TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
June 1, 2026
Saturn at Night
Telescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it the star of star parties. But this stunning view of the outer gas gaint planet's rings and night side just isn't possible from telescopes in the vicinity of planet Earth. Peering out from the inner Solar System they can only bring Saturn's day side into view. In fact, this image of Saturn's slender sunlit crescent with the planet's night shadow cast across its broad and complex ring system was captured by the robot spacecraft Cassini. After a seven year long journey from planet Earth, Cassini called Saturn orbit home for 13 years (from 2004 - 2017) before it was directed to dive into the atmosphere of the gas giant on September 15, 2017. This magnificent mosaic is composed of frames recorded by Cassini's wide-angle camera only two days before its grand final plunge. And Saturn's night will not be seen again until another spaceship from Earth calls.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbbsq45pO1o
Major Ocean Tide Change, Disaster Cycle Tracking | S0 News and frens
June.1.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jUQIO60xWc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOERlVgwWjs (Sabine Hossenfelder: How Dangerous Is This Super El Niño Really?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTx9uBiLTn4 (On the Pulse with Silki: SAME DEPTH ! People are WORRIED ! Chile’s Coast Just Started Shaking in the Worst Possible Place)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuTp8UGJqk (Randall Carlson: THE ASTEROID EPISODE: The Dangers and Opportunities)
https://weather.com/2026/06/01/science/weather-explainers/june-atlantic-hurricane-season-gulf-caribbean-storms
https://gulfnews.com/world/rare-total-solar-eclipse-to-sweep-across-europe-and-atlantic-in-august-1.500559089
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2026/06/01/400_earthquakes_recorded_in_hellisheidi_seismic_swa/
https://sundayguardianlive.com/world/earthquake-rattles-valparaso-magnitude-60-jolt-strikes-the-coast-of-central-chile-199520/
https://meteoagent.com/schumann-resonance-forecast
https://weather.substack.com/p/may-31-2026-sunday-spring-weather
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes-volcanoes/news/303849/Volcano-earthquake-report-for-Monday-1-Jun-2026.html
https://www.tornadohq.com/
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh.shtml?epac
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=01&month=06&year=2026
and hopefully it stays that way
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/is-the-dark-comet-1998-ky26-the-spacecraft-phobos-1-304169bce8a2
extra Avi Loeb
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/avi-loeb-comments-on-the-meteor-explosion-over-the-boston-area-on-may-30-2026-62f53b20b7f0
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/avi-loeb-panspermia-theory-3i-atlas-1799902
Is the `Dark Comet’ 1998 KY26 the Spacecraft Phobos 1?
May 31, 2026
Dark comets are a proposed class of curious hybrids between comets and asteroids. These objects show significant non-gravitational accelerations, yet they exhibit absolutely no sign of cometary outgassing in the form of a coma or tail.
The first recognized interstellar object, 1I/`Oumuamua, showed these features and was suggested to belong to this class in a recent mainstream publication, posted here.
However, based on its inferred flat shape (published here) and non-gravitational acceleration, I argued in a much earlier publication here that 1I/`Oumuamua might be technological in origin.
The dark comet categorization of 1I/`Oumuamua and similar solar system objects was the mainstream response to my nontraditional suggestion.
A year ago, I wrote a paper (accessible here) with my postdoc, Richard Cloete, suggesting that the dark Comet labeled 2005 VL1 might be the Venera 2 Spacecraft, a failed Soviet mission to Venus launched in November 1965.
Another member of the proposed class of dark comets in the Solar system is 1998 KY26. The nature of 1998 KY26 is not just an academic question. The Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA) plans to land the spacecraft Hayabusa2 on this object in July 2031.
In its original mission, Hayabusa2 explored the 900-meter-diameter asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018, returning asteroid samples to Earth in 2020. With fuel remaining, the spacecraft was sent on an extended mission until 2031, when it is set to encounter 1998 KY26.
This will be the first time a space mission encounters a tiny object on the size scale of 10-meters. Mainstream astronomers hope that this landing will reveal the nature of outgassing from a dark comet.
1998 KY26 was observed by a number of ground-based telescopes to support the preparation of the Hayabusa2 mission, and the results were reported in a 2025 Nature Communication paper — accessible here.
Interestingly, this so-called `dark comet’ was observed to be shiny with a very high reflectance (albedo) of 0.52 (±0.08). Its inferred size of 11 (±2) meters is comparable to that of a spacecraft.
In addition, it exhibits an exceedingly short rotation period of 5.3516 (±0.0001) minutes which implies a sturdy monolithic object, whereas a rubble pile asteroid would break up under the associated centrifugal force.
In a new paper that I just co-authored with the brilliant Adam Hibberd, Adam Crowl, and Carlos Olea (accessible here), we present supporting evidence that 1998 KY26 could be technological in origin.
In particular, we identify it as potentially a relic of a historical Russian mission to Mars, the Phobos 1 probe, which suffered a failure 2 months after the launch in July 1988, due to upload of a faulty command.
On September 2, 1988, Phobos 1 stopped transmitting signals towards Earth.
This was traced to a faulty key-command that was sent unintentionally by a technician on August 28 from ground control in Yevpatoria, leaving out a single hyphen in one of the keyed commands.
This deactivated the attitude thrusters, causing the spacecraft to lose the lock of its solar arrays on the Sun, depleting its batteries.
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Our new paper shows that two propulsive velocity thrusts (∆Vs) combined at 1.9 kilometers per second, the first just after loss of mission and the second in May 1996, allow the orbits and phases of the two bodies to align, with an arbitrarily low separation in velocity-position space.
There is also evidence that 1.9 kilometers per second was within the performance envelope of Phobos 1, which had a powerful nitric acid and amine-based autonomous thruster for Mars Orbital Insertion.
Our analysis cannot unequivocally identify that 1998 KY26 is definitely the Phobos 1 probe. Nevertheless, we have shown quantitatively that
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The Phobos 1 and 1998 KY26 orbits are similar. The two orbits converge and are statistically compatible, given the uncertainty in the orbit of 1998 KY26, which is tightly constrained due to the existence of over 230 observations of this `dark comet’.
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The difference between these two orbits is compatible energetically with the overall velocity thrust (∆V) envelope available to Phobos 1.
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There is a historical record in support of the hypothesis that a propulsive velocity thrust (∆V) was delivered shortly after loss of mission.
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The Phobos 1 mission was lost early on in the probe’s transit to Mars, enabling a large ∆V capability.
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The observational data on the physical properties of the dark comet 1998 KY26 support the association with Phobos 1. This includes the measured small size, high albedo and unusually large spin, which favor a sturdy object over a rubble pile asteroid.
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The dark comet appears to be quite elongated based on changes in its apparent magnitude, as expected for Phobos 1.
Gladly, the verdict on our association of the `dark comet’ 1998 KY26 with the spacecraft Phobos 1 will be indisputable once JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission gets close to it.
The beauty of science is that hypotheses can be tested experimentally beyond any reasonable doubt. This is why the Vatican acknowledged publicly in 1992 (as reported here) that Galileo Galilei was right and the Sun is not moving around the Earth as they claimed for centuries.
I wonder whether the mainstream of comet experts will acknowledge that 1I/Oumuamua may have not been a naturaldark comet’ if it becomes clear that their so-called `dark comet’ 1998 KY26 is technological in origin, beyond any reasonable doubt.
My plea to the mainstream of comet experts is simple. Please extend your training data set to include not just rocks and icebergs but also the space objects launched by humans over the past 69 years.
After all, we know that the truthfulness of statements made by AI systems depend sensitively on the extent of their training data sets. This is why the U.S. invests in 2026 over 700 billion dollars in data centers for training AI systems.
The database on all space objects launched by humans is a rather modest addition to all the asteroids or comets we know about. Is it too much to ask that the assessments of comet experts will be trained on it as well?
On September 17, 2020, Pan-STARRS 1 — the same telescope that discovered 1I/`Oumuamua, identified another near-Earth object which showed non-gravitational acceleration without a cometary tail.
Naturally, this object, labeled 2020 SO, would have been classified as another `dark comet’. However, follow-up spectroscopy by NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility revealed that its spectrum resembles that of stainless steel, confirming that it is the Centaur upper stage used to launch in September 1966 the Surveyor 2 spacecraft towards the Moon. I rest my case.
2020 SO was pushed away from the Sun by solar radiation pressure, the same mechanism that I proposed in a 2018 publication here as the source of the non-gravitational acceleration of 1I/`Oumuamua.
We know that 2020 SO has a technological origin because we launched it. The remaining question is who launched 1I/`Oumuamua?
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Astronaut on ISS receives 'space cake' to mark 300 days in orbit
June 1, 2026, 9:17 a.m. ET
Astronauts on the International Space Station are usually immersed in groundbreaking science experiments or witnessing breathtaking cosmic sights – not showcasing their skills in the culinary arts.
But to mark a few recent milestones, some of the spacefarers aboard the orbital outpost temporarily hung up their spacesuits and instead donned their aprons.
And what better way to celebrate your colleagues than by baking them a cake?
Of course, the ISS is hardly outfitted as a state-of-the-art bakery, so the crew had to get a little creative in concocting what one of the astronauts dubbed a "space cake."
What is the International Space Station?
The International Space Station has been stationed in low-Earth orbit for more than 25 years, typically about 260 miles high, where it has been home to astronauts from all over the world.
Throughout its lifespan, the station has served as a test bed for scientific research in microgravity and has in years past opened itself up to private commercial missions.
The orbital laboratory is operated through a global partnership of space agencies, including NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
More than 290 spacefarers from 26 countries have visited the International Space Station, including 170 from the United States alone, according to NASA.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/06/01/nasa-astronaut-iss-space-cake/90293832007/
https://x.com/Astro_Jessica/status/2059384301331059037
extra NASA
https://x.com/Soph_astro/status/2060994030285082976
https://x.com/Soph_astro/status/2061067044825563396
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/a-pretty-significant-setback-how-blue-origins-rocket-explosion-affects-nasas-moon-plans
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/gravity-waves-from-super-typhoon-sinlaku/
EU at risk from Ukrainian strikes on nuclear plant – Rosatom CEO
1 Jun, 2026 14:51
Ukraine and its neighboring EU countries would be the first to suffer if Kiev’s continued attacks result in an incident at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Aleksey Likhachev, CEO of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, has said.
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has been targeted by Ukraine on multiple occasions since Russia took control of the facility in March 2022.
On Saturday, a fiber-optics-guided drone struck the machine hall of ZNPP’s sixth power unit, puncturing a hole in the building. According to Rosatom, this was Kiev’s first “deliberate attack” on the station’s main equipment.
Ukrainian authorities have denied any involvement in the incident. Vladimir Zelensky said in April that the only way for Russia to guarantee security at the plant was to hand it over to Kiev.
Likhachev told journalists on Monday that “any explosion, any fire [at the plant] guarantees a loss of both power and water supplies to the reactor unit. And that is a precursor to a nuclear incident.”
If the ZNPP is hit with more powerful weapons such as heavy missiles, the reactor vessel could well be destroyed, causing a release of radiation that would then spread over a vast area, he warned.
“Ukraine and neighboring Western states are the first to be at serious risk” if this happens, the Rosatom chief added.
According to Likhachev, his conversation about the events at the ZNPP with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi later in the day will also serve as “an address to the leaders of European countries.”
“This whole radiation situation doesn’t respect national borders. By playing with fire and allowing the escalation of tensions around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the leaders of European countries are clearly putting their people, their cities and their territories under a direct threat,” he noted.
The IAEA, which has its experts deployed at the ZNPP, previously acknowledged attacks on the facility, but stopped short of blaming Ukraine for them.
The plant has been operated by Rosatom since Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as well as the People’ Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk voted to join Russia in a referendum in the fall of 2022.
https://www.rt.com/news/640812-zaporozhye-ukraine-drone-nuclear/
extra RT
https://www.rt.com/russia/640811-kremlin-french-piracy-tanker/
https://www.rt.com/news/640801-candace-owens-photos-russian-trip/