Corey S. Powell

15 Nov 2024

In honor of all the new arrivals, I'm sharing one of my favorite videos. It shows 24 hours of Earth's rotation, with the camera locked to the sky instead of the ground. We're all hanging out on this spinning rock. Brilliant work by Bartosz Wojczyński. 🧪 artuniverse.eu/gallery/1907...

11h

New dwarf planet just dropped. For now, it's called 2026 ED138. It appears to be ~1000 kilometers (600 miles) wide. If confirmed, that would make it a dwarf planet about half the size of Pluto. 🧪🔭 rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-f...

11h

The new Rubin Observatory is conducting an unprecedented continuous, deep scan of the entire southern sky. It's already found hundreds of new objects beyond Neptune. In the coming years, it will fill in much more of the picture of our outer solar system. 🧪🔭 rubinobservatory.org/news/11000-n...

Corey S. Powell reposted

Eric Lipton NYT

@ericlipton.nytimes.com

Everyone should read these threads I did about industry lobbyists and the EPA and understand them. Take the time to see the unambiguous evidence of what's happening now at this moment inside the EPA. Please retweet them. Please read them. Each one of the threads. It's happening in slow motion.

The Rubin Observatory in Chile is an accidental art machine. It is gearing up to produce a 10-year, high-def movie of the whole universe. But along the way, it's returning beautiful images like this one of the Seagull Nebula in the constellation Monoceros. 🧪🔭 rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-c...

A major event just passed without notice: the 180th anniversary of the discovery of dark matter. You hadn't heard that we discovered dark matter 180 years ago? Well, have I got a story to share with you. My latest Invisible Universe column, here: 🔭🧪 invisibleuniverse.substack.com/p/what-we-se...

There was a fierce British-French rivalry to find the first object discovered by its gravity, not by its light. (Spoiler: France won.) I didn't get into the full controversy in my column. You can read all about it here. 🔭🧪 www.astronomy.com/science/find...

While studying the distant universe, the Euclid space telescope just accidentally discovered a comet--a quite distant one, passing 800 million miles over the north pole of our solar system. 🧪🔭

Daniel Pomarède@pomarede.bsky.social

C/2026 S1 (Euclid) The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope has discovered its first previously unknown comet, in images taken between 16 and 24 September 2026. 🧪🔭 euclid.caltech.edu/news/euclid-...

On its way to Jupiter, the European JUICE mission recently flew by the Earth & Moon, viewing them as we would explore another planetary system. It's fun to step back and think how strange we'd seem if studied up close for the first time. 🧪🔭 www.dlr.de/en/latest/ne...

Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) is on its way!!!! 🧪 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn6g...

aerospaceamerica.aiaa.orgJAXA’s MMX mission will include the first wheeled rover to drive in ultra-low gravityThe first surface rover to attempt wheeled locomotion on an ultra-low-gravity celestial body is slated to begin its voyage across the solar system next week, when the Japan Aerospace Exploration…

One of the intriguing challenges of the upcoming MMX mission: how to drive a rover on the Martian moon Phobos, where the gravity is 1/2000th that on Earth, without flying off the ground. 🧪🔭

Gene J. Mikulka@genejm1017.bsky.social

Via: Aerospace America: JAXA’s #MMX mission will include the first wheeled rover to drive in ultra-low gravity aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/jaxas-mmx-mi...

Corey S. Powell reposted

Nobel Prize

@nobelprize.org

#OnThisDay in 1900, Max Planck presented his law of black body emission, Planck’s law. Planck's law (coloured curves) accurately describe black body radiation and resolved the ultraviolet catastrophe (black curve) a prediction of late 19th/early 20th century classical physics.

Tomorrow afternoon (EDT), Japan is set to launch the remarkable MMX mission. It will study Mars's tiny moon Phobos, drop a rover, and bring samples back to Earth. We'll learn a lot: about Mars, the history of the solar system, and about new ways to explore. 🧪🔭 www.mmx.jaxa.jp/en/mission/

There's more to the universe than meets the eye. We may be surrounded by dark galaxies--blobs of gas and dark matter, a billion times as massive as the Sun but completely starless. These galaxies would "shine" in gravity (illustrated) but emit no visible starlight. 🧪🔭 www.iac.es/en/outreach/...

Now astronomers using China's FAST radio telescope may have tracked down one of these dark galaxies, by tuning into radio emissions from the galaxy's (starless) gas clouds. We're getting better and better at seeing into the unseen. 🔭🧪 arxiv.org/html/2609.29...

Here's some time travel to wrap up your week. Using three years of computer runtime, researchers simulated billions of years of cosmic history in unprecedented detail. The result shows how pulses of collapse, star formation & explosions shaped our galaxy. 🧪🔭 news.uchicago.edu/story/new-si...

This map doesn't look like much...until you realize what it is. This is a measurement of *all the mass in the universe* between here & the cosmic microwave background (the edge of the visible cosmos), as deduced from its collective gravitational pull. 🔭🧪 news.uchicago.edu/story/south-...

Out of a wreckage of a dying star, a new planet was born. And now that planet is evaporating like a comet, leaving a trail that whips around the star every 4 days. It's a remarkable story written in chemical clues. Nobody has ever seen anything like it before. 🧪🔭 esahubble.org/news/heic2613/

Remarkably, this Jupiter-size planet is likely to survive. More remarkably, if it has large moons they will (briefly) reside in the habitable zone around their white dwarf star. Imagine how strange life would be there... 🔭🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Today in space: The Hera spacecraft is about to perform a hard burn so it can meet up with asteroid Dimorphos. 4 years ago, NASA deliberately crashed a probe into Dimorphos. Starting next month, Hera will map the wreckage. 🧪🔭 www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

After Hera reaches Dimorphos on November 25, it will map the asteroid at 1-meter resolution, study its gravity & inner structure, deploy 2 cubesats, and test rendezvous techniques that could be crucial for deflecting or mining asteroids in the future. 🧪🔭 www.heramission.space

Presenting Phobos, the peculiar potato moon of Mars. 🧪

Andrea Luck@andrealuck.bsky.social

Phobos (including Saturn and Deimos) in the latest release of @esa.int Mars Express Can you spot Saturn? Full size & more info: flic.kr/p/2sFoFaS 🔭🧪 Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY ESA Mars Express Release September 15, 2026 Note: Saturn has been enlarged by 300%

Corey S. Powell reposted

Simeon Schmauß

@stim3on.bsky.social

Six months have passed since the #ArtemisII mission and NASA has just released the reentry video from the Orion capsule! Here is a timelapse of the reentry, but be sure to check out the realtime version linked below! 🔭🧪

Corey S. Powell reposted

Geoff Brumfiel

@gbrumfiel.bsky.social

The IceCube neutrino detector has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in physics. The Trump administration has proposed slashing its budget in half in 2027.

@debraceravolo.bsky.social

The Nobel Prize in physics goes to Francis Halzen, who figured out how to turn a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice into a neutrino detector. The resulting IceCube experiment is now studying extreme events across the universe. 🔭🧪 www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...

Corey S. Powell reposted

Debra's Astrophotography

Even though Saturn is 1.26 billion kms from Earth, this beautiful planet was as close to Earth as it gets this year making it appear big and bright. This is called opposition, which happened last night (October 4th). I used my 16 inch telescope. #astrophotography #astronomy #saturn

We can't touch the deep interior of our planet, but we can now see it in the "light" of neutrinos emitted by radioactive elements. Early results suggest our Earth is intriguingly lopsided. 🧪 www.quantamagazine.org/neutrinos-fr...

This is your periodic reminder that humans are clever & are capable of great feats of discovery. We can solve huge problems when we set our minds to it, too. Here, seeing neutrinos from the bottom of a Canadian mine: 🧪 snoplus.phy.queensu.ca/geo.html

In astronomy, modest data points can hide stories of extreme drama. Here, each purple and white dot indicates a place where planets are colliding & destroying each other, releasing huge clouds of debris. (Artist's interpretation at right.) 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

The birth of Earth's Moon would have created a similar debris cloud around the Sun 4.5 billion years ago. We might be seeing analogous catastrophic moments of destruction & rebirth around other stars right now. (Art by Chesley Bonestell, one of my favorites.) 🔭🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Enigmatic flashes of x-rays in the sky may come from the catastrophic merger of two stars, creating an ultra-dense and ultra-magnetc remnant called a magnetar. The finding come from another kind of merger, one of Chinese & EU science missions. 🧪🔭 www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

nyti.msDid Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.

China's Einstein Probe satellite uses "lobster eye" optics to provide a unique, wide-field look at the x-ray sky. If something goes bump in the night (in x-rays!), Einstein will see it. 🧪🔭 ep.bao.ac.cn/leia/

Corey S. Powell reposted

Carl Zimmer

@carlzimmer.com

Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc

sammatey.substack.comHappy Stanislav Petrov DayTake five minutes to not destroy civilization

Here comes the nor'easter, seen by the GOES-19 satellite. It's building outside my apartment, and it is *loud*. (The storm, that is, not the satellite.) 🧪 www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/conus.p...

Corey S. Powell reposted

Ed Maibach

@maibached.bsky.social

Happy Stanislav Petrov Day He passed in 2017. As Encyclopedia Britannica puts it, “He is survived by his two children, two grandchildren, and the entire human race.” If you don't know his story, please take 3 minutes now to learn it. @gchalliance.bsky.social @docsforclimate.bsky.social

There's a lot we still don't know about how the Moon formed, but new computer simulations show that the Moon might have come together in just a *few hours*. Which makes me feel really unproductive today. 🧪🔭 www.swri.org/newsroom/pre...

A surprise in the new computer simulations: The outcome of a giant impact depends sensitively on the temperature & composition of the protoplanet that (probably) struck Earth. A slight change would have produced a different kind of Moon, or no Moon at all. 🧪🔭 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

21 Sept

The Moon shaped a lot of life on Earth, including holidays (like Yom Kippur) anchored to the lunar calendar. But moons are delicate things. We managed to keep ours. Venus may have eaten its moon. One more way it lost out... 🧪🔭 news.ucr.edu/articles/202...

21 Sept

How does a planet devour a moon? Full technical answer at the link. 🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Corey S. Powell reposted

Kevin M. Gill

@kevinmgill.bsky.social

science.nasa.govCuriosity Postcard Celebrates Rover’s 5,000th Day on Mars - NASA ScienceWhile parked at a sand ridge nicknamed “Chocolatal,” NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its black-and-white navigation cameras to capture panoramas at two times

New postcard from Curiosity using Navcams taken on Sols 5000 & 5003 science.nasa.gov/photojournal...

Wow: Giant new impact crater spotted on the Moon! An asteroid the size of an apartment building hit the lunar surface in early 2024 & created 220-meter (730-foot) wide McGetchin crater. It's "the largest contemporary impact crater found in the Solar System." 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/solar-system...

The new lunar impact also created a big new cold spot on the Moon. Seems that the incoming asteroid loosened up the Moon dust, so it doesn't hold heat as well. Nighttime temperatures around McGetchin crater are about 8 degrees C colder than its surroundings. 🧪🔭 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Just in: A gorgeous new panorama of creation in our galaxy, taken by JWST. This image shows infant stars shooting out jets, baby stars emerging from dusty cocoons, young planet-like objects floating alone & starless, and one planet birthing planets of its own. 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/asset/webb/i...

Look closely, and there's even more to see: shockwaves, distant galaxies, gravitational bending of light. This nebula is full of planet-mass objects that formed on their own like stars. What to call them? NASA says "brown dwarfs." Many astronomers disagree. 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/asset/webb/i...

esawebb.orgWebb reveals stunning panorama of star formation - One of Webb’s largest images to date showcases the hunt for the smallest brown dwarfsThis starry view of the nearby star-forming region IC 348 is one of the largest images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope released to the public so far. Using Webb, astronomers searched ...

You can find a huge version of this panorama of the star-forming region IC 348, along with more background information, here: esawebb.org/news/weic2619/

14 Sept

According to the standard model of the Big Bang, the universe was born containing 24.7% helium by mass. A new galaxy survey finds that the actual helium content was 24.6% (with a little uncertainty)! It's amazing that human brains figured out how the universe began. 🧪🔭 news.osu.edu/using-helium...

14 Sept

90% of all the helium in the universe today was already around at the time of the Big Bang. All the stars in the universe, cranking out fusion reactions for 13 billion years, have managed to contribute only 10%. That's how efficient solar/stellar energy is! 🔭🧪 iopscience.iop.org/collections/...

12 Sept

There's a sense of community born out of shared trauma, and one born out of shared aspirations. 9/11 brought us the first, briefly. When I watched the launch of NASA's Roman telescope, I saw a lot of the latter. We need more of that kind of community: optimistic, forward-looking, sustainable. 🧪🔭