B
JWST has discovered an exoplanet via direct imaging!
The exoplanet orbits a red dwarf and is the lowest mass one ever directly spotted
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
Happy Asteroid Day! And it's almost aphelion! And my 900th issue!
To celebrate all this cosmic coolness I'm discounting subscriptions to my newsletter by 20% — it's now $4.80/month or $48/year! You can sign up here:
Also a 20% newsletter subscription sale starts now!
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
A star passing close enough to the solar system can do considerable damage, including *ejecting entire planets into interstellar space*. Weird thing is, one of the planets most vulnerable to this is NOT the one you'd think.
Close stellar encounters could change the structure of our planetary system, potentially dooming Earth or other worlds to oblivion
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
Something lost a bit in the amazing images released earlier: Vera Rubin Observatory is a steely-eyed asteroid hunter! It's already found thousands of new ones in just a few nights, and is predicted to find *3.7 MILLION* more.
THREE POINT SEVEN MILLION
That’s a lot of space rocks.
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
I give you a momentary reprieve from the madness:
The Vera Rubin Observatory has taken its first images of the sky, and they are *extraordinary*. Mind blowing detail, jaw dropping beauty.
Mind-blowing first images from the huge telescope.
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
I can think of a LOT of places in the universe I'd rather be than in the middle of a clump of nearly a dozen quasars blasting out planet-vaporizing amounts of energy. The question is, what are they doing there in the first place?
Astronomers find neatly a dozen quasars jammed into a small volume of space, and no one knows why they’re there.
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
You know that "gravitational slingshot" thing they always use in scifi movies and TV shows?
Yeah, that's real*. Here's how it works.
Spacecraft can get a significant boost by stealing energy from planets
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
* though they usually get it wrong in movies and TV shows
@sellathechemist Sorry, I saw this too late.
A city-sized sphere of neutrons with the mass of a star is doing weird stuff while plowing through the gas floating around the galaxy.
Super-high-speed electrons from a dead star are plowing through the gas
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
This article is for paid subscribers, who literally make it possible for me to buy food and stay alive.
This issue is for paid subscribers, but I opened up a large "above-the-fold" section for free preview. If you'd like to subscribe — free or paid! — please sign up here. I'll give you as much of the Universe as I can in return.
A newsletter for people curious about the cosmos. Also humor and politics and (sometimes) recipes
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
When did the Universe first get wet?
Turns out, water has been around a very long time indeed.
Water is simple, but it took time for the cosmos to brew the ingredients.
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
Some thoughts on the #nokings protest, and the SPECTACULAR JWST shot of the iconic Sombrero Galaxy pulled a fast one on me.
No Kings rally more than just a protest; a gorgeous galaxy looks a lot better than I first thought
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
I know y'all have other things on you're mind right now, but if you need a distraction I wrote about a very nearly complete census taken of all cosmic objects within 65 light-years of the Sun, and it's cool.
A near-complete census of our interstellar neighborhood hopes to answer how stars, brown dwarfs and rogue planets form throughout the universe
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
IC 3225 is a weird galaxy: teardrop-shaped, it seems to be the wrong shape and the wrong distance from us!
Its shape and distance are weird
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
[Note: this issue is for paid subscribers; Mondays are free but T/Th are for premium subs]
I have made this special Wednesday issue of my newsletter free, so please share it as you see fit. The more people who understand what we're fighting, the better.
I am furious — incandescently furious — over the attacks on science by Trump and his regime, especially the actions of RFK Jr., which, *as history has plainly show us*, result in deaths upon deaths.
You want the receipts? I've got the receipts.
Why we must defend science, and the text from my national rally speech
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
So, did our local supermassive monster black hole eat a slightly smaller but still quite huge black hole some time in the cosmically recent past?
Actually, yeah, maybe!
Indirect evidence suggests a smaller black hole orbited the much, much larger one
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
My new conspiracy theory: Earth is indeed round, but its orbit is shaped like a bowling pin.
A curious celestial phenomenon known as the analemma is a reflection of Earth’s orbit and tilted axis
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
Hi! I have a newsletter I put out three times a week. Free subscribers get issues on Mondays, but paid subbies get Tuesdays and Thursdays as well.
Like today's about an *incredible* image of colliding galaxies, and also the Curiosity rover seen from orbit.
Two very cool images for you today
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
The good folks at STScI released a very cool video where you do a fly-around of the Hyades star cluster that makes up the bulk of the constellation Taurus.
Astrology is still Taurus feces, though.
Cool animation does a big circle around a nearby star cluster
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)