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Did you know astronomers commonly see objects in space moving faster than light? But seeing is not believing: superluminal motion is an illusion!
Me, for Scientific American:
Superluminal velocities are common but illusory
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
Astronomy is so weird sometimes. You can't tell how big that object is without some sense of scale… but it's well over SIXTY BILLION KILOMETERS ACROSS.
And that little dot in the gap? *That's a baby planet bigger than Jupiter siphoning up material to grow.*
A planet is seen for the first time in a gap between rings of material around a young star
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
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@vu2tum 
Thanks!
I once had an umbrella so big six people could stand under it, but I've never seen one before that could fit *a hundred billion stars*.
Galaxy collisions do really weird things
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
I am such a sucker for pics of Earth and the Moon taken from deep space missions. This one from Psyche, when it was *290 million km* from our planet, really puts things in perspective.
Here's my take on it 
Psyche snaps Earth and Moon, I’m talking to teachers in Texas, and a newly discovered impact crater in India
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
In 2032 there is a small chance that the 60-meter asteroid 2024 YR4 will impact the Moon. If it does, we could get a helluva meteor shower from it. We're safe on Earth's surface, but our satellites may suffer.
The 60-meter asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4 percent chance of hitting the moon. Could such a lunar collision create a dangerous new meteor shower?
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
One of my favorite NASA astrophysical missions, Swift — which scans the skies looking for ridiculously powerful gamma-ray bursts — is in danger of burning up as its orbit lowers. NASA is looking into raising the orbit, but is there time?
The iconic mission may burn up if we don’t give it a lift. Plus: light pollution is affecting birds’ days
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
A nearby brown dwarf shows its mass as it orbits a Sun-like star.
Plus: Fast Radio Bursts might be space rocks slamming in to neutron stars at 2/3 the speed of light, so, wow.
Plus: Are Fast Radio Bursts caused by asteroids slamming into neutron stars?
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
[Issue for paid subbies only today!]
It's (well past) time to impeach RFK Jr. You can sign a petition to help!
Also: (very) old issues of Scientific American magazine were very, very odd.
Also, a jaunt through old issues of Scientific American in search of Neptune
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
Listen, I'm not saying Scientific American has great cosmic powers, but a little over a year after its first issue *astronomers found a whole new solar system planet*.
COINCIDENCE?
Article by me, for the 180th anniversary of SciAm!
Neptune’s discovery was a race that ended not long after this magazine came to be
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
This is one of the more bananas stories I've written because of the mind-vaporizing energies involved: a star may have exploded *because it ate a black hole*.
Everything about this story is awesome and terrifying
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
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Is taking a puff cool? In this case it literally is, which is hard to explain.
Two extra-inflated gas giants are defying explanation. Plus my book in Chinese, and why are supermassive black holes so big so early?
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
And need I remind you, Monday issues of my newsletter are free. Free I say! And I'm just 259 away from 20,000 free subscribers, so I'm *98.7%* of the way there. C'mon! Sign up!
A newsletter for people curious about the cosmos. Also humor and politics and (sometimes) recipes
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
I bet it's been a while since you've had your mind vaporized by a JWST image so here's one of a cluster of galaxies so immense it's visibly warping space.
Bonus: I explain what you're seeing! Because that's kinda my thing!
Abell S1063 is a jaw-dropping example of the power of the big telescope
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
Sure you've heard of sound echoes, but have you heard of…
Light ECHOES echoes ᵉᶜʰᵒᵉˢ?
Bizarre phenomena called light echoes create strange, shifting shapes seen in some telescopic images and help astronomers chart the heavens above
Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
WHOA.
Astronomers may have found a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A, the closest sun-like star to the Sun! It's a binary system, too, so if this is confirmed it'll be an AMAZING discovery!
JWST spots what might be a Jupiter-sized world around the nearest Sun-like star
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
Hot take time!
So, about that Sean Duffy claim of wanting NASA to put a nuclear power plant on the Moon...
Lightning strikes occur on Earth more than a *billion* times per year.
What triggers it? Turns out, exploding stars. Yes, seriously.
And also, black holes.
And also black holes. Yes, seriously.
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)
Damn. That's a big-mass black hole.
The central black hole in the galaxy Holmberg 15A is very, very beefy
Bad Astronomy Newsletter (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)