The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
28-12-2025
2026 will be the year NASA astronauts fly around the moon again — if all goes to plan
2026 will be the year NASA astronauts fly around the moon again — if all goes to plan
The Artemis II mission, which could launch as early as February, is expected to send four astronauts on a trip to the moon, though they won't land on its surface.
The Artemis II astronauts pause during a demonstration test at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday.Gregg Newton
If all goes according to NASA’s plans, 2026 will finally be the year that astronauts once again launch to the moon.
In a matter of months, four astronauts are poised to fly around the moon on a roughly 10-day mission — the closest humans will have gotten in more than half a century.
The flight, known as Artemis II, could lift off as early as February and would be a long-awaited jump start to America’s lagging return-to-the-moon program. The mission will serve as a crucial test of NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, which have been in development for more than a decade and faced years of setbacks and severe budget overruns. The system has never carried a crew before.
Returning to the moon has been a priority for President Donald Trump since his first term, and the current administration has placed renewed emphasis on dominating the intensifying space race between the U.S. and China. Chinese officials have pledged to land their own astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030.
Beyond the geopolitical implications, the Artemis II mission is designed to usher in a new era of space exploration, with the goal of eventually establishing bases for long-duration stays on the moon before astronauts someday venture on to Mars.
“Within the next three years, we are going to land American astronauts again on the moon, but this time with the infrastructure to stay,” Jared Isaacman, NASA’s new administrator, told NBC News in an interview last week after he was sworn in.
For some scientists, the excitement around returning to the moon stems from the prospect of investigating enduring mysteries about the moon’s formation and evolution — such as violent collisions in the nascent solar system that created it and where its water originated — which came into focus during the Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s.
“As you can imagine, lunar scientists have had a lot of pent up questions for decades,” said Brett Denevi, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Answering some of those questions could shed light on similar processes that occurred during our planet’s formation, according to Denevi.
“Earth is kind of a terrible record-keeper,” she said. “With plate tectonics, weather — these things have just totally erased its very earliest history. But on the moon, you have this terrain that formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and it’s just sitting there on the surface for us to explore.”
Although the Artemis II mission won’t land on the lunar surface, it will test various technologies,docking maneuvers and life-support systems — first in Earth orbit and then in orbit around the moon — that will be essential for future missions.
NASA previously launched the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule on an uncrewed test flight around the moon — the Artemis I mission — for 3 1/2 weeks in 2022.
NASA's Artemis I Space Launch System rocket, with the Orion capsule attached, launches toward the moon in 2022 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
“There’s a lot riding on this, both good and bad,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for The Planetary Society, a nonprofit organization that conducts research, advocacy and outreach to promote space exploration. “Everything seems to be coming together, but this is the first time with humans on this rocket, and we’ve never tested this life-support system in space before.”
No launch date has been announced, but it is expected between February and April. The crew on board will be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The foursome was selected for the mission in 2023. Wiseman, Glover and Koch will make their second trips to space, while Hansen will be making his spaceflight debut.
Last weekend, the astronauts completed a key launch-day rehearsal, which involved donning their flight suits, boarding the Orion spacecraft and running through the countdown sequence to the point just before liftoff.
The Artemis program was established under the first Trump administration in 2019, and it salvaged the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule from prior stalled or canceled projects at NASA. The space agency had been working on a next-generation booster since 2010, a year before it retired the space shuttles. The Orion spacecraft, meanwhile, was originally designed for the Constellation Program, which was established by President George W. Bush to conduct crewed flights to the moon and Mars.
Last week, Trump doubled down on his return-to-the-moon agenda in an executive order that directed NASA to prioritize “expanding human reach and American presence in space” by landing astronauts on the lunar surface by 2028.
“This is the culmination of what is now almost a 15-year effort,” Dreier said. “Assuming it works, it’ll be seen as a major win for the administration. But if this doesn’t work, or if something calamitous happens, that will really reset everything.”
The Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft sit on the launch pad ahead of liftoff in November 2022 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Red Huber / Getty Images
Artemis II is intended to pave the way for the Artemis III mission in 2027, which is expected to land four astronauts near the moon’s south pole, a region vastly different from where the Apollo astronauts left their bootprints.
Whereas the Apollo moon landings occurred within a narrow band around the moon’s equator, the south polar region is a more challenging place to land because the terrain is pockmarked with craters. These permanently shadowed basins are thought to house abundant water ice, a precious resource for establishing a long-term presence on the moon and for future crewed missions deeper in the solar system.
“Apollo gave us the framework to understand the moon,” Denevi said, “and now we have the foundation to ask different questions.”
Denevi leads the geology team for the Artemis III flight, a role thatinvolves deciding where the crew members will roam after they land, what types of fieldwork they will conduct and which samples they will collect to bring home. She is particularly interested in samples from the moon’s shadowed craters, which are among the coldest places in the solar system.
“When I first started studying the moon, I thought I’d spend my whole career studying historical data,” she said. “Now to have the opportunity to be involved in going to collect new samples that can provide new pieces to this puzzle, instead of trying to rearrange all of the old pieces, that’s going to be a huge step forward.
Stunning photos of Mars that will blow your mind Mars has always fascinated scientists, and it is believed to be the planet with the closest conditions to Earth for life in our solar system. Various projects with rovers have been sent looking for traces of bioactivity, among other experiments and data collection efforts.
In this gallery, you can explore the beautiful landscapes of our neighboring planet in breathtaking images. Click through to get started.
Mount Sharp, 2012 This picture displays the bottom of Mount Sharp, also known as Aeolis Mons, on Mars. The mountain stands at a height of 5.5 km (3.4 miles) above the surrounding valley.
Gullies, 2017 These flow features, resembling moraines on Earth, are located in the mid-latitudes of Mars. This indicates that the deposits may contain ice or have had ice in the past.
Yellowknife Bay, 2013 These spherical shapes in Yellowknife Bay are believed to be concretions, suggesting that water seeped through sediment pores to create them.
Sandy hill, 2014 These are the sand dunes of Mars' northernmost region, visible as they appear after being covered by seasonal carbon dioxide (dry) ice during winter.
Acidalia Plain, 2015 This plain is depicted as the fictional touchdown location for a crewed mission called Ares 3 in the popular novel and film 'The Martian.'
Noctis Labyrinthus, 2013 Located on the Tharsis rise in the upper part of Valles Marineris, this area is recognized for its intricate network of deep valleys with steep walls.
Gale crater, 2013 This crater, thought to be around 3.5 to 3.8 billion years old, is likely a dry lake located near the northwestern region of the Aeolis quadrangle.
Gale crater, 2013 The rover designed to explore Gale crater, which is about the size of a car, can be seen as a blue dot in the lower right corner of the image.
Gale crater, 2012 This photo shows a section of the wall of Gale crater, where a system of valleys, thought to be created by water, enters the crater from the surrounding area.
Victoria Crater, 2006 This impact crater found in the Meridiani Planum plain has a width of approximately 730 meters (2,395 feet)and is named after a ship from Ferdinand Magellan's fleet, the first to sail around the world.
Color Photos, 2008 This is one of the initial color photographs of the surface of Mars captured after the Phoenix Mars lander spacecraft safely touched down on May 25, 2008. It marked the historic first landing near Mars's northern pole.
Hellas Planitia, 2008 This image displays a view from a different angle of a mountain located in eastern Hellas Planitia. The mountain harbors sizable glaciers beneath rocks.
Hellas Planitia, 2008 This is an alternative view of the mountain in the eastern Hellas Planitia, which revealed the presence of sizable glaciers concealed beneath fragmented rocks.
Southern hemisphere, 2017 Small pits are visible in the bright residual layer of carbon dioxide ice near a larger, circular feature that extends through the ice and dust. This may be an impact crater or a pit created by collapse.
Rock geology, 2014 This evenly-layered rock formation displays a pattern typical of a lake-floor sedimentary deposit, suggesting a lake once filled this crater.
Cape Verde, 2006 Cape Verde, a landscape with rocky cliffs, stands on the edge of Victoria crater. These cliffs were named after the country, as a tribute to Ferdinand Magellan who had explored Cape Verde during his round-the-world journey.
Marquette Island, 2010 Marquette Island is a rock about the size of a basketball whose texture and composition suggest it came from deep inside the Martian crust.
Echus Chasma, 2008 Waterfalls may have cascaded down these towering cliffs in the past, which stand at a staggering 4,000 meters (13,123 feet). The remarkably even valley floor indicates that it was subsequently submerged by basaltic lava.
Mars, 1997 This high-definition image captures the detailed features of Mars, while it was positioned approximately 100 million km (60 million miles) away from Earth.
Totality over Guam from 2019. Credit: Eliot Herman.
The coming year offers eclipses, occultations and much more.
Ready for another amazing year of skywatching? 2025 was a wild year with a steady parade of comets knocking on naked eye visibility, and one extra special interstellar comet,3I/ATLAS.
The sky just keeps on turning into 2026. Watch for mutual eclipse season for the major moons of Jupiter, as the moons pass one if front of the other. The ongoing solar cycle is also still expected to be active into 2026 producing sunspots, space weather and more. And (finally!) we’ll see the return of total solar eclipses on August 12th, as umbral shadow of the Moon crosses Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain.
Comet 3I/ATLAS crosses paths with asteroid 65 Cybele.
Credit: Filipp Romanov.
Here's a quick run down of the best of the best events to watch for in 2026:
-A total solar eclipse spanning the North Atlantic into Spain on August 12th. -A return of totality with a total lunar eclipse for North America and the Pacific Region on March 3rd. -Mutual eclipse-transit season resumes for the moons of Jupiter. -Two fine dusk occultations of Venus by the Moon on June 17th and September 14th. -The Moon occults Jupiter for eastern North America on October 6th. -The Perseid and Geminid meteor showers both put on fine shows, with the Moon near New. -The Moon occults Antares, Regulus and the Pleiades (Messier 45) worldwide. -Saturn meets Mercury in the dusk sky on April 20th. -Several fine lunar/planetary/stellar groupings occur in November, as the Moon slides by several planets and notable bright stars. -A good binocular comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS makes a brief Spring 2026 apparition.
The Sun in 2026
We’re still coming off of the intense Solar Cycle 25 maximum in 2026, as we head towards the transition dip of solar minimum around 2030 into solar cycle 26.
A massive sunspot graces Sol in 2025, as seen in hydrogen-alpha and calcium-k.
Credit: Eliot Herman.
Sunspot activity is always a big unknown, as massive sunspots come and go. Here are the definite known phenomena for the Earth and Sun in 2026:
Sun-Earth phenomena for 2026.
The Moon in 2026
The path of the Moon is still transitioning in 2026, from steep versus the ecliptic plane in 2025 fresh off major lunar standstill. We're now headed back towards shallow and Minor Lunar Standstill in May 2034. This is due to the 5 degree tilt of the Moon’s orbit versus the ecliptic, assuring a cycle transitioning from hilly to shallow to hilly again. This 18.6 year cycle is what’s known as *lunar nodal precession*. The Moon is still swinging wide in 2026, and headed from wide north-to-south near the solstices.
Moon phases for 2026.
Eclipses in 2026
*The eclipse path for the August 12th Total Solar Eclipse. From The Atlas of Total Solar Eclipses 2020 to 2045 by Michael Zeiler/Michael E. Bakich*
2026 sees four eclipses (2 lunar and 2 solar) the normal minimum that can occur:
February 17th - An annular solar eclipse for the Antarctic.
March 3rd - A total lunar eclipse for the Americas, the Pacific, Australia and the Far East. Totality for this one is just over 56 minutes in duration.
The March 2025 total lunar eclipse.
Credit: Robert Sparks.
August 12th - A Total solar eclipse for Iceland, the North Atlantic and northern Spain.
August 28th - A deep (93% obscured) partial lunar eclipse for Africa, Europe, the Atlantic and the Americas.
*An animation of the August 2026 eclipse.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/A.T. Sinclair*
Lunar Occultations of Planets in 2026
The Moon occults 4 planets a total of 11 times in 2026: Mercury (1), Venus (3), Mars (3), Jupiter (4). Saturn is the only naked eye planet that eludes the Moon in 2026.
Lunar v. planet occultations for 2026.
The October 6th occultation of Jupiter by the Moon.
Credit: Occult 4.2.
Lunar Occultations of Bright Stars by the Moon
Two of the four +1st magnitude stars that the Moon can occult (Regulus and Antares) are visited by the Moon in 2026… Aldebaran and Spica sit this one out.
First, the Moon occults Regulus:
Lunar occultations of Regulus for 2026.
The Moon also visits Antares in 2026:
Lunar occultations of Antares for 2026.
The Moon also continues visiting the open cluster Messier 44 (Praesepe) and Messier 45 (The Pleiades), once per lunation in 2026.
Planets in 2026
Planets wander the ecliptic (hence the Greek name planetai, meaning ‘wanderer’) transitioning from the dawn to dusk sky and back again. Sometimes, they slide past each other as seen from Earth. Here’s the best planet-versus-planet conjunctions to look forward to in 2026:
Planetary conjunctions for 2026.
The Inner Planets in 2026
Mercury reaches greatest elongation six times in 2026, three each in the dawn and dusk. Meanwhile, Venus passes solar conjunction on January 6th, and spends the rest of the year dominating the dusk sky before reaching solar conjunction on October 24th and reemerging once again in the dawn.
The inner planets for 2026.
Outer Planets in 2026
Planets beyond Earth’s orbit can reach opposition, rising ‘opposite’ in the east versus the setting Sun in the west. This also represents the best time to observe a given planet, as it passes closest to the Earth and remains above the horizon from sunset until sunrise.
Mars does not reach opposition until February 19th, 2027. Meanwhile, the average plane of Jupiter’s moons reaches its bidecadal edge-on point once again starting in late 2026, meaning the four moons will pass one in front of the other, eclipsing and occulting each other in a complex series of events. Finally, Saturn’s rings are gradually widening from edge-on in 2025, averaging 10 degrees open in 2026 and headed towards their widest tilt 27 degrees in 2031.
Oppositions for 2026.
Here are several key planetary groupings to watch for in 2026:
-June 16th: Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and the waxing crescent Moon at dusk.
-Nov 2-3rd: The waning, just past Last Quarter Moon passes Mars, Jupiter and Regulus, all in a row in the pre-dusk sky.
-Nov 7th: The waning crescent Moon groups with Venus and the bright star Spica at dawn.
-Nov 30th: The waning gibbous Moon groups with Mars, Jupiter and Regulus high in the pre-dawn sky.
The Moon meets Venus and Spica on November 7th.
Credit: Stellarium.
Three planets also transit the Messier 44 cluster in 2026:
-M44/Jupiter August 4th (but just 4 degrees west of the Sun) -M44/Mercury August 14th (just 13 degrees west of the Sun) -M44/Mars October 11th (70 west of Sun the Sun)
The Best Meteor Showers in 2026
About a dozen dependable meteor showers of the 110 known showers peak annually, as the Earth plows through streams laid down by their respective parent comets:
Top meteor showers for 2026.
Bright Comets in 2026
Bright comets for the coming year are always the big wildcard. As of writing this, there are only a half-dozen odd comets set to break +10th magnitude in 2026. Keep in mind, that could change very quickly if a bright new comet on a long period orbit makes itself known.
Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon as seen from Sa Calobra, Mallorca Spain.
The James Webb Space Telescope observes galaxies in the early universe. In one of them, it saw a bright spot – a supernova explosion.
A supernova explosion. Source: phys.org
Explosion from the early universe
An international team of astronomers has achieved a first in probing the early universe, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), detecting a supernova – the explosive death of a massive star – at an unprecedented cosmic distance.
The explosion, designated SN in GRB 250314A, occurred when the universe was only about 730 million years old, placing it deep in the era of reionization. This remarkable discovery provides a direct look at the final moments of a massive star from a time when the first stars and galaxies were just beginning to form.
Credit: Artwork - NASA, ESA, NSF's NOIRLab, Mark Garlick, Mahdi Zamani
This event, reported in a recently published scientific article, was first noted by a bright burst of high-energy radiation known as a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), detected by the Space-based Multiband Variable Object Monitor (SVOM) on March 14, 2025. Follow-up observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO/VLT) confirmed the extreme distance.
The connection between supernovae and gamma-ray bursts
The key finding came from targeted observations with JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCAM) approximately 110 days after the burst. Scientists were able to separate the light of the explosion from its faint, underlying host galaxy.
Astronomers now have a new measuring stick to peek into the universe in its early stages. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the earliest known supernova on camera, a mind-blowing stellar explosion that lit up the universe some 730 million years ago. At the time, galaxies were still finding their feet, and stars were burning with an unrestrained ferocity. This discovery pushes the timing for such massive events back more than a billion years, providing a better understanding of how the early cosmos formed its first heavy elements.
Co-author and astrophysicist at UCD School of Physics, Dr. Antonio Martin-Carrillo said, “The key observation, or smoking gun, that connects the death of massive stars with gamma-ray bursts is the discovery of a supernova emerging at the same sky location. Almost every supernova ever studied has been relatively nearby to us, with just a handful of exceptions to date. When we confirmed the age of this one, we saw a unique opportunity to probe how the universe was there and what type of stars existed and died back then.”
“Using models based on the population of supernovae associated with GRBs in our local universe, we made some predictions of what the emission should be and used it to propose a new observation with the James Webb Space Telescope. To our surprise, our model worked remarkably well and the observed supernova seems to match really well the death of stars that we see regularly. We were also able to get a glimpse of the galaxy that hosted this dying star.”
Similarities between supernovae from the early universe and modern supernovae
The data indicate that the distant supernova is surprisingly similar in brightness and spectral properties to the prototype GRB-associated supernova, SN 1998bw, which exploded in the local universe.
This similarity suggests that the massive star that collapsed to create GRB 250314A was not significantly different from the progenitors of GRBs observed locally, despite the vastly different physical conditions (such as lower metallicity) in the early universe. The observations also ruled out a much more luminous event, such as a superluminous supernova (SLSN).
The findings challenge the assumption that the stars of the early universe, formed under extremely low-metallicity conditions, would lead to markedly different, perhaps brighter or bluer, stellar explosions than those seen today.
While this discovery provides a powerful anchor point for understanding stellar evolution in the early universe, it also opens new questions about the observed uniformity.
2025 has been a remarkable year for astronomical discoveries, with the launch of exciting new science missions that are fueling our expanding knowledge of the cosmos and will continue to propel scientific innovation for decades to come.
With a year of groundbreaking discoveries now behind us, here is a look at just a few of the biggest developments in astronomy that The Debrief has been tracking in 2025.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory
The long-anticipated Vera C. Rubin Observatory is poised to fundamentally change how humanity observes the dynamic universe. Equipped with the world’s largest digital camera, the observatory will soon begin the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a decade-long project that will repeatedly image the entire southern sky, capturing everything from exploding stars and near-Earth asteroids to subtle changes in distant galaxies.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory began scientific operations this year and could answer vital questions about our own solar system and the wider universe. Image Credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA.
Earlier this year, the public got a first look at just how powerful Rubin’s contributions to astronomy will be in the years to come. Beyond its technical achievements, Rubin represents a shift toward time-domain astronomy at an unprecedented scale. Rather than static snapshots of the cosmos, astronomers will receive a continuous, living record of how the universe evolves—opening the door to discoveries no one has yet imagined.
JWST Discoveries Are Pushing the Boundaries on Our Understanding of the Cosmos
Since entering full science operations, the James Webb Space Telescope has continued to redefine what astronomers thought was possible. Webb’s observations have revealed surprisingly mature galaxies in the early universe, detailed atmospheric chemistry on distant exoplanets, and new insights into star formation hidden within dense cosmic dust.
Rather than neatly confirming existing models, Webb has repeatedly challenged them, and if 2025 has been any indication, the years ahead will only continue to further expand our knowledge of the cosmos through the powerful eye of NASA’s premier space observatory.
Planetary Discoveries Are Inching Closer to Finding Earth-like Planets
Exoplanet science continued its steady march toward one of astronomy’s most profound goals: identifying worlds that resemble Earth. Observations combining Webb data with ground-based telescopes have refined measurements of planetary atmospheres, surface temperatures, and potential habitability across dozens of star systems.
An artist’s rendition of habitable zone exoplanet GJ 251 c, which os only 20 light yeras from Earth. Image credit: Illustration by University of California Irvine.
Each incremental discovery in this exciting area of astronomy brings researchers closer to answering whether Earth-like conditions—and possibly life—could indeed be more common in our galaxy than we currently expect.
One of modern cosmology’s most persistent puzzles, known as the “Hubble tension,” remained unresolved this year. Measurements of the universe’s expansion rate derived from early-universe observations continue to conflict with values obtained from nearby galaxies, raising the possibility that something fundamental may be missing from current cosmological models.
Despite increasingly precise data from the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories, the discrepancy has only grown sharper this year. Whether the solution lies in unknown physics, hidden systematic errors, or a deeper revision of cosmology itself remains one of the most closely watched questions in astrophysics.
The Discovery of 3I/ATLAS
Finally, no serious roundup of astronomy stories from 2025 would be complete without mentioning the enigmatic interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS. Discovered in July of this year, astronomers confirmed the comet, which is only the third known interstellar object ever observed passing through our solar system.
Gemini South observation of 3I/ATLAS from August, 2025
(Credit: Gemini Observatory Archive).
Like its predecessors, 1I/‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, the comet originated beyond our stellar neighborhood, offering a rare opportunity to study material formed around another star. Although public speculation quickly followed, scientists emphasized that 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet composed of ice, dust, and rock. Its brief passage provided invaluable data about the chemistry and behavior of interstellar objects—glimpses of the raw building blocks that may be common throughout the Milky Way.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached atmicah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
The Mars Perseverance rover has been investigating the Jezero Crater and came across something that is not native to Mars at all. It is a meteorite that collided with the red planet. Though various rovers have found meteorites on Mars before, this is the first time NASA's Perseverance rover has found one on its journey to look for signs of life on Mars — though it might be worth mentioning that the chance for life on Mars might not be as high as we hoped.
Perseverance has been exploring Mars since it landed in February 2021, and the rover has collected 30 out of an expected 38 samples during its mission.. The fact that it hadn't yet found any meteorites within the crater was puzzling to scientists, so this find is an exciting one.
It is still being confirmed that what Perseverance found is a meteorite, but based on initial imaging and scans, it fits the bill. This is an important discovery, because finding and analyzing meteorites that have crashed on Mars helps us better understand our neighboring planet and the way meteorites behave on it.
Perseverance has been doing good work the last few years, including taking a stunning panoramic photo of Mars. But as Perseverance was investigating the Jezero Crater, it came upon a rock that stood out from the others. Measured at about 2.5 feet across, it had a unique appearance compared to the rocks that surrounded it. The rock was referred to as Phippsaksla. It was decided this rock needed further analysis to determine what it was.
Perseverance used the laser component of its SuperCam to get readings on the composition of the rock. SuperCam showed that Phippsaksla had a high nickel and iron content, which is a trademark of meteorites that come from asteroids. This informed scientists that Phippsaksla was not native to Mars at all, and had traveled there from elsewhere within the solar system.
Interestingly, Phippsaksla was actually found in September 2025; due to the government shutdown halting many operations, NASA did not make this finding public until November 2025. But this isn't the first time meteorites have been discovered on the red planet. The Curiosity rover found a meteorite called Cacao in 2023 and one called Lebanon in 2014. Other Mars rovers have found more meteorites on their own missions. Now, the Perseverance rover can proudly claim a meteorite finding of its own.
Finding meteorites on Mars helps scientists to further understand the planet and the solar system itself. It is theorized that on Mars, iron-based meteorites can resist erosion, a theory supported by the condition in which these meteorites are found. More samples will only help to determine whether this theory is true or not.
NASA scientists also study meteorites to learn more about the solar system and where they originated from. For example, meteorites can contain dust from a time before our own solar system was developed. Others contain materials that are billions of years old, assisting scientists in learning about the history of our solar system.
Not everything found on Mars is as easily identified as meteorites, though. The Perseverance rover itself stumbled across a rock that NASA has not been able to fully understand quite yet. As rovers continue to find interesting discoveries and more meteorites, scientists can use them in ongoing research efforts to try and answer these strange questions. For now, NASA will look into Phippsaksla to confirm that is, indeed, a meteorite, and to see what else can be learned from it.
NASA STRIDE targets next-gen robotic mobility for Mars
NASA STRIDE targets next-gen robotic mobility for Mars
Story byCassian Holt
NASA STRIDE targets next-gen robotic mobility for Mar
Instead of treating mobility as an afterthought, STRIDE puts it at the center of mission design, asking industry to rethink how instruments, samples and even infrastructure are moved across hostile terrain. That shift aligns with NASA’s broader push to prepare for Future Mars missions in the 2030s, where robotic systems will have to operate as partners rather than distant proxies.
STRIDE’s origins inside NASA’s Mars playbook
The STRIDE concept did not appear in a vacuum. For more than a decade, NASA has framed Mars as the next major destination for human exploration, setting a course to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s as part of its long‑term roadmap for deep space. In that context, Future Mars missions are not just about planting flags, but about building a sustainable presence that can investigate fundamental mysteries of the cosmos while keeping crews alive and productive.
That ambition has forced NASA to confront a simple reality: human explorers will depend on robotic systems that can pre‑deploy infrastructure, scout landing zones and ferry equipment across rugged landscapes. The agency’s own planning documents describe how NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s, and that Future Mars exploration will rely on a mix of human and robotic assets. STRIDE slots into that architecture as a focused effort to make those robotic assets far more capable in how they move and deliver science.
Eric Aguilar order 111211 Group photos in Mars Yard MER DTM, Marie Curie, MSL DTM, Matt and Wes photog: Dutch Slager
From Special Notice to strategy: how STRIDE is being framed
The formal launch of STRIDE inside NASA’s bureaucracy came through a Special Notice issued by NASA Headquarters, a procedural step that signals the agency’s intent to seek ideas from outside partners. In Dec, NASA Headquarters released Special Notice NNH25ZDA001N‑STRIDE, spelling out that the effort would focus on Science Transport and Robotic Innovation for deployment and exploration. That notice effectively put industry and research institutions on alert that NASA was ready to invest in new mobility concepts, not just incremental upgrades to existing rover designs.
Buried in the procurement language is a clear statement of purpose: STRIDE is meant to advance the way science is moved, deployed and supported on other worlds. The Special Notice explains that NASA Headquarters issued Special Notice NNH25ZDA001N‑STRIDE for Science Transport & Robotic Innovation for deployment and exploration, with responses due in early March 2026. That timeline underscores how quickly NASA wants to move from concept to concrete design studies that can feed into its next wave of Mars and planetary missions.
What STRIDE actually asks industry to build
At the heart of STRIDE is a call for design studies of advanced robotic systems that can transform how science is conducted on planetary surfaces. The STRIDE program is described as a solicitation to U.S. industry for detailed concepts that rethink mobility, deployment and transport, rather than simply bolting new instruments onto familiar rover chassis. That means NASA is looking for ideas that could range from modular cargo haulers and autonomous scouts to systems that can deploy sensor networks or support sample return logistics.
In its own Description of the program, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate makes clear that The STRIDE initiative will solicit proposals from U.S. industry to conduct design studies of advanced robotic systems for Science Transport and Robotic Innovation for Deployment and Exploration. That framing, outlined in an advance notice of intent, signals that NASA is less interested in one‑off gadgets and more focused on families of systems that can be adapted across missions, including those aimed at Mars.
Multiple awards and a diversified mobility portfolio
NASA’s decision to structure STRIDE around multiple awards is a quiet but important signal about how it views the future of robotic mobility. Instead of betting on a single flagship concept, the agency anticipates selecting several winners, each exploring different approaches to transport and deployment. That diversification is a hedge against technical risk, but it is also a recognition that Mars and other destinations will likely require a mix of platforms, from heavy haulers to nimble scouts.
Procurement language tied to STRIDE notes that, based on the fact that NASA anticipates selecting multiple awards, the program aims to develop advanced robotic systems through a competitive process. One summary of the opportunity explains that, in Dec, NASA indicated that, However, based on the fact that NASA anticipates selecting multiple awards, the program aims to develop advanced robotic systems through U.S. industry under the direction of U.S. NASA Headquarters. That detail, captured in a bid overview, suggests STRIDE is being used to seed a portfolio of mobility options that can be matched to different mission profiles rather than a single, monolithic rover line.
How STRIDE fits NASA’s long‑term robotic Mars strategy
STRIDE is arriving just as NASA is rethinking how it buys and operates robotic missions to Mars. In its long‑term strategy for robotic Mars exploration, the agency has acknowledged that a simple fee‑for‑service model, where NASA pays only when services are delivered, is probably not a totally workable approach for the kind of complex, high‑risk missions Mars science demands. Instead, planners have argued for a more nuanced mix of partnerships, with NASA sharing development risk while still shaping the capabilities it needs.
That strategic pivot is directly relevant to STRIDE, which is structured as a design‑study program rather than a pure services contract. By funding early‑stage concepts, NASA can steer industry toward mobility systems that align with its science and exploration goals, while still leveraging commercial innovation. The agency’s own long‑range planning documents for Mars note that a simple fee‑for‑service model is probably not a totally workable approach for the level of support Mars science needs, which is precisely the gap STRIDE is designed to fill by shaping the next generation of robotic mobility before it is locked into fixed service contracts.
Why mobility is the bottleneck for Future Mars science
For all the spectacular images and discoveries delivered by past rovers, mobility has remained a stubborn bottleneck on Mars. Wheeled platforms like Curiosity and Perseverance can only traverse limited distances each day, must avoid steep slopes and loose sand, and cannot easily reposition heavy infrastructure once it is deployed. As NASA looks ahead to Future Mars missions that will support human crews, those constraints become even more severe, because crews will depend on pre‑positioned supplies, power systems and habitats that may need to be moved or serviced over time.
STRIDE’s focus on Science Transport is a direct response to that challenge. By treating transport as a primary mission objective, rather than a secondary capability, the program encourages designs that can carry larger payloads, operate in more varied terrain and work in concert with other systems. That could mean robotic “mules” that shuttle cargo between a landing site and a habitat, or autonomous platforms that deploy and maintain sensor networks across a wide area. In each case, the goal is to unlock more ambitious science and exploration by removing mobility as the limiting factor.
From design studies to hardware on the Martian ground
Design studies are only the first step, but they are a critical one. By funding detailed concepts through STRIDE, NASA can identify which mobility architectures are most promising for Mars and other destinations, then feed those findings into future mission calls. The agency’s standard pattern is to use such studies to refine requirements, understand cost and risk, and decide which technologies merit full development. For Mars, that could translate into new classes of robotic vehicles that are explicitly designed to work alongside human crews, rather than as stand‑alone science missions.
The timeline embedded in the STRIDE Special Notice, with responses due in early March 2026, suggests NASA wants those insights in hand as it finalizes the next wave of Mars and planetary mission concepts. If the program succeeds, the designs that emerge from STRIDE could inform everything from cargo landers and surface logistics to sample transport systems that bridge the gap between robotic collection and human analysis. In that sense, STRIDE is less a one‑off program than a feeder pipeline for the mobility infrastructure that Future Mars exploration will require.
What success would look like for STRIDE on Mars
Measuring the success of a design‑study program is always tricky, but for STRIDE the metrics are relatively clear. In the near term, success would mean a diverse set of credible concepts that expand NASA’s options for how to move science and infrastructure on Mars. Those concepts would need to demonstrate not just technical feasibility, but also how they integrate with existing mission architectures, from launch vehicles and entry systems to surface power and communications.
Over the longer term, the real test will be whether STRIDE‑inspired systems actually fly and operate on Mars, changing how missions are planned and executed. If, a decade from now, human crews on the Red Planet are relying on fleets of robotic haulers, scouts and deployment platforms that trace their lineage back to STRIDE design studies, the program will have achieved its purpose. It will have turned a bureaucratic Special Notice into tangible, next‑generation mobility that makes Mars a more accessible, scientifically rich and ultimately habitable world for human explorers.
An expert on the inner workings of the Earth has revealed that the planet actually has two North Poles, and the movement of one of them could quietly disrupt global travel.
Scott Brame of Clemson University explained that the shifting 'magnetic North Pole' changes the direction a compass points, so without regular updates to navigation systems, everyday tools like smartphone maps could give wrong directions.
If the pole shifts faster than expected and models aren't updated in time, this could lead to bigger errors in phone or car GPS apps, potentially causing people to get lost, take longer routes, or even face safety risks in remote areas.
Brame is a research professor who has studied geology and underground water sources hidden under the Earth's surface, also known as hydrogeology.
Although the world has a point that's called 'true north,' which sits at the top of the Earth's axis, Brame said there's also a 'magnetic north' which has been shifting across northern Canada for centuries.
Since the 1990s, however, that movement has accelerated dramatically, increasing from roughly six to nine miles per year to about 34 miles per year, according to scientists.
A 2020 study in the journal Nature Geoscience has explained that this acceleration was mainly caused by changes in the flow of molten iron in Earth's outer core that alter the planet's magnetic field, but the exact trigger is still unclear.
So, when Santa is done delivering presents on Christmas Eve, he could use a compass, but then he has a challenge: He has to be able to find the right North Pole, since the one on a map and the one a compass relies on aren’t the same.
The magnetic North Pole has wandered since the late 1500s, picking up speed in the recent century
Earth's magnetic North Pole has been in constant motion for centuries, but the speed accelerated dramatically in the 1990s (Stock Image)
The two North Poles
The geographic North Pole, also called true north, is the point at one end of the Earth’s axis of rotation.
Try taking a tennis ball in your right hand, putting your thumb on the bottom and your middle finger on the top, and rotating the ball with the fingers of your left hand. The place where the thumb and middle finger of your right hand contact the tennis ball as it spins define the axis of rotation. The axis extends from the south pole to the north pole as it passes through the center of the ball.
Earth’s magnetic North Pole is different.
Over 1,000 years ago, explorers began using compasses, typically made with a floating cork or piece of wood with a magnetized needle in it, to find their way. The Earth has a magnetic field that acts like a giant magnet, and the compass needle aligns with it.
The magnetic North Pole is used by devices such as smartphones for navigation – and that pole moves around over time.
Why the magnetic north pole moves around
The movement of the magnetic North Pole is the result of the Earth having an active core. The inner core, starting about 3,200 miles below your feet, is solid and under such immense pressure that it cannot melt. But the outer core is molten, consisting of melted iron and nickel.
Heat from the inner core makes the molten iron and nickel in the outer core move around, much like soup in a pot on a hot stove. The movement of the iron-rich liquid induces a magnetic field that covers the entire Earth.
As the molten iron in the outer core moves around, the magnetic North Pole wanders.
Although the world has a point that's called 'true north,' which sits at the top of the Earth's axis, the 'magnetic North Pole' continues to shift across Canada, moving at 34mph
Santa Claus is believed to live at the North Pole, but a researcher has revealed that there's actually two North Poles on Earth (Stock Image)
EFor most of the past 600 years, the pole has been wandering around over northern Canada. It was moving relatively slowly, around six to nine miles per year, until around 1990, when its speed increased dramatically, up to 34 miles per year.
It started moving in the general direction of the geographic North Pole about a century ago. Earth scientists cannot say exactly why other than that it reflects a change in flow within the outer core.
Getting Santa home
So, if Santa’s home is the geographic North Pole - which, incidentally, is in the ice-covered middle of the Arctic Ocean - how does he correct his compass bearing if the two North Poles are in different locations?
No matter what device he might be using - compass or smartphone - both rely on magnetic north as a reference to determine the direction he needs to move.
While modern GPS systems can tell you precisely where you are as you make your way to grandma’s house, they cannot accurately tell which direction to go without your device knowing the direction of magnetic north.
If Santa is using an old-fashioned compass, he’ll need to adjust it for the difference between true north and magnetic north. To do that, he needs to know the declination at his location - the angle between true north and magnetic north - and make the correction to his compass. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has an online calculator that can help.
If you are using a smartphone, your phone has a built-in magnetometer that does the work for you. It measures the Earth’s magnetic field at your location and then uses the World Magnetic Model to correct for precise navigation.
Whatever method Santa uses, he may be relying on magnetic north to find his way to your house and back home again. Or maybe the reindeer just know the way.
This article is adapted from The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge of experts. It was written by Scott Brame, a research assistant professor of Earth Science at Clemson University.
The year 2025 is coming to an end. During this time, astronomers have made many scientific discoveries that have enriched our knowledge of the Solar System, the Milky Way, and the universe as a whole. We have selected the 10 most important ones.
Astronomical events of the year
The most important scientific discoveries
Science is something that cannot be rushed and does not focus on studying just one thing. Scientists explore everything that seems interesting to them, and the results of their work can sometimes only be assessed decades later. This is especially true for a science such as astronomy, which studies processes that can last hundreds of millions of years.
Nevertheless, we have attempted to highlight ten of the most significant scientific discoveries that are worth mentioning when discussing the direction in which astronomical science has been moving this year.
1. Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
When scientists realized in July this year that the speck in the images from the ATLAS automated observation system was a comet, and that it had come to us from interstellar space, they already knew it would be a sensation. But no one expected it to be so unhealthy, because for several months, people were in hysterics: “An alien ship is flying towards us, there will be a landing.”
Photo 3I/ATLAS. Source: avi-loeb.medium.com
Scientists did not find any alien spacecraft. However, the chemical composition of this celestial body was studied in detail. Astronomers have confirmed that it is very similar to the “comets” that orbit the Sun. At the same time, differences were found between 3I/ATLAS and the two previous visitors from space, indicating that they can form under very different conditions.
2. Dark energy can evolve over time
In March, scientists working with a spectroscopic instrument to search for dark energy published the results of observations of 15 million galaxies that we see in a time range from the present to 11 million years in the past. And the results of these studies show that dark energy not only exists, but also changes over time.
This differs greatly from the standard model of the universe, according to which it remains constant. However, scientists are not yet rushing to talk about a revolution. Ideas about the variability of dark energy over time have been expressed before, and the results of the research do not prove anything conclusively. But now scientists have a new, powerful tool for revising existing theories.
Dark energy may evolve. Source: www.ucl.ac.uk
3. The most energetic neutrino in history
In early February, the KM3NeT neutrino detector located in the Mediterranean Sea detected a particle with an energy of 220 petaelectronvolts (PeV). This is tens of thousands of times more than the most powerful accelerator on Earth can provide. Therefore, this particle is considered the most energetic neutrino ever seen by scientists.
There is no doubt that the particle came to us from space. At the same time, its origin remains a mystery, as scientists are still unable to confidently identify the process that could have caused it to appear. Among the possible explanations, they are even considering the explosion of a primordial black hole near the Sun.
4. A satellite has been discovered in Betelgeuse…
Betelgeuse is a giant red star in the Orion constellation, known to mankind since the dawn of history, but in the last decade, it has caused everyone to rack their brains over its behavior. It seemed as if it was about to explode as a supernova.
Betelgeuse and its companion. Source: phys.org
And in July 2025, scientists confirmed the presence of a companion star, whose mass is 1.5 times greater than that of the Sun. It is located so close that in about 10,000 years, the stars may merge into one. The very existence of this companion explains the long-term changes in Betelgeuse’s brightness.
5. …and Saturn has as many as 128
Saturn is a planet known not only for its rings but also for having the largest number of moons in the Solar System. In March 2025, scientists announced the discovery of 128 new bodies orbiting it. So now their total number is 274.
Most of them are very small bodies, with a diameter of less than a kilometer. However, they make you wonder how many more objects are flying around this planet. After all, among all the worlds revolving around the Sun, there is perhaps the most debris of all kinds.
6. Possible traces of life on Mars
In early September 2025, NASA employees released data showing that in 2024, the Perseverance rover found something that could be traces of life on the Red Planet. At that time, it was working at the bottom of an ancient river near the Bright Angel formation. The sample collected was once a layer of silt.
“Leopard spots” on a Martian rock, which may be evidence of ancient microbial life. Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
It is in such places that scientists expect to find traces of life, and this time they saw something resembling leopard spots or ripples on water. Researchers believe that this is very similar to the result of the vital activity of microorganisms that lived here when water still flowed through the valley and fed on the available minerals.
7. Space Quipu
In January 2025, the Internet was abuzz with news of the discovery of yet another largest structures in the universe. In fact, the galaxy cluster, dubbed Quipu, is significantly smaller than objects such as the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, but its size is still impressive.
With a length of 1.3 billion light-years, it exceeds the Sun in mass by 200 quadrillion times and is the largest neighbor of the Laniakea Supercluster, which includes the Local Group, including the Milky Way galaxy.
The closest superclusters to us. Quipu is shown in red, the Shapley supercluster in blue, Hercules in purple, Serpens-Corona Borealis in green, and Sculptor Pegasus in yellow. Gray dots are other superclusters, and the avoidance zone is marked with a blue line. Source: Bohringer et al.
8. Waves run across the Milky Way disc
For many years, scientists have suspected that the Milky Way disc is not perfect, but warped at the ends. After observing millions of stars with the Gaia space telescope, they are now certain of this.
However, in 2025, based on the same data set, they discovered that this distortion is the result of waves running across the disk of our galaxy. In some places, stars shift upward relative to their plane, in others – downward.
Scientists suspect that this is due to a collision with another star system that the galaxy experienced in the past. However, there is also a theory that dark matter is to blame.
Waves on the Milky Way disc. Source: www.esa.int
9. Signs of life on exoplanet K2-18b
Perhaps the most controversial discovery in astronomy this year was made in April by a group of astronomers studying the exoplanet K2-18b. It was known that it contained water, one of the main elements necessary for life to exist. This year, scientists confirmed the existence of two other substances on the planet: dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide.
Both of them appear on Earth mainly as a result of biological processes. So the news quickly became a sensation about the discovery of signs of life, although it was already clear at that point that K2-18b was too hot for that. However, this discovery is important in that it allowed scientists to take a fresh look at which substances are reliable biomarkers and which are not.
10. Formation of an exomoon
In September, scientists announced that they had discovered a satellite in the process of formation around the exoplanet CT Cha b. Previous discoveries of moons around planets outside the Solar System have been reported, but each time these discoveries have been refuted.
Disk around an exoplanet (illustration). Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Gabriele Cugno (University of Zürich, NCCR PlanetS), Sierra Grant (Carnegie Institution for Science), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Leah Hustak (STScI)
This time, we are talking about a young planet, near which scientists have detected seven different organic substances. It is believed that their molecules are contained in the dust disk surrounding the planet, from which a satellite is gradually forming.
This image of 3I/ATLAS was snapped with the NavCam aboard the ESA's JUpiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE). Credit: ESA/Juice/NavCam
In November 2025, the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS emerged from behind the Sun and began making its way towards the outer Solar System. This was a momentous occasion, as the comet was experiencing increased activity following its closest approach to the Sun and was once again visible to our telescopes and robotic space missions. One such mission is the European Space Agency's (ESA) JUpiter Icy Moon Explorer(JUICE), which captured the above image of 3I/ATLAS using its Navigation Camera (NavCam).
The image was taken on Nov. 2nd, 2025, two days before JUICE made its closest approach to the comet, at which point, it was about 66 million km (41 million mi) from the comet. While this was farther than the ESA's Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which took pictures of the comet back in October, the JUICE image captures 3I/ATLAS in a more active state. While the full data from the probe's observations will not reach Earth until February 2026, the team managed to download one quarter of the NavCam image, providing a lovely teaser.
Although the NavCam was not designed to take high-resolution images, the resulting image surprised the science team. In addition to showing the comet's bright coma, the comet also appears to have two tails, consisting of the "plasma tail" and the "dust tail." The former, which extends upwards from the coma, is composed of electrically charged gas, while the latter, extending below, is composed of solid particles released by outgassing. JUICE also observed 3I/ATLAS using five of its science instruments and collected data on the comet's composition and behavior, which are all consistent with it being a comet.
*Annotated image of 3I/ATLAS and a map (inset) of its location when observed by JUICE.
Credit: ESA/Juice/NavCam*
The ESA expects to receive the full data from its instruments between Feb. 18th and 20th. The delay is due to JUICE using its main high-gain antenna as a heat shield. As a result, the probe must rely on its smaller, medium-gain antenna to send data back to Earth, and at a much slower rate. The data from these instruments is also expected to provide a clearer picture of the comet's activity. This includes images from JANUS, the probe's high-resolution optical camera, spectrometry from its Moons and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer (MAJIS), and UV imaging spectrograph (UVS).
There will also be data on its composition obtained by the Sub-millimeter Wave Instrument (SWI) and particle data from the Particle Environment Package (PEP). This will allow scientists to learn more about where the comet originated and what conditions are like in other parts of the galaxy. Given that 3I/ATLAS could be up to 7 billion years old, this data will provide a window into the history of our galaxy long before Earth and the Solar System existed.
Think self-driving cars are impressive? Try a self-driving rover on a planet over a hundred million miles away.
On Wednesday, NASA announced that its Mars Perseverance rover had pulled off a stunning feat of endurance and self-sufficiency. Over the course of four hours and 24 minutes, the intrepid little robot managed to traverse 1,350.7 feet, or about a quarter mile. It’s the most any Mars explorer has traveled in a single Martian day — or “sol,” in the lingo — and it did it pretty much on its own.
That’s because the rover is largely autonomous. The human scientists choose its destinations, but the bot’s navigation software charts its actual course.
“Engineers at [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] meticulously plan each day of the rover’s activities on Mars,” NASA explained in a statement. “But once the rover starts driving, it’s on its own and sometimes has to react to unexpected obstacles in the terrain.”
One navigation tool is Enhanced Autonomous Navigation, or ENav, which can scan for potential obstacles and hazards up to 50 feet ahead of the rover, which is farther in advance than previous Mars robots, and automatically plan around them.
“More than 90 percent of Perseverance’s journey has relied on autonomous driving, making it possible to quickly collect a diverse range of samples,” said Hiro Ono, a JPL autonomy researcher and lead author of a new paper published in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics describing ENav, said in the NASA statement.
A video captured by the rover’s navigation cameras shows its epic journey, which took place on June 19, 2025. The images were taken every 16 feet for the first third of the journey, and every 3.3 for the final two thirds, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and then combined with virtual frames which were created by reconstructing using the rover’s detailed data in a computer environment.
The distance feat comes as the Mars Perseverance rover reaches another milestone. After nearly five years of roaming the Red Planet, it’s now traveled almost 25 miles. With the help of autonomous software, JPL scientists hope that the rover will amble on at least another 37 miles more.
“As humans go to the Moon and even Mars in the future, long-range autonomous driving will become more critical to exploring these worlds,” Ono said.
December 22, 2015, marked one of the most important events in the history of modern space exploration. SpaceX successfully landed the Falcon 9 rocket stage for the first time. On the tenth anniversary of this historic landing, we explain how SpaceX achieved this feat and how it changed space exploration forever.
Space challenge
The Space Shuttle program was the first full-fledged attempt to create a partially reusable space system. Within its framework, the shuttle itself was reused, as well as a pair of solid-fuel boosters that landed on parachutes. However, due to a number of technical compromises inherent in the program’s architecture and the immaturity of the technologies involved, it cannot be considered a success from an economic point of view. Yes, the shuttles were reused. However, their restoration and preparation for a new launch required much more time and money than had been anticipated during the development phase. As a result, the cost of launching a shuttle far exceeded the cost of launching a conventional rocket.
Launch of the Atlantis shuttle. Source: NASA
Several rocket designs were also developed that involved reusing first-stage engines, which, according to the designers’ concept, were to be dropped by parachute. However, these designs were never implemented. One of the main reasons for this was that the space industry was still predominantly the preserve of countries. With guaranteed government contracts, there was no point in rocket manufacturers reducing the cost of launches.
This situation began to change at the beginning of the 21st century with the emergence of a number of private companies ready to challenge the traditional aerospace giants. One of them was SpaceX. When the company first announced its plans to reuse the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, most experts were extremely skeptical. Some even openly ridiculed them. But SpaceX was ready to take on the challenge.
From parachutes to jet landing
Initially, SpaceX chose a traditional approach and attempted to implement the idea of returning the stage using parachutes. Attempts were made during the first two Falcon 9 launches. In both cases, the stage disintegrated in the atmosphere upon re-entry. Experts quickly realized that this was a dead end. Even if the stage had survived re-entry, the parachute system had a number of problems, one of which was its considerable weight, and another was that the stage would land in seawater, which could damage the engines.
Grasshopper launch. Source: SpaceX
Instead, a controlled reentry and jet landing scheme was chosen. To develop the necessary technologies, SpaceX built Grasshopper, a vehicle capable of vertical takeoff and landing. Testing began in 2012.
At the same time, engineers tried to obtain as much data as possible about the rocket’s behavior during actual space flight and actively experimented. In 2013, SpaceX succeeded in reactivating the engines of the separated first stage for the first time. And in 2014, the first controlled splashdown in the ocean took place. The company also began preparing autonomous barges, which were to be used for most of the landings. However, even then, most experts still did not believe in SpaceX. It was believed that even if the company recovered the stage, the cost of servicing it would negate the whole idea of reusability.
Historic landing
The first real attempt to land the Falcon 9 stage was made in January 2015. It failed. The next time, the company came extremely close to success, but during contact, the stage tipped over onto the barge and exploded.
First successful landing of Falcon 9 on land. Source: SpaceX
On December 22, SpaceX made another attempt to recover a stage from space. The task was made easier by the fact that this time the landing was not on a barge, but on land. And this time, SpaceX was successful. The stage with the serial number B1019 made a historic landing at Cape Canaveral, proving the viability of the idea.
First successful landing of Falcon 9 on a barge. Source: SpaceX
The final confirmation was to be the landing on a barge. After two more failures, on April 8, 2016, SpaceX finally succeeded in solving the problem. For the first time in history, humanity had a rocket with a reusable first stage.
The Reusable Revolution
However, even after all this, not everyone was ready to believe in success. After all, it is not enough to simply return the stage; it must be possible to launch it into space again, and it must be cheaper than using a new stage.
Falcon 9 launch. Source: SpaceX
This task was accomplished a year later when the stage with the side number B1021 successfully returned from space for the second time. The final step was the commissioning of Falcon 9 Block 5, the “final” modification of the rocket, whose design incorporated the results of all SpaceX experiments. It was destined to become SpaceX’s workhorse, which ultimately changed the landscape of global space exploration. As of December 16, 2025, 523 of the 524 launches of this modification of Falcon 9 were successful.
As for reusing stages, out of 531 attempts, SpaceX failed to recover the stage in only six cases. This number is higher than the total number of Falcon 9 launches because its first stages are also used in Falcon Heavy launches.
Falcon 9 first stage landing. Source: SpaceX
Over the years, SpaceX has raised the bar for the maximum number of launches for first stages several times. Initially, it was 10 launches, then 20, and now 40. At the time of writing, the record was held by stage B1067. It has flown into space 32 times.
Thanks to a combination of unprecedented reliability and lower prices than its competitors, reusability has allowed SpaceX to capture a huge share of the global launch market. Falcon 9 launches are now effectively produced on an assembly line basis. It is launched more often than all other rockets combined.
The first stage of the New Glenn rocket after landing on a barge. Source: Blue Origin
Only in 2025 did several companies come close to repeating SpaceX’s success. Blue Origin has achieved the most significant results so far. On its second attempt, it managed to land the New Glenn rocket stage on a barge. China’s Landspace could have gone down in history as the third company to build a reusable rocket. However, the first attempt to land the Zhuque-3 stage was unsuccessful. Next in line are Long March 8, built by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, and Neutron from Rocket Lab.
SpaceX, in turn, is preparing to take the next step and create the first fully reusable space system in history. In recent years, the company has been actively testing its giant Starship rocket. If all goes well, its first landing could take place as early as 2026.
The fourth launch of Starship. Source: SpaceX
Whatever the future holds for all these rockets, one thing is certain: space exploration will never be the same again. And the beginning of this new path was laid ten years ago, when Falcon 9 managed to do what was previously considered impossible.
Geoscientists Find Explanation for Mysterious Structures within Earth’s Mantle
Geoscientists Find Explanation for Mysterious Structures within Earth’s Mantle
For decades, scientists have been baffled by two enormous structures buried deep inside Earth. These anomalies may retain geochemical signatures distinct from the surrounding mantle. Yet, their origin remains enigmatic. Rutgers University geodynamicist Yoshinori Miyazaki and colleagues offer a striking explanation for these anomalies and their role in shaping Earth’s ability to support life.
The illustration shows a cutaway revealing the interior of early Earth with a hot, melted layer above the boundary between the core and mantle.
The two enigmatic structures, known as large low-shear-velocity provinces and ultra-low-velocity zones, sit at the boundary between Earth’s mantle and its core, nearly 2,900 km (1,800 miles) beneath the surface.
Large low-shear-velocity provinces are continent-sized blobs of dense, hot rock.
One sits beneath Africa; the other is perched under the Pacific Ocean.
Ultra-low velocity zones are thin, molten patches clinging to the core like lava puddles.
Both types of structures slow seismic waves dramatically, signaling unusual composition.
“These are not random oddities,” said Dr. Miyazaki, co-author of a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
“They are fingerprints of Earth’s earliest history.”
“If we can understand why they exist, we can understand how our planet formed and why it became habitable.”
“Billions of years ago, Earth was covered by a global ocean of magma.”
“As it cooled, scientists expected the mantle to form distinct chemical layers, similar to frozen juice separating into sugary concentrate and watery ice.”
“But seismic studies show no such strong layering. Instead, large-low shear velocity provinces and ultra-low velocity zones form irregular piles at the planet’s base.”
“That contradiction was the starting point. If we start from the magma ocean and do the calculations, we don’t get what we see in Earth’s mantle today. Something was missing.”
The team’s model suggests that over billions of years, elements such as silicon and magnesium leaked from the core into the mantle, mixing with it and preventing strong chemical layering.
This infusion could explain the strange composition of large low-shear-velocity provinces and ultra-low-velocity zones, which can be seen as solidified remnants of what the scientists termed a basal magma ocean contaminated by core material.
“What we proposed was that it might be coming from material leaking out from the core,” Dr. Miyazaki said.
“If you add the core component, it could explain what we see right now.”
“The discovery is about more than deep-Earth chemistry.”
“Core-mantle interactions may have influenced how Earth cooled, how volcanic activity unfolded and even how the atmosphere evolved.”
“That could help explain why Earth has oceans and life, while Venus is a scorching greenhouse and Mars is a frozen desert.”
“Earth has water, life and a relatively stable atmosphere.”
“Venus’ atmosphere is 100 times thicker than Earth’s and is mostly carbon dioxide, and Mars has a very thin atmosphere.”
“We don’t fully understand why that is. But what happens inside a planet, that is, how it cools, how its layers evolve, could be a big part of the answer.”
By integrating seismic data, mineral physics and geodynamic modeling, the authors reconceived large low-shear velocity provinces and ultra-low-velocity zones as vital clues to Earth’s formative processes.
The structures may even feed volcanic hotspots such as Hawaii and Iceland, linking the deep Earth to its surface.
“This work is a great example of how combining planetary science, geodynamics and mineral physics can help us solve some of Earth’s oldest mysteries,” said study co-author Dr. Jie Deng, a researcher at Princeton University.
“The idea that the deep mantle could still carry the chemical memory of early core–mantle interactions opens up new ways to understand Earth’s unique evolution.”
“Each new piece of evidence helps fill in gaps in Earth’s early history, turning scattered clues into a clearer picture of its evolution.”
“Even with very few clues, we’re starting to build a story that makes sense,” Dr. Miyazaki said.
J. Deng et al. 2025. Deep mantle heterogeneities formed through a basal magma ocean contaminated by core exsolution. Nat. Geosci 18, 1056-1062; doi: 10.1038/s41561-025-01797-y
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is rapidly moving away from us. Can we 'intercept' it before it leaves us forever? - PART I
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is rapidly moving away from us. Can we 'intercept' it before it leaves us forever? - PART I
3I/ATLAS has passed its closest point to Earth, meaning we will soon lose sight of it for good. Some scientists want to send a spacecraft to chase down the alien comet — or the next interstellar object.
Astronomers want to send a spacecraft to "intercept" 3I/ATLAS or the next interstellar object. Doing so would help researchers learn more about distant star systems in the Milky Way.
Since its discovery in early July, 3I/ATLAS has been studied more enthusiastically than practically any other celestial object in recent memory. Still, for all its fame, much remains unknown about it. The comet’s origins, from somewhere far across our galaxy, may never be known. Its true age, size, composition, and shape are also poorly constrained.
But how can we learn more about this alien interloper — or indeed, the next one — when we’re already studying it with everything we’ve got?
Some scientists are proposing a bold solution: We have to "intercept" it with a spacecraft.
Doing so would not only help us to better understand its key characteristics but also photograph its surface and potentially collect our first-ever interstellar samples, which could help reveal how alien exoplanets form, how common our type of solar system is and maybe even help answer the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe.
"We only have one shot at this object and then it's gone forever," Darryl Seligman, an astronomer at Michigan State University and the lead author of the first paper published about 3I/ATLAS, previously told Live Science. "So we want as much information from all of our observatories as we can possibly get."
Alien interlopers
On July 1, astronomers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) revealed they had spotted a mysterious object traveling toward us from beyond Jupiter, at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h). ATLAS, which automatically scans the skies using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa, was hunting for potential threats to Earth. It found something else entirely.
ATLAS astronomers first announced the discovery of a potential interstellar object on July 1, releasing this photo of an object headed toward the sun from beyond Jupiter.(Image credit: ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA)
Less than 24 hours later, NASA confirmed that the speeding blur of light was an interstellar object — an alien asteroid or comet that originated outside the solar system — and named it 3I/ATLAS. It was only the third-ever detection of an interstellar object in our solar system, after the anomalous space rock 'Oumuamua in 2017 and Comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.
Interstellar visitors like this are exciting to astronomers because they are one of the few opportunities we have to explore neighboring star systems, which would take generations and the invention of sci-fi technology to reach aboard a spacecraft.
"ISOs are relics from planetary formation, so studying these objects and comparing them to what we have closer to us [could] lead to an interesting view of how other planetary systems in the galaxy formed," Pedro Bernardinelli, a planetary scientist at the University of Washington's DiRAC Institute, told Live Science in an email.
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But our Earth-based observatories, and even orbiting spacecraft such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), can only tell us very rough information like general size, shape and composition. To really reveal ISO secrets, we will need to get much, much closer — possibly even close enough to grab a fragment.
Doing so won't be easy, but given the valuable insights it could reveal about the star systems beyond our own, it would be well worth the effort, experts say.
"Each one of these ISOs is a little piece of low-hanging fruit from a tree that can tell us a great deal about the trees growing in some other neighborhood," Wesley Fraser, an astronomer with the National Research Council Canada, previously told Live Science.
Giving chase
But the time to catch this speeding comet is fast approaching. 3I/ATLAS is now reaching its closest point to Earth, around 168 million miles (270 million km) miles away. From there it will move quickly away from us and will likely be beyond Neptune within another year.
Because it is now too late to intercept 3I/ATLAS within the inner solar system, most researchers agree that there is now only one viable option to study this object: to chase it down as it leaves the solar system.
This would require the spacecraft to carry out what researchers call "Oberth maneuvers," where a probe is gravitationally slingshotted around massive objects, such as the sun, to pick up enough speed to allow it to catch up to and intercept an ISO at a specific point along its predicted trajectory.
This idea was first proposed in 2022 to catch up with the first known interstellar object, 'Oumuamua. The plan, dubbed Project Lyra, was to launch a probe in 2028 that would intercept and investigate that object, after completing an Oberth maneuver around Jupiter.
3I/ATLAS has displayed multiple anomalous characteristics on its one-way trip through the solar system, including growing a puzzling "anti-tail" jet shortly before reaching its closest point to the sun. (Image credit: Comet photograph: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the ScientistImage Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab); Inset: Teide Observatory, M. Serra-Ricart, Light Bridges)
But this chaser method has a huge limitation: Scientists would need to wait decades for data to come back. For example, if Project Lyra launched a spacecraft in 2030, it would not intercept 'Oumuamua until 2052 at the earliest, Adam Hibberd, a researcher with the U.K.-based nonprofit Initiative for Interstellar Studies (I4IS) who worked on Project Lyra, told Live Science.
So far, Project Lyra has not moved past the planning stage — making a 2028 launch highly unlikely — but the project could still reach 'Oumuamua if launched in 2030 or 2033, Hibberd said. This means we would likely still have plenty of time to chase down 3I/ATLAS, if we want to.
Future propulsion methods, such as a solar sail, could drastically cut the travel time of missions like this from decades down to just a few years, he added. But these technologies are decades away from becoming a reality themselves.
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is rapidly moving away from us. Can we 'intercept' it before it leaves us forever?- PART II
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is rapidly moving away from us. Can we 'intercept' it before it leaves us forever?- PART II
3I/ATLAS has passed its closest point to Earth, meaning we will soon lose sight of it for good. Some scientists want to send a spacecraft to chase down the alien comet — or the next interstellar object.
But given that 3I/ATLAS will be very hard to chase down, some astronomers argue that we shouldn't bother hunting it. Rather we should prepare to intercept the next interesting ISO.
By launching an interceptor spacecraft and parking it in a gravitationally stable position around Earth, known as a Lagrange point, we could, in theory, be ready to quickly intercept a passing object, they argue.
This idea, also first proposed in 2022, has been dubbed the "hide-and-seek" approach. However, unlike Project Lyra, it is much closer to becoming a reality.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing the Comet Interceptor mission, which is currently scheduled to launch in 2029, on board the same rocket as ESA's Ariel space telescope, said Colin Snodgrass, an astronomer at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who specializes in comets and was the deputy project investigator on the proposal for this mission.
NASA has been keeping a close eye on 3I/ATLAS since it was discovered. The agency released these six photos of the comet, taken by various spacecraft across the solar system, at a press briefing in November. (Image credit: NASA/Goddard/LASP/CU Boulder/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Southwest Research Institute/Lowell Observatory/Qicheng Zhang/ASU/MSSS)
The Comet Interceptor probe isn't specifically aimed at interstellar visitors. Instead, it's designed to hunt nonperiodic comets like Comet Lemmon, which has been visible in the night sky, alongside 3I/ATLAS, in recent months. These comets drift toward the sun every few hundred or thousand years and have poorly defined orbital pathways around the sun.
When ESA researchers spot a comet they can reach, they will "fire the rockets, get to the right place in space to cross the path of the comet and have this fast flyby encounter, where we go shooting past the comet, getting as much data as we can," Snodgrass told Live Science.
And while the mission is not designed to study interstellar objects, the project will be perfectly placed to intercept them.
"The whole science team is very much in agreement that if an interstellar object was to pop up, we wouldn't let that opportunity go by," Snodgrass said.
The main advantage of the hide-and-seek approach is that we wouldn't have to wait decades for a probe to catch up to its target. Additionally, we'd be reaching it at the best time to study it. That's because interstellar comets, like 3I/ATLAS, soak up more solar radiation when in the inner solar system — which, in turn, means they give off more light, gas and dust, giving us a better chance to learn about their composition.
However, a hide-and-seek mission might not be able to catch all the objects we care about. For example, ESA's Comet Interceptor probe would have been unlikely to reach 3I/ATLAS, had it been in orbit when the ISO was first discovered, because the comet was too far away from us, a recent study from Snodgrass and others found.
Collision course
A major limitation of both the chaser and hide-and-seek missions is that ISOs travel too fast for their respective spacecraft to travel alongside, or rendezvous with, these objects.
This makes it "almost impossible" for the probes to directly obtain samples from the objects' surfaces as NASA did during its OSIRIS-REx mission, which successfully landed a probe on the asteroid Bennu in 2020 and collected samples that were later returned to Earth, Hibberd said. Due to fuel limitations, it is also unlikely that these samples could be easily returned to Earth, especially during a chaser mission, he added.
However, there is a third option that could yield valuable interstellar samples: the "impactor" method.
Similar to NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which successfully deflected the asteroid Dimorphos after smashing into the space rock in 2022, an interceptor probe could also be sent to crash into an ISO, Hibberd suggested. While this probe would be destroyed, a second spacecraft could be deployed to analyze the debris field and potentially even collect leftover fragments of the alien object, he added.
But an impactor mission would need to overcome serious technical challenges. First, ISOs travel much faster than solar system objects, like Dimorphos, meaning it's more difficult to smash them apart. Second, this method would likely work only on an asteroid, not on comets, which have hard, icy shells. And third, a collision could accidentally send chunks of debris on a collision course with Earth, like DART did. As a result, most of the experts who talked to Live Science, including Hibberd, agreed that it is probably too risky to attempt an impactor mission until more research has been done on the subject.
NASA's DART mission smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022 to test our planetary defence capabilities. Some researchers have proposed doing the same to 3I/ATLAS to help us better study the ISO. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Jian-Yang Li (PSI)IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))
The perfect mission
If money were no object, we could pursue all of these options. But if an agency like NASA has the budget for only one such mission, which one should be selected?
A chaser mission would allow astronomers to target a specific object they know they want to study, while a hide-and-seek mission would be limited to objects that happened to pass nearby. On the other hand, the hide-and-seek mission could reliably predict objects' locations in the inner solar system, whereas the chaser method would target objects in the dark, more chaotic outer solar system, where it would be harder to find and photograph them, Snodgrass said.
Another issue is that signals from a more distant chaser mission would take longer to send and receive, so mission operators would be unable to monitor and adjust an ISO flyby in real time or fix technical difficulties easily — a difficulty NASA faces with its distant Voyager probes, Snodgrass said.
There is also the matter of money. Project Lyra would likely cost the same as NASA's New Horizons mission, which flew by Pluto in 2015 and cost at least $700 million, Hibberd said. Meanwhile, ESA's Comet Interceptor mission has a budget of around $150 million, Snodgrass said.
As a result, most researchers who spoke to Live Science agreed that a hide-and-seek interceptor would likely be the best way of studying an ISO up close.
But if this is the method we end up using, how should we design the resulting spacecraft to maximize its chances of collecting useful data?
3I/ATLAS, also known as C/2025 N1 (ATLAS), reached its closest point to Earth in the early hours of Dec. 19 on its journey back out of the solar system.(Image credit: NASA/JPL)
While ESA's Comet Interceptor is relatively inexpensive, a dedicated ISO interceptor mission — with a bigger budget — would allow us to launch a faster probe that could carry more fuel and thus travel farther. However, the craft doesn't need to be fancy.
A "fairly stripped-back" probe with a decent camera and a few spectrographs, capable of analyzing the light given off by the different gases, would be more than enough to collect sufficient data from any flyby, Snodgrass said.
If the probe were intercepting a comet, and not an asteroid, it could also be fitted with a device to catch specks of dust from the comet's coma or tail during a superclose approach, just as NASA's Stardust probe did with "Comet Wild 2" in 2004.
Assuming that the interceptor hasn't depleted its fuel reserves and can be returned to Earth, this may be the only reliable way of actually getting our hands on interstellar samples, Snodgrass said.
To intercept or not to intercept
Once the "perfect" interceptor is in position around Earth, researchers will have to choose which ISO to go after. And because any spacecraft is unlikely to be reusable, it may get only one shot at picking the right target.
We may soon be spoiled for choice. ISOs may be far more common than we realize. "There are likely thousands of other ISOs in the solar system right now," Fraser said. "We just can't see them because they are too faint, too far and too fast."
The newly operational Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located in Chile's Atacama desert, is expected to find many more ISOs in the coming decades. (Image credit: Hernan Stockebrand)
But thanks to the newly operational Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is designed to spot more small and dim objects in the outer solar system, we are likely to find many more ISOs in the coming decades and, more importantly, spot them much earlier on their journey toward us, which would give us a better chance of studying them.
The first thing to consider is whether to go after an asteroid or a comet. Because comets become more active near the sun and present the most likely route for collecting interstellar samples, they would likely take priority, Snodgrass said.
The next consideration would be the target's distance from Earth. As we have already seen, ESA's Comet Interceptor may have struggled to reach 3I/ATLAS on its journey through the inner solar system. Therefore, it might pay to wait for an ISO that is on a favorable trajectory relative to Earth.
A new study reveals the likely origin of a mysterious spider-like pattern first spotted on Jupiter's moon Europa in 1998. The finding could have implications for a NASA spacecraft en route to the frozen world.
NASA's Galileo spacecraft first photographed a bizarre spider-like structure lurking within a large crater on Europa during a close flyby of the moon on March 29, 1998.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
A mysterious, spider-like structure lurking on Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, Europa, may finally have a proper explanation nearly 30 years after it was discovered. The arachnid imposter has also been given a demonic new name.
In March 1998, NASA's Galileo spacecraft — which studied Jupiter and its major moons between 1995 and 2003 — made a close flyby of Europa, a frozen ocean moon often considered one of the most likely places for extraterrestrial life to exist in the solar system. During this flyby, the probe mapped out a roughly 13.7-mile-wide (22 kilometers) impact structure, dubbed Manannán Crater, on the moon's icy surface, and found something strange lurking within it.
Hidden inside a deep pit near the crater's center was a sprawling dendritic shape. The researchers initially believed the dark feature was caused by the extreme gravitational force exerted on Europa by Jupiter, which is responsible for carving multiple fracture lines across the water world's surface. Other experts have since proposed that it was created by eruptions from hydrothermal vents on the floor of Europa's subsurface ocean. However, neither of these explanations fully explain this unusual shape.
But in a new study, published Dec. 2 in The Planetary Science Journal, researchers proposed an alternative explanation: that the Jovian spider formed in a similar way to how dark dendritic patterns on Earth, known as "lake stars," typically do. These features form when snow falls on frozen lakes and water seeps up through tiny holes in the ice.
With this in mind, the researchers used a similar technique to partially recreate the Manannán Crater's mysterious shape in the lab. The study team also finally named Europa's arachnid-like asterisk Damhán Alla, meaning "spider" or "wall demon" in Irish. (Manannán is a Celtic god from Irish mythology, which partly inspired the new name.)
Researchers partially recreated the spider-like pattern in the lab, using a technique that mimics how lake stars form on Earth. (Image credit: Prof. Lauren Mc Keown)
"Lake stars are really beautiful, and they are pretty common on snow or slush-covered frozen lakes and ponds," study lead-author Laura Mc Keown, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida, said in a statement. "It is wonderful to think that they may give us a glimpse into processes occurring on Europa and maybe even other icy ocean worlds in our solar system."
However, rather than water rising through tiny holes, as happens when lake stars form on Earth, Damhán Alla was likely birthed by an asteroid impact — which created a small crack in Europa's icy shell that enabled salty water to seep upward and paint the spider-like pattern on the surface. (This asteroid impact likely happened after the Manannán Crater was already formed.)
The researchers also noted similarities between Damhán Alla and the infamous "spiders on Mars," which are dusty deposits on the Martian surface that look like swarming spiders when viewed from above. These fake arachnids, known as araneiform terrain, form when submerged carbon dioxide ice sublimates, or turns directly into a gas. Mc Keown's team has previously recreated these features on Earth too.
"Lake stars" form when water seeps up through small holes in lakes and spreads through a layer of snow or slush at the surface. Similar processes could be happening on icy water worlds throughout the solar system. (Image credit: Mc Keown et al. 2025)
The similarities in shape between Damhán Alla and the spiders on Mars are due to how "fluid flows through porous surfaces," Mc Keown said. In theory, similar spider features could also form on other frozen ocean worlds, such as Saturn's moon Enceladus, Jupiter's other moon Ganymede and the dwarf planet Ceres, which resides in the asteroid belt beyond Mars.
Mc Keown is now setting up a new laboratory, which will focus on studying how these various spider-like features may form on different solar system moons. She hopes to be able to provide valuable insight that could help inform NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which launched in October 2024 and will arrive to extensively study Jupiter's watery moon in 2030.
"The significance of our research is really exciting," Mc Keown said. "Surface features like these can tell us a lot about what's happening beneath the ice. If we see more of them with Europa Clipper, they could point to local brine pools below the surface," she added.
And these pools could be a good place to start looking for signs of extraterrestrial life.
Scientists have been baffled by a bizarre lemon–shaped planet that 'defies explanation'.
The Jupiter–size planet was discovered by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and is so strange that it challenges everything we know about how planets form.
Dubbed PSR J2322–2650b, the gas giant has an exotic carbon and helium atmosphere that is unlike any other known exoplanet.
Soot clouds float through the super–heated reaches of its upper atmosphere and condense into diamonds deep in the planet's heart.
This unusual composition is made even stranger by the fact that this planet doesn't orbit a star like our sun.
Instead, this world orbits a type of neutron star known as a pulsar – the ultra–dense core of a dead star that compresses the mass of the sun into something the size of a city.
Located 750 light–years from Earth, this pulsar is constantly bombarding its captive planet with gamma rays and stretching it under gravity into a unique 'lemon' shape.
This produces some of the most extreme temperature differences ever seen on a planet, with temperatures ranging from 650°C (1,200°F) at night to 2,030°C (3,700°F) in the day.
Scientists have been baffled to discover a bizarre lemon–shaped planet that defies everything we know about planetary formation
Even by the standards of exotic exoplanets, PSR J2322–2650b stands out as exceptionally odd.
And, in a new paper, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers used the JWST to reveal that the planet is even stranger.
Co–author of the study Dr Peter Gao, of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory, says: 'I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was "What the heck is this?"
This is hardly surprising given that neutron stars tend to tear their neighbours apart with gravity or evaporate them with a bombardment of powerful radiation.
PSR J2322–2650b is also extraordinarily close to its star at just one million miles (1.6 million km) away, compared to the distance of 100 million miles (160 million km) between Earth and the Sun.
That means a year on this strange world takes just 7.8 hours as it whizzes around the neutron star at incredible speed.
The planet, dubbed PSR J2322–2650b, orbits a type of neutron star called a pulsar – the ultra–dense core of a dead star that compresses the mass of the sun into something the size of a city
What are neutron stars?
When a star eight or more times larger than our sun runs out of fuel, it collapses into an enormous explosion called a supernova.
When this happens, the core is crushed under immense pressure until it collapses into something called a neutron star.
Due to extreme pressure, the electrons and protons in normal matter fuse into pure neutrons.
These are so dense that they may be up to 2.5 times more massive than the sun but less than 10 miles in diameter.
Neutron stars often have extremely powerful magnetic fields and blast electromagnetic radiation out from their poles.
But what really makes the planet a total anomaly is the composition of its atmosphere.
Co–author Dr Michael Zhang, of the University of Chicago, says: 'This is a new type of planet atmosphere that nobody has ever seen before.
This is really weird because, at temperatures as high as they are on the planet, carbon should bond with any other atoms in the atmosphere.
That means molecular carbon can only be dominant when there is almost no oxygen or nitrogen present.
Out of the roughly 150 planets that scientists have analysed in depth, not a single one has molecular carbon in its atmosphere.
However, scientists still genuinely have no idea how such a weird planet could have formed.
'Did this thing form like a normal planet? No, because the composition is entirely different,' says Dr Zhang.
This pulsar is constantly bombarding its captive planet with gamma rays and stretching it under gravity into a unique 'lemon' shape (artist's impression)
Likewise, the planet couldn't have formed by stripping the outer layers of a star since the nuclear reactions in stellar cores don't make pure carbon.
Dr Zhang adds: 'It's very hard to imagine how you get this extremely carbon–enriched composition. It seems to rule out every known formation mechanism.'
Currently, the researchers' best theory is that carbon and oxygen crystallised in the planet's interior as it cooled.
The pure carbon crystals might have then floated to the top and mixed with helium, which is what the scientists would be seeing in their data.
However, co–author Professor Roger Romani, of Stamford University, says that this doesn't solve all the problems.
He says: 'Something has to happen to keep the oxygen and nitrogen away. And that's where the mystery comes in.
'But it's nice not to know everything. I'm looking forward to learning more about the weirdness of this atmosphere. It's great to have a puzzle to go after.'
Distant stars and their orbiting planets often have conditions unlike anything we see in our atmosphere.
To understand these new world's, and what they are made of, scientists need to be able to detect what their atmospheres consist of.
They often do this by using a telescope similar to Nasa's Hubble Telescope.
These enormous satellites scan the sky and lock on to exoplanets that Nasa think may be of interest.
Here, the sensors on board perform different forms of analysis.
One of the most important and useful is called absorption spectroscopy.
This form of analysis measures the light that is coming out of a planet's atmosphere.
Every gas absorbs a slightly different wavelength of light, and when this happens a black line appears on a complete spectrum.
These lines correspond to a very specific molecule, which indicates it's presence on the planet.
They are often called Fraunhofer lines after the German astronomer and physicist that first discovered them in 1814.
By combining all the different wavelengths of lights, scientists can determine all the chemicals that make up the atmosphere of a planet.
The key is that what is missing, provides the clues to find out what is present.
It is vitally important that this is done by space telescopes, as the atmosphere of Earth would then interfere.
Absorption from chemicals in our atmosphere would skew the sample, which is why it is important to study the light before it has had chance to reach Earth.
This is often used to look for helium, sodium and even oxygen in alien atmospheres.
This diagram shows how light passing from a star and through the atmosphere of an exoplanet produces Fraunhofer lines indicating the presence of key compounds such as sodium or helium
The interstellar comet that has had scientists around the world mesmerised for months safely passed Earth this morning.
At roughly 06:00 GMT, 3I/ATLAS reached its closest point to Earth, coming within 168 million miles (270 million km) of our planet.
To put that into perspective, that is still nearly twice the average distance between Earth and the sun.
The comet is now whizzing towards Jupiter, where it will make a relatively close pass of the gas giant at a distance of 33 million miles (53 million km) on March 16, 2026.
From there, 3I/ATLAS will make its way past the orbit Saturn by July, without coming close to the planet, and cross the orbit of Uranus in June 2027.
In 2028, the interstellar object will travel beyond the last of the planets as it shoots by Neptune at 137,000 miles per hour (221,000 km/h).
Astronomers predict that the comet will reach the orbit of Pluto in April 2029, before striking out into the outer reaches of the solar system.
Finally, 3I/ATLAS will wave goodbye to our stellar neighbourhood as it returns to interstellar space sometime in the mid 2030s.
The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS safely passed Earth this morning, reaching its closest distance to our planet at 168 million miles (270 million km) away
3I/ATLAS was discovered in July and marks only the third time that astronomers have been able to find an object that formed around another star in our own solar system
3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1 by the NASA-funded ATLAS telescope in Chile.
When scientists traced back the approaching object's trajectory, they made the startling discovery that it had arrived from outside the solar system.
This was just the third time astronomers had detected a visitor from another solar system, following 1I Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I Borisov in 2019.
Scientists believe that 3I/ATLAS formed around a distant star around eight billion years ago.
That makes the comet older than our solar system, and the oldest thing that we have ever been able to study close up.
On October 3, the comet reached its closest distance to Mars as it passed just 19 million miles (30 million km) from the Red Planet.
While some immediately leapt to wild conclusions about alien spacecraft, this was actually a fantastic opportunity for scientists to learn more about the history of the galaxy.
Astronomers believe that 3I/ATLAS is around eight billion years old, making it older than our own solar system
All of the objects behaviour is consistent with that of a comet heating up and releasing gas and dust as it approaches the sun
3I/ATLAS' journey through the solar system
July 1: 3I/ATLAS is discovered by the ATLAS telescope in Chile
October 3: The object passes Mars at 19 million miles (30 million km)
October 29: 3I/ATLAS reaches perihelion, passing the sun at 130 million miles (210 million km)
December 19: Object reaches its closest distance from Earth at 168 million miles (270 million km)
March 16, 2026: 3I/ATLAS passes Jupiter
July 2026: 3I/ATLAS reaches Saturn's orbit
June 2027: Object crosses the orbit of Uranus
2028: The comet passes the last planet as it reaches Neptune's orbit
2029: The object passes Pluto and heads for interstellar space
Professor Chris Lintott, an astronomer from the University of Oxford, told Daily Mail: 'We've been scrambling to observe 3I/ATLAS with everything we've got since it was discovered.
'So far, it's a fairly normal, active comet - plenty of carbon monoxide, some water, a sprinkling of Nickel.'
As comets approach the sun, their outer layers of ice and dust evaporate into a glowing cloud known as a coma and several long tails stretching out in different directions.
The closer 3I/ATLAS got to the sun, the brighter and more active the coma and tails became, and the more layers of the comet's outer surface were burned away.
'Because it's being heated by the Sun, it's changing all the time, and it'll take some time to work out what it's really made of,' says Professor Lintott.
'One idea is that it's like a baked Alaska, with a crunchy outer layer affected by the billions of years it spent in outer space, surrounding a nice fresh ice core.'
Scientists have been 'scrambling' to observe the comet ever since it was discovered. This diagram shows all the spacecraft the European Space Agency has repurposed for investigating the object
NASA was able to use spacecraft in orbit around Mars to capture to spectrum of light coming from the glowing cloud of gas and dust surrounding the comet (pictured)
And, while it might take scientists months to comb through all the data, researchers have already learned enough to decisively conclude that it is not an alien spacecraft.
All of the object's supposedly anomalous behaviours, such as changing trajectory or producing jets of sublimating gas, are entirely consistent with what we know about comet behaviour.
Dr Matthew Genge, an expert on near-Earth objects and astrobiology from Imperial College London, says: 'Suggestions that 3I/Atlas was an alien spacecraft on route to Earth have thus been shown to be very wrong indeed.'
However, one of the most important lessons that scientists have learned from this encounter is that we need to be better prepared for the next interstellar object.
Interstellar objects are not particularly rare, as scientists predict there are around a billion billion billion of them in the galaxy, we are just very bad at spotting them.
But as telescopes like the newly-completed Vera C Rubin Observatory start to survey the sky, we should start to find many more.
Professor Mark Burchell, a space scientist from the University of Kent, told Daily Mail: 'Now we know how to spot them, it gets easier each time.
'The next science goal to my mind is to prepare to see a 'fresh' comet from the outer solar system, which means parking a spacecraft in space in advance.'
Having passed Earth, 3I/ATLAS is now whizzing towards Jupiter, where it will make a relatively close pass of the gas giant at a distance of 33 million miles (53 million km) on March 16, 2026
By JONATHAN CHADWICK, ASSISTANT SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Saturn's largest moon Titan has 'slushy tunnels' beneath its surface that could potentially harbour alien life, a new study shows.
Scientists at NASA and the University of Washington have analysed data captured by the Cassini space probe, which completed more than 100 targeted flybys of Titan.
They reveal that the faraway moon has 'a slushy high–pressure ice layer' similar to the melting Arctic that could hide extraterrestrial life.
What's more, it means Titan may not have a waterworld–style liquid ocean under its frozen surface as previously thought.
'Instead of an open ocean like we have here on Earth, we're probably looking at something more like Arctic sea ice or aquifers,' said study author Professor Baptiste Journaux at the University of Washington.
'[This] has implications for what type of life we might find, the availability of nutrients, energy and so on.'
Around 3,200 miles in diameter, Titan is described by NASA as an icy world whose surface is completely obscured by a golden hazy atmosphere.
It is the sole other place in the solar system known to have an Earth–like cycle of liquids raining from clouds, flowing across its surface, filling lakes and seas, and evaporating back into the sky – akin to the water cycle of our planet.
The six infrared images of Titan above were created by compiling data collected over the course of the Cassini mission. They depict how the surface of Titan looks beneath the foggy atmosphere, highlighting the variable surface of the moon
Titan's frozen surface is thought to have water beneath it. According to the study, this is neither uniformly liquid, nor frozen solid, but slushy. This illustration shows the various ways Titan might respond to Saturn's gravitational pull depending on its interior structure. Only the slushy interior produced the bulge and lag observed in the new study
NASA's spacecraft Cassini launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in October 1997 and spent two decades observing Saturn and its moons.
As Titan circled Saturn in an elliptical (not perfectly circular) orbit, the moon was observed changing shape depending on where it was in relation to Saturn.
In 2008, researchers proposed that Titan must possess a huge ocean beneath the surface to allow such significant 'stretching and smushing'.
'The deformation we detected during the initial analysis of the Cassini mission data could have been compatible with a global ocean,' Professor Journaux said.
'But now we know that isn't the full story.'
For the study, scientists performed a reanalysis of radiation data acquired by Cassini using improved modern techniques.
Interestingly, they found that Titan's shape–shifting or 'flexing' occurs about 15 hours after the peak of Saturn's gravitational pull.
This time delay allowed scientists to estimate how much energy it takes to change Titan's shape, allowing them to make conclusions about the moon's interior.
Titan, imaged by the Cassini orbiter, December 2011. A thick shroud of organic haze permanently obscures Titan's surface from viewing in visible light
Cassini is depicted here in a NASA illustration. Cassini launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in October 1997
Titan: Basic facts
Parent planet: Saturn
Discovered: March 25, 1655
Type: Icy moon
Diameter: 3,200 miles
Temperature: Around –297 degrees Fahrenheit
Orbital period: Nearly 16 Earth days
Mass: 1.8 times Earth's moon
Essentially, the amount of energy lost, or dissipated, in Titan was 'very strong' and much greater than would be observed if Titan were to have a global liquid ocean.
'That was the smoking gun indicating that Titan's interior is different from what was inferred from previous analyses,' said study author Flavio Petricca at NASA.
According to the study, Titan's frozen exterior hides more ice giving away to pockets of meltwater (water formed by the melting of snow and ice) near a rocky core.
The model they propose in their paper, published in Nature, features more slush and quite a bit less liquid water on Titan than previously thought.
The discovery of a slushy layer on Titan has 'exciting implications' for the search for life beyond our solar system as it expands the range of environments considered habitable.
Although the idea of a liquid ocean on Titan was a promising indication of life there, researchers believe the new findings might improve the odds of finding it.
Analyses indicate that the pockets of freshwater on Titan could reach 68°F (20°C) – which is the optimal temperature for life on Earth to thrive.
Any available nutrients would be more concentrated in a small volume of water, compared to an open ocean, which could facilitate the growth of simple organisms.
Below Titan's frozen exterior is more ice giving way to slushy tunnels and pockets of meltwater (water formed by the melting of snow and ice) near a rocky core
Read More
More could be revealed about the moon's habitability after NASA's upcoming Dragonfly mission to Titan launches in July 2028.
The Dragonfly lander is expected to launch in July 2028 and take six years to reach Titan, arriving by 2034.
Scientists are still reaping the rewards of the rich data obtained by the Cassini robotic spacecraft, which was active for nearly 20 years after launching in October 1997.
Cassini's mission ended in September 2017 when it was deliberately flown into Saturn's upper atmosphere before it ran out of fuel.
In 2019, Cassini data revealed that a lake on Titan is rich with methane and 300 feet deep.
WHAT DID CASSINI DISCOVER DURING ITS 20-YEAR MISSION TO SATURN?
Cassini launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1997, then spent seven years in transit followed by 13 years orbiting Saturn.
An artist's impression of the Cassini spacecraft studying Saturn
In 2000 it spent six months studying Jupiter before reaching Saturn in 2004.
In that time, it discovered six more moons around Saturn, three-dimensional structures towering above Saturn's rings, and a giant storm that raged across the planet for nearly a year.
On 13 December 2004 it made its first flyby of Saturn's moons Titan and Dione.
On 24 December it released the European Space Agency-built Huygens probe on Saturn's moon Titan to study its atmosphere and surface composition.
There it discovered eerie hydrocarbon lakes made from ethane and methane.
In 2008, Cassini completed its primary mission to explore the Saturn system and began its mission extension (the Cassini Equinox Mission).
In 2010 it began its second mission (Cassini Solstice Mission) which lasted until it exploded in Saturn's atmosphere.
In December 2011, Cassini obtained the highest resolution images of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
In December of the following year it tracked the transit of Venus to test the feasibility of observing planets outside our solar system.
In March 2013 Cassini made the last flyby of Saturn's moon Rhea and measured its internal structure and gravitational pull.
Cassini didn't just study Saturn - it also captured incredible views of its many moons. In the image above, Saturn's moon Enceladus can be seen drifting before the rings and the tiny moon Pandora. It was captured on Nov. 1, 2009, with the entire scene is backlit by the Sun
In July of that year Cassini captured a black-lit Saturn to examine the rings in fine detail and also captured an image of Earth.
In April of this year it completed its closest flyby of Titan and started its Grande Finale orbit which finished on September 15.
'The mission has changed the way we think of where life may have developed beyond our Earth,' said Andrew Coates, head of the Planetary Science Group at Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London.
'As well as Mars, outer planet moons like Enceladus, Europa and even Titan are now top contenders for life elsewhere,' he added. 'We've completely rewritten the textbooks about Saturn.'
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
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