Tootfinder

In four hours the webcast #PSLV-C62 - a return to flight for this rocket after a launch failure a while ago - carrying EOS-N1 and 15 co-passenger satellites into Sun Synchronous Orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India should begin: see https://www.isro.gov.in/media_isro/pdf/PSLVC62/PSLV_C62_Brochure090125.pdf and https://www.isro.gov.in/Mission_PSLV_C62.html for details.

All three astronomy satellites on the Twilight mission has now been deployed, BlackCAT and SPARCS out of sight of the Falcon 9 upper stage cameras, but the departure of #Pandora was beautifully seen - a screencap from the webcast https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1nAKEEAevzbKL

The 39 satellites of the Twilight mission are now in orbit, after the launch at 13:44 UTC: see https://www.spacex.com/launches/twilight for the deployment timeline (Pandora should be the last of the three space observatories, at 16:12 UTC).

A Thick Volatile Atmosphere on the Ultrahot #SuperEarth TOI-561 b: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae0a4c -> NASA’s Webb Detects Thick Atmosphere Around Broiling Lava World: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-detects-thick-atmosphere-around-broiling-lava-world/

Observation of deuteron and antideuteron formation from resonance-decay #nucleons / „So entstehen leichte Atomkerne“: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09775-5 / https://www.weltderphysik.de/gebiet/teilchen/experimente/teilchenbeschleuniger/cern-lhc/alice-raetsel-der-teilchenphysik-geloest/ -> Decades-old mystery in particle physics solved: https://www.tum.de/en/news-and-events/all-news/press-releases/details/decades-old-mystery-in-particle-physics-solved

RE: #Megaconstellation Close Conjunctions: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643 -> thread https://scicomm.xyz/@sundogplanets@mastodon.social/115698651442317843

Multispacecraft Measurements of the Evolving Geometry of the Solar #Alfvén Surface over Half a Solar Cycle: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae0e5c -> Astronomers Create First Map of the Sun's Outer Boundary: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/astronomers-create-first-map-suns-outer-boundary

Icy or rocky? Convective or stable? New interior models of #Uranus and Neptune: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/12/aa56911-25/aa56911-25.html -> Uranus and Neptune Might Be Rock Giants: https://www.news.uzh.ch/en/articles/media/2025/Uranus-Neptune.html - the composition of Uranus and Neptune, the two outer most planets, might be more rocky and less icy than previously thought.

Assessing the metal and rare earth element mining potential of undifferentiated #asteroids through the study of carbonaceous chondrites: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/545/1/staf1902/8317164?login=false -> Mining asteroids for water and metals explored: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/mining-asteroids-water-and-metals-explored

Magnetars in Binaries as the Engine of Actively Repeating #FastRadioBursts: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae1023 -> A Unified Explanation for Fast Radio Bursts: https://aasnova.org/2025/12/10/a-unified-explanation-for-fast-radio-bursts/