Tootfinder

Cenozoic evolution of earth’s strongest geoid low illuminates mantle dynamics beneath #Antarctica: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-28606-1 -> Beneath Antarctica - the deep-time story behind Earth’s largest “gravity low”: https://www.ipgp.fr/en/news-and-agenda/news/beneath-antarctica-the-deep-time-story-behind-earths-largest-gravity-low/ -> Antarctica’s ‘Gravity Hole’ Has Been Quietly Growing Stronger: https://gizmodo.com/antarcticas-gravity-hole-has-been-quietly-growing-stronger-2000722955 - scientists aren't fully sure what this means for Antarctica's future, however.

Neue Inbetriebnahmen von #Stromspeicher​n je #Batterietechnologie in #Deutschland mit Stand vom 17.03.2026.
Betrachtet werden Datensätze mit Betriebsstatus „aktiv“ und vorhan…

A second-generation star in a relic dwarf galaxy: #Star Discovered Inside Ancient Relic Dwarf Galaxy: https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2607/ - the star is the first unambiguous example of chemical enrichment by the first stars in the Universe within a primordial environment.

#Speicherkapazität der #Batteriespeicher in #Deutschland je Netzanschlussebene ab 2012 mit Stand vom 17.03.2026.
Betrachtet werden Datensätze mit Betriebsstatus „aktiv“…

The increasingly dominant role of climate change on #LengthOfDay variations: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2406930121 (and a newer paper, stupidly paywalled) -> Climate change slows Earth's spin - day lengthening unprecedented in 3.6 million years: https://www.univie.ac.at/en/news/detail/climate-change-slows-earths-spin-day-lengthening-unprecedented-in-36-million-years and https://baug.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/news/2026/03/climate-change-slows-earths-spin-day-lengthening-unprecedented-in-3-point-6-million-years.html

Weniger #Plastikmüll:
Man möchte #Plastik vermeiden und überlegt, auf feste #Seife umzusteigen, aber wie hygienisch ist das? 🤔 Kann man über die Seife

Bad-Mythos: "Seifenstücke sind unhygienisch" - Faktencheck zur plastikfreien Alternative
Ist feste Seife unhygienisch? Faktencheck, wie sicher Seifenstücke wirklich sind und warum sie eine plastikfreie Alternative darstellen.

0.33g mitigates muscle atrophy while 0.67g preserves muscle function and myofiber type composition in mice during #spaceflight: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aed2258 -> New Research on Muscle Loss Suggests Humans Will Really Suffer on Mars: https://gizmodo.com/mars-doesnt-have-enough-gravity-to-keep-humans-healthy-study-suggests-2000733286

A second #LPSC NASA briefing today dealt mostly with planetary science funding details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8-enBzNwlo

#Elektroauto RANT über führenden Mineralölkonzern in D:
ARAL bzw die Europazentrale des Weltkonzerns BP ist nicht in der Lage eine funktionierende App herzustellen, die man zum Laden benötigt. Ich konnte mich tagelang nicht anmelden, jedes Mal brach der Vorgang nach erfolgreichem Einloggen mit Fehlermeldung ab und man wird vertröstet: "Versuche es noch einmal"
Aufgrund de…

Rare northbound trip on the Coast Starlight! For every 20 times I go to LA I head north once.
#Amtrak #CoastStarlight #Tågskryt

Exploring the Interior Structure of (16) Psyche Through Basin-Scale Collisions: #Psyche: https://news.arizona.edu/news/large-craters-offer-clues-origin-asteroid-16-psyche

A Galactic Transformation - Understanding the SMC’s Structural and Kinematic Disequilibrium: #SmallMagellanicCloud

Dynamical Origin of (469219) Kamo‘oalewa of Tianwen-2 Mission from the Main Belt - ν6 Secular Resonance, Flora Family or 3:1 Resonance with Jupiter: #Tianwen2 Mission: http://english.pmo.cas.cn/newsroom/news/202603/t20260317_1152750.html and https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202603/17/WS69b8af2da310d6866eb3e309.html

heise | Digitaler Euro soll 2029 kommen: Das ist der aktuelle Stand
Die technische Vorbereitung läuft, politisch ist nichts entschieden. Kosten, Datenschutz und Wettbewerb sorgen weiter für Streit. Überblick zum aktuellen Stand.

Preliminary Nucleus Size Estimate for #Kreutz Sungrazer C/2026 A1 (MAPS): https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ae5220 -> "JWST imagery of the approaching Kreutz sungrazer C/2026 A1 (MAPS) appears sufficient to distinguish the comet’s nucleus from the surrounding dust. Coma model fitting indicates the morphology is compatible with a ∼0.4 km diameter nucleus—likely larger than those of the minor Kreutz fragments routinely discovered with coronagraphs, and comparable to or slightly smaller than that of C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy). However, since C/2026 A1 is the only Kreutz sungrazer whose nucleus has been directly observed, these comparisons should be treated with caution" -> https://groups.io/g/comets-ml/message/35035 / https://scicomm.xyz/@qicheng@cometary.org/116245251072721081

Low thermal inertia of carbonaceous asteroid #Bennu driven by cracks observed in returned samples: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-68505-1 -> Asteroid Bennu’s Rugged Surface Baffled NASA, We Finally Know Why: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/osiris-rex/asteroid-bennus-rugged-surface-baffled-nasa-we-finally-know-why/ and https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/solving-asteroid-bennus-mysteries/

A rare daylight #fireball coming with a loud bang was seen and heard Tuesday morning over the U.S. and Ohio in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHBjApk3d6w - see https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/allgemeines-live-blog-ab-dem-12-marz-2026/ for links to many more reports. And https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/events/windfall-oh says: "Signatures of falling meteorites are seen in data from three weather radars [...] NASA Meteoroid Environment Office finds that this was a 2m diameter object weighing around 6 metric tons - more of a small asteroid than a large meteoroid. [...] There are meteorites on the ground around Windfall, OH towards River Styx, OH."

I finally figured out why I haven't been able to get into Mastodon for about two months, my company blocked it! I know that everyone was concerned.

A scary milestone was reached on Tuesday when for the first time more than 10,000 #Starlink satellites were in LEO simultaneously: https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/03/16/live-coverage-spacex-to-launch-25-starlink-satellites-on-falcon-9-rocket-from-california/ - see https://www.planet4589.org/space/con/star/stats.html for the hard numbers, namely 10,049 satelltes in orbit (with 10,039 of them working of which 7903 are in operational orbits) out of 11,558 launched in total since 2018.

Haltbar bis 2029 am Hintern #SilikonKrümmel

Sequential Fragmentation of C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) After Its Near-Sun Passage: #comet breaking up: https://esahubble.org/news/heic2606/ and https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-unexpectedly-catches-comet-breaking-up/ (the paper as submitted had been discussed by me last November in https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2025/11/26/heute-beginnt-die-tagung-des-esa-ministerrats/ - "So sah Hubble den Kometen C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) zerbrechen").

Now here is something designed to shake confidence:
Flying, unmanned warships controlled by an on-board, but distributed, AI...
"Airbus is Preparing 2 Uncrewed Combat Aircraft from Kratos for 1st Flight With a European Mission System'"
…

Airbus is Preparing 2 Uncrewed Combat Aircraft from Kratos for 1st Flight With a European Mission System
Airbus is working at full throttle to offer the German Air Force an operational Uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (UCCA) system by 2029

US-Router- und Drohnenimportverbot: Updates nun doch bis 2029 erlaubt
Die FCC hat den Import von Drohnen und Routern verboten, auch Updates sollten nicht mehr lange möglich sein. Zumindest diese Frist wurde nun aber verlängert.

US-Router- und Drohnenimportverbot: FCC erlaubt Updates nun doch bis 2029
Die FCC hat den Import von Drohnen und Routern verboten, auch Updates sollten nicht mehr lange möglich sein. Zumindest diese Frist wurde nun aber verlängert.

On Monday the discovery of four new #moons of #Jupiter was announced - #Saturn: https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K26/K26F14.html (this brings the known total to 101 and 285, respectively).

Das hannoversche Medienunternehmen #heise verlängert vorzeitig seine Partnerschaft mit #Hannover96 um drei weitere Jahre bis einschließlich der Saison 2029/30. Die Entscheidung fiel auf Eigeninitiative von heise und unabhängig von der Liga-Zugehörigkeit des Klubs.

Starkes Bekenntnis bis 2030: Hauptsponsor heise bleibt auf der 96-Brust
Das hannoversche Medienunternehmen heise verlängert vorzeitig seine Partnerschaft mit Hannover 96 um drei weitere Jahre bis einschließlich der Saison 2029/30. Die Entscheidung fiel auf Eigeninitiative von heise und unabhängig von der Liga-Zugehörigkeit des Klubs. Sie ist ein klares Bekenntnis zur regionalen Verbundenheit und für Verlässlichkeit in der gemeinsamen Partnerschaft.

Also from the #LPSC #NASA HQ Briefing: the science riding along on #ArtemisII - I think "verbal descriptions" of the Moon haven't been defined science objectives since the Apollo days.

In a few minutes on #NASA Headquarters Briefing at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference featuring Louise Prockter, Planetary Science Division Director and Brad Bailey, Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration.

Hints of Primordial Magnetic Fields at Recombination and Implications for the Hubble Tension: #HubbleTension and other cosmic mysteries: https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2026-03-13-primordial-magnetic-fields-could-resolve-hubble-tension-and-other-cosmic-mysteries - an international team of researchers simulated magnetic forces in the early universe and found they could bridge the gap between the observed and calculated rates of the universe’s expansion.

A complete set of canonical nucleobases in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) #Ryugu: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02791-z -> "The detection of diverse nucleobases in asteroid and meteorite materials demonstrates their widespread presence throughout the Solar System and reinforces the hypothesis that carbonaceous asteroids contributed to the prebiotic chemical inventory of early Earth."

Volatile-rich evolution of molten super-Earth L 98-59 d: #planet: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-03-16-researchers-reveal-new-class-molten-planet

Searching for Life-As-We-Don't-Know-It - Mission-relevant Application of Assembly Theory for Exoplanet Life Detection: #Life, But Not As We Know It: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/life-but-not-as-we-know-it

Assimilation of Ground and Satellite Magnetic Observations Unravels the Ionospheric, Magnetospheric, and Induced Fields During the May and October 2024 #GeomagneticStorms: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL116964 -> How does an ice satellite detect a geomagnetic storm? https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/CryoSat/How_does_an_ice_satellite_detect_a_geomagnetic_storm

RE: https://mastodon.social/@esoastronomy/116239348555593632
The related RAS statement: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/spacex-and-reflect-orbital-plans-would-permanently-scar-night-sky. And what the Astronomers for Planet Earth say: https://a4e.org/protecting-planet-earths-skies-a4es-statement-on-proposed-large-satellite-constellations/

Before and after pictures of the rocket test 100 years ago today, from the fantastic #Goddard collection at https://commons.clarku.edu/goddardlaunch/ - articles about the historical event and its context also at https://www.collectspace.com/news/news-031626a-robert-goddard-liquid-fuel-rocket-centennial-where-nell.html (small parts of the hardware may have survived after all), https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/goddardcentennial-origins/ -> https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/goddardcentennial-space-craze/ -> https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/goddardcentennial-legacy/ and https://www.space.com/space-exploration/2-seconds-that-changed-the-world-the-1st-liquid-fueled-rocket-launched-100-years-ago-today

A folk song written earlier this year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the #Goddard launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCEN_JjU02c - it captures the event and its legacy well (and makes reference to Goddard's famous cherry tree and the fact that the farm where it happened is now a golf course). Artist's home page: https://roncarlsonmusic.com

So I'm finally figuring out what YouTube was *really* invented for ... bringing you documentaries about the convoluted fates of long gone SF TV shows you had enjoyed decades ago - like #AlienNation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CQhphu3VjE

Also interesting: #Goddard and the Invention of the Liquid Fueled Rocket" from 10 days ago, stressing his (non-)interaction with the public and colleagues. Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnNIMT1RBGs = the "Robert Goddard First Launch Space Centennial Kick-Off Announcement" by the city of Worcester, Mass., from February and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJp6DHhfkKw = the video "Beyond Rockets" mostly on futuristic ideas.

During an event in Auburn, Mass., Saturday commemorating the 100th anniversary of Robert #Goddard launching the first liquid-fueled rocket, a speaker mentioned that in addition to the four people involved in the experiment it was also accidentally witnessed by several local children - including this father aged 10 at the time: in the recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxYYXWYLzHs#t=1h15m30s he recounts his vivid story from 1:15:30.

40 years ago tonight the #Giotto spacecraft passed the nucleus of #comet #Halley at great speed: the documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI-W8ss4x5I from back then - also at https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/Undated/Giotto_-_English with bonus material - tells the story well. A big special issue of the ESA Bulletin about the mission is at https://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/publications/ESA-Bulletin-046/offline/download.pdf and other historical material like some photos is linked from https://historicalarchives.esa.int/giotto-cometary-encounters-and-archival-sources while a recording of the BBC's live coverage is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxDMdH4uzxI

Orbital Eccentricity in a Neutron Star–Black Hole Merger: #mergers: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2026/oval-orbit-casts-new-light-on-black-hole-neutron-star-mergers - breakthrough discovery provides new clues about how these celestial bodies that push the known laws of physics to their limits find each other.

Solar twins in Gaia DR3 GSP-Spec - building a large catalog of #SolarTwins with ages: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa58913-26/aa58913-26.html -> Our Sun escaped together with stellar “twins” from galaxy center: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1119007

Universal energy limits of #RadiationBelts in planetary and brown dwarf magnetospheric systems: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea4945 -> A new model defines an upper limit to planetary radiation belt intensity: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/mathematics-and-science/new-model-defines-upper-limit-planetary-radiation-belt-intensity

TOI-4616 b: a benchmark Earth-sized #planet transiting a nearby M4 dwarf: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.10905 -> This Isn't Just Another Rocky World Orbiting a Red Dwarf. This One's Special: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/this-isnt-just-another-rocky-world-orbiting-a-red-dwarf-this-ones-special

Origin of #Hyperion and Saturn's Rings in A Two-Stage Saturnian System Instability: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09281 -> chat with the first author ("The Titan Impact: Saturn’s Moon System May Have Had a Catastrophic Past"): https://www.youtube.com/live/MVyn_bfZsaI

So the #ArtemisII FRR went "go" on all counts, they hope to roll out the stack to the pad again on 19 March and be ready to launch on 1 April at 22:24 UTC - the table of possible launch dates in April https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/artemis-ii-mission-availability.pdf just had another one added for 2 April.

A recently recovered 48 seconds (!) long SF feature film by Georges Méliès from 1897 some think has essentially the plot of "2001" or "The Terminator" - an #AI growing and then fighting its creator, but losing in the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojqcjzzjN2Q

The NASA's #ArtemisII Flight Readiness News Conference should commence in 1/2 hour on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpMMAdqMGWA

From today's #LPSC #NASA briefing: #AI will play a role even in #Artemis ... The two cited abstracts on the #LunarFoundationModel are https://agu.confex.com/agu/agu25/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1930954 and https://agu.confex.com/agu/agu25/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1929889

Gaia-GIC-1 - An Evolving Catastrophic #Planetesimal Collision Candidate: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae3ddc -> UW astronomers collect rare evidence of two planets colliding: https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/03/11/uw-astronomers-spot-planet-collision-evidence/

Witnessing Magnetic Reconnection in Tangled Superpenumbral Fibrils around a Sunspot: #Sunspot: https://aasnova.org/2026/03/11/astronomers-see-braided-magnetic-fields-above-a-sunspot/

Habitability of Tidally Heated H2-Dominated Exomoons around Free-Floating Planets: #exomoons habitable for billions of years: https://idw-online.de/de/news867330

Spitzer HST parallaxes of 13 late T and Y dwarfs: #BrownDwarfs in the solar neighborhood (d < 20pc). By combining archival Spitzer data with our own Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, we achieve parallax uncertainties typically around 10%. Using Spitzer and HST photometry we compare our targets with other known late T and Y dwarfs in the Solar neighborhood, confirming that there is large intrinsic scatter in the near- and mid-infrared absolute magnitudes and colors of this population, further highlighting the diversity observed spectroscopically by several James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) programs."

Lense-Thirring precessing magnetar engine drives a superluminous supernova: #magnetar, confirming link to some of universe’s brightest exploding stars: https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/03/11/astronomers-capture-birth-of-a-magnetar-confirming-link-to-some-of-universes-brightest-exploding-stars/

Hidden Vela #Supercluster Revealed by First Hybrid Redshift & Peculiar Velocity Reconstruction: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09339 -> Vela - the True Scale of a Hidden Giant Structure Revealed: https://www.sarao.ac.za/news/vela-the-true-scale-of-a-hidden-giant-structure-revealed/

Integration and testing of the #Dragonfly Titan helicopter, the activities involved in assembling the mission’s rotorcraft lander and testing it for the rigors of launch and extreme conditions of space, is officially underway in clean rooms and control rooms at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragonfly/2026/03/10/nasas-dragonfly-mission-begins-rotorcraft-integration-testing-stage/

A Merger within a Merger - Chandra Pinpoints the Short #GRB230906A in a Peculiar Environment: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae2a2f -> NASA Discovers Crash of Extreme Stars in Unexpected Site: https://chandra.si.edu/press/26_releases/press_031026.html / https://chandra.cfa.harvard.edu/photo/2026/nsmerger/ -> How the Most Energetic Explosions in the Universe Are Formed: https://chandra.cfa.harvard.edu/blog/node/951

The #Kreutz #comet #MAPS "has become more than 1 mag brighter between March 6 and 9" and stands at 10.5 mag. right now: https://groups.io/g/comets-ml/message/35019 and https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2374472359736249 with the latest picture by Jäger & Rhemann here - less than 4 weeks til perihelion, and the brightness continues to rise with a strong n~8 ...

The privately funded large space telescope #Lazuli now has a company (SSTL) that will build the spacecraft bus and a university (UofA) building two of its three instruments: https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/latest-news/2026/sstl-joins-the-eric-and-wendy-schmidt-observatory-system’s-lazuli and https://news.arizona.edu/news/u-build-instruments-new-space-telescope

The Constraint of Crewed Mars Missions Based on Current Radiation Dose Measurements: #Mars: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/The_radiation_paradox_why_solar_maximum_is_the_safest_time_to_travel_to_Mars

Significant #fireball over Germany this evening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQFVOHSBGDw. Many visual reports, too: https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2026/1467

The planets #Venus and #Saturn in #conjunction 1/2 hour ago over Bochum, Germany - easily caught with a hand-held bridge camera at 1/4 and 1/3.2 second, f/2.8 and ISO 800 but marginal even in 11x70 binoculars: bad sky transparency, caused mostly by Sahara dust AFAIK took its toll. At these images with the best *photographic* contrast the Sun was 8 1/2° below the horizon while Saturn and Venus were 3 1/4° and 3 3/4° high, with the latter 83 times brighter.

Still Accelerating - Type Ia supernova #cosmology is robust to host galaxy age evolution: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13785 -> Standardizing Standard Candles - Exploring the (lack of a) Bias in Cosmological Distance Measurements: https://astrobites.org/2026/03/07/supernovaagebias_rebuttal/

So here is the context of the crazy 1985 magazine illustrration: you find the complete article at https://archive.org/details/Unix_World_Vol02_02.pdf/page/n29/mode/2up h/t Ralf Bülow on X

CH3OH and HCN in Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Mapped with the ALMA Atacama Compact Array - Distinct Outgassing Behaviors and a Remarkably High CH3OH/HCN Production Rate Ratio: #3IATLAS: https://public.nrao.edu/news/alma-detects-extremely-abundant-alcohol-in-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas/ - astronomers capture a chemical snapshot of planet formation beyond our solar system.

So there is an upcoming novel about #asteroid #2024YR4 which has just sold its movie rights: #TheLastOrbit eventually figure out that it's not only no risk for Earth anymore (as has been known for a year now, of course) but also not for the Moon. Talk about bad timing ... ;-)

Direct detection of an asteroid’s heliocentric deflection - the Didymos system after DART: #DART Mission Changed Orbit of #Asteroid #Didymos Around Sun: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/dart/nasas-dart-mission-changed-orbit-of-asteroid-didymos-around-sun/

The oldest Milky Way stars - new constraints on the age of the #Universe and the Hubble constant: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa57038-25/aa57038-25.html -> How old is the Universe? The oldest stars give us a clue: https://www.aip.de/en/news/how-old-is-the-universe/

GWTC-4.0 - an Introduction to Version 4.0 of the #GravitationalWave Transient Catalog: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae0c06 -> The latest crop of space-time wobbles includes a variety of heavy, fast-spinning, and lopsided colliding black holes: https://physics.mit.edu/news/new-catalog-more-than-doubles-the-number-of-gravitational-wave-detections-made-by-ligo-virgo-and-kagra-observatories/ / New catalog of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observations published: https://www.aei.mpg.de/1415736/new-catalog-of-ligo-virgo-kagra-observations-published - the latest catalog, GWTC-4, includes 128 new candidates from the fourth observing run, more than doubling the previous total.

#GlobalWarming Has Accelerated Significantly: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2025GL118804 -> Significant acceleration of global warming since 2015: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/significant-acceleration-of-global-warming-since-2015

An anomaly onboard the #Proba3 mission’s Coronagraph spacecraft led to loss of contact between the spacecraft and ground control: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Work_ongoing_to_restore_contact_with_Proba-3_s_Coronagraph - the root cause of the anomaly is under investigation and mission teams are working hard to recover the situation.

Improved measurements of the age of JWST #galaxies at z = 6 − 10: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/546/2/stag089/8426287?login=false -> Do we actually know how old the Universe is? https://astrobites.org/2026/03/05/how_old_is_the_universe/

Characteristics of Natural Remanence Records in Fine-Grained Particles Returned From Asteroid Ryugu: #Ryugu by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@PlanetariumBochum/116185089574467129
Comet West 50 years ago - it's time for such a show again in the northern hemisphere!

Evidence of Recent Material Transport within a Binary Asteroid System: #DART Mission Data Reveals that Asteroids Throw ‘Cosmic Snowballs’ at Each Other: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/jessica-sunshine-tony-farnham-new-nasa-dart-mission-data-reveals-asteroids-throw-cosmic-snowballs - astronomers found evidence that rocks continuously travel between Didymos and its smaller moon Dimorphos, reshaping our understanding of how near-Earth asteroids evolve over time.

A catalog to unite them all - #REGALADE, a revised galaxy compilation for the advanced detector era: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/02/aa56896-25/aa56896-25.html -> 80 million galaxies - gigantic astronomical catalog viewable online: https://www.heise.de/en/news/80-million-galaxies-Gigantic-astronomical-catalog-viewable-online-11202479.html

High-precision Relativistic Timescales for #Cislunar Navigation: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae25ff -> interview with the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKU1vsHsdY4

3D Reconstruction of #DART Ejecta at #Dimorphos Reveals an Anisotropic, Filamentary Structure: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ae2c64 -> Pulling Back the Curtain on DART Ejecta: https://aasnova.org/2026/03/06/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-dart-ejecta/

RE: https://mastodon.social/@europeanspaceflight/116182982779024614
Two tiny German satellites (PocketQubes) will be among the payloads, ERMINAZ-1U and ERMINAZ-1V: see https://forum.amsat-dl.org/index.php?thread/4540-erminaz-1v-and-erminaz-1u/ and https://destevez.net/2024/06/decoding-erminaz/ for details.

Light curve of the defective #Proba3 satellite in the sky, from the video https://x.com/s2a_systems/status/2030056859353194647 - the "CSC shows currently a repeating rotation pattern of approximately 1150 seconds."

RE: https://vox.ominous.net/@occult/116103841606429399
Extra points for anyone who can explain what she is *doing* here! I cannot ...

From the #LPSC #NASA HQ Briefing: the four American robotic #Moon landings planned for this year - the Blue Origin HLS demonstrator for #Artemis should go first, as early as next month. (There is a little #VIPER looking at the latter because this homeless rover might fly on a second demonstrator - if they can figure out how to get it from the 8 meters high lander to the surface.)

Ubiquitous High-frequency Waves and Disturbances in the Active Region Corona Observed with Cryo-NIRSP: #CORONA STAYS SO HOT AND HOW THE SOLAR WIND IS LAUNCHED INTO SPACE.

RE: #PrimordialBlackHoles near the end!

Martian ionospheric response during the may 2024 solar #superstorm: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69468-z -> ESA’s Mars orbiters watch solar superstorm hit the Red Planet: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/ESA_s_Mars_orbiters_watch_solar_superstorm_hit_the_Red_Planet

The Stochastic Siren - Astrophysical Gravitational-Wave Background Measurements of the #HubbleConstant: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01997 -> Illinois and UChicago physicists develop a new method to measure the expansion rate of the universe: https://physics.illinois.edu/news/Hubble-tension-expansion-rate-of-universe

Exo–IPM Scattering as a Hidden Gatekeeper of Narrowband Technosignatures: #SETI Might Have Been Missing Alien Signals: https://www.seti.org/news/why-seti-might-have-been-missing-alien-signals/ - turbulent plasma near distant stars could blur ultra-narrow signals before they leave their home star systems, making them difficult to detect.

The dramatic transition of the extreme red supergiant WOH G64 to a yellow hypergiant: #stars

New observations of the #NearEarthAsteroid #2024YR4 with the #Webb Telescope are now also, like the recently discovered precovery positions, firmly excluding a crash into the Moon: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/planetary-defense/2026/03/05/new-nasa-asteroid-observations-eliminate-chance-of-2032-lunar-impact/ - all the studies (and speculations) about consequences for Earth of such a lunar impact are now merely an exercise. But one day ... ;-)

Short-Term Variability of Jupiter's Satellite Footprints as Spotted by JWST: #Jupiter

The seismic diversity of four successive #SolarCycle minima as observed by the Birmingham Solar-Oscillations Network (BiSON): https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/547/1/stag277/8472642 -> Forty years of data give unique insight into Sun’s inner life: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2026/forty-years-of-data-give-unique-insight-into-suns-inner-life - scientists reveal that even small differences in solar magnetic activity produce detectable changes inside the Sun.

So the new #Kreutz #comet #MAPS is *still* following the constant rapid rise in brightness it has shown since discovery: a dumb extrapolation - https://cobs.si/analysis/?comet=2688&from_date=2026-01-15 00:00&to_date=2026-04-30 00:00&observation_type=V&observation_type=C&plot_x_value=1&plot_y_value=1&fit_option=1&exclude_faint=on&exclude_issue=on&observer=&association=&country=&compare_values=compare - has it get 10,000-times brighter than the Sun at its extremely close perihelion which makes so sense at all, of course, physically.
"It must therefore be assumed that this increase in activity will level off significantly in the near future," writes https://fg-kometen.vdsastro.de/koj_2026/c2026a1/26a1eaus.htm: "More likely are parameters m m0=12.0 mag / n=4 (or even lower), which would still result in a (very short-term) maximum brightness of about –9 mag (but this would probably still be significantly too bright) – always assuming that the comet survives its perihelion passage unscathed."
For other views see http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/005600/CBET005663.txt and https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.17626 and https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10236580364221799 and https://cometografia.es/cometa-kreutz-2026-a1-maps-analisis/ - and the actual brightness is tracked at https://cobs.si/obs_list?id=2688 where it has reached ~11.5 mag. now.

A particularly spectacular #JellyfishEffect - #Falcon9 launch from #CapeCanaveral: a realtime video of its formation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n19M0opzSE, a timelapse at https://www.facebook.com/reel/1687387959309966, a webcast at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU_V0DIkXJw with stills at https://bsky.app/profile/nasaspaceflight.com/post/3mga7rwfzjs2u and more pictures in
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2029173176123449567
https://www.facebook.com/MattDevittWeather/posts/pfbid032FFwnAhw4QUPDso2uotpMv5xnZYbGoDmZcx7UGzQ82Uin9T8vAnmMsR6NZaxZPYsl
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623482615358856/
https://www.facebook.com/LaunchPhoto/posts/pfbid02avAUHt1edWKdPAFASkUGq7HWtyD6L7AxnETXuxxfnUm17WsTnMm4ctoYQFGp2hWNl
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623523352021449/
https://www.facebook.com/rkashka/posts/pfbid02XfzeHSxsD84hT8e7dKQ3a2sroV3dgpeefELmCHVBUMMnFzet8YwGAqefFqmRp8dGl
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623573082016476/
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0yJ1yaNYNy92SamPfMnsGmY96F4oYR8zDrzWUf9vR2FPisxhAcZ9tGrbWsJJ9ccCtl&id=100082997509705
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623475792026205/
https://www.facebook.com/internationalspacestation83/posts/pfbid0iUCxC19qkZfnSt1VkZoh6agXygZqBS4HAtQ64KDP547WiEM7tB1fELCcXJSVVdbYl
https://www.facebook.com/groups/spacexgroup/posts/10165280564121318/
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid021uiBj7WSK4R7ghscKjV8pKU5dGroAnjthmpvD7d2FXxSUgrNvzLwWFRc2M4cGTUfl&id=61584464880089
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623417872031997/
https://www.facebook.com/Launchheaven/posts/pfbid0NrnQHDb6nMT4ELxUeCxMcYyfyUfbraiyvEkcJSkmd5oC9aXbGvncvWiKLfSH4218l
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623436118696839/
https://bsky.app/profile/wordsmithfl.bsky.social/post/3mga7d6bczc2b
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623436242030160/
https://bsky.app/profile/herrea.bsky.social/post/3mga53echrs2a
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623440722029712/
https://x.com/johnkrausphotos/status/2029180436929200188
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623402792033505/
https://x.com/nyoomtm/status/2029149765947035696
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623442242029560/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceLaunchSchedule/posts/1623411748699276/
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10226811626871617
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10164745548921477
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10163648738894793
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=911907484916077

On the night of February 5, 2026, the #Rubin team submitted a large batch of approximately 20,000 #asteroid candidate discoveries to the #MinorPlanetCenter, corresponding to roughly 246,000 individual observations: https://minorplanetcenter.net/media/newsletters/MPC_Newsletter_Feb2026.pdf - the "MPC successfully processed the entire submission. This unusually large batch provided a valuable end-to end stress test of our pipeline and allowed us to identify a few bottlenecks and areas where performance and automation can be improved."

Bundle adjustment of Hayabusa2's ONC images and controlled color mosaic map of #Ryugu: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12554 <- https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/WW3IH0

#Extremophile survives the transient pressures associated with impact-induced ejection from #Mars: #panspermia

Lyα Intensity Mapping in HETDEX - Galaxy-Lyα Intensity Cross-power Spectrum: #Universe: https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/releases/20260303

In this image, ESA’s #Euclid space telescope captures a panoramic view of a dying star: the Cat’s Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Hubble_Euclid_zoom_into_cosmic_eye - in the near-infrared and visible light view, the arcs and filaments of the nebula’s bright central region are situated within a halo of colourful fragments of gas zooming away from the star. The nebula stands out against a backdrop teeming with distant galaxies, demonstrating how local astrophysical beauty and the farthest reaches of the cosmos can be seen together in modern astronomical surveys.

While the camera still had no problem getting #Venus and #Saturn clearly this evening with the Sun 10° below the #Bochum horizon, the latter was not evident to the naked eye anymore (as it had been yesterday) at any solar depression - game over? Also the full moon rising, sadly long uneclipsed again. More pictures from this evening in https://www.facebook.com/dan.fischer.393/posts/pfbid037uKnrWeiChGm7m379BB3CyG5xj9byMqCziA4p1WNWrcdvkHbuuqfe3ea7ps5QDAYl

Discovery of the most compact 3 1-type quadruple star system TIC 120362137: #StarSystem Yet: https://gizmodo.com/4-body-problem-astronomers-spot-the-most-tightly-packed-quadruple-star-system-yet-2000728811

Here are recordings of seven webcasts of last night's total #LunarEclipse that actually worked (with the time stamp of totality beginning):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQLcLAfilkQ from 2:31
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TywJ47LZ-Ic from 1:53
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdASZ4AGXeY from 8:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQuzWYn2WJw from 2:35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeOlqcK5Edg from 2:27
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-_LYVuIEE from 0:47
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGxr_kinPmk from 5:53
Many suffered from clouds - as did even Mauna Kea where a sensitive wide angle camera was eventually able to capture the sky around the dark Moon, however:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJV9EHB05qc (5th hour)
Here are various early timelapse attempts:
https://bsky.app/profile/astrodave.bsky.social/post/3mg5xbiwuvc22
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1999310513984541
https://scicomm.xyz/@david@theblower.au/116165095846134092
https://www.facebook.com/reel/905832598970486
https://bsky.app/profile/nasaspaceflight.com/post/3mg5venqfds2h
This one from an all-sky camera in Alaska features a lot of aurora, better to see during totality:
https://x.com/landon_wx/status/2028820535757472112
And finally one with the Moon setting before totality:
https://bsky.app/profile/naztronomy.com/post/3mg5tzlesxk2p