#Tag · bonfire.cafe

TOI-2322 c

TOI-2322 c is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits a K-type star. Its mass is 18.1 Earths, it takes 20.2 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.1362 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2025.

Discovered: 2025

#Astronomy #Exoplanets #SuperEarth

Ben boosted

Will 🇯🇵

@wilpercy@beige.party · 12 hours ago

@TheBreadmonkey sorry to hear out of kilter, Ben. Hope the Park do run run hits the spot.

My evening was immeasurably lightened by a brief conversation about the Orion constellation

Me: Look! You see it clearly tonight.

Mrs P: Where?

Me: There. Look, you can see the four points and the central three stars in a row. Orion’s Belt.

Mrs P: What? Brian? Who’s Brian?

In our family it will henceforth be known as Brian’s Belt.

#Astronomy

Ben

@TheBreadmonkey@beige.party · 12 hours ago

Anyway morning! I'd hoped to awake full of joi de vivre and metaphorical beans but instead am TIRED and COLD and had an anxiety dream so am just slightly derailed and off-kilter. I had a crappy week last week but can't talk to anyone about it and have therefore internalised it and feel generally quite bad/guilty. I've therefore not really planned ahead / thought about this weekend, which is busy and I have to be on my game. Perhaps I can rescue it? Let us try. Let us think the positive thoughts of the forward-motion people. I must go and do a solo #ParkRun. Perhaps that will fix me! Good morrow to you all anyhoo. I hope your day is filled with laughter and magic. X

Will 🇯🇵

@wilpercy@beige.party replied · 12 hours ago

@TheBreadmonkey sorry to hear out of kilter, Ben. Hope the Park do run run hits the spot.

My evening was immeasurably lightened by a brief conversation about the Orion constellation

Me: Look! You see it clearly tonight.

Mrs P: Where?

Me: There. Look, you can see the four points and the central three stars in a row. Orion’s Belt.

Mrs P: What? Brian? Who’s Brian?

In our family it will henceforth be known as Brian’s Belt.

#Astronomy

Hacker News

@h4ckernews@mastodon.social · yesterday

Earth from Space: The Fate of a Giant

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/01/Earth_from_Space_The_fate_of_a_giant

#HackerNews #EarthFromSpace #FateOfAGiant #ESA #SpaceExploration #Astronomy #Science

Earth from Space: The fate of a giant

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image over the South Atlantic Ocean features a close-up view of the A23a iceberg, once the world’s largest. The unusually cloud-free image shows the first signs that the iceberg will soon disintegrate completely.

Bjørnar (he/him) and 3 others boosted

Reymond Aguinaldo

@mondinspace@mastodon.social · 2 days ago

In November 2026, a historic milestone awaits humanity's Voyager 1. The legendary probe will reach the "one light-day" mark, meaning it will be so distant that communication requires a 48-hour round trip!

🧵 1/3

#Voyager1 #Voyager #Science #Astronomy #Physics #Space #DeepSpace #Nature #Astrodon #NASA

Image featuring a silhouette of the Voyager 1 spacecraft set against a vibrant, nebulous space background. At the bottom center, there is bold text that says, "It’s official. NASA confirms Voyager 1 will reach one light-day from Earth in 2026."

Reymond Aguinaldo

@mondinspace@mastodon.social · 2 days ago

🧵 1/3

#Voyager1 #Voyager #Science #Astronomy #Physics #Space #DeepSpace #Nature #Astrodon #NASA

Corey S Powell

@coreyspowell@mastodon.social · 5 days ago

In happier news, it's been a great week for learning strange new things about the universe. A few highlights:

The Rubin Observatory opened its eyes & immediately discovered 1900 asteroids, including the fastest-spinning large asteroid (once every 1.88 minutes!).

https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2601/ #science #nature #space

The lightcurve of 2025 MN45 — the fastest-rotating asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that scientists have ever found. The y-axis shows the asteroid’s brightness, and the x-axis shows its phase, or where it is in its rotation. When plotted, the resulting curve shows the asteroid's fluctuating brightness as it spins. Lightcurves can help scientists determine an asteroid's rotation period (the total time it takes to complete one rotation), size, shape, and surface properties.

The discovery of 2025 MN45 was made using data from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The asteroid is about 710 meters (0.44 miles) in diameter, and it completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes. — The lightcurve of 2025 MN45 — the fastest-rotating asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that scientists have ever found. The y-axis shows the asteroid’s brightness, and the x-axis shows its phase, or where it is in its rotation. When plotted, the resulting curve shows the asteroid's fluctuating brightness as it spins. Lightcurves can help scientists determine an asteroid's rotation period (the total time it takes to complete one rotation), size, shape, and surface properties. The discovery of 2025 MN45 was made using data from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The asteroid is about 710 meters (0.44 miles) in diameter, and it completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes.

www.noirlab.edu

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Spots Record-Breaking Asteroid in Pre-Survey Observations - First peer-reviewed paper using LSST Camera data identifies an asteroid, nearly the size of eight football fields, rotating every two minutes

Astronomers analyzing data from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, have discovered the fastest-ever spinning asteroid with a diameter over half a kilometer — a feat uniquely enabled by Rubin. The study provides crucial information about asteroid composition and evolution, and demonstrates how Rubin is pushing the boundaries of what we can discover within our own Solar System.

Corey S Powell

@coreyspowell@mastodon.social replied · 5 days ago

A hellish world: Planet TOI-561 b, slightly larger than Earth, orbits an ancient, sunlike star so closely that a "year" lasts just 11 hours and its surface is lava. Yet somehow it has a thick atmosphere, hinting at how old, battered planets might rejuvenate themselves.

https://eos.org/articles/a-lava-world-unexpectedly-hosts-an-atmosphere #science #nature #astronomy

The seemingly thick atmosphere of exoplanet TOI-561 b, seen here in an artist’s rendition, is most likely composed of material outgassed from its molten surface. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

Eos

A “Lava World” Unexpectedly Hosts an Atmosphere - Eos

TOI-561 b, an exoplanet roughly 275 light-years away, seems to have a thick atmosphere despite being wildly irradiated by its host star.

Roni Rolle Laukkarinen and 2 others boosted

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · 5 days ago

"I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, to the point of forgetting everything around me! A sky of absolute purity, free from artificial light.”

This is how astrophotographer Julien Looten remembers the night he captured this extraordinary view of our VLT at Cerro Paranal, #Chile

Wondering what all those cosmic objects and phenomena in the image are?
Find out: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2602a/

📷 J. Looten /ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #astrophysics #space #science

A 360-degree panorama during the night. On the left, one smaller dome and four larger ones are visible on the ground. From the right-hand large dome, two yellow lights are emerging from it. In behind the four buildings on the left side is a faint white glow visible. To the right side of the image, another runway is displayed. At the horizon, a green and red glow around can be seen. Over this area, Milky Way is spanned.

www.eso.org

"I was completely overwhelmed..."

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · 5 days ago

"I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, to the point of forgetting everything around me! A sky of absolute purity, free from artificial light.”

This is how astrophotographer Julien Looten remembers the night he captured this extraordinary view of our VLT at Cerro Paranal, #Chile

Wondering what all those cosmic objects and phenomena in the image are?
Find out: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2602a/

📷 J. Looten /ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #astrophysics #space #science

www.eso.org

"I was completely overwhelmed..."

The Conversation U.S.

@TheConversationUS@newsie.social · 6 days ago

Why an astronomer is really excited about today's telescope launch: "We built Pandora to shatter a barrier – to understand and remove a source of noise in the data – that limits our ability to study small exoplanets in detail and search for life on them."
https://theconversation.com/nasas-pandora-telescope-will-study-stars-in-detail-to-learn-about-the-exoplanets-orbiting-them-272155 #space #astronomy #news

The Conversation

NASA’s Pandora telescope will study stars in detail to learn about the exoplanets orbiting them

The findings from Pandora will complement data from the James Webb Space Telescope to give astronomers more insight into stars and planets outside our solar system.

Wonders of Creation

@wondersofCR@mastodon.social · 7 days ago

If Matter & Antimatter Were Created Equally, What Symmetry-Breaking Mechanism Allowed The Dominance Of Matter We Observe Today? Learn More: https://astronex.net/if-matter-antimatter-were-created-equally-what-symmetry-breaking-mechanism-allowed-the-dominance-of-matter-we-observe-today/

#space #astronomy #NASA #science #solarsystem #astro #nature #mars #esa #spacex #planets #spaceexploration

Astronex

If Matter & Antimatter Were Created Equally, What Symmetry-Breaking Mechanism Allowed The Dominance Of Matter We Observe Today?

The observable universe contains an overwhelming abundance of matter over antimatter, with no significant reservoirs of primordial antimatter detected

Fabrizio Musacchio boosted

franco_vazza

@franco_vazza@mastodon.social · last week

#SimulatedUniverses #astronomy #science simulated structure formation in an accelerated way, in a small portion of the universe. The inverted gray tones I think best highlight tiny threads and filaments in voids

franco_vazza

@franco_vazza@mastodon.social · last week

jbz boosted

jbz

@jbz@indieweb.social · last week

｢ Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged the largest protoplanetary disk ever observed circling a young star. For the first time in visible light, Hubble has revealed the disk is unexpectedly chaotic and turbulent, with wisps of material stretching much farther above and below the disk than astronomers have seen in any similar system. Strangely, more extended filaments are only visible on one side of the disk ｣

https://phys.org/news/2025-12-chaotic-dracula-chivito-hubble-reveals.html

#space #astronomy #exoplanet

Christian Meesters boosted

Prof Heino Falcke

@hfalcke@mastodon.social · last week

You need patience in science. Our paper proposing to image the shadow of a black hole was published 26 years ago. It has now gained over 1000 citations in the scientific literature (according to ADS), which is a lot.

At the time of writing it was rejected by Nature and Science and it didn't get a huge amount of citations initially, but then it continuously increased (shown are the citations per year below).

(Falcke, Melia, Agol 2000, ApJL) https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000ApJ...528L..13F/abstract
#astronomy #astrodon

2 media

Graph showing citations per year for the paper Falcke et al. (2000), peaking at 120 per year in 2025.

Six panels showing red/yellow rings predicting the appearance of the black hole in the Galactic center.

ADS

Viewing the Shadow of the Black Hole at the Galactic Center

In recent years, evidence for the existence of an ultracompact concentration of dark mass associated with the radio source Sagittarius A* in the Galactic center has become very strong. However, unambiguous proof that this object is indeed a black hole is still lacking. A defining characteristic of a black hole is the event horizon. To a distant observer, the event horizon casts a relatively large ``shadow'' with an apparent diameter of ~10 gravitational radii that is due to the bending of light by the black hole, and this shadow is nearly independent of the black hole spin or orientation. The predicted size (~30 μas) of this shadow for Sgr A* approaches the resolution of current radio interferometers. If the black hole is maximally spinning and viewed edge-on, then the shadow will be offset by ~8 μas from the center of mass and will be slightly flattened on one side. Taking into account the scatter broadening of the image in the interstellar medium and the finite achievable telescope resolution, we show that the shadow of Sgr A* may be observable with very long baseline interferometry at submillimeter wavelengths, assuming that the accretion flow is optically thin in this region of the spectrum. Hence, there exists a realistic expectation of imaging the event horizon of a black hole within the next few years.