A sneak preview of the first batch of deep space imagery from the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile made its way to news sites and social media last week, followed by a livestream event.
“(The Rubin Observatory is) going to build the greatest time-lapse movie of the cosmos ever made,” the observatory said in a post.
The observatory is named for the American scientist widely credited for finding some of the first evidence of dark matter, with the project being funded by the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The scientists and officials from the NSF and DOE participated in a news conference and Q&A about the findings last week. You can watch the stream below.
Millions of galaxies, big images
Though the livestream was plagued by a few technical issues, it still offered some context on what data is being captured at the Rubin Observatory and why.
“Starting today, our ability to understand dark matter, dark energy and planetary defense will grow even faster than ever before,” said Brian Stone, the NSF’s chief of staff.
The observatory’s 3,200-megapixel camera is used for a full-sky scan that happens every three to four days. Stunning images that the observatory shares are only a fraction of what is being captured, in some cases showing only 2 percent of the full view, which would require 400 HDTVs to show.
One image can capture 10 million galaxies. Closer to Earth, astronomers have discovered 1 million asteroids in our solar system and expect to discover 5 million more in the next few years.
During this upcoming week, skywatchers across most of the U.S. and southern Canada will get an opportunity to view the two largest space vehicles now in orbit around the Earth within minutes of each other.
They are the International Space Station (ISS) and China’s space station, Tiangong. If you are up during the predawn hours, you’ll probably be able to make a sighting of both within less than a half hour of each other.
And on the morning of July 5, it may be possible to see both in the sky at the same time.
Night lights
If you go out and carefully study the sky near dusk or dawn, the odds are that you should not have to wait more than a few minutes before you see one of the more than 30,700 satellites now in orbit around Earth.
Most of these are just “space junk” ranging in size from as large as 30 feet (9 meters) down to about the size of a softball, including defunct satellites, rocket bodies, and fragments from collisions. In addition to the tracked objects, there are an estimated 130 million pieces of debris too small to be tracked. U.S. Space Command, headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, keeps a constant watch on all orbiting space debris.
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Most satellites are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. But depending on who’s counting, about 500 can be seen with the unaided eye. These are the satellites that are large enough (over 20 feet, or 6 m) in length) and low enough (100 to 400 miles, or 160 to 640 kilometers) above Earth to be most readily seen. In his book Observing Earth Satellites, the distinguished British scientist Desmond King-Hele perhaps said it best: “A satellite looks like a star that has taken leave of its senses and decided to move off to another part of the sky.”
The International Space Station is by far the biggest and brightest of all the man-made objects orbiting Earth. More than four times as large as the defunct Russian Mir space station, the ISS has a total mass of approximately 925,000 pounds (420,000 kilograms), and measures 357 feet (109 m) across and 240 feet (73 m) long. This makes it almost the equivalent to the length of a football field, including the end zones, according to NASA.
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The International Space Station. (Image credit: NASA)
The ISS draws power from four pairs of solar arrays, which are each 112 feet (34 m) long and 39 feet (12 m wide) — longer than a Boeing 777’s wingspan. Additionally, the ISS is being upgraded with six new, smaller Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs). These are being installed over portions of the existing arrays. Each new iROSA measures 63 feet (19 m) long by 20 feet (6 m) wide. Despite being smaller, they are more efficient due to technological advancements.
Presently circling Earth at an average altitude of 259 miles (416 km) and at a speed of 17,900 mph (28,800 kph), the ISS takes 93 minutes to orbit Earth and completes roughly 15.5 orbits per day. It can appear to move as fast as a high-flying jet airliner, sometimes taking about four to five minutes to cross the sky. Because of its size and the configuration of its highly reflective solar panels, the space station is now, by far, the brightest man-made object currently in orbit around Earth.
On its most favorable passes, it can appear some 2.5 times brighter than Venus and nearly 40 times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. And, as a bonus, sunlight glinting directly off the solar panels can sometimes make the ISS appear to briefly “flare” in brilliance to as bright as magnitude -8, some 19 times brighter than Venus!
China’s orbiting space station
Besides the ISS, there is another space station orbiting Earth. That’s Tiangong (Chinese for “Heavenly Palace”), a permanently crewed space station operated by China’s Manned Space Agency (CMSA). The chief purpose of Tiangong, according to the CMSA, is to develop and gain experience in spacecraft rendezvous technology and to serve the platform for the next-generation orbit transportation vehicles and technology for future deep-space missions.
Tiangong is smaller than the ISS, in overall dimensions measuring about one-fifth as large. Its total mass is approximately 77 tons (69,900 kg). It measures approximately 180 feet (55 m) in length and contains three modules (the ISS has 16 modules). It orbits Earth at an average altitude of 244 miles (393 km), somewhat similar to the ISS.
And, like the ISS, it is a prominent object when moving across the nighttime sky. On its most favorable passes, it can appear as bright as Venus (magnitude -4.1), though usually it tends to appear closer to magnitude -2 (as bright as Jupiter).
Currently, taking into account both the ISS and Tiangong, there are 14 humans in space.
Viewing windows of opportunity
From now through the final days of July, North Americans and Europeans will have many opportunities to see both the ISS and Tiangong flying over their homes, due chiefly to a seasonal circumstance. Nights are now the shortest, and the time that a satellite in low Earth orbit (like the ISS and Tiangong) can remain illuminated by the sun can extend throughout the night, a situation that can never be attained during other times of the year.
Because both space stations circle Earth about every 90 minutes on average, it’s possible to see them not just on one singular pass, but for several consecutive passes.
And from now through July 8, the ISS and Tiangong will be making morning passes — one to two hours before sunrise — within a half hour or less of each other. And on the morning of July 5, for parts of the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada, it may be possible to see both in the sky at the same time.
On the morning of July 5, 2025, the International Space Station and China’s Tiangong space station are predicted to be within range simultaneously of skywatchers across the northeastern U.S. and Atlantic Canada. Between roughly 3:56 a.m. and 3:58 a.m. EDT, the ISS will pass to the north of New York, while Tiangong will cruise to the south of New York. (Image credit: Courtesy Joe Rao)
This doesn’t happen too often, due to the fact that their orbital altitudes differ slightly, along with the fact that both space stations circle the Earth at different orbital inclinations: 51.63 degrees for the ISS, compared to 41.46 degrees for Tiangong.
Where and when should you look?
So, what is the viewing schedule for your particular hometown? You can easily find out by visiting one of these two popular web sites: Chris Peat’s Heavens Above or NASA’s Spot the Station.
With Heavens Above, you’ll be able to generate accurate sighting data for both the ISS and Tiangong (as well as other bright naked-eye satellites). You’ll simply need to input your location based on latitude and longitude.
NASA’s Spot the Station app is a great tool for quickly finding upcoming ISS viewing opportunities. Simply pop in the location you wish to know for ISS sighting opportunities and let the widget work its magic. It will tell you the time of the ISS flyover along with how long it is visible, the maximum height it will reach in the sky and which direction it will appear and disappear from your field of view.
Predictions computed a few days ahead of time are usually accurate within a few minutes. However, they can change due to the slow decay of the space station’s orbit and periodic re-boosts to higher altitudes. Check frequently for updates.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope and other publications.
The archaeological investigations have revealed wooden frames from the hull of Nossa Senhora do Cabo among the ballast stones. (Image credit: Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation)
Archaeologists say they’ve found the submerged wreck of a sailing ship captured in 1721 near Madagascar, during one of history’s most infamous pirate raids.
The American researchers, from the Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation, have investigated the wreck for 16 years and now think it’s the remains of Nossa Senhora do Cabo, a Portuguese ship carrying cargo from India that was attacked and seized by pirates, among them the notorious pirate captain Olivier “The Buzzard” Levasseur.
The wreck now lies on the floor of a small harbor on the island of Nosy Boraha off the northeast coast of Madagascar, which was a hangout known as Île Sainte-Marie during the “Golden Age of Piracy” in the early 18th century. New details of the investigations have been published in the latest issue of Wreckwatch magazine.
The identification of the wreck is “supported by multiple lines of evidence,” the center’s co-founder and director Brandon Clifford, one of the researchers, told Live Science in an email. These include analysis of the structure of the ship from its underwater remains, historical records and artifacts found in the wreckage.
Among them are devotional figurines and objects made from wood and ivory, including one that depicts Jesus’ mother Mary; part of a crucifix; and an ivory plaque inscribed with gold letters that read “INRI.” (According to the Christian gospels, these letters were inscribed by the Romans above the crucified Jesus and stood for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” in Latin.)
The researchers think these artifacts were made in Goa, which was then the center of a Portuguese colony on India’s west coast, and were being shipped to Lisbon in Portugal.
Related: ‘Pirate’ shipwrecks that sank in 1710 off Costa Rica are actually remains of Danish slave ships
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Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation)
A sonar image of the seafloor shows the wreck thought to be that of Nossa Senhora do Cabo. Researchers think there are at least four pirate wrecks in the main harbor on the island of Nosy Boraha, off Madagascar.
(Image credit: Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation)
A mosaic image of the harbor floor shows overlapping piles of ballast stones from ships’ hulls. The ballast pile from Nossa Senhora do Cabo is at the right.
(Image credit: Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation)
The island of Nosy Boraha off Madagascar’s northeast coast was once a notorious hangout for European pirates known as Île Sainte-Marie.
Pirate raid
According to records, Nossa Senhora do Cabo(Portuguese for “Our Lady of the Cape”) had left Goa early in 1721 bound for Lisbon, with the outgoing Portuguese viceroy and the Archbishop of Goa both on board.
But the vessel was attacked and captured by a group of pirate ships on April 8, 1721, near the French island of La Réunion (also known as Réunion Island) in the Indian Ocean.
The treasure it carried included ingots of gold and chests full of pearls, according to the researcher Denis Piat in his book “Pirates & Privateers in Mauritius” (Didier Millet, 2014).
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation)
Artifacts recovered at the wreck site include gold coins inscribed with Arabic writing and pieces of fine porcelain.
(Image credit: Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation)
The researchers have recovered several religious figurines and other devotional objects made from wood and ivory, presumably at Goa.
(Image credit: Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation)
More than 3,300 artifacts have now been recovered from the wreck, but many others are still covered by sand and silt.
Clifford and his colleague Mark Agostini, an archaeologist at Brown University, said the Portuguese ship had already been badly damaged in a storm and had jettisoned most of its cannons to stay afloat; and so it was captured with little resistance.
The viceroy was eventually ransomed, but it’s not known what became of the archbishop. About 200 enslaved people from Mozambique below decks, but there are no records of what happened to them.
According to Clifford and Agostini, the entire haul was “an eyewatering treasure, even by pirate standards,” and the cargo alone may have been worth more than $138 million in today’s money.
Sea dog base
The pirates then steered their captured prize toward Madagascar, about 400 miles (650 kilometers) west of La Réunion, to divide up their loot.
The researchers wrote that Île Sainte-Marie was chosen by European pirates because its sheltered anchorages were close to major shipping lanes. It was also known for its “absence of colonial governance,” making it an ideal pirate base.
Clifford added that between seven and 10 shipwrecks were wrecked or scuttled near Île Sainte-Marie during the Golden Age of Piracy and “at least four pirate shipwrecks or their prizes lie in the harbor itself.”
Agostini, meanwhile, told Live Science in an email that more than 3,300 artifacts had now been recovered from the wreck of Nossa Senhora do Cabo, but that the overlying silt and sand had made further recoveries difficult.
He added that archaeologists had previously overlooked Île Sainte-Marie and the scientific treasures it contained. “Ideally, future fieldwork will lead to more analysis of the many wrecks there,” Agostini said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2:32 p.m. ET to remove a detail about a gold- and ruby-encrusted cross being on the ship at the time of its capture. This cross was mentioned in a book about the shipwreck, but Live Science has since learned that it might be a myth.
An asteroid discovered last year and briefly thought to be a threat to Earth has a one-in-23 chance of hitting the Moon, according to NASA estimates based on JWST data. A new paper outlines how this could be a spectacular one-in-5,000-year event, potentially ejecting material towards Earth.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was first discovered on December 27, 2024. Astronomers have been keeping a close eye on it ever since, as initial observations showed around a 1 percent chance that it could collide with Earth on December 22, 2032. Follow-up observations of the asteroid briefly showed a higher chance of the asteroid making an impact. At 3.1 percent, it briefly became considered the most dangerous space object since tracking began.
Thankfully, as repeatedly predicted by astronomers during that slightly nervous time, as more observations came in, the chances of impact with Earth fell dramatically, and now stand at around 0.004 percent.
But the Moon may not be so lucky.
“The odds of an impact into the Moon have always been there. It’s been lower at that time because the Earth [was] a bigger target,” planetary scientist Dr Andrew Rivkin, from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, told IFLScience back in April.
“The way that the orbit improved made the position move away from the Earth, but it moved toward the Moon. So there’s like almost a 4 percent chance it’s going to hit the Moon. That means there’s a better than 96 percent chance it’s going to miss the Moon, but if it did hit the Moon, it really would be pretty spectacular!”
Back then the object had a 3.8 percent chance of hitting our natural satellite, but following further observations by JWST and analysis by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, NASA have updated the chance of impact with the Moon on December 22, 2032, to 4.3 percent. On that date, it will pass around 0.00007 Astronomical Units (AU) of the Moon, with 1 AU being the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Diagram showing the position uncertainty of asteroid 2024 YR4.
Image credit: NASA/JPL Center for Near-Earth Object Studies
While an Earth impact was an intimidating prospect, astronomers are a bit more excited by the prospect of it slamming into our companion space rock. In short, it would be pretty spectacular, potentially even causing a meteor shower on Earth.
“It would be visible from Earth and there would even be new lunar meteorites that would arrive on Earth (nothing dangerous), but there is no guarantee,” Richard Moissl, the head of the European Space Agency’s Planetary Defence Office, told IFLScience back in February. “Definitely, a new observable moon crater would be the outcome!”
NASA stresses that the asteroid hitting the lunar surface would not alter the Moon’s orbit. However, a new study led by Paul Wiegert, professor of physics at the University of Western Ontario, suggests that it could release around the equivalent of 6.5 megatons of TNT in energy, leaving the Moon with a crater around 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) in diameter.
“If 2024 YR4 strikes the Moon in 2032, it will (statistically speaking) be the largest impact in approximately 5,000 years,” the team explains in their paper. “We estimate that up to 108 kg of lunar material could be liberated in such an impact by exceeding lunar escape speed.”
Attempting to model various impacts, the team found that the ejected Moon debris could cause spectacular meteor showers on Earth. While this would be an amazing sight for the layperson, and meteorites making it to the surface of Earth is not ruled out, it could be a nightmare for any governments or organizations with satellites in orbit.
“The lunar ejecta-associated particle fluence at 0.1 – 10 mm sizes could produce upwards of years to of order a decade of equivalent background meteoroid impact exposure to satellites in near-Earth space late in 2032,” the team explains, adding, “the instantaneous flux could reach 10 to 1,000 times the background sporadic meteor flux at sizes which pose a hazard to astronauts and spacecraft.”
“Our results demonstrate that planetary defense considerations should be more broadly extended to cis-lunar space and not confined solely to near-Earth space.”
According to the team, ejected material could pose hazards to the Lunar Gateway, surface operations on the Moon as ejecta falls back towards it, as well as satellites in Earth orbit.
“There is some risk but it depends a lot on exactly where the asteroid impacts, if at all. We will probably know this soon after the asteroid returns to visibility (it’s too far/faint to see at the moment) in 2028,” Wiegert explained to IFLScience. “But I understand that NASA is already considering how to respond, if necessary.”
In short, it would be a spectacular and rare event, that you may even get to gawp at in the form of a meteor shower. The impact itself may be harder to spot, though not impossible.
“If the impact happens on the side of the Moon towards the Earth, the impact will be visible though hard to catch,” Wiegert added. “There will be a brief bright flash followed by a dust cloud that will disperse over a few minutes. But the cloud and the resulting crater (which will be about a km across) will be near the limit of what can be clearly seen from Earth. Spacecraft in orbit will get a much better view.”
With the odds of impact still low, we might not get this space treat. Right now, the asteroid is too far from human telescopes to get a good look at it, but we will get another look at it before it makes its close approach in 2032.
“Asteroid 2024 YR4 is now too far away to be observed with space-based or ground-based telescopes,” NASA explained in a statement. “NASA expects to make further observations when the asteroid’s orbit around the Sun brings it back into the vicinity of Earth in 2028.”
The paper is submitted to the American Astronomical Society and is available on pre-print server arXiv.
Corals are reef-building animals that can’t photosynthesise on their own. Instead, they rely on micro-algae living inside their tissues to do it for them. These symbiotic algae use sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to produce oxygen and energy-rich sugars that support coral grwoth and reef formation.
At around 10 micro-metres across – about one-tenth the width of a human hair – these algae are far too small to be seen with the naked eye. When corals are stressed by warming waters or poor environmental conditions, they lose these micro-algae, leading to a pale appearance.
This is the process known as coral bleaching. It leads – eventually – to the starvation of the coral. Although this process is known, scientists don’t fully understand why, and it hasn’t been possible to study the process at appropriate scales in the field – until now.
“The microscope facilitates previously unavailable, underwater observations of coral health, a breakthrough made possible thanks to the National Science Foundation and its critical investment in technology development,” said Jules Jaffe, a research oceanographer at Scripps and co-author of the study.
“Without continued federal funding, scientific research is jeopardised. In this case, NSF funding allowed us to fabricate a device so we can solve the physiological mystery of why corals bleach, and ultimately, use these insights to inform remediation efforts.”
Through an array of high-magnification lenses and focused LED lights, the microscope captures vivid colour and fluorescence images and videos. It also now has the ability to measure photosynthesis and map it in higher resolution via focal scans. Scientists can use this to create high-resolution 3D scans of corals.
Working in collaboration with the Smith Lab at Scripps Oceanography, Ben-Zvi – a marine biologist – has tested and calibrated the instrument at several coral reef hotspots around the globe, including in Hawaii, the Red Sea, and Palmyra Atoll.
Throughout her many observations, Ben-Zvis has been most surprised by how active the corals have been, noting that they changed their volume and shape constantly. She even observed instances in which a coral polyp appeared to be trying to capture or remove a particle that was passing by, by rapidly contracting its tentacles.
“The more time we spend with this microscope, the more we hope to learn about corals and why they do what they do under certain conditions,” said Ben-Zvi. “We are visualising photosynthesis, something that was previously unseen at the scales we are examining, and that feels like magic.”
The non-invasive technique allows researchers to assess the health of corals without the need to interrupt nature – it’s similar, Ben-Zvi has said “to checking on the coral’s pulse without giving them a shot or doing an intrusive procedure on them.”
The researchers have also said that data collected with the new microscope can reveal early warning signs that appear before corals experience irreversible damage from global climate change events, such as marine heat waves. These insights could help guide mitigation strategies to better protect them.
Beyond corals, and the tool has other widespread potential for studying other small-scale marine organisms that photosynthesise, such as baby kelp. In fact, several researchers at Scripps Oceanography are already using the BUMP imaging system to study the early life stages of the exclusive giant kelp off California.
“Since photosynthesis in the ocean is important for life on earth, a host of other applications are imaginable with this tool, including right here off the coast of San Diego,” said Jaffe.
Click here for more from the Oceanographic Newsroom.
Not one, but two exploding stars are currently visible to the naked eye in the southern night sky, a cosmic coincidence that’s “exceedingly rare” and may soon vanish from view entirely.
On June 12, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), led by the Ohio State University, detected a dramatic surge in the brightness of an otherwise unremarkable star embedded in the constellation Lupus. Subsequent observations revealed a powerful nova explosion — now designated V462 Lupi — to be the cause of the radiation outburst. The star quickly brightened from its previously dim magnitude of +22 to a peak brightness of around +5.5, rendering it visible to the naked eye.
Remember, magnitude is the system used by astronomers to track the brightness of an object in the night sky. The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object! The human eye is capable of detecting stars with a magnitude of around +6.5 or greater in dark sky areas.
Less than two weeks later, on June 25, reports began to circulate of a second nova blossoming in the southern night sky, this time in the constellation Vela. This nova — later designated V572 Velorum — quickly jumped to a similar peak of +5.5, making it appear as if two new stars had suddenly burst to life in the skies south of the equator.
A nuclear explosion on the surface of a star
“Both appear to be part of binary star systems composed of a white dwarf and a companion star,” veteran science communicator and meteorologist Joe Rao told Space.com in an email. “In each case, the objects that we are able to see visually, are likely being caused by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of the white dwarf star.”
These kinds of explosions are called novas. Unlike,their more violent cousins, supernovas, these events don’t destroy the star. Instead, they occur as a result of a vampyric process in which the gravitational influence of a white dwarf strips material from a nearby companion star, adding it to its own mass. This ‘feeding’ continues until the mass of stolen stellar material deposited on the surface of the white dwarf is heated to a critical threshold, after which a cataclysmic thermonuclear explosion is inevitable.
The resulting outpouring of radiation leads to a dramatic increase in a star’s apparent brightness from our perspective on Earth, occasionally making it appear as if a new stellar body has burst to life in the night sky.
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A comparison of two nova explosions and the difference in their luminosity. (Image credit: Eliot Herman)
“To have two naked-eye novae shining in the sky at the same time is an exceedingly rare event”
“To have two naked-eye novae shining in the sky at the same time is an exceedingly rare event,” said Rao. “In checking my copy of Norton’s Star Atlas, which lists bright novae dating back to the 16th century, I can only find one other case of two novae erupting so close together: V368 Aquilae on September 25, 1936 and V630 Sagittarii just eight days later.”
Rao — who serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium — went on to note that the 1936 novas had faded swiftly after reaching their peaks and likely wouldn’t have been visible simultaneously. Astronomer Stephen James O’Meara also discovered a 2018 occurrence in which two novas peaked and became visible to the unaided eye on the same day, according to stargazing website Earthsky.org.
Where to find the novas in the southern sky
“Generally speaking, most novae fade from view after a few weeks, although some may fade much faster (as was the case with the aforementioned novae in 1936) and sometimes the fade-down may take longer,” said Rao. “In the case of V572 Velorum, it apparently exhibits both long (over 13 days) and short (3-4 days) outbursts.”
The location of the V462 Lupi nova shown close to the constellations Lupus and Centaurus. (Image credit: Created in Canva by Daisy Dobrijevic)
It may still be possible to spot the ancient light from both novas from a dark sky location for observers in the southern hemisphere. Meanwhile, those in the southern U.S. might yet glimpse V462 Lupi peeking above the horizon — perhaps with the aid of a pair of 10X50 binoculars.
The patch of sky containing V462 Lupi is located in the constellation Lupus, close to the bright stars Delta Lupi and Kappa Centauri, from the neighboring constellation Centaurus. Lupus will be highest in the sky for those in the southern hemisphere, though those in the southernmost states of the U.S. may spot the constellation — and the site of the nova — close to the southern horizon at sunset in early July.
A star chart showing the location of the V572 Velorum nova alongside stars from the constellation Vela. (Image credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope, annotations by Anthony Wood)
V572 Velorum meanwhile, can be found in the southern constellation Vela and is not easily visible from the continental United States. Viewers in the southern hemisphere will find the region of sky containing the nova close to the bright stars Mu Velorum and Phi Velorum.
If you do manage to catch even a fleeting glimpse of either V572 Velorum, or V462 Lupi, you will have witnessed first hand one of the most spectacularly violent explosions that the universe has to offer. Not bad for one evening’s stargazing.
Editor’s Note: If you capture an image of a nova and want to share it with Space.com’s readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
NASA scientists have confirmed that a mysterious object shooting toward us through the solar system is an “interstellar object” — only the third of its kind ever seen. Experts have also given the cosmic interloper an official name, and revealed new information about its origins and trajectory.
News of the extrasolar entity, initially dubbed A11pl3Z, broke on Tuesday (July 1), when NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) both listed it as a confirmed object. It was first discovered in data collected between June 25 and June 29 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which automatically scans the night sky using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa. Multiple telescopes across the world have subsequently spotted the object in observation data that date back to June 14.
The object is traveling toward the sun extremely fast, at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h), and observations suggest that it is set on an extremely flat and straight trajectory, unlike anything else in the solar system. This led many experts to speculate that it originated from beyond the sun’s gravitational influence and has enough momentum to shoot straight through our cosmic neighborhood without slowing down.
On Wednesday (July 2), NASA released a statement confirming that A11pl3Z is indeed an interstellar object and will not remain in the solar system for long. The researchers also shared the object’s new official name, 3I/ATLAS, and revealed that it is most likely a comet, upending previous assumptions that it was an asteroid. The object’s full comet name is C/2025 N1 (ATLAS).
Until now, only two confirmed interstellar visitors have ever been spotted: Comet 2I/Borisov, which was seen sailing through the solar system in 2019; and ‘Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object that made headlines in 2017 when some astronomers argued it was potentially an alien probe, before experts showed it was most likely a hydrogen-spewing space rock.
But scientists have long suspected that many more interstellar interlopers likely pass through our cosmic neighborhood without ever being detected.
Related: 1 million ‘interstellar objects’ — each larger than the Statue of Liberty — may lurk in the outer solar system
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The first images of 3I/ATLAS suggested that it may have been an asteroid. However, NASA now predicts that it is a comet. (Image credit: David Rankin/Catalina Sky Survey)
Researchers initially suspected that 3I/ATLAS was an asteroid, like ‘Oumuamua. However, the object has displayed “tentative signs of cometary activity” like 2I/Borisov — including being surrounded by a bright cloud of gas and ice, known as a coma, and having what looks like a tail — according to the IAU’s Minor Planet Center. However, more observations are needed to confirm this.
There has been no additional information about the potential comet’s size or shape: The current best guess is that it could be up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) across. However, NASA has revealed updated information about its upcoming journey through the solar system.
3I/ATLAS is currently around 4.5 times as far from the sun as Earth is. It will reach its closest point to the sun, or perihelion, on Oct. 30, coming within 1.4 Earth-sun distances, or astronomical units (AU), of our home star. Shortly before this happens, the comet will also make its closest approach to Mars, coming within 0.4 AU of the Red Planet.
Earth will be on the opposite side of the sun to 3I/ATLAS during its solar flyby. The comet will likely make its closest approach to Earth in December, on its journey back out of the solar system. As a result, “the comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a [minimum] distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units,” NASA officials wrote in the statement.
Until now, only two confirmed interstellar objects have ever been discovered: Comet 2I/Borisov and ‘Oumuamua (illustrated here). (Image credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO)
The interloper is currently too faint to see with amateur stargazing equipment, but it may brighten significantly in the coming weeks and months. However, you can watch it shoot through the solar system via an upcoming livestream from the Virtual Telescope Project, starting at 6:00 p.m. EST on Thursday (July 3).
3I/ATLAS is now “being investigated by astronomers around the world,” NASA officials wrote. Researchers will be able to study it until the end of September, when it will become obscured by the sun’s light, and again from December onwards when the comet reemerges from behind our home star.
The interstellar visitor will likely be imaged by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory — the world’s most powerful optical telescope, which recently released its first images. Some researchers have also suggested using the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Mars rovers to photograph the object as it shoots toward the sun.
Vast swathes of the human genome remain a mystery to science. A new AI from Google DeepMind is helping researchers understand how these stretches of DNA impact the activity of other genes.
While the Human Genome Project produced a complete map of our DNA, we still know surprisingly little about what most of it does. Roughly 2 percent of the human genome encodes specific proteins, but the purpose of the other 98 percent is much less clear.
Historically, scientists called this part of the genome “junk DNA.” But there’s growing recognition these so-called “non-coding” regions play a critical role in regulating the expression of genes elsewhere in the genome.
Teasing out these interactions is a complicated business. But now a new Google DeepMind model called AlphaGenome can take long stretches of DNA and make predictions about how different genetic variants will affect gene expression, as well as a host of other important properties.
“We have, for the first time, created a single model that unifies many different challenges that come with understanding the genome,” Pushmeet Kohli, a vice president for research at DeepMind, told MIT Technology Review.
The so-called “sequence to function” model uses the same transformer architecture as the large language models behind popular AI chatbots. The model was trained on public databases of experimental results testing how different sequences impact gene regulation. Researchers can enter a DNA sequence of up to one million letters, and the model will then make predictions about a wide range of molecular properties impacting the sequence’s regulatory activity.
These include things like where genes start and end, which sections of the DNA are accessible or blocked by certain proteins, and how much RNA is being produced. RNA is the messenger molecule responsible for carrying the instructions contained in DNA to the cell’s protein factories, or ribosomes, as well as regulating gene expression.
AlphaGenome can also assess the impact of mutations in specific genes by comparing variants, and it can make predictions about RNA “splicing”—a process where RNA molecules are chopped up and packaged before being sent off to a ribosome. Errors in this process are responsible for rare genetic diseases, such as spinal muscular atrophy and some forms of cystic fibrosis.
Predicting the impact of different genetic variants could be particularly useful. In a blog post, the DeepMind researchers report they used the model to predict how mutations other scientists had discovered in leukemia patients probably activated a nearby gene known to play a role in cancer.
“This system pushes us closer to a good first guess about what any variant will be doing when we observe it in a human,” Caleb Lareau, a computational biologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center granted early access to AlphaGenome, told MIT Technology Review.
The model will be free for noncommercial purposes, and DeepMind has committed to releasing full details of how it was built in the future. But it still has limitations. The company says the model can’t make predictions about the genomes of individuals, and its predictions don’t fully explain how genetic variations lead to complex traits or diseases. Further, it can’t accurately predict how non-coding DNA impacts genes that are located more than 100,000 letters away in the genome.
Anshul Kundaje, a computational genomicist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who had early access to AlphaGenome, told Nature that the new model is an exciting development and significantly better than previous models, but not a slam dunk. “This model has not yet ‘solved’ gene regulation to the same extent as AlphaFold has, for example, protein 3D-structure prediction,” he says.
Nonetheless, the model is an important breakthrough in the effort to demystify the genome’s “dark matter.” It could transform our understanding of disease and supercharge synthetic biologists’ efforts to re-engineer DNA for our own purposes.
Astronomers have teamed up with citizen scientists to discover a brand-new exploding star that’s greedily feeding on a stellar companion.
The newly observed binary system features a cataclysmic variable star, designated GOTO0650, which is in a rarely seen late stage of its evolution. This was also the first major discovery for the citizen astronomy project Kilonova Seekers.
The exploding star was detected when the general public was invited to play a game of cosmic “spot the difference.” This involved comparing images of the same patch of night sky to detect light changes that could indicate powerful and violent events.
GOTO0650 was spotted when a patch of sky brightened by a factor of around 2,500 compared to its previous brightness just days earlier.
The rapid response of the citizen scientists allowed astronomers to classify the object as a cataclysmic variable star. These are binary systems in which one object, a dense stellar corpse known as a white dwarf, is stripping material from a companion star. The stolen matter from the companion forms a flattened cloud of material around the white dwarf called an accretion disk.
As the accretion disk gradually feeds the white dwarf, accumulated matter builds up and eventually triggers a runaway nuclear explosion, which destroys the white dwarf. However, before this happens, material in the accretion disk can reach a critical density and temperature. This causes the disk to dramatically brighten until it eventually cools and returns to a quiescent state.
These events were originally called “novae,” meaning “new” in Latin, as they were believed to represent the birth of a new star.
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Animation of the GOTO0650 outburst, made from GOTO’s all-sky survey images. (Image credit: GOTO, T. Killestein and K. Ulaczyk )
“Kilonova Seekers is a unique opportunity for members of the public to take part in true real-time astrophysics,” Kilonova Seekers team co-leader Tom Killestein, a researcher at the University of Warwick in England, said in a statement.
“Remarkably, public volunteers identified this star as an object of interest within 3.5 hours of the image being taken by the GOTO telescopes,” he added, referring to the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer project, which employs telescope arrays in Spain and Australia. “This discovery could have been missed among many other objects without their efforts.”
This fast response allowed astronomers to get a comprehensive dataset regarding GOTO0650 before it returned to a quiet state.
“The involvement of the volunteers didn’t stop there, as there was a huge follow-up response from the public,” Killestein continued.”It was flagged for further observations from the Swift and Einstein Probe space observatories, and GOTO0650 was bright enough for amateur astronomers to take impressively high-quality observations of it with their own equipment, which formed a key part of the paper and really helped us understand the object.”
X-ray and ultraviolet data revealed that GOTO0650 is a “period bouncer,” one of two possible final states of a cataclysmic variable star. During this stage, mass loss from the donor star causes the orbital period of the binary system to increase, with the white dwarf and companion star moving away from each other.
It’s rare to spot a cataclysmic variable star in its final bouncer stage, making the discovery of GOTO0650 even more special. That’s especially true for the citizen scientists who played a key role in its discovery.
“I literally screamed with joy when I saw that I was going to be a co-author of the research paper,” Kilonova Seekers VolunteerSvetoslav Alexandrov said in the same statement. “I’m certain that people on the street raised their eyebrows when they saw me screaming and dancing, but I didn’t care. I knew I am a co-discoverer of something significant, and this was all that mattered.”
The team’s research was published on Tuesday (July 1) in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
A team of researchers is beginning work on creating new tools that could eventually lead to the synthesis of the human genome in the lab. Wellcome is providing £10 million to the Synthetic Human Genome Project, which it expects will unlock new medical treatments.
Making the whole genome of three billion base pairs of nucleotides is the ‘moonshot’, says Tom Ellis, one of the project leads who researches synthetic chromosomes at Imperial College, London.
The scientists will first try to create a small chromosome, comprising about 2% of total human DNA. Along the way, they’ll also develop the tools to design DNA and get it into human cells that could enable the development of targeted treatments and better tools for screening drugs.
‘If we’re making huge progress in understanding health from reading and then editing [DNA], then logically, it makes sense that we’ll learn a lot more if we can do writing as well,’ says Ellis. Improving and standardising technologies so they can be routinely used to write whole genes or regions of multiple genes should help researchers understand how mutations in those genes lead to disease.
Two of the groups involved in the new project, at Imperial and the University of Manchester, have been involved in synthesising the yeast genome and another group, the Escherichia coli genome, consisting of 4 million base pairs of nucleotides. In theory, says Ellis, scaling up to 50 million base pairs could be done with 10 times as many people working in parallel were it not for the practicalities.
Compared with a yeast or bacterial genome, human DNA is ‘more full of junk, and that junk is a lot harder to work with because it contains a lot of the same sequence repeated many, many times’. A great number of those sequences are there for structural reasons rather than encoding information. ‘Those bits of DNA are much harder to work with in terms of synthesising them and linking them together,’ explains Ellis.
And unlike fast-growing microbes that will accept DNA, ‘human cells are much harder to get big pieces of DNA into and it can take you weeks before you know whether it’s worked or not’, he points out.
The project will rely on the commercial sector to synthesise sections of DNA. At present, says Ellis, biotech companies are chemically synthesising DNA up to about 300 bases at a time. Those sections are then linked together, getting to 10,000 to 20,000 bases by cloning the DNA using bacteria. ‘Where there’s room for innovation is if chemistry can do it all with very good accuracy – up to 20,000 bases or longer – then this huge effort of parallelised building can be dramatically reduced.’ The synthesis project will then focus on the means to assemble those long DNA sections.
Screening for accuracy and isolating accurately synthesised DNA gets costlier the longer the sections are. And the cost of chemicals to custom-make synthetic DNA could swallow up half the project budget. ‘We don’t want to spend it on the DNA, we want to spend it on people innovating. So we really need to push the chemistry community to longer DNA, cheaper DNA,’ adds Ellis.
