TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 8, 2026
Swift Boost Mission
Sometimes we can all use a little help from a friend. NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory needs a boost to stay in orbit after almost 22 years of service. This video shows an artist's visualization of the Swift Boost Mission: The Katalyst's LINK spacecraft was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on July 3 and it is now en route to rendezvous with Swift and boost it to a higher orbit over the course of the next several months. This type of maneuver has never been attempted before. If successful, it will be the technology demonstration of a new key capability to extended the lifetime of spacecraft in low Earth orbit, whose orbits decay over time. Swift has an array of instruments that observe the most energetic explosions in the Universe in gamma-rays, X-rays and ultraviolet, and the unique ability to repoint in their direction within tens of seconds. Astronomers around the world, and indeed all fans of cosmic explosions, are anxiously hoping for a successful mission!
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah5wGfyM_EE
Super CME Eruption, Cosmic Psych Impact | S0 News and frens
July.8.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHIHuGinJY0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VAVWJy_KYk (MrMBB333: It's the BIGGEST in the WORLD and headed straight towards 35+ MILLION people! (Super Typhoon Bavi))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkMAlbBV5uM (EarthMaster: 3.6 Earthquake near Napa California today.. Cascadia Tremor counts up. Tues Night)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEsVcAt5Q0U (Dobsonian Power: ETNA JUST ERUPTED HARD: WHAT'S NEXT?)
https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/severe-thunderstorms-winds-mid-atlantic-flood-threat-south
https://theeagle.com/news/community/article_d48e1a30-522b-50f3-be84-aed78a430ae1.html
https://watchers.news/2026/07/08/super-typhoon-bavi-weakens-slightly-as-taiwan-yaeyama-islands-and-eastern-china-brace-for-impacts/
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2026-07-08/bavi-rota-guam-us-coast-guard-marianas-22208983.html
https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/super-typhoon-bavi-could-unleash-200-mph-wind-gusts-on-taiwan/1908408
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2026-07-07/%E2%80%9Cevery-aspect%E2%80%9D-of-pacific-island-damaged-or-destroyed-by-super-typhoon-bavi-22198204.html
https://www.thecable.ng/17-killed-as-typhoon-triggers-floods-tornadoes-across-china/
https://weatherboy.com/another-earthquake-shakes-eastern-tennessee/
https://www.newsminer.com/unusual-seismic-signal-detected-in-2025-central-alaska-earthquake/article_5cca13ac-0592-474b-a2f9-512a58fbe46c.html
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/07/08/magnitude-54-earthquake-strikes-off-north-islands-east-coast/
https://meteoagent.com/schumann-resonance-forecast
https://www.weatherbug.com/news/Thunderstorms-Rumble-Over-the-Plains
https://www.tornadohq.com/
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes-volcanoes/news.html
https://www.solarham.com/
https://www.spaceweather.gov/
https://spaceweather.com/
https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/2074576156871832023
https://thedebrief.org/mysterious-space-dust-falling-on-earth-may-originate-from-unidentified-objects-lurking-near-our-planet-new-study-finds/
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aed6340
other space objects
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Deep_space_software_upgrade_for_Hera_s_asteroid_visit
https://www.astronomy.com/observing/the-sky-today-wednesday-july-8-2026/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6pJzGnHrA4 (Ray's Astro: LIVE Comet Hunt Tonight — Can We Catch 10P/Tempel?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-mOJqas-YQ (Chuck's Astro: LIVE: Let's Capture the Blue Horsehead Nebula)
Mysterious “Space Dust” Falling on Earth May Originate from Unidentified Objects Lurking Near Our Planet, New Study Finds
July 8, 2026
Every year, more than 5,000 tons of material with cosmic origins lands on Earth’s surface, with as much as 15,000 tons of this “space dust” making its way into the atmosphere but vaporizing during reentry.
The resulting rain of micrometeorites that reaches our planet consists mostly of tiny objects anywhere from 30 to 200 micrometers in size, based on past studies.
But what are the origins of these large volumes of material that accumulate over time as they shower the Earth throughout the year?
According to new research, evidence for one potential source of this cosmic debris has now been found: it could be coming from unidentified near-Earth objects.
Space Dust with Unknown Origins
The problem with tracing the origins of space dust is that most of it that makes its way into Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t survive the intense conditions of atmospheric entry, and those tiny bits that do—known as cosmic spherules—are reshaped as they melt from the friction they encounter while falling.
Although their original mineral structure is compromised as well as their shape, there are a few isotopes—namely oxygen—that these spherules maintain that scientists can use to help trace their origins.
Based on their chemical “fingerprints,” cosmic spherules are placed into different groups by planetary scientists, with many being able to be traced back to known varieties of meteorites and other sources.
Among these groups, around ten percent fall into a category possessing unusually small quantities of the isotope oxygen-16.
This category, known as Group 4, doesn’t appear to match any known meteorite group—the implication, therefore, is that some of this cosmic debris may originate from an unidentified variety of near-Earth objects.
New Clues to the Origins of Uncorrelated Space Dust
Now, according to new research by Matthias Van Ginneken and colleagues, there are at least some ways that the origins of these spherules can be determined, one of which involves their orbital parameters.
In one case, the team writes in a recent study published in Science Advances, “the mineralogical and textural properties of a subset of cosmic spherules do provide information on the orbital parameters of their precursors, including eccentricity and encounter velocity.”
This group of materials, which is dubbed “CumPo” based on its material consistency of cumulate olivine porphyritic, is “characterized by clustered olivine phenocrysts that increase in size from one side of the spherule to the other,” the team writes.
In short, this unique class of spherules points to equally unique orbital characteristics that may be associated with what the research team surmises could be atypical types of near-Earth objects, or NEOs, that could be near enough to our planet to provide a likely source.
A particular clue offered by these objects is that some of them may have undergone unusually high entry speeds, as evidenced by their surface texture.
One factor that could potentially account for this is that they may have entered Earth’s atmosphere at angles consistent with objects possessing high orbital eccentricity.
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More Clues from Antarctica
As with past studies, researchers were able to retrieve several samples of these CumPo cosmic spherules from Antarctica, which provides a pristine environment that helps to facilitate their discovery and collection.
However, another source location had been far less remote: urban rooftops, where a large amount of cosmic dust lands every year.
With the aid of electron microscopy and microprobe chemistry studies, Ginneken and colleagues examined the mineralogy, chemistry, and textures of these spherules, as well as the oxygen isotopes they contained.
What they found indicated an entirely new subset of spherules, which possess significant amounts of cumulate olivine rich in sulfur, garnering the name “SCumPo.” This unique new class of samples has links to the “Group 4” class and their minimal inclusion of oxygen-16.
Other unusual similarities they possess are an overall absence of magnetite and a low presence of nickel in their olivine crystals, paired with an abundance of iron-nickel sulfur and a significant amount of sulfur present within glasses produced from vitrification.
Intriguingly, some spherules appeared to show a combination of signatures that were both poor in oxygen-16 in some areas, while rich in the isotope in others.
This suggests that these cosmic materials had likely been mixed from two separate original sources, since such conditions could not be otherwise explained through natural processes.
“We interpret this as strong evidence that the SCumPo precursors were composite materials containing at least two different components,” the team writes in their study.
Then, by running numerical simulations of crystal settling to help determine the likely entry speeds of these materials, and thereby their eccentricities while in orbit, the team determined that the settling of olivine is most consistent with entry speeds of as much as 17 kilometers per second, and likely no more than 14 kilometers per second—speeds that would be consistent with NEOs, as opposed to asteroids originating from the main-belt.
Evidence for an Unknown Class of Space Objects
Based on their findings, the team believes that unsampled meteorites from the CM, CO, and CY classifications of carbonaceous chondrites—a group of primitive, carbon-rich meteorites containing some of the oldest materials in our Solar System—are the likely sources for these cosmic materials.
“Given that we have linked their composition to the CM-CO-CY clan of carbonaceous chondrites, it is plausible that their parent body was a primitive carbonaceous asteroid that migrated onto an Earth-crossing orbit—attaining comet-like orbital parameters,” the team writes.
“For instance, one might consider the disrupted fragments of a thermally altered but water-bearing asteroid (like the CY group) that evolved into near-Earth space,” they add.
Although still only inferred from their studies, the team suggests the existence of a hypothetical new variety of NEOs based on the samples they studied, which are unlike any variety of meteorites currently known on Earth.
“These findings point to a previously unsampled, primitive, sulfide-rich CY-like near-Earth asteroid, which represents a ‘missing’ meteorite parent body that contributes distinctive 16O-poor cosmic dust to Earth,” the team writes, noting that any future confirmation of the existence of this unknown class of meteorites would represent “a pivotal discovery.”
The team’s new paper, “16O poor cosmic spherules from near-Earth CY chondrite asteroids,” appeared in Science Advances.
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Inside NASA’s UFO coverup culture | Reality Check
Updated: Jul 7, 2026 / 01:06 PM CDT
In this episode of “Reality Check,” Ross Coulthart sits down with Michael Gold, president of Redwire Space and a former member of NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team, for a candid look at how the agency has handled the subject.
Gold explains what the study team was actually asked to do, which was to weigh whether UAP was worth NASA’s attention and what resources it could bring to bear, rather than to analyze the anomalous imagery already sitting in the agency’s own archives.
He is direct about the stigma that shadows the field, describing scientists warned they could lose their jobs, tenure and their ability to publish for simply asking the question, including a physicist and frequent guest of this show who lost his position after appearing on it.
The conversation moves through the Apollo 17 triangle and the Apollo 11 blue lights, the Robertson Panel that helped set decades of ridicule in motion and the work Gold is now leading through the Disclosure Foundation to reopen NASA’s archives alongside astronomer Beatriz Villarroel and physicist Maaneli Derakhshani.
It closes where Gold argues where the real stakes sit, on national security, a race with China and his warning that whoever controls the Moon will eventually control the Earth.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/podcasts-newsnation/reality-check/inside-nasas-ufo-coverup-culture-reality-check/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyz79i5mUw
More Cartilage, Blood Pressure Studies on Station as Crew Swap Preps Begin
July 7, 2026 3:40PM
Cartilage engineering and blood pressure studies to improve health on Earth and in space continued aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday.
The Expedition 74 crew members also serviced an experimental module, configured a temporary sleep station, and began preparing for the return to Earth of three crewmates.
Lab-grown cartilage tissues on Earth are subject to gravity resulting in lesser quality than samples engineered in the weightless environment of the orbital outpost.
NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir is helping scientists take advantage of microgravity to mimic how cartilage tissues are produced in the human body.
Meir continued processing the growing cartilage cells inside the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox for viewing inside a fluorescent microscope.
Observations from the biotechnology study may enable the engineering of more natural cartilage tissues than those produced on Earth leading to the advanced treatment and prevention of cartilage and joint injuries.
NASA flight engineer Jack Hathaway spent his day on maintenance and stowage inside BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, attached to the Tranquility module.
Hathaway first replaced batteries inside sensors that monitor BEAM’s internal and external condition. Next, he opened BEAM’s hatch and retrieved hardware from inside the experimental module that was installed on April 16, 2016.
Meir assisted Hathaway with the BEAM work during a break in her cartilage research.
NASA flight engineer Chris Williams, who will be returning to Earth soon with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, recorded a video message for European students describing the effects of microgravity and readjusting to Earth’s gravity.
Williams also worked inside the Quest airlock inspecting tethers and stowing tools that he and Meir used during a spacewalk on June 30.
He wrapped up his shift in the Columbus laboratory module replacing air ducts and measuring the airflow in an upgraded temporary sleep station in preparation for the arrival of a new crew next week.
Flight engineer Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) began her shift retrieving cartilage cell samples from an incubator and handing them over to Meir for her research.
Adenot then collected and analyzed her saliva samples using the Aphrodite portable device. The biomedical gear enables real-time, diagnostic health monitoring in space without sending samples back to Earth for analysis.
Next, she worked on orbital plumbing inside Tranquility then installed protective covers on sensitive scientific equipment inside Kibo.
Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev are preparing for their upcoming return to Earth with Williams aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft.
The duo called down to Roscosmos mission controllers for a conference with the support personnel who will greet the trio after they complete their eight-month space research mission at the end of July.
The two cosmonauts then continued their cardiac research using light-based sensors and lasers on their skin to measure how blood flows in their tiny vessels, or the micro-circulatory system.
Roscosmos flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev spent most of his shift collecting station water and atmospheric moisture samples for analysis.
Fedyaev also checked the operation of life support equipment in the Zvezda service module and cleaned ventilation systems in the Zarya module.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2026/07/07/more-cartilage-blood-pressure-studies-on-station-as-crew-swap-preps-begin/
moar NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/artemis-ii-crew-and-apollo-14-moon-tree/
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/notes-from-the-field/2026/07/07/keeping-pace-with-ocean-change/
https://www.stocktitan.net/news/RDW/former-merck-and-nasa-leaders-bring-strategic-expertise-to-space-md-9hdjz0bionih.html
https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases/davids-highlights-olathe-manufacturers-role-historic-artemis-ii-mission-moon
>Elon posted that WWG1WGA video again… 3rd time.
NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes from Hibernation in Good Health
Jul 07, 2026
Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper Belt far beyond Pluto.
On June 23, flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed New Horizons, acting on stored commands uplinked to its main computer last July, had safely awakened from a 321‑day hibernation period that began Aug. 7.
With the spacecraft now approximately 5.9 billion miles (9.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, the radio signals carrying that confirmation took about 8 hours and 52 minutes to reach the APL Mission Operations Center via NASA's Deep Space Network station near Madrid, Spain.
The mission team typically places New Horizons in resource‑saving hibernation mode during long cruise periods.
While the spacecraft is hibernating, operators do not send commands or retrieve data, but the spacecraft continues gathering and storing data around the clock from its heliospheric plasma sensors, Solar Wind at Pluto and the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation, as well as its space dust detector, the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter.
Alice Bowman, the New Horizons mission operations manager at APL, said the spacecraft reported back to Earth, via the Deep Space Network, with a weekly status beacon.
“Every status report through this hibernation period was ‘green,’ meaning all was well aboard New Horizons each and every week,” she said.
As New Horizons resumes active operations, Bowman noted, the team will begin downlinking spacecraft health and safety data, followed by data from the three scientific instruments.
In about three weeks, the spacecraft’s onboard Alice ultraviolet spectrograph will look at the hydrogen gas distribution in the outer heliosphere, while the Solar Wind at Pluto, the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation, and the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter instruments continue their measurements, and the ground team conducts a series of spacecraft and instrument checkouts.
The team also is completing upgrades to the ground‑system software that will make it easier to maintain operations of the spacecraft. Tests are already underway and are expected to continue through the year.
New Horizons is operating on updated autonomy logic designed for operations farther from the Sun and to accommodate the expected reduction in power and the naturally occurring increase in radio‑signal travel time.
The NASA spacecraft’s exploration of this distant region of the solar system marks the latest step in a journey that began in January 2006 with the fastest launch on record; a flyby of Jupiter in February 2007 that included stunning views of the gas giant and its moons; the first exploration through the Pluto system in July 2015; the first exploration of a Kuiper Belt object, Arrokoth, in January 2019, and unique studies of the Sun’s outer heliosphere and dozens of additional Kuiper Belt objects since then.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-wakes-from-hibernation-in-good-health/
even moar NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/nasa-transfers-hundred-acre-wood-to-patuxent-research-refuge/
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/cottonwood-fire-chars-utah/
https://www.theredstonerocket.com/news/article_2e7081cd-df48-4d04-ad0b-45f34104ba5a.html
https://www.space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/james-webb-space-telescope-celebrates-its-4th-birthday-with-stunning-image-of-a-galaxy-crash-site
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webb-uncovers-unusual-galaxy-shaped-by-cosmic-collision/