Latest news with #VeraC.
News18
6 days ago
- Science
- News18
Mysterious Comet Enters Solar System, NASA Confirms It's The Fastest Interstellar Object Ever
Last Updated: Details about a mysterious interstellar object detected in the solar system on July 1 are now out, as shared by NASA scientists with the world. An exciting new update has emerged from NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C, about a mysterious interstellar object – 3I/ATLAS, which is speeding through our solar system at extraordinary velocities. Detected on July 1, the 3I/ATLAS has fascinated scientists in the USA and the rest of the world for running through the solar system at an astonishing speed of 1,30,000 miles per hour. According to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observations, the 3I/ATLAS is the fastest interstellar object ever detected, with its remarkable speed of 130,000 miles per hour. Capable of travelling 209,000 km/hour, 3I/ATLAS surpasses previous interstellar visitors such as Oumuamua and Borisov in speed. Scientists are attributing billions of years of gravitational interactions, known as the 'gravitational slingshot effect", to the object's velocity, with passing stars, planets and nebulae imparting additional momentum to the comet. Given its rapid flow, the object is only briefly visible to the scientists, who have had to undertake their studies on the fleeting window of opportunity. NASA is hoping to capture as much information as possible about the 3I/ATLAS. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observations have also found other details about the fastest ever interstellar object in the solar system. When observations from Vera C. Rubin Observatory were revealed, it was believed the 3I/ATLAS's icy core could be 7 miles wide (11.2 km). However, the latest estimation claims it is much smaller, at most 3.5 miles (5.6 km) across and possibly 1,000 feet (320 meters) in diameter. Despite the readjusted estimation, 3I/ATLAS remains the largest interstellar object ever discovered. It has also been confirmed through NASA's powerful telescopes that 3I/ATLAS is not a solid rock but only a comet, which is a chunk of ice containing frozen gases and dust surrounded by a halo of evaporating material. Another great revelation from the study is the estimated age of 3I/ATLAS. According to a thorough analysis by NASA, this object has been orbiting the Milky Way for at least eight billion years, which is nearly twice as old as the solar system itself, with an estimated age of 4.6 billion years. While navigating through the solar system at incredible speeds, the 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth, according to NASA scientists. When the object reaches the closest point to the sun in October, it will be on the opposite side of the Sun relative to Earth during this time, which eliminates the risk of collision and any significant gravitational disturbances. view comments First Published: August 13, 2025, 12:12 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Scientific American
07-08-2025
- Science
- Scientific American
Can Astronomers and Satellite Operators Learn to Share the Sky?
There's a space battle brewing just under our noses (and above our heads). On one side are astronomers who use ground-based observatories to gather starlight from the depths of the universe. On the other are technologists, military planners and captains of industry who are rapidly cocooning our planet in ever growing swarms of starlight-spoiling satellites. When a satellite passes through the view of a ground observatory, it can reflect sunlight back to the telescope, creating bright streaks in the resulting pictures that can obscure—or even masquerade as—astrophysical phenomena. This is especially problematic for state-of-the-art facilities such as the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which uses giant mirrors and the world's largest digital camera to capture ultrahigh-resolution panoramic views of the sky from a remote mountaintop in Chile. It's a 'collision of two beautiful technologies,' says Tony Tyson, the Rubin Observatory's chief scientist and an astronomer at the University of California, Davis. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. As the satellites increase in number, with proposals for more than a million new ones currently pending, tensions are rising between those who see the sky as a wellspring of cosmic knowledge —and others who view it as a new, scarcely tapped realm of economic activity. There are currently more than 13,000 spacecraft orbiting Earth, and more than half of them are satellites built, launched and operated by SpaceX as part of the company's sprawling Starlink megaconstellation. Starlink exists to fill the lingering gaps in global Internet connectivity, offering high-speed broadband service to customers essentially anywhere on Earth—and while it's by far the biggest player in this domain, it's not the only one. Others include Amazon's Project Kuiper (with more than 3,200 planned satellites), Eutelsat's OneWeb (with nearly 650 satellites) and a host of Chinese projects such as Guowang, Qianfan, and Honghu-3 which each call for thousands of satellites. There's even a Starlink spin-off, Starshield, custom-built by SpaceX for the U.S. Department of Defense. Starlink's dominance makes it the poster child for megaconstellations, however—the chief target of astronomers' ire and the test case for carving out a peaceful coexistence. (In response to a request for comment, a representative from SpaceX pointed to regular updates on the company's website.) From the beginning, Starlink engineers collaborated with astronomers to reduce the optical impacts of their satellites. Their first-generation design used dark materials and sun visors to absorb more sunlight and reduce visibility of the satellites from Earth. But the sun visors created too much drag and were scrapped in the second-generation design. In the satellites' second iteration, instead of having them absorb the light, SpaceX focused on strategically reflecting it away from Earth using a dielectric mirror film on any flat surfaces. The second-generation satellites also used a specially developed black paint to reduce the possibility of glints from other components where possible. In a recent preprint paper posted on the co-authors, who included Tyson and two SpaceX employees, analyzed the impact of these developments on the optical interference of the satellites and found that they reduced the optical interference, though even more improvements could be made. While the Starlink satellites typically operate at a height of around 550 kilometers, Tyson and his colleagues also simulated the satellites' optical interference in orbits as low as 350 km. In the simulations, the lower altitude resulted in about a 40 percent reduction in the number of satellites entering the view of the telescope, with only a 5 percent increase in brightness (objects that are higher up can be viewed from Earth at more locations and remain in the telescope's view for longer periods). But making a satellite orbit too low can cause undue trouble for the operators, Tyson says. A satellite in very low-Earth orbit experiences more atmospheric drag, which, if not counteracted, will hasten its orbital decay and subsequent atmospheric reentry. At this time, the Rubin Observatory's official recommendation remains that satellites orbit below 600 km, rather than at some much lower altitude. The International Astronomical Union's Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (IAU CPS) has been reaching out to various satellite companies asking them to reduce their optical (as well as radio) interference. 'Most of the folks that we've talked to that I've interfaced with have actually been pretty open,' says Meredith Rawls, an astronomer at the University of Washington and a co-leader of the IAU CPS's SatHub initiative, 'but it doesn't scale.' CPS can't possibly reach out to all the relevant players to raise concerns and continue to follow up about their proposed solutions and their impacts. On top of that, even companies that are receptive to the CPS's concerns may not be willing to make significant changes—such as lowering satellite orbits—that would harm their bottom line. To broadly and consistently protect the astronomical sky, governing bodies may need to pass restrictive policies. 'I don't think anyone wants zero satellites,' Rawls says, 'but at the moment, it is a pretty unregulated kind of Wild West situation that we find ourselves in.' Initiatives such as the U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF's) satellite coordination agreements, where government agencies broker deals directly with satellite operators, could be a happy medium. So far, the NSF has signed deals with U.S. satellite companies such as Project Kuiper, OneWeb, Starlink and AST SpaceMobile to ensure these companies follow certain guidelines and avoid, to the extent possible, interfering with partner observatories. One complication is that astronomical observations are not only affected by satellites produced in the countries they're based in. 'No single nation or entity can drive meaningful change without the coordinated action and cooperation of governments, satellite owner-operators or manufacturers, and astronomers from around the world,' wrote the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in a conference room paper. COPUOS has yet to propose any regulations or standards for broad adoption. Instead it has recommended that member nations encourage and support collaborations between satellite manufacturers and astronomers. With growing numbers of satellite operators worldwide, however, experts believe this may not be enough. Rubin and similar observatories are 'still going to do good science,' Rawls says. She describes the optical interference from satellites as 'bugs on the windshield': difficult and irritating— not devastating. Tyson describes the interference more like bright headlights from an approaching car, obscuring important details with a burst of light. The legacy of the Rubin Observatory, he says, will be to 'discover the unexpected'—to find things in space that astronomers never knew to look for that will 'blow everybody's mind.' But these discoveries are made less likely by the 'foreground haze' of satellite constellations. 'The scientific community will be giving up something,' Tyson says. 'I hope it isn't too much.' It's Time to Stand Up for Science Before you close the page, we need to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and we think right now is the most critical moment in that two-century history. We're not asking for charity. If you become a Digital, Print or Unlimited subscriber to Scientific American, you can help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both future and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself often goes unrecognized.
National Geographic
20-06-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
The 4 biggest mysteries the new Vera Rubin Observatory could solve
No telescope has basked in the night sky quite like this before. Here's what it could reveal about the universe. Vera Rubin Observatory, its dome reflecting the last sunlight at sunset in Chile. May 30, 2025. Photographs by Tomás Munita On a mountaintop in Chile's sprawling Atacama Desert, a new telescope has turned its mechanical eyes to the heavens, stargazing with unprecedented intensity. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will take hundreds of pictures, every night, for the next 10 years. Astronomers around the world are absolutely giddy over Rubin, which is named for the late astronomer who discovered evidence for the existence of dark matter . The observatory's mirrors will collect a tremendous amount of light, catching the glint of very faint, faraway objects. That light will be focused into the largest digital camera on the planet, a 3,200-megapixel camera the size of an SUV, capable of producing pictures from multiple wavelengths of light. Instead of focusing on one segment of sky for hours at a time, Rubin is designed to take in a wide field of view, swiveling every five seconds to stare at a new spot with minimal shakiness. Stitched together, the observations will produce unprecedented time-lapse views of the entire night sky from the Southern Hemisphere, revealing a lively universe. The Vera Rubin Observatory will offer an unprecedented view of the universe's wonders. Chile's new Vera Rubin Observatory, May 31, 2025. Rubin is scheduled to begin full operations later this year, after technicians complete some final testing. So where does one point a half-billion dollar telescope? Scientists predict that the observatory will discover millions of asteroids and comets, several million supernova, 17 billion stars in the Milky Way, 20 billion galaxies, and other astrophysical phenomena that may have never been detected before. Our cosmic cup runneth over. Other observatories, on the ground and in space, have granted us countless cosmic wonders, but no telescope has basked in the night sky quite like this before. One might wonder whether 10 million exploding stars is perhaps too many, and indeed, astronomers I spoke with about Rubin say they're a tad overwhelmed. "A hundred years ago, you went to the telescope, you took your data, maybe on a photographic plate, and you brought it home and locked it in your desk drawer," Pauline Barmby, an astronomer at Western University in Canada, says. There will be so much data "that we really have to come up with much different ways of analyzing it," Barmby says. Scientists are ready to sift through the observations, which could help solve some of astronomy's biggest mysteries, from the workings of the solar systems to the large-scale forces driving the future of the universe. Here are the four biggest mysteries the panoramic observatory will investigate. The Milky Way is seen above the observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope. For the last decade, astronomers have pondered about a mystery that stands to completely rewrite science textbooks: Is there actually another planet in our solar system, something the size of Neptune, drifting in the darkness? Scientists refer to this hypothetical world as Planet Nine , and Rubin may settle the matter of its existence. (Pluto, you might have heard , no longer holds the title of the ninth planet in the solar system, having been reclassified, on the grounds of various astronomical definitions, as a dwarf planet in 2006.) The theory for Planet Nine arose out of observations of icy celestial bodies that orbit beyond Neptune, in a region called the Kuiper belt. A handful of these objects seem to be tracing unexpected orbits through space; something other than the sun's gravity appears to be influencing their movements. One explanation is the presence of a giant, unseen planet, exerting enough gravity to mold their orbital journeys. Deputy Observing Specialist Manager Alysha Shugart commands the TMA and Dome from platform 8 at the observatory. The M3 inner mirror, outer M1 mirror and LSST Camera of Simonyi's Survey Telescope at Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025. There are other explanations that could explain the strange orbits, from the extravagant (perhaps there's a tiny black hole out there , or evidence for a new theory of gravity ), to the more mundane (maybe there's nothing odd about the orbits, and our picture of the Kuiper belt is just incomplete.) Existing telescopes aren't capable of spotting the faint glow of such a faraway maybe-planet. But Rubin may find Planet Nine within the first year or two operations, says Megan Schwamb , an astronomer at Queen's University, Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Scientists have worked out a search area in the night sky. If the planet is there, "we'll see it like we see Pluto," Schwamb says—a bright pinprick in the inky shadows of the Kuiper belt, reflecting the light of its star. Enormous cables on Level 5, beneath the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA), at the Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. The Simonyi Survey Telescope at Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025. If there's no grand X-marks-the-spot moment for Planet Nine, "that doesn't mean it's not there," Samantha Lawler , an astronomer at Campion College in Canada, says. "It could just be farther out, or it could be smaller or less reflective." Astronomers will need to keep scrutinizing the behavior of trans-Neptunian objects, and Rubin is poised to discover 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects, expanding the current catalog tenfold. In a sea of these newly found celestial bodies, convincing evidence of Planet Nine may float to the surface, or become washed away altogether. While Schwamb and Lawler would be delighted to welcome a new planet, they're thrilled at the prospect of learning more about the realm beyond Neptune, which is intriguing in its own right. The frozen objects in the Kuiper belt are remnants of the formation of our cosmic neighborhood, like eraser shavings brushed off to the side of the page, and astronomers can study them to better understand its bygone eras. "I have no doubt there will be other weird patterns that we see in those orbits that will lead to other interesting ideas about what may or may not be in our solar system now, and how it has changed over time," Lawler says. Among the questions that the Vera Rubin Observatory could help answer: Is there a Planet 9? Scientists hope that the observatory can help map the universe's dark matter. In 2017, a ground-based telescope in Hawaii caught an unusual object hurtling through the solar system, untethered from the gravity of the sun. Oumuamua , as the object was later named, left astronomers with many questions about a previously undiscovered cosmic population, and some wild conjectures about alien origins that are still floating around today. A second surprise object, named Borisov , showed up in 2019, further deepening the mystery. Rubin will provide many more opportunities to study these interstellar objects, which can coast through the galactic hinterlands for hundreds of millions of years before encountering the warmth of a star. These objects appear without warning, and move fast, so they can be difficult to catch—unless you're constantly making time lapses of the night sky. Rubin Observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope during calibration. Interstellar objects are believed to be ejected from their home systems during planet formation, a notoriously turbulent time. (Bits of our own solar system, hurled away several billions of years ago, are likely floating somewhere in the galaxy.) Some researchers estimate that Rubin, over the course of its decade-long run, may discover between five and 50 interstellar objects. Chris Lintott, an astrophysicist at Oxford, is more optimistic, betting on 100. It's quite the range, which underscores just how new, and exciting, this area of study is. Each time Rubin detects an interstellar object, it will spark a frenetic chase: telescopes around the world and in space will track the target until it zooms out of reach, checking to see how it's moving, what it's made of, and—because why not?—whether it bears signs of artificial technology. Each cosmic wanderer Rubin finds will provide a glimpse of how planet formation may have unfolded across the Milky Way. Are giant planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus common around other stars? Rubin's interstellar catch of the day could help answer that question. Or its findings could indicate these types of planets are rarer than we thought. "If we find very few [interstellar objects], I think we might have to rethink what sort of planetary systems exist in the galaxy," Lintott says. Even with the powerful new observatory, astronomers likely won't be able to trace interstellar objects to their exact starting points "because they've been mixed around the galaxy so much," says Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. But they can analyze their chemical composition to glean information about their home star, including its age. Scientists may even be able to determine if two or more interstellar objects originated from the same cluster of stars. And they can use Rubin's future catalog to test various theories, including whether entire corridors of these interstellar objects exist, winding through the galaxy like ribbons. Even a small sample of them "tells us so much about these processes happening across our whole wonderful, wide galaxy," Bannister says. From interstellar objects to galaxy formation, the new telescope will give astronomers a stunning new view of deep space. The Vera Rubin Observatory is named for the pioneering scientist who explored the mysteries of dark matter. Petr Kubánek, right, and Robinson Godoy Torres checking on actuators and valves inside the M1M3 mirror cells of the Simonyi Survey Telescope, Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025, Galaxies form in a messy process, says Barmby, the Western University astronomer. "There's gas falling in, there's gas getting blown out, there's stars forming, there's stars dying, and all of that stuff happens on super-long timescales that we can't actually watch happen." Sometimes, in the process, stars in one galaxy get taken up by the gravitational force of another. These are known as stellar streams, and the new observatory is expected to reveal many more of these in our own Milky Way, hovering like bees around the shimmering rose of the galaxy. Rubin's observations will allow astronomers to track the motions of individual stars over long periods of time, which can reveal whether they originated inside the Milky Way or came tumbling in from a nearby galaxy. Rubin is also expected to discover more of the small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, which have unwillingly donated some of those stars. Each galaxy has its own fascinating cosmic personality; one of the smallest has just a few hundred stars, compared to the Milky Way's 10 billion, says Yao-Yuan Mao , an astrophysicist at the University of Utah. He expects that Rubin will discover all the little galaxies that can possibly be observed, not counting those that are situated behind the bright disk of the Milky Way, which will remain forever out of view from Earth's perspective. "We will get a super complete picture of our Milky Way system," Mao says. And by comparing our galaxy system with that of others, astronomers can tackle one of the most animating questions in the field: whether the way the cosmos works here, in our part of it, is the same as everywhere else. "The knowledge that we inferred from studying the Milky Way—is that generally applicable across the universe?" Mao says. "Or is there something special or unique about the Milky Way itself?" Observing Specialist Minhee Hyun, left, and Yijung Kang at the Control Room of Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025. As Rubin captures pictures of millions of cosmic objects, the observatory will also be searching for signs of two completely invisible things: dark matter and dark energy. All of the stars, galaxies, gas—all of the matter we can observe—turns out to be just 5 percent of "the total stuff in the universe," says Alex Drlica-Wagner , an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago. The rest is dark matter, a kind of matter that doesn't emit or absorb light, which accounts for 25 percent of the universe's composition, and dark energy, a phantom entity that makes up 70 percent. While scientists have never directly observed either, they've seen the cosmos behaving in certain ways that suggest they must exist. Rubin won't reveal all of their secrets, but the sheer amount of data will serve as a veritable playground for scientists to test their theories about these phenomena. Astronomers first suspected the existence of dark matter in the 1930s when they noticed that some galaxies remained clustered together even though they were traveling fast enough to fly apart, suggesting that another force was keeping the galactic web intact. In the 1970s, Rubin's namesake astronomer discovered a similar effect at the edges of galaxies, where whizzing stars that should have escaped were instead being held tight. The mark of the unseen material can even be found using starlight itself. The observatory's telescope will be the largest digital camera on the planet, a massive 3,200-megapixel camera. Dark matter can bend light as it passes by, making its source—a distant galaxy, for example—appear distorted. Rubin will collect these warped views, allowing astronomers to "map out where the dark matter is by how we see the light bending as it travels to us," Drlica-Wagner says. Those maps can help illuminate the nature of dark-matter particles, including whether they're cold or hot—seemingly small characteristics with the capacity to reshape our understanding of how the universe assembles galaxies. Dark energy is even more mysterious. The idea emerged in the 1990s, when astrophysicists calculated that the universe was expanding faster over time rather than slowing down, which ran counter to laws of physics that governed the rest of the cosmos. Dark energy was determined to be the driving force, although scientists don't know what it actually is, only that it appears to behave differently than anything else in the universe, Drlica-Wagner says. Unlike dark matter, which, like the regular cosmic stuff, is likely made up of some kind of particles, dark energy stretches the very fabric of space, pushing galaxies apart rather than drawing them together. Rubin's massive catalog of exploding stars will come in handy here: Scientists can use certain kinds of supernovas to trace the universe's expansion, and, in turn, dark energy's role in it. Rubin data could confirm or refute new theories that suggest dark energy is changing over time, rather than remaining constant, upending even Einstein's predictions for this perplexing force. The observatory is expected to return so much data, scientists are preparing to be overjoyed—and perhaps overwhelmed. In the end, the most exciting discoveries Rubin makes might be the ones astronomers haven't yet anticipated. Such is the nature of really good new telescopes: the thrill of what we don't know we don't know. "If someone says, I have never seen a six-foot-tall-rabbit, you can say, sure, how hard have you looked?" Michael Wood-Vasey, an astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh who has spent years helping to prepare the Rubin observatory for operations, says. Perhaps the new observatory, with its constant, scouring gaze, will turn up some cosmic rabbits.
