Artemis II splashes down!

A perfect return to Earth around 10:07am Sydney time.

The world has been thrilled by the four NASA astronauts as they spend around ten days travelling to the Moon, looping around the far side of our large natural satellite and returning home with a textbook landing in the Pacific Ocean. 

Can you track future Artemis missions to and from the Moon with your telescope? 

Short answer: you sure can!

There was a lot of interest in people using their telescopes to image the Artemis II mission on its journey to and from the Moon. Professor Karl Glazebrook from Swinburne University sent me this fascinating short animation of Artemis II on its journey taken from his home in suburban Melbourne using a ZWO Seestar S50 Smart Telescope. The square box outlines the spacecraft as it moves against a background of stars.

Here is another Seestar S50 image from the same location:

He also produced an Artemis II tracker app that you can access here:

https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~karl/artemis2_track.html

It allows you to wind the mission timeline back and forward to see where Artemis II was located in the sky, plus some notes on resources used to construct it. A very handy tool!

Efforts like these certainly bode well for tracking future missions to the Moon.

If you'd like to see what really large telescopes like the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring near Coonabarabran can produce, check out the link that Karl sent me this morning.  

Parts of Artemis II have flown into space before

Some of the launch hardware has been to space before on the Shuttle program.

Some of the rocket engines on the recent launch of Artemis II had previously flown on NASA Space Shuttles. Image via NASA

It's interesting to discover that of the four main RS-25 rocket engines used in the SLS rocket that sent Artemis II to the Moon, three had been flown into space before when they were attached to Space Shuttle orbiters. One of them, Engine 2047 flew on 15 missions including one to dock with the Russian space station, Mir. 

All of the hardware had been thoroughly checked and upgraded with new components and software upgrades. The core of these engines however remains unchanged. If you have a reliable and proven piece of hardware it makes sense to keep using it!

Sadly, as the SLS is not a reusable rocket, all four of these engines are now at the bottom of the ocean.  

Find out more about what hardware was reused on Artemis II here 

Comet news. Yes, it's broken up

There were high hopes for Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) 

NASA image of Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) showing some debris is it passed the Sun

Astronomers were holding their breath as this recently discovered comet looped around the Sun, with hopes it would be a very bright sight in the night sky as it headed back out into the depths of the Solar System. It was a part of a group of comets known as "Kreutz sungrazers" which are all thought to be parts of a much larger comet that broke up some time ago. 

Because their orbital paths take them so close to the Sun, they are very prone to breaking up due to the extreme Solar radiation and particle winds they encounter. As comets, even large ones such as Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS), are loose collections of dusts and ices they are easily destroyed with their materials scattered into the inner Solar System. This isn't the first one of these types of comets which we've mentioned in this blog before that suffered this fate.

If they do survive the part of their orbits that takes them close to the Sun, there's a high chance they'll be a spectacle in the weeks following. Quite a few of the "Great Comets" over the last few centuries have been Kreutz sungrazers and we're well overdue for one to put on a show for the world.

There's a great animation of the comet's close and fatal encounter with the Sun here.

Australia loses access to some of the world's most outstanding telescopes

Less than ideal news to wrap up the week

The Federal Government has decided that Australia will not join the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at the conclusion of its current Strategic Partnership. This will include not having access to the upcoming ELT (Extremely Large Telescope) heading towards completion in Chile.

Progress on the ELT in Feb 2026. Image via ESO

There's no doubt the loss of access to the world's best telescopes will hinder astronomy in Australia. 

Next week...news from NEAF