries by a young protostar embedded in the head of the sea lemon.
Changes, as seen in the video below, allow researchers to measure the speeds of the outflows and determine how much energy the protostar is injecting into these regions.
These measurements will provide insights into how newly formed stars interact with their surroundings.
To the immediate lower right is evidence of the counter jet: jagged orange and red lines that ”run” down the back of the sea lemon’s neck, where a natural V appears in the brown dust.
The darker, more triangular “horn” on the right of the “head” hosts another young star at its tip. Zoom in to see a faint red dot with a tiny jet.
The green arc above it may be evidence that a circumstellar disk is being eroded by the intense ultraviolet light from nearby massive stars. The clearer area around this protostar suggests it may almost be finished forming.
To the immediate left of the Cosmic Sea Lemon is a small, faint pillar that resembles a water bear. Much of this pillar’s gas and dust has been blown away, but the densest material at the top persists.
Streaks and sharp lines offer more clues about other young stars’ activities. Spy an example by looking near the center for a rippling angled line that begins in a bright orange and ends in a blazing red.
In the image comparison, it appears to move, which means it may be a jet shot out by another actively forming star buried deeply in dust.
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Prismatic ‘sea’ of color
In Hubble’s visible light observations, the clearest view is toward the top left, where it’s bluer. Strong ultraviolet light from massive stars, not in the field of view, stripped electrons from nearby gas, creating a glow, with winds sculpting a bubble by clearing out surrounding dust.
At the top of the Cosmic Sea Lemon’s head, bright yellow gas streams upward. This is an example of ultraviolet light plowing into the dark brown dust, stripping and dismantling the gas and dust.
Many ridges and slopes of dark brown material will remain for a few million years, as the stars’ ultraviolet light slowly eats away at the gas. The densest areas are home to protostars, which are obscured in visible light.
The far-right corner is nearly pitch black. This is where the dust is the densest. The stars that appear here may not be part of this star-forming region — they might be closer to us, in the foreground.
Now, scan the scene for bright orange orbs. These stars have fully formed, clearing the space around them. Over millions of years, the nebula’s gas and dust will disappear — only stars will remain.
Unprecedented longevity, nonstop discoveries
Hubble’s varied instruments and the expansive range of light it collects — from ultraviolet through visible to near-infrared — have helped researchers make ground-breaking discoveries for decades and supply new data daily that will inevitably lead to more.
The telescope has taken over 1.7 million observations to date. Almost 29,000 astronomers have published peer-reviewed science papers using Hubble data collected over the telescope’s 36-year lifetime, resulting in more than 23,000 publications, with almost 1,100 in 2025 alone. Hubble’s observational data is publicly available in the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, while its mission descriptions, history, and gallery of popular images are found on NASA’s Hubble website.
Since 2022, researchers have regularly combined Hubble’s observations with those from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to push opportunities for discovery further.
Very soon, astronomers will begin diving into huge near-infrared datasets from vast surveys from NASA's new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and will seek to compare them to existing or new Hubble observations to clarify what is at work.
For context, Roman’s camera can cover the entire Trifid Nebula, showing the full bubble, with a single pointing — and may turn up interesting objects for follow-up.
Another flagship to look forward to? The mission concept known as the Habitable Worlds Observatory, which would have a significantly larger mirror than Hubble — leading to higher resolution images — and, like Hubble, capture ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light.
This next-generation space telescope would advance science across all of astrophysics, and would be the first specifically engineered telescope to identify habitable, Earth-like planets next to relatively bright stars like our Sun and examine them for evidence of life.
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https://www.brown.edu/news/2026-04-20/cosmological-constant-problem
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/rzz5-p4f4
extra space thangs
https://www.space.com/stargazing/solar-eclipses/only-12-people-on-earth-saw-this-ring-of-fire-eclipse-heres-how-one-improvised-to-capture-a-once-in-a-lifetime-photo-from-antarctica
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/04/Lake_Balkhash_Kazakhstan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6y5Q8ZOhDk (Flyeye: ESA’s automated asteroid hunters)
https://www.isro.gov.in/ISRO_and_TIFR_Sign_MoU_for_Collaboration_n_Space_Science.html
Could the mathematical ‘shape’ of the universe solve the cosmological constant problem?
April 20, 2026
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The cosmological constant is the mathematical description of the energy that drives the ever-accelerating expansion of the cosmos. It’s also the source of one of the most enduring and confounding problems in modern physics.
The constant’s observed value is fundamentally at odds with quantum field theory (QFT), the leading theory describing the elementary particles and forces that make up the universe.
QFT predicts that quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of space should make the value of the constant enormous — practically infinite. But its observed value is a tiny fraction of that prediction.
Researchers at Brown University have proposed a provocative new answer for why that is.
The scientists show that math underlying the simplest formulation of quantum gravity bears a striking resemblance to the math describing the quantum Hall effect, an exotic state of matter in which electricity flows with uncanny precision.
In the quantum Hall state, electrical conductance is held steady, regardless of any imperfections in the conducting material, by the system’s topology — the mathematical “shape” of the quantum state.
The researchers show that there’s an analogous topology in what’s known as the Chern-Simons-Kodama state, a proposed ground state of quantum gravity.
“What we’ve shown is that if space-time has this non-trivial topology, then it resolves one of the deadliest problems of the cosmological constant,” said study co-author Stephon Alexander, a professor of physics at Brown.
“All the quantum perturbations that should blow up the value of the cosmological constant are rendered inert by this topology, which keeps the constant's value stable.”
The research, which Alexander co-authored with Brown Theoretical Physics Center colleagues Aaron Hui and Heliudson Bernardo, is published in Physical Review Letters.
The “ugly” term
The cosmological constant first appeared as a term in the equations describing Einstein’s canonical theory of space, time and gravity, known as general relativity.
Einstein was forced to introduce the term to make his mathematical universe stable. It represented a repulsive force, present in the vacuum of space, that counteracted the force of gravity and kept the universe from collapsing on itself.
In 1929, however, the cosmological constant was dealt an existential blow. Astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was not as stable as Einstein had assumed.
Rather than holding static, it was expanding. That discovery allowed Einstein to remove the stabilizing term from his equations, which he did with some relief. He had long viewed it as “ugly” and is purported to have called it his “biggest blunder.”
Following Hubble’s discovery, the cosmological constant spent about a half-century on the scientific scrap heap.
That changed in 1998, however, when scientists discovered that the universe's expansion is not happening at a constant rate; it’s accelerating.
That discovery once again made the cosmological constant necessary to describe the increasing speed of the universe’s expansion.
Not only was Einstein’s ugly term back, it was uglier than ever. During the constant’s exile, quantum field theory had become the backbone of the Standard Model of particle physics.
According to QFT, empty space is not empty at all. Rather, it’s a boiling soup of elementary particles constantly popping in and out of existence. All that activity should cause the vacuum energy of space — the energy described by the cosmological constant — to be practically infinite.
Yet its observed value, which is estimated by the rate of cosmic expansion, is most definitely not infinity. An infinite value would cause the universe to expand far too quickly to allow the formation of things like galaxies, planets or physicists.
Experiments with elementary particles have shown QFT to be among the most precise and successful theories in all of science, which makes its seemingly errant predictions about the cosmological constant all the more puzzling.
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Topologically protected
Alexander has spent years studying Chern-Simons-Kodama (CSK) theory, a proposed state of quantum gravity that grows out of quantum field theory.
Scientists have yet to settle on a quantum theory of gravity — a theory that explains how gravity works at the tiniest scales — but the CSK state is one of the more straightforward candidates, according to Alexander.
“It’s a really conservative approach to quantizing gravity,” he said. “This is the approach used by people like Dirac, Schrödinger and Wheeler. It’s just good, old-fashioned quantization.”
Alexander had been aware of some mathematical similarities between CSK and the math behind the quantum Hall effect, but he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them.
That’s when he turned to Hui, an assistant professor at Brown who specializes in topological systems like those that emerge in the quantum Hall effect.
“This is the beauty of the Brown Theoretical Physics Center,” Alexander said. “We want to be a place where there’s a mixing of lots of perspectives, and this is us practicing what we preach — a cosmologist working closely with a condensed matter theorist.”
Together, the researchers were able to show that the cosmological constant has a similar “topological protection” in the CSK state as electrical conductivity has in the quantum Hall effect.
The quantum Hall effect emerges when electricity flows through very thin materials in the presence of a magnetic field. Imagine a flat, two-dimensional piece of metal cut into a rectangular strip with an electric current running longways down the strip.
Introducing a magnetic field produces a second voltage that runs perpendicular to the original current. This is known as a Hall voltage (named after Edwin Hall, who discovered it).
At room temperature and under relatively weak magnetic fields, the Hall voltage increases linearly as the strength of the magnetic field increases.
But at very cold temperatures, where the rules of quantum mechanics dominate, and under very strong magnetic fields, the phenomenon changes. Rather than increasing linearly with magnetic field strength, the Hall voltage starts to increase in discrete (or quantized) steps and plateaus.
The steps and plateaus are incredibly precise and consistent, taking the exact same values regardless of the type of metal used as a conductor or whether there happen to be any imperfections in it.
That precision and consistency arise because of the system’s topology. In these extreme conditions, electrons enter a highly correlated state of collective behavior.
It’s the mathematical structure of that collective state — its topology — that locks the values of the steps and plateaus into place. The system is topologically protected from perturbations from the material and its imperfections, so the steps and plateaus always have the same value.
The researchers show that a very similar topological protection is present in the equations describing the CSK state.
Just as the topology of the electron states locks the Hall voltage into place, the topology of space-time itself locks the cosmological constant into place, even in the face of quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of space.
“What we find is that this quantization of the electrical conductance in quantum Hall has an analog with the cosmological constant,” Hui said. “It also ends up becoming quantized for topological reasons.
There turn out to be constraints in the theory that force the cosmological constant to take certain allowed quantized values.”
There’s much more work to be done to fully flesh out a topological solution to the cosmological constant problem, Alexander says. But finding a potential solution to the gravitational aspect of the problem is a crucial start.
At the very least, he says, the work bolsters the profile of the CSK state as a candidate for a long-sought theory of quantum gravity.
“We took something old, which is this conservative, canonical approach to quantum gravity, and discovered something new that had been there all along,” Alexander said. “Now we’re working on a bigger picture of how this phenomenon works.”
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no disclosure?
it only changes our way of life, so I guess thats a distraction