"When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."

— William Shakespeare
Julius Cæsar

Astronomy

Forever chemical TFA has tripled due to ozone-preserving refrigerants

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 9:00am
Chemicals used in refrigeration break down in the atmosphere to produce trifluoroacetic acid, a persistent pollutant that could be harmful to humans and aquatic life
Categories: Astronomy

Forever chemical TFA has tripled due to ozone-preserving refrigerants

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 9:00am
Chemicals used in refrigeration break down in the atmosphere to produce trifluoroacetic acid, a persistent pollutant that could be harmful to humans and aquatic life
Categories: Astronomy

Astronomers find a ‘baby cluster’ of galaxies that could break cosmic models

Scientific American.com - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 8:00am

Dating to only a billion years after the big bang, JADES-ID1 may be the earliest, most distant galaxy protocluster astronomers have ever seen

Categories: Astronomy

Neutron Scans Reveal Hidden Water in Famous Martian Meteorite

Universe Today - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 7:15am

New tools unlock new discoveries in science. So when a new type of non-destructive technology becomes widely available, it's inevitable that planetary scientists will get their hands on it to test it on some meteorites. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, by Estrid Naver of the Technical University of Denmark and her co-authors, describes the use of two of those (relatively) new tools to one of the most famous meteorites in the world - NWA 7034 - also known as Black Beauty.

Categories: Astronomy

How supercontinent breakups leave geological orphans behind

Scientific American.com - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 7:00am

It turns out that continental breakups are just as messy as human ones, with the events leaving fragments scattered far from home

Categories: Astronomy

Climate change threatens the Winter Olympics—even snowmaking won’t save it

Scientific American.com - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 6:30am

As Earth’s temperature rises, fewer places will be suitable for hosting the Winter Olympics

Categories: Astronomy

‘Daily misery’—why some people can’t burp, and how Botox comes to the rescue

Scientific American.com - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 6:00am

For those with retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction, daily life can be miserable, with symptoms such as bloating and chest pain. But a simple Botox injection can help

Categories: Astronomy

Explore Mars’s Flaugergues Crater

ESO Top News - Wed, 02/04/2026 - 5:00am

ESA’s Mars Express takes us on a journey across the southern highlands of Mars, including a flight around Flaugergues Crater.

Categories: Astronomy

Researchers Conduct the Largest Study of Runaway Stars in the Milky Way

Universe Today - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 7:07pm

Researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), in collaboration with the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), have led the most extensive observational study to date of runaway massive stars, which includes an analysis of the rotation and binarity of these stars in our galaxy.

Categories: Astronomy

Is the Universe Older Than We Think? Part 1: The Cosmological Clock

Universe Today - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 4:05pm

When I say that the universe is 13.77 billion years old, it sounds rather authoritative.

Categories: Astronomy

<p><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod

APOD - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 4:00pm


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Red Giant Stars Can't Destroy All Gas Giants. Some Are Hardy Survivors

Universe Today - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 3:16pm

Astronomers haven't found many gas giants orbiting white dwarfs. But is that because they're so difficult to spot? Or is it because their survival rate is so low? New research probes the issue.

Categories: Astronomy

Chilean Observatories Saved from Industrial Megaproject

Sky & Telescope Magazine - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 1:40pm

The proposed installation — less than 10 miles from Paranal Observatory — sparked international concern. Now it’s canceled.

The post Chilean Observatories Saved from Industrial Megaproject appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Categories: Astronomy

Dutch air force reads pilots' brainwaves to make training harder

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 1:00pm
While pilots are flying in a VR simulation, their brainwave patterns can be fed into an AI model that assesses how challenging they are finding a task and adjusts the difficulty accordingly
Categories: Astronomy

Dutch air force reads pilots' brainwaves to make training harder

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 1:00pm
While pilots are flying in a VR simulation, their brainwave patterns can be fed into an AI model that assesses how challenging they are finding a task and adjusts the difficulty accordingly
Categories: Astronomy

The weird rules of temperature get even stranger in the quantum realm

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 1:00pm
Can a single particle have a temperature? It may seem impossible with our standard understanding of temperature, but columnist Jacklin Kwan finds that it’s not exactly ruled out in the quantum realm
Categories: Astronomy

The weird rules of temperature get even stranger in the quantum realm

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 1:00pm
Can a single particle have a temperature? It may seem impossible with our standard understanding of temperature, but columnist Jacklin Kwan finds that it’s not exactly ruled out in the quantum realm
Categories: Astronomy

NASA’s Artemis II moon mission engulfed by debate over its controversial heat shield

Scientific American.com - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 1:00pm

Experts have sounded the alarm over NASA’s decision to use a heat shield design for Artemis II that may be riskier than the space agency claims

Categories: Astronomy

Hundreds of Bright Streaks Suggest Mercury’s Still Active

Sky & Telescope Magazine - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 12:46pm

An AI search through decades-old spacecraft images reveals that Mercury may still be alive and kicking, geologically speaking.

The post Hundreds of Bright Streaks Suggest Mercury’s Still Active appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Categories: Astronomy

Full Moon over Artemis II

NASA Image of the Day - Tue, 02/03/2026 - 12:05pm
A full moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher in the early hours of February 1, 2026.
Categories: Astronomy, NASA