Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 1: The Apology Begins

To all the dust grains in the universe, if you’re listening, and I know you probably aren’t because a) radio waves pass through you largely unimpeded, and b) you’re just a small collection of molecules and likely not sentient: I’m sorry.

There, I said it. I feel better, don’t you?

I’ve spent years complaining about dust. There’s dust on my desk right now as I’m typing this. There’s dust floating through the sunlight in the window. And while I’m not allergic to dust at all, it feels like I am. Dust is annoying, it’s everywhere, it gets into stuff.

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Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 2: The Astronomer’s Headache

And if you’re trying to do any sort of astronomy or cosmology whatsoever, dust just gets in the way. It contaminates. It RUINS.

Dust messes with light in really complicated ways. And it’s EVERYWHERE. If you go out into some random patch of interstellar space, you’re not going to have a lot of stuff around you. And about 99% of that stuff will be simple hydrogen and helium. The rest is generally categorized as “dust”, which is microscopic clumps of heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, and iron.

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Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 3: Tiny Chemistry Labs

But you know what? Now that I think about it. This dust that’s so ever-present and annoying and pervasive and aggravating….it’s gotta be kinda powerful? You know, in a dusty sort of way. Not every substance gets to play a critical role in so much of observational astronomy (to the point that the entire scientific discipline could probably be called “dust mitigation strategies”).

I’m not saying dust is a GOOD thing. But…at least it’s a player on the galactic stage. We care more about dust than, I don’t know, black holes, when it comes to day-to-day astronomy. That’s pretty impressive.

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Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 4: We Owe Dust Our Lives

Okay, fine. Dust does some chemistry. I’ll give it that. But surely the rest of cosmic structure, the actual stars and planets and us, has nothing to do with these annoying microscopic grains.

Reader, it has everything to do with them.

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The stuff that makes up Earth came from the inner solar system

Planetary scientists have shown that the material that makes up the Earth originates exclusively from the inner solar system.

Planetary scientists have long debated where the material that formed our Earth comes from. Despite its location in the inner solar system, they consider it likely that 6–40% of this material must have come from the outer solar system, i.e., beyond Jupiter.

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OK OK, I’ll read it :)

Team finds rare evidence of 2 planets colliding

Astronomers have collected rare evidence of two planets colliding.

Anastasios (Andy) Tzanidakis was combing through old telescope data from 2020 when he found an otherwise boring star acting very strangely.

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Bubblecar said:

OK OK, I’ll read it :)

:)

YouTube video 38min – Radio Astronomy

Inside the Radio Universe – Interview with Dr. Emma Chapman

Hi Spacecats, I’m Dr Maggie Lieu and welcome to my channel, where you can find all things space, astronomy and physics! In this video I’m joined by Dr Emma Chapman, Lecturer at the University of Nottingham, Fellow of the Royal Society, Author of First Light to talk about radio astronomy, and her new book Radio Universe.

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Lakes formed by asteroid impacts 2.4 billion years ago helped Earth generate the oxygen needed to support complex life

About 42,000 years ago, an asteroid slammed into what is now South Korea. It carved a bowl in the ground, shattered the bedrock, and generated enough heat to melt rock and superheat groundwater for thousands of years.

Eventually, water accumulated in the crater. A lake formed, and in that lake – fed by mineral-rich hydrothermal fluids seeping up from below – life quietly took hold.

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Just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang, galaxies were already shaped by where they lived

A large protocluster of galaxies that existed 12.6 billion years ago, first discovered with the Subaru Telescope, has been examined in detail using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The study found that galaxies in crowded regions are more extended than similar galaxies in less dense environments. The results, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters , show that even when the universe was only 1.2 billion years old, environment was already influencing how galaxies grow.

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From the smallest to the biggest objects in space

Vast arrays of planets, stars, black holes, galaxies, and more populate our Universe. Within each category, differences can be astounding.

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South African telescope detects record‑breaking signal from the early universe

Astronomers using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa have discovered the most distant hydroxyl megamaser ever detected, opening a new radio astronomy frontier. A hydroxyl megamaser is a natural space laser, and this one is located in a violently merging galaxy more than 8 billion light-years away.

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JWST reveals dawn-dusk atmosphere split on ultra-hot exoplanet WASP-121 b

Astronomers have revealed distinct differences in atmospheric conditions between the morning and evening transition zones of the ultra-hot gas planet WASP-121 b, which separate day from night, commonly called terminators. This achievement was only possible due to the unmatched sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

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First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

Researchers have found the first atmosphere surrounding an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of a distant star.

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First AI-driven telescope goes stargazing

Every night, astronomers must carefully assess changing weather, the intensity of moonlight and shifting atmospheric conditions before deciding where to point a telescope

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Astronomers finally measure the full size of the largest known galaxy

Researchers have obtained the deepest images ever taken of IC 1101, allowing them to identify the galaxy’s outer edge for the first time. The observations confirm it as the largest known galaxy, spanning roughly 520 kiloparsecs, or about 1.7 million light-years, and containing an estimated 3.4 trillion solar masses in stars.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

First AI-driven telescope goes stargazing

Every night, astronomers must carefully assess changing weather, the intensity of moonlight and shifting atmospheric conditions before deciding where to point a telescope

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Maybe an additional improvement might be to add satellite positions, those which might interfere with observation time.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

First AI-driven telescope goes stargazing

Every night, astronomers must carefully assess changing weather, the intensity of moonlight and shifting atmospheric conditions before deciding where to point a telescope

More…

Maybe an additional improvement might be to add satellite positions, those which might interfere with observation time.

Things that interfere with telescope Observation Time.

Moonlight
Atmospheric conditions
Cloud cover
Street lights
Satellites
Space junk
Sun storms
Nearby supernovas

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

First AI-driven telescope goes stargazing

Every night, astronomers must carefully assess changing weather, the intensity of moonlight and shifting atmospheric conditions before deciding where to point a telescope

More…

Maybe an additional improvement might be to add satellite positions, those which might interfere with observation time.

Things that interfere with telescope Observation Time.

Moonlight
Atmospheric conditions
Cloud cover
Street lights
Satellites
Space junk
Sun storms
Nearby supernovas

Aurora’s
Changing twilight times
Zodiacal light?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Maybe an additional improvement might be to add satellite positions, those which might interfere with observation time.

Things that interfere with telescope Observation Time.

Moonlight
Atmospheric conditions
Cloud cover
Street lights
Satellites
Space junk
Sun storms
Nearby supernovas

Aurora’s
Changing twilight times
Zodiacal light?

Passing planets

Watch the Perseids live with NASA

Tau.Neutrino said:

Watch the Perseids live with NASA

oh did NASA invite them over for a holiday

The death of dark energy is a false alarm – the universe is still accelerating

A 2025 study by South Korean researchers caught the attention of the astronomy community when it suggested that the evidence behind dark energy could be wrong. Dark energy makes up about 70% of the universe but nobody knows what it is. This makes it a frequent target for scepticism.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

The death of dark energy is a false alarm – the universe is still accelerating

A 2025 study by South Korean researchers caught the attention of the astronomy community when it suggested that the evidence behind dark energy could be wrong. Dark energy makes up about 70% of the universe but nobody knows what it is. This makes it a frequent target for scepticism.

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A bit like Schrödinger’s cat?

Secretly Polish: Elżbieta Heweliusz, Poland’s first female astronomer

She was supported by kings and was friends with famous astronomers of her era. Her groundbreaking work is still relevant today

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Radio telescopes help scientists map molecules in space and uncover where and how stars form

You may have heard the phrase “we are made of star-stuff.” This statement by the astronomer Carl Sagan refers to the fact that elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were forged in the centers of the first stars. But how does this star-stuff evolve into the chemistry of rocks, plants and people?

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Radio telescopes help scientists map molecules in space and uncover where and how stars form

You may have heard the phrase “we are made of star-stuff.” This statement by the astronomer Carl Sagan refers to the fact that elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were forged in the centers of the first stars. But how does this star-stuff evolve into the chemistry of rocks, plants and people?

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We are golden,

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.

AI Takes the controls: First ‘self-driving’ telescope successfully observes the night sky

Artificial intelligence has already transformed fields ranging from healthcare and finance to logistics and autonomous vehicles. Now, AI is turning its attention to one of humanity’s oldest scientific pursuits: observing the stars.

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Spectral lines’ and a giant plume: what science saw when the SpaceX rocket hit the moon

Sodium and lithium gas was detected in a plume thought to span tens of kilometres, created when part of a SpaceX rocket crashed into the lunar surface

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DarkSky International announces winners of the 2026 Capture the Dark photography contest

Scientists discover remnants of Theia, the planet that collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago

Two vast structures near Earth’s core could preserve pieces of Theia, the lost world linked to the Moon’s formation.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Scientists discover remnants of Theia, the planet that collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago

Two vast structures near Earth’s core could preserve pieces of Theia, the lost world linked to the Moon’s formation.

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The Moon has a diameter of about 3,474 kilometers (2,159 miles), which is roughly one-quarter (27%) of Earth’s diameter. Earth is about four times wider than the Moon. In terms of volume and mass, about 50 Moons could fit inside Earth, and the Moon has only 1.2% of Earth’s mass.

Size and Width

Earth diameter: About 12,742 kilometers (7,918 miles).

Moon diameter: About 3,474 kilometers (2,159 miles)—roughly the width of Australia or the contiguous United States.

Scale: You can place about four Moons side-by-side across the face of Earth.

Volume and Mass

Volume: Earth is about 49 to 50 times larger by volume than the Moon.

Mass: The Moon weighs 81 times less than Earth because it lacks the heavy metallic core found on our planet.

Gravity: Because of its smaller mass, the surface gravity on the Moon is only about one-sixth (16.5%) of the gravity on Earth.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Scientists discover remnants of Theia, the planet that collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago

Two vast structures near Earth’s core could preserve pieces of Theia, the lost world linked to the Moon’s formation.

More…

The Moon has a diameter of about 3,474 kilometers (2,159 miles), which is roughly one-quarter (27%) of Earth’s diameter. Earth is about four times wider than the Moon. In terms of volume and mass, about 50 Moons could fit inside Earth, and the Moon has only 1.2% of Earth’s mass.

Size and Width

Earth diameter: About 12,742 kilometers (7,918 miles).

Moon diameter: About 3,474 kilometers (2,159 miles)—roughly the width of Australia or the contiguous United States.

Scale: You can place about four Moons side-by-side across the face of Earth.

Volume and Mass

Volume: Earth is about 49 to 50 times larger by volume than the Moon.

Mass: The Moon weighs 81 times less than Earth because it lacks the heavy metallic core found on our planet.

Gravity: Because of its smaller mass, the surface gravity on the Moon is only about one-sixth (16.5%) of the gravity on Earth.

YouTube video

How Many Moons Fit Inside Earth?

NASA reveals before-and-after images of moon crater left by SpaceX rocket

Tau.Neutrino said:

NASA reveals before-and-after images of moon crater left by SpaceX rocket

Looks like an insurance fraud attempt. The Moon brake checked right in front of me.

We’ll wait to see the dashcam video before we pass judgement.

Racing to build a radio telescope on the moon

Remember the “Wow!” signal? That high-energy radio signature occurred in 1977, when Earth was much “quieter” in the radio band. If it happened today, it probably wouldn’t even move the needle on the background noise of human radio chatter. Signals from satellites, radar and other human technology have crowded out extraterrestrial radio signals, limiting our ability to monitor the heavens for signals like the still-unexplained one received in 1977. What’s more, the ionosphere partially blocks lower-frequency radio signals, making them even harder to detect from the ground.

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Kingy said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

NASA reveals before-and-after images of moon crater left by SpaceX rocket

Looks like an insurance fraud attempt. The Moon brake checked right in front of me.

We’ll wait to see the dashcam video before we pass judgement.

:)

Hubble solves merger mystery from Milky Way’s early years

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to its current size in part by consuming smaller galaxies. Now, new data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show definitive evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution. This finding extends our knowledge of our galaxy’s history 1.8 billion years farther back in time than before. The results are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Hubble solves merger mystery from Milky Way’s early years

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to its current size in part by consuming smaller galaxies. Now, new data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show definitive evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution. This finding extends our knowledge of our galaxy’s history 1.8 billion years farther back in time than before. The results are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

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Dwarf Galaxies that merged with The Milky Way

Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles dwarf galaxy. Merged around 12 billion years ago.
Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus dwarf galaxy. Merged around 10 billion years ago.
Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. Merged around 6 billion years ago

About 12 billion years ago, a dwarf galaxy known as LKH collided with a young Milky Way and merged with it. This artist’s concept portrays that collision. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope uncovered definitive evidence of this collision by studying globular star clusters. Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted

YouTube video 1:48 minutes.

See stars orbit Milky Way’s black hole Sagittarius A* in this zoom in

Astronomers detect fastest known star in Milky Way

The star, called S301, travels at about 25,000km (15,500 miles) per second, 100,000 times faster than a commercial plane. It is also the closest known star to the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A*, approaching it around the distance of Saturn to the Sun.

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NASA’s Roman Space Telescope: Go For Launch

SpaceX deploys Roman Space Telescope shortly after Falcon Heavy launch

Tau.Neutrino said:

SpaceX deploys Roman Space Telescope shortly after Falcon Heavy launch

They are going to map the whole universe, well as far as infinity.

Why NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Will Make Discoveries Scientists Don’t Expect
@NASAGoddard

’Exciting hint’ of dark matter spotted by LUX-ZEPLIN detector, physicists report

In short:
Physicists at the LUX-ZEPLIN detector in the US have uncovered a single event which they say could be evidence of dark matter or a new type of particle interaction.

The team are cautious, but the results suggest there is just a 0.5 per cent chance the event could be explained by something else.

What’s next?
The results have been released for other scientists to pore over, with the researchers hoping other detectors will be able to find similar events in their data.

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Peak Warming Man said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

SpaceX deploys Roman Space Telescope shortly after Falcon Heavy launch

They are going to map the whole universe, well as far as infinity.

That would be amazing.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 – the winning images

See the winning images of the biggest astro-imaging competition in the world

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Radio signals detected from a planet beyond our Solar System. Landmark discovery could help us search for habitable worlds

Researchers have captured direct radio wave emissions originating from a planet outside our Solar System.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Radio signals detected from a planet beyond our Solar System. Landmark discovery could help us search for habitable worlds

Researchers have captured direct radio wave emissions originating from a planet outside our Solar System.

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Ta.

Supernova or black hole: Neutrino ‘flavor’ may determine the fate of dying stars

As a star nears the end of its life, it faces two very different fates: It can explode as a supernova, leaving behind a neutron star, or collapse and become a black hole. What determines the outcome remains one of astrophysics’ great unanswered questions.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 – the winning images

See the winning images of the biggest astro-imaging competition in the world

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Thanks. Some lovely images there.

:)

We may have found the first direct evidence of a ninth major planet in the Solar System

Suggestions of a ninth planet in our Solar System have been rumbling on for years now.

Some astronomers argue that the clustering and orbital tilt of a group of trans-Neptunian objects indicate gravitational shepherding by an unknown planet.

The two infrared surveys, IRAS on the left, AKARI on the right, with the position of the potential Planet 9 marked on each. Credit: Phan et al (2025)

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NASA Officials Reveal New PRIMA Space Telescope Will Peer into the Unknown by Exploring Mysteries of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

NASA is moving forward with plans to launch a new space telescope that will search for clues to some of the most perplexing mysteries of the cosmos by peering into largely unexplored regions of the electromagnetic spectrum

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Testing tiny telescope robots reveals design changes that could improve galaxy maps

Astronomers have cataloged billions of stars and hundreds of billions of galaxies. We have found thousands of planets orbiting stars. We can also map where galaxies sit and trace how the universe changes over time.

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Where are the best places for life in the cosmos? A universe in a supercomputer yields an answer

Earth seems like a troubled place right now, but at least our cosmic surroundings appear peaceful. This is not universally true, as explosions, collisions and other dangers lurk in other places and times.

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NASA rover takes striking image of dawn’s early light on Mars

Two Different Kinds of Gamma-Ray Bursts Erupted 4 Minutes Apart. Astronomers Have Never Seen This Before.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic cosmic events since the Big Bang, releasing the most energetic type of radiation, gamma rays – the stuff that turned unassuming Bruce Banner into the rampaging Hulk, but on an astronomical, potentially planet-sterilizing level

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Two Different Kinds of Gamma-Ray Bursts Erupted 4 Minutes Apart. Astronomers Have Never Seen This Before.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic cosmic events since the Big Bang, releasing the most energetic type of radiation, gamma rays – the stuff that turned unassuming Bruce Banner into the rampaging Hulk, but on an astronomical, potentially planet-sterilizing level

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Might have been a large planet followed 4 min later by the star?

An asteroid’s shape influences where a nuclear blast must be aimed to deflect it

If a dangerous asteroid were headed toward Earth, one defense could be a nuclear detonation to blast one side with X-rays and nudge it off course. But new simulations suggest that for a lumpy, irregular asteroid, exactly where those X-rays hit could make a huge difference.

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Tiny photonic chip links telescopes together to view the universe in ‘astonishing’ detail

A tiny glass chip developed by researchers at Heriot-Watt University has linked two telescopes together to enable them to act as a single powerful instrument, marking an important step toward a new generation of astronomical technology.

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Space telescope Euclid sets the new standard for cosmology

On July 1, 2023, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Euclid space telescope into space. Its mission: to create the largest and most detailed map of the universe ever made.

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JWST Detects a ‘Forbidden’ Signal Never Before Seen in The Universe – Not Even in a Lab

One of the most important molecules in the Universe has been hiding its light for decades.

It’s the foundation for almost all gas-phase interstellar chemistry – including the formation of complex organic molecules that make up the ingredients for life.

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Berkeley Lab Helps Build Telescope Like No Other

In the early 1990s, the idea of building a kilometer-wide detector in the Antarctic ice to capture notoriously elusive particles seemed, to many, far-fetched. This October, it won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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YouTube video

Zoom into Euclid’s 500 gigapixel mosaic of the Universe – European Space Agency, ESA

On 12 November 2026, ESA’s Euclid space telescope released its first major batch of data: DR1-Foundation. As part of this very large data release Euclid has captured the light of more than a billion objects over an area of sky as big as 9500 full Moons, laying the foundation for its largest ever 3D map of the cosmos.

In this video, we zoom into the northern mosaic, which is nearly 500 gigapixels in size. This mosaic comprises 740 observations collected in autumn 2024 and spring 2025 as part of the Euclid Wide Survey, and covers 367 deg2 of the northern sky.