« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 04:20:47 pm »
Yale Environment 360 Scientists Relaunch the 'Internet of Animals' Yale Environment 360 Thu, December 4, 2025 at 5:34 AM EST 1 min read
Animal movements mapped using data from the ICARUS system. Movebank
German scientists have relaunched a satellite system that will be used to track wildlife all across the globe. The “internet of animals” was first launched in 2020, in collaboration with Russian researchers, but was abruptly halted after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The ICARUS system will gather data transmitted from tiny sensors attached to thousands of animals around the world, from birds to bats to sea turtles to zebras. Scientists will use the data to track the movement, behavior, and health of wildlife. On Friday, scientists sent the first receiver into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of a German research satellite. A second receiver will launch next year, with six more to follow in 2027.
With the constellation of receivers, scientists “are building a truly planetary-scale observatory,” said Martin Wikelski, director at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, who is spearheading the project.
Left: Martin Wikelski attaches an ICARUS sensor to a zebra in Namibia. Right: An ICARUS sensor. Courtesy of Martin Wikelski
ICARUS initially went live in 2020, after the first receiver was installed on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. But the system was shut down in 2022 after the West cut ties with Russia over its war on Ukraine. \Since then, scientists have redesigned the receiver. While the previous iteration required a large antenna to be outfitted on the International Space Station, the new version is small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand. It consumes one tenth the energy as the old receiver while gathering data from four times as many sensors.
Scientists say the new system will allow scientists to track animals with unprecedented accuracy and spot emerging threats. Said Wikelski, “This capability radically increases the speed with which we can respond to global challenges such as habitat loss, disease outbreaks, and shifting migration patterns.”
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 04:15:13 pm »
AFP In Turkey, ancient carved faces shed new light on Neolithic society Fulya OZERKAN Thu, December 4, 2025 at 1:26 AM EST 4 min read
The archaeological site of Karahan Tepe in southeastern Turkey is shedding new light on our understanding of the earliest human settlements (Fulya OZERKAN) (Fulya OZERKAN/AFP/AFP)
On the windswept hills overlooking Turkey's vast southeastern plains, new archaeological discoveries are revealing how life might have looked 11,000 years ago when the world's earliest communities began to emerge.
The latest finds -- a stone figurine with stitched lips, carved stone faces and a black serpentinite bead with expressive faces on both sides -- offer clues about Neolithic beliefs and rituals.
"The growing number of human sculptures can be read as a direct outcome of settled life," Necmi Karul, the archaeologist leading the dig at Karahan Tepe, told AFP.
"As communities became more sedentary, people gradually distanced themselves from nature and placed the human figure and the human experience at the centre of the universe," he said, pointing to a human face carved onto a T-shaped pillar.
The excavation is part of Turkey's "Stone Hills" project, a government-backed initiative launched in 2020 across 12 sites in Sanliurfa province, which Culture Minister Nuri Ersoy has described as "the world's Neolithic capital".
The project includes the UNESCO heritage site Gobekli Tepe -- "Potbelly Hill" in Turkish -- which is home to the oldest known megalithic structures in Upper Mesopotamia, where the late German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt began excavations in 1995.
- 'A glimpse into someone's life' -
Explaining some of the new finds on display at Karahan Tepe's visitor centre, Lee Clare of the German Archaeology Institute says they challenge long-held narratives about humanity's shift from nomadic hunter-gatherer life to early settlements.
"Every building we study gives us a small glimpse into someone's life. Every layer we excavate brings us closer to an individual -- we can almost touch that person, through their bones. We're gaining insights into their belief systems," he said.
The past five years have yielded "a wonderful amount of data coming out of all these new sites," the archaeologist told AFP.
But it was impossible to know everything. "We don't have any written records, obviously, because it's prehistory," said Clare, who has worked at Gobekli Tepe since 2013.
Identifying who the statues or figurines represented was probably impossible, given they dated back to "a period before writing, around 10,000 years ago", said Karul, who is also leading the dig at Gobekli Tepe and coordinator of the Stone Hills project.
"But as the number of such finds increases and as we learn more about the contexts in which they appear, we gain the opportunity to conduct statistical analyses and make meaningful comparisons."
- 'Highly organised society' -
The settlements began to appear after the last Ice Age, he said.
"The changing environment created fertile conditions, allowing people to feed themselves without constantly going hunting. This, in turn, supported population growth and encouraged the development and expansion of permanent settlements in the area."
As communities started to settle, new social dynamics emerged, Clare said.
"Once people produced surplus, they got rich and poor," he said, indicating the first hints of social hierarchy.
"What we see here is the beginning of that process. In many ways, we are on a slippery slope that leads toward the modern world."
As the excavations progress, they will transform understanding of the Neolithic, with each site earning its own place in scientific history, says Emre Guldogan of Istanbul University, lead archaeologist at the nearby Sefer Tepe site.
"Karahan Tepe and the wider Stone Hills project show a highly organised society with its own symbolic world and belief structures" overturning earlier ideas of a "primitive" Neolithic world, he said.
"These communities shared traits but also developed clear cultural differences," he said.
At Karahan Tepe, human symbolism is widely seen whereas in Gobekli Tepe, animal imagery is more dominant.
Archaeologists say findings at both sites show each community depicting their living environments in different ways.
"Each new discovery raises fresh questions aimed at understanding the people behind these creations," Guldogan said.
The recent archaeological discoveries have also broadened the appeal of a region known primarily as the place where Abraham once settled, a figure revered in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
"Before the excavations began at Karahan Tepe and other sites, the area mainly attracted religious tour groups, drawn largely by its association with the prophet Abraham," tourist guide Yakup Bedlek said.
"With the emergence of new archaeological zones, a more varied mix of tourists are visiting the region."
I hate to pass up posting archaeology stories, but I swear, this site triggers more internet woo-woo talk than anything else I know of - I sorta hate to see real science there getting any publicity...
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 04:07:33 pm »
Popular Science Infamous 3I/ATLAS comet is covered in ice volcanoes, surprising astronomers Andrew Paul Wed, December 3, 2025 at 1:15 PM EST 3 min read
Nov. 19 image obtained by Pau Montplet from Breda (Girona) using a C6 telescope at f:7. Original image is in the lower right inset, while a false color 0.6º wide Larson-Sekanina filtered image at 9º shows 3I in negative to remark the antitail pointing to the subsolar point, and several jets getting out from the false nucleus. Two additional arrows mark wavy structures in the jets. Image resolution is 0.7 arcsec/pix. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2511.19112
As comet 3I/ATLAS continues its exciting journey through our solar system, scientists are still learning everything they can about this special space rock. It is only the second interstellar object ever tracked through our solar system and is among the fastest comets ever observed.
As the 3I/ATLAS nears its closest distance to Earth, an international team of astronomers now says the space rock may be covered in active, icy cryovolcanoes. If true, the evidence detailed in their pre-print study may force researchers to reconsider how comets form–not only in deep space, but our own solar system.
What is 3I/ATLAS?
Astronomers first detected the 3I/ATLAS in July and the comet has gripped global attention ever since. Since then, researchers around the world have aimed their telescopes and sensitive equipment arrays at it as the comet continues its 130,000 mile-per-hour journey through our stellar neighborhood. 3I/ATLAS offers us a never-before-seen glimpse at ancient, deep space comets. What’s more, the icy rock has never passed close enough to a star to be altered by its heat and radiation. This essentially makes it an untouched cosmic artifact dating back billions of years.
Apart from being the fastest comet ever observed (and also assuredly not an alien spacecraft), 3I/ATLAS also appears to display some unexpected surface activity. After monitoring the visitor for months, astronomers recorded a “sharp and lasting surge” in brightness as it reached around 2.5 astronomical units from the sun (roughly 185.9 million miles). The sustained level of brightness captured by their analysis indicates that 3I/ATLAS didn’t withstand a sudden explosion, but what appears to be an eruption across the comet’s entire water-ice surface layer.
Comet cryovolcanoes
They argue the most likely explanation for this brightness is cryovolcanism. Although volcanism on Earth is traditionally associated with scorching lava and fiery eruptions, cryovolcanism essentially operates similarly, but with the opposite materials. During cryovolcanism, liquid and vaporous water as well as other materials are ejected from inside a cosmic body. Astronomers have seen this type of behavior on moons like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, but if confirmed, it represents a rarely seen event on comets.
The cryovolcanism on 3I/ATLAS is even more unique given the object’s origins. While eruptions are usually more acute, 3I/ATLAS lacks the protective, dusty mantle seen in our solar system’s comets. This would explain why its entire surface erupted in such a noticeable way.
Further examination of light reflected from the comet surface revealed that 3I/ATLAS likely resembles a rare type of meteorite called a carbonaceous chondrite. A carbonaceous chondrite is one of the universe’s oldest meteorites, and is heavy in metals such as nickel and iron. This composition could explain the comet’s cryovolcanism.
The study is still awaiting peer review, but its authors theorize that as 3I/ATLAS warmed and its surface ice began to melt, liquid corroded microscopic metal grains inside the rock. This would subsequently release more energy and gases like carbon dioxide, causing the frigid eruption.
Challenging the standard model
If true, 3I/ATLAS contradicts the standard model of comet formation. Instead of a more uniform amalgamation of rock, ice, and low amounts of metal, comets may begin their lives under a much more diverse set of circumstances.
“Interstellar visitors like 3I/ATLAS continue to challenge and refine our understanding of planetary-system formation and the chemical evolution of small bodies,” the study’s authors wrote, adding that, “each newly discovered object reveals unexpected properties that test and expand current models.”
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 04:01:38 pm »
BGR NASA Released New Images Of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS You Need To See Michael Bizzaco Thu, December 4, 2025 at 9:17 AM EST 3 min read
The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, circled in the center, as seen by NASA's Lucy spacecraft. - NASA/Goddard/SwRI/JHU-APL
Comet 3I/ATLAS is the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, a cosmic rock first discovered by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Chile on July 1, 2025. At this point, 12 NASA cameras have captured imagery of 3I/ATLAS as it's traversed our solar system, but a brand-new batch of NASA photos — taken between late September and mid-October — expand on that catalog with some of the clearest and most detailed looks at the comet so far.
The images were taken by NASA's sun-observing PUNCH satellites, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, and the Perseverance Rover on Mars. The photos mostly show 3I/ATLAS as an illuminated dot, but some also showcase the comet's tail as a faint, elongated smudge. Non-U.S. cosmic cameras have taken photos of the comet, too, including the European Space Agency and Russia's Federal Space Agency's shared probe, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
At this time, 3I/ATLAS isn't visible to ground-based telescopes because of its proximity to the sun, but it's expected to fly by Earth on December 19, at which point it should be viewable by the James Webb Space Telescope and ground tech like the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Scientists and space enthusiasts are elated by comet 3I/ATLAS's pilgrimage through the inner solar system. The only other confirmed objects to have visited from different areas of the galaxy were 1I/'Oumuamua in 2017 and comet 2I/Borisov in 2019 — the former of which helped NASA discover seven more dark comets.
Our solar system seldom gets interstellar visitors
A series of colored stacked images showing comet 3I/ATLAS using a visible-light imager on the STEREO-A (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft. - NASA/Lowell Observatory/Qicheng Zhang
3I/ATLAS's emergence has stoked the extraterrestrial bonfire, with some folks thinking the comet could be a form of alien technology. But Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, speaking to NBC, confirms that all observations thus far point toward nothing more than a rock in space. "We certainly haven't seen any techno signatures or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet." Still, that doesn't mean we can't learn more about distant star systems from 3I/ATLAS, especially as it gets closer to Earth. "It could be from something that existed before our own solar system. That is so cool," remarked Fox.
In the weeks ahead, scientists should be able to gather data on 3I/ATLAS's chemical makeup, appearance, speed, and a potential place of origin. And if you're wondering if comet 3I/ATLAS could be a threat to our planet, rest assured, the cosmic comet is expected to stay 170 million miles away as it flies by us.
Researchers have already speculated that comet 3I/ATLAS's acceleration might not be caused by gravity, and we already know that 3I/ATLAS is rich in carbon dioxide. Here's hoping we get to learn even more about this space-bound boulder when it rears its head again in mid-December.
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 03:56:38 pm »
Men's Journal Scientists Make Surprising 3I/ATLAS Discovery — But It's Not Aliens Jessica McBride Thu, December 4, 2025 at 12:08 AM EST 3 min read
31/Atlas is a mysterious object that has sparked speculation about aliens and scientific fascination because it comes from a different solar system.
NASA has insisted it's a comet, albeit one with unique characteristics, and created an entire website to answer questions about the object. Harvard Professor Avi Loeb told NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas that he believes "the interstellar object could be an alien vessel," which NASA has challenged. Now, scientists have authored a non-peer-reviewed study that made a surprising find:
*The object "could be covered in erupting 'ice volcanoes'" as it gets closer to the sun, according to Live Science. "3I/ATLAS is only the second confirmed cometary object known to enter the Solar System from interstellar space," the journal article, published on Arxiv, says.
*3I/Atlas shares compositional traits with "dwarf planets and other objects that orbit the sun beyond Neptune," the study found.
*Specifically, the researchers believe the object is "experiencing cryovolcanism." They added, "We propose that the combination of elevated metal abundance and abundant water ice can account for the unusual coma morphology and chemical products reported to date."
"We were all surprised," study lead author Josep Trigo-Rodríguez, told Live Science. "Being a comet formed in a remote planetary system, it is remarkable that the mixture of materials forming the surface of the body has resemblance with trans-Neptunian objects, bodies formed at [a] large distance from the Sun but belonging to our planetary system."
The Experts Were Able to Obtain Photos of AI/Atlas to Back Up Their Report
The researchers "snapped the highest-resolution images yet of jets of gas and dust particles coming off the comet," according to Live Science.
But some are still clinging to the alien theory.
“Let’s wait and see,” Loeb told Elizabeth Vargas Reports on November 19. “Bureaucrats or unimaginative scientists want us to believe in the expected, but the rest of us know the best is yet to come.” He has identified 12 anomalies in the object.
According to NASA, the Hubble telescope captured images of the object in July that "revealed a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off of the comet's solid, icy nucleus."
NASA calls the object a comet outright. "Observations as of Aug. 20, 2025, indicate that the upper limit on its diameter is 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers), though it could be as small as 1,444 feet (440 meters) across," NASA says on its website.
"On July 1, the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations of a comet that originated from interstellar space," NASA added.
The comet "poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units (about 150 million miles or 240 million km)," NASA wrote. "It is currently about 4.5 au (about 416 million miles or 670 million km) from the Sun. 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest approach to the Sun around Oct. 30, at a distance of 1.4 au (about 130 million miles or 210 million km) — just inside the orbit of Mars."
Continued NASA: "The interstellar comet’s size and physical properties are being investigated by astronomers around the world. 3I/ATLAS should remain visible to ground-based telescopes through September, after which it will pass too close to the Sun to observe. It is expected to reappear on the other side of the Sun by early December, allowing for renewed observations."
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 03:43:49 pm »
The Conversation Most normal matter in the universe isn’t found in planets, stars or galaxies – an astronomer explains where it’s distributed Chris Impey, University of Arizona Thu, December 4, 2025 at 8:32 AM EST 6 min read
Mysterious blasts of radio waves from across the universe called fast radio bursts help astronomers catalog matter. ESO/M. Kornmesser, CC BY-SA
If you look across space with a telescope, you’ll see countless galaxies, most of which host large central black holes, billions of stars and their attendant planets. The universe teems with huge, spectacular objects, and it might seem like these massive objects should hold most of the universe’s matter.
But the Big Bang theory predicts that about 5% of the universe’s contents should be atoms made of protons, neutrons and electrons. Most of those atoms cannot be found in stars and galaxies – a discrepancy that has puzzled astronomers.
If not in visible stars and galaxies, the most likely hiding place for the matter is in the dark space between galaxies. While space is often referred to as a vacuum, it isn’t completely empty. Individual particles and atoms are dispersed throughout the space between stars and galaxies, forming a dark, filamentary network called the “cosmic web.”
Throughout my career as an astronomer, I’ve studied this cosmic web, and I know how difficult it is to account for the matter spread throughout space.
In a study published in June 2025, a team of scientists used a unique radio technique to complete the census of normal matter in the universe.
The census of normal matter
The most obvious place to look for normal matter is in the form of stars. Gravity gathers stars together into galaxies, and astronomers can count galaxies throughout the observable universe.
The census comes to several hundred billion galaxies, each made of several hundred billion stars. The numbers are uncertain because many stars lurk outside of galaxies. That’s an estimated 1023 stars in the universe, or hundreds of times more than the number of sand grains on all of Earth’s beaches. There are an estimated 1082 atoms in the universe.
However, this prodigious number falls far short of accounting for all the matter predicted by the Big Bang. Careful accounting indicates that stars contain only 0.5% of the matter in the universe. Ten times more atoms are presumably floating freely in space. Just 0.03% of the matter is elements other than hydrogen and helium, including carbon and all the building blocks of life.
Looking between galaxies
The intergalactic medium – the space between galaxies – is near-total vacuum, with a density of one atom per cubic meter, or one atom every 35 cubic feet. That’s less than a billionth of a billionth of the density of air on Earth. Even at this very low density, this diffuse medium adds up to a lot of matter, given the enormous, 92-billion-light-year diameter of the universe.
The intergalactic medium is very hot, with a temperature of millions of degrees. That makes it difficult to observe except with X-ray telescopes, since very hot gas radiates out through the universe at very short X-ray wavelengths. X-ray telescopes have limited sensitivity because they are smaller than most optical telescopes.
Deploying a new tool
Astronomers recently used a new tool to solve this missing matter problem. Fast radio bursts are intense blasts of radio waves that can put out as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun puts out in three days. First discovered in 2007, scientists found that the bursts are caused by compact stellar remnants in distant galaxies. Their energy peters out as the bursts travel through space, and by the time that energy reaches the Earth, it is a thousand times weaker than a mobile phone signal would be if emitted on the Moon, then detected on Earth.
Research from early 2025 suggests the source of the bursts is the highly magnetic region around an ultra-compact neutron star. Neutron stars are incredibly dense remnants of massive stars that have collapsed under their own gravity after a supernova explosion. The particular type of neutron star that emits radio bursts is called a magnetar, with a magnetic field a thousand trillion times stronger than the Earth’s.
A magnetar is a rare type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field. ESO/L. Calçada, CC BY-ND
Even though astronomers don’t fully understand fast radio bursts, they can use them to probe the spaces between galaxies. As the bursts travel through space, interactions with electrons in the hot intergalactic gas preferentially slow down longer wavelengths. The radio signal is spread out, analogous to the way a prism turns sunlight into a rainbow. Astronomers use the amount of spreading to calculate how much gas the burst has passed through on its way to Earth.
Puzzle solved
In the new study, published in June 2025, a team of astronomers from Caltech and the Harvard Center for Astrophysics studied 69 fast radio bursts using an array of 110 radio telescopes in California. The team found that 76% of the universe’s normal matter lies in the space between galaxies, with another 15% in galaxy halos – the area surrounding the visible stars in a galaxy – and the remaining 9% in stars and cold gas within galaxies.
The complete accounting of normal matter in the universe provides a strong affirmation of the Big Bang theory. The theory predicts the abundance of normal matter formed in the first few minutes of the universe, so by recovering the predicted 5%, the theory passes a critical test.
Several thousand fast radio bursts have already been observed, and an upcoming array of radio telescopes will likely increase the discovery rate to 10,000 per year. Such a large sample will let fast radio bursts become powerful tools for cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the size, shape and evolution of the universe. Radio bursts could go beyond counting atoms to mapping the three-dimensional structure of the cosmic web.
Pie chart of the universe
Scientists may now have the complete picture of where normal matter is distributed, but most of the universe is still made up of stuff they don’t fully understand.
The most abundant ingredients in the universe are dark matter and dark energy, both of which are poorly understood. Dark energy is causing the accelerating expansion of the universe, and dark matter is the invisible glue that holds galaxies and the universe together.
Despite physicists not knowing much about it, dark matter makes up around 27% of the universe. Visual Capitalist/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Dark matter is probably a previously unstudied type of fundamental particle that is not part of the standard model of particle physics. Physicists haven’t been able to detect this novel particle yet, but we know it exists because, according to general relativity, mass bends light, and far more gravitational lensing is seen than can be explained by visible matter. With gravitational lensing, a cluster of galaxies bends and magnifies light in a way that’s analogous to an optical lens. Dark matter outweighs conventional matter by more than a factor of five.
One mystery may be solved, but a larger mystery remains. While dark matter is still enigmatic, we now know a lot about the normal atoms making up us as humans, and the world around us.
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 03:31:07 pm »
Live Science Giant rotating string of 14 galaxies is 'probably the largest spinning object' in the known universe Joanna Thompson Wed, December 3, 2025 at 7:01 PM EST 3 min read
An enormous, spinning branch of the cosmic web binds 14 galaxies together, making it perhaps the largest rotating structure ever spotted. | Credit: Lyla Jung
Astronomers have spotted what is likely the "largest spinning object" ever discovered, and its rotation could hold important clues about how galaxies develop.
The whirling structure, located 140 million light-years from Earth, is a long, threadlike string of gas that's about 5.5 million light-years long and 117,000 light-years wide — wider than our Milky Way galaxy. The cosmic filament has 14 hydrogen-rich galaxies linked to it in a chain, like charms on a bracelet. These galaxies were what gave away the filament's existence, the researchers explained in a paper published today (Dec. 3) in the journal the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"The initial discovery itself was a surprise," study co-lead author Lyla Jung, an astronomer at the University of Oxford, told Live Science in an email. "We noticed a striking alignment of galaxies glowing at the same distance." Jung and her colleagues were using MeerKAT, an array of 64 connected radio telescopes in South Africa, when they made the unusual find.
After taking measurements, the researchers found that the filament itself appears to be rotating at around 68 miles per second (110 kilometers per second). What's more, the galaxies around it are rotating as well — most in the same direction as the gaseous thread. This suggests that structures like this one may play a key role in galaxy formation by influencing the speed and direction of a star cluster's spin.
The filament represents "probably the largest spinning object" astronomers have discovered to date, Madalina Tudorache, an astronomer at the University of Oxford who is also part of the research team, told Live Science. Such structures have long been predicted in simulations, but until recently, we lacked telescopes sensitive enough to directly detect them, she added.
A figure showing the rotation of neutral hydrogen (right) in galaxies spotted in a giant filament of the cosmic web (middle) | Credit: Lyla Jung
The team suspects that similar rotating filaments will be discovered in the near future as researchers continue to ever-deeper reaches of the cosmos with next generation telescopes. Many such filaments link to each other in a vast cosmic web that funnels matter throughout the universe, forming large, interlinked clusters of galaxies.
This observation was collected as part of the MIGHTEE (MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration) survey, which is spearheaded by Oxford physicist Matt Jarvis and is currently ongoing. Future MIGHTEE data may shed further light on the filament's behavior or facilitate the discovery of other rotating cosmic threads. The find may also help to inform forthcoming surveys from new instruments, like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.
"I think it's really helping us understand the universe," Tudorache said.
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 03:24:31 pm »
MySA Here's when you can see the last supermoon of the 2025 Melanie Love Salazar Wed, December 3, 2025 at 6:07 PM EST 3 min read
A full supermoon, also known as the Cold Moon, will occur on Thursday, December 4. It is the last one of 2025. Here's how to watch it from San Antonio, Texas. (Peter B. Nyren / 500px/Getty Images/500px)
It's about that time to write up goals for the coming year and reflect on the highs and lows of the last 12 months. What better time to ponder 2025's end than on the last full moon of the year? The dramatics will be in full swing as December's will appear brighter and fuller than usual.
A supermoon, described by NASA as one that occurs when the Moon is at its closest approach to Earth in its elliptical orbit (perigee), will rise on Thursday, December 4, according to Space.com. Supermoon "isn't an official astronomical term, but typically, it's used to describe a full Moon that comes within at least 90 percent of perigee," the agency explains on its website.
Seeing the glow of white light overhead is routine, but these types of Moons can be a rare sight to catch. They only happen three to four times a year, with past 2025 occurrences being in November and October.
A few elements set this planetary body's appearance apart. They can appear up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the faintest one of the year, NASA says.
Here's what to know about December's full supermoon, also known as the Cold Moon.
When is the December full supermoon 2025?
The Cold Supermoon will reach peak illumination on Thursday at 5:14 p.m. CT, per the Farmer's Almanac. Stargazers are urged to start looking for it at this time for the best view. This is because it will appear bigger since it's near the horizon, a phenomenon called "Moon illusion."
You'll want to grab a sweater before heading outdoors, as a cold front will swoop across South Central Texas the evening prior. It should be a chilliness worth braving, though. At its farthest, NASA's website cites that the moon is 252,088 miles away from Earth. However, this one will be only 221,813 miles from us, according to the agency.
Will the December full supermoon be visible in Texas?
The National Weather Service reports that San Antonio-area skies will be cloudy on Thursday. Onlookers in parts of town where the sky is clear should have no trouble seeing the supermoon.
Residents should find a dark environment that is shielded away from bright lights for the best viewing conditions.
Why is it called the Cold Supermoon?
The Cold Supermoon earns its name from the Farmer's Almanac, an American periodical that offers a different name for lunar events, passed down from generations of Native American, Colonial American, and European settlers.
The moniker comes from the fact that it's the season of frigid temperatures. Even the Lone Star State isn't exempt. Austin saw its coldest December 1 in decades, according to KXAN meteorologist Tommy House.
Some people also refer to the event as the Long Night Moon. This is "because it rises during the longest nights of the year, near the winter solstice, and remains above the horizon for an extended period," researchers at the Farmer's Almanac explain.
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 04, 2025, 03:18:54 pm »
AFP Satellite surge threatens space telescopes, astronomers warn Daniel Lawler Wed, December 3, 2025 at 11:05 AM EST 3 min read
The increase in satellites orbiting the Earth could affect the likes of the Hubble Telescope (NASA) (NASA/NASA/AFP)
Light from the half a million satellites that humanity is planning to launch into Earth's orbit in the coming years could contaminate almost all the images taken by space telescopes, NASA astronomers warned Wednesday.
Scientists have already been sounding the alarm about how light pollution from increasingly massive satellites threaten the future of dark skies seen from the ground.
Now, a study published in the journal Nature is the first to estimate how the immense number of satellites planned for the future could stray into the view of nearby telescopes attempting to probe the universe.
Since 2019, the number of satellites in low-Earth orbit has skyrocketed from roughly 2,000 to 15,000, according to the study -- many of them part of billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink internet constellation.
But that is a drop in the bucket compared to what is coming.
If all of the plans currently filed to regulators launch into space, there will be 560,000 satellites orbiting Earth by the end of the 2030s, the study said.
This poses "a very severe threat" to space telescopes, the study's lead author, Alejandro Borlaff of the NASA Ames Research Center in California, told AFP.
For the research, the astronomers simulated how the 560,000 satellites would impact four space telescopes.
Reflected light from the satellites would affect 96 percent of all images taken by NASA's SPHEREx telescope, the European Space Agency's planned ARRAKIHS telescope and China's planned Xuntian telescope, the study found.
The Hubble Space Telescope, which is less likely to snap a satellite as it takes in a narrower view of the universe, would have a third of its images tainted.
This could have an impact on all sorts of scientific endeavours.
"Imagine that you are trying to find asteroids that may be potentially harmful for Earth," Borlaff said.
An asteroid streaking through the sky "looks exactly like a satellite... it's really hard to figure out which one is the bad one," he added.
Some space telescopes, such as the famous James Webb, are unaffected because they are hovering at a stable spot 1.5 million kilometres (932,000 miles) from Earth called the second Lagrange point.
- 'As bright as the brightest star' -
One solution could be to deploy satellites at lower altitudes than space telescopes -- but that could potentially deplete Earth's ozone layer, the study said.
The most straightforward solution may just be to launch fewer satellites.
But competition from rival satellite internet companies -- and the surging needs of the artificial intelligence boom -- make that unlikely.
Nearly three-quarters of the satellites currently in orbit are part of Musk's Starlink network, Borlaff said.
But Starlink is expected to represent just 10 percent of all satellites in a couple of decades as competition blasts off, according to the study.
For now, companies could help by providing the location, orientation and colour of their satellites to those operating space telescopes, Borlaff said.
Another problem is that satellites are getting much bigger.
To the naked eye, satellites that are 100 square metres (more than 1,000 square feet) in size are "as bright as the brightest star that you can see in the sky", Borlaff said.
However, to handle AI's data requirements, there are now plans to build ones 3,000 square metres wide.
These giants could be "as bright as a planet", Borlaff added.
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Reuters NASA study shows how satellite 'light pollution' hinders space telescopes By Will Dunham Wed, December 3, 2025 at 3:32 PM EST 4 min read
FILE PHOTO: This photo taken May 13, 2009 shows the Hubble Space Telescope prior to its grapple by the space shuttle Atlantis's robot arm. REUTERS/NASA FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS/File Photo
WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - An exponential increase in the number of satellites placed in low-Earth orbit has brought advances in telecommunications including broadband access in rural and remote areas worldwide. It also has caused a surge in light pollution in space that imperils the work done by orbiting astronomical observatories.
A new NASA-led study focusing on four space telescopes - two currently operational and two planned - estimates that a large percentage of images obtained by these observatories over the next decade could be tainted by light emitted or reflected by satellites sharing their low-Earth orbit.
The researchers calculated that about 40% of images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and about 96% of those taken by the U.S. space agency's SPHEREx observatory could be contaminated by light from satellites. They also calculated that about 96% of images from the European Space Agency's planned ARRAKIHS observatory and China's planned Xuntian telescope could be similarly affected.
Hubble would be less affected due to its narrow field of view, the researchers said.
Orbiting telescopes are a vital part of space exploration. They can observe a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum than ground-based telescopes, and the lack of atmospheric interference lets them get sharper images of the cosmos, enabling direct imaging of distant galaxies or of planets beyond our solar system.
"While until now most light pollution came from cities and vehicles, the rise of telecommunication satellite constellations is rapidly starting to affect astronomical observatories worldwide," said astronomer Alejandro Borlaff of NASA's Ames Research Center in California, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.
"As telescopes stare at the universe attempting to unveil distant galaxies, planets and asteroids, satellites sometimes cross in front of their cameras, leaving bright traces of light that erase the dim signal that we receive from the cosmos. This was a known problem for ground-based telescopes. But until now, space telescopes - much more expensive and placed in apparently pristine vantage points of view in space - were thought to be almost free of human-made light pollution," Borlaff said.
In 2019, there were roughly 2,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit. The number now is around 15,000. Borlaff said that proposals from industry foresee around 560,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit in the coming decade.
"To give an idea of how much this number increased recently, we have launched more satellites to low-Earth orbit in the last four years - 2021 to 2025 - than in the previous seven decades of space flight combined," Borlaff said.
The researchers used information from satellite operators to simulate the orbital layers of each satellite constellation - from SpaceX's Starlink, China's Guowang and Amazon, among others. They then considered specific properties of the telescopes such as orbiting altitude, trajectory, field of view and other factors.
"Once we had the simulated telescopes observing our simulated universe, we only needed to count the number of times that the satellites crossed - or 'photo-bombed' - our observatories, and how bright they were at the moment of the event," Borlaff said.
Satellites reflect and emit multiple types of light.
"They directly reflect light from the sun with their solar panels, but also reflect light from the moon and the Earth, which is very intensely bright from low-Earth orbit. In addition to optical light, satellites also emit infrared radiation generated from the temperature of their components, as well as reflecting radio wavelengths from both the Earth and the antennas themselves," Borlaff said.
The researchers said one way to address the problem would be to deploy satellites at orbits lower than where the telescopes operate.
Some telescopes placed at more distant orbits are better shielded from light pollution. The study, for instance, did not look at the effects of the satellites on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the European Space Agency's Euclid observatory or NASA's planned Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
Their orbits are much further from Earth than the telecommunications satellites.
"For that reason, they won't likely be affected by this type of contamination, for now," Borlaff said.
These unaffected telescopes provide only a fraction of total astronomical observations, however.
"They are only used for very particular scientific objectives, and have very limited operational time," Borlaff said.
(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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