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Concerns about the potential impact of obtrusive #SpaceAdvertising on the night sky continue to generate media stories. Here's one from @Tagesspiegel (auf Deutsch) for which I was interviewed recently.
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A shadow profile of asteroid (3560) Chenqian was measured during a stellar occultation for the first time by 3 observers in Germany and Poland on 2025 April 02.
The team of the Stellar Occultation Data Input System (SODIS) of IOTA/ES has calculated a preliminary profile of the asteroid of 31 x 22 km from these measurements.
https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/1552-3560-162731-647682-U055229
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"Chance of 'city-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 smashing into Earth rises yet again to 3.1%, #NASA reports" by @LiveScience - As astronomers' observations have narrowed the estimate of #asteroid#2024YR4's orbit, Earth's size is now a larger fraction of the reduced cross-section of possible paths. So probability goes up until impact is ruled out. 96.9% chance the eventually-narrowed path will eliminate impact with Earth. Computation continues. https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/chance-of-city-killer-asteroid-2024-yr4-smashing-into-earth-rises-yet-again-to-3-1-percent-nasa-reports #astronomy#LowFlyingRocks
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"NASA massively lowers impact risk of 'city-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 to 1 in 360" by @Spacecom / @RobertLea - #Asteroid#2024YR4 dropped from 3 to 1 on the Torino Scale of impact hazards. Telescope observations have narrowed down its orbit estimate, and chances of impact in 2032. As of Tuesday it was listed as 3.1%. It dropped to 0.28% as of Thursday when the article was written. (Minor update to 0.36% today.) It's expected to drop to zero. https://www.space.com/asteroid-2024yt4-impact-risk-drop-nasa #astronomy#LowFlyingRocks
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I don't see new news articles yet. But I checked the #NASA JPL data on #asteroid#2024YR4. It has been dropped on the Torino Scale of impact hazards from 1 to 0, previously at 3 when it was in the news. Now 1 in 26000 chance of impact in the 2032 pass. ๐ Still expected to go to zero. Dark skies under a waning moon allowed enough observations to narrow down its orbit before it's too far away from Earth to see for 3 years. #astronomy#PlanetaryDefense#PlanetaryDefence#LowFlyingRocks #space
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"Youโre going to see more โcity-killerโ asteroids, but fret not, MIT astronomer says" by KTLA Los Angeles - #Asteroid#2024YR4 is a useful example of what we're likely to see more often as astronomers get better equipment to locate rocks that have always been out there but previously passed unseen in the dark. Observation of an asteroid's orbit should look like this each time. https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/city-killer-asteroids-more-common/ #astronomy#PlanetaryDefense#PlanetaryDefence#LowFlyingRocks #space
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"Asteroid 2024 YR4 is going to miss Earth, but the story doesnโt end there" by @arstechnica / @sciguyspace - The orbit of #Asteroid#2024YR4 has been narrowed down enough to know it will not hit Earth. Get used to more asteroids being evaluated as potential threats. The good news is that humanity is increasingly able to find these threats which were already out there. Don't be a dinosaur.๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/asteroid-2024-yr4-may-be-a-dud-but-we-will-soon-find-many-more-threats/ #astronomy#PlanetaryDefense#PlanetaryDefence#LowFlyingRocks #space
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"A Near-Miss with a City-Killer Asteroid Highlights Gaps in Earthโs Defenses" by @SciAm - Increasing capabilities to search for the next wayward #asteroid will mean recurring news like #2024YR4 where a threat is evaluated for potential collision course with Earth. At some point, we will find one headed here. Planning and test exercises try to become prepared for what to do when we know one is coming. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-planetary-defenders-planned-to-stop-that-city-killer-asteroid/ #astronomy#PlanetaryDefense#PlanetaryDefence#LowFlyingRocks #space
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A lot of cosmic exploration centers around the questions "what is weird?" & "what is normal?"
Early studies of young stars found an abundance of huge planetary systems forming. New observations reveal the opposite: Lots of small systems, much more compact than our solar system.
https://www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/en/protoplanetary-discs-are-much-smaller-than-previously-thought-4477 #space #science #astronomy
![Images of 73 protoplanetary discs in the Lupus star forming region (two of the images contain binary stars). Only a fraction of the discs extend beyond the orbit of Neptune, when compared to our own Solar System. Most of the observed discs are small and show no structures like gaps and rings. (c) Guerra-Alvarado et al. (c) Guerra-Alvarado et al. [high resolution]](https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/235/056/994/292/416/original/17627b7e9efc1a43.jpg)
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Wow โ didnโt think Iโd be in tears today, but this message sent home from Gaia as it was shut down forever today hits hard ๐ญ
What youโre seeing is a map of the 106 CCD detectors that Gaia used to measure the positions of billions of stars in the Milky Way for the past 11 years ๐ฐ๏ธโจ
They were turned off in a special sequence โฆ ๐
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A lot more space tornadoes:
The ALMA observatory found a whole nest of mysterious, turbulent filaments swirling around in the chaos near the center of our galaxy -- possibly connected to the star clusters & the supermassive black hole lurking nearby.
https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-releases/alma-discovers-space-tornadoes-around-the-milky-ways-core/ #space #astronomy #science
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Webb unmasks true nature of the Cosmic Tornado
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured a beautiful juxtaposition of the nearby protostellar outflow known as Herbig-Haro 49/50 with a perfectly positioned, more distant spiral galaxy.
๐ท NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_unmasks_true_nature_of_the_Cosmic_Tornado
#JWST#Webb#Astronomy#Astrophysics #Astrodon #science #news #galaxy
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"Cosmic Distance Calibration" by XKCD comic (mirror bots @xkcd @xkcdbot ) - Wait... It can't be that simple. ๐ https://xkcd.com/3066/ #astronomy #science #oops#WTF#humor
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But seriously, one clever trick (among many) which astronomers use to determine the distance of an astronomical object is to make observations 6 months apart, when Earth is at opposite sides of its orbit around the Sun. The apparent change in position of the star relative to farther objects in the background (parallax) indicates how much the view was affected by the change in Earth's position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_parallax #astronomy #science
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Last night we were over at the Leiden University board game society demoing the Acrux star board game.
This is the latest near final prototype with the box and folding board.
The rules are solidifying now but the students suggested one interesting variation we are going to try out.
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It's worse than previously thought. "INNA would increase light pollution above the Very Large Telescope (VLT) by at least 35% and by more than 50% above the south site of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory."
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Next week I'm launching Star Central on Horizon Worlds: a galactic cartography "world" on the largest social VR app. Horizon Worlds has a reputation as a hang out for badly behaved kids playing shooter games. But what if there was content that appealed to a different (and older) group of people?
There are a couple of walkable Gaia maps, but the most exciting bit is the Star Cinema with immersive audio and image presentations that take the audience travelling across the galaxy.
We could be so close to finding 'another Earth' around a nearby star, but Musk is going to be stopping that, he'll be cutting SETI, he'll be cutting anything he doesn't understand....Musk is holding back Humanity from it's destiny among the Stars.
A reminder, his rocket is behind schedule for NASA's return to the Moon, it'll be a Chinese moon with Elon in charge.
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We already know he hates ground based Astronomy, I figure he'll be looking at all the Space Telescopes, wondering what the profit in them all is and shutting them down.
He's erasing Grace Hopper, he'll be renaming the Nancy Grace Roman telescope after a white dude.
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