News

There are a few comets in the sky at the moment. As this isn't a common event, it's probably a good time to chat again about these wonderful and often surprising visitors to the inner parts of the Solar System. What are comets? Comets are sometimes referred to as "dirty snowballs". They are a complex collection of dust, rocks, gases, water and other materials all held together under their own gravity.  They often have long, looping orbits and as they approach the Sun, energy received melts water ices and turns frozen CO2 into gas. These materials are then thrown away from the comet, lit up by the Sun and they become the spectacular astro objects we're so fond of.  Where do comets come from? There's a number of groups of comets in the Solar System. Some comets such as the famous Halley's Comet are referred to as periodic comets that are on a shorter and sometimes known orbit around the Sun. There's also a vast region on the outskirt of the Solar System called the Oort Cloud that could contain hundreds of billions if not trillions of comets. These were originally thought to have formed with the Solar System, but astronomers are also now considering that it might have captured bodies from other star systems.** Occasionally, passing stars, interaction with planets or the galaxy itself will disturb one of these icy comets and send it towards the inner Solar System from the Oort Cloud. What comets are above our heads at the moment? The brightest of the bunch is probably Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN). This was discovered less than two weeks ago from images taken by the SWAN spacecraft by Vladimir Bezugly. Tonight, 25th of September 2025, it will visible very low on the horizon between the thin, crescent Moon and Mars. Where to find Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) from Sydney tonight using the phone version of Stellarium.  Using TheSkyLive for comet tracking. C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) is a fainter comet, which will be also low in the sky tonight. A screenshot of the Stellarium app showing where the faint Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) will be tonight not long after sunset as seen from Sydney.  This comet is visible in the sky tonight but will require binoculars and a clear view to the western horizon.  Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) Another comet visible in our skies just as it's getting light. It will very, very hard to spot! A screenshot of the Stellarium phone app showing where the faint Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) will be just in the northeastern sky before sunrise as seen from Sydney.  Is there any significance to this many comets being in the sky at the moment? No, it's simply a coincidence.  There's always a lot of comets in the Solar System and even the odd visitor or two from other parts of the Milky Way.  While it's pretty rare for amateur astronomers to be able to capture images showing two comets in the same picture, there's nothing unique that's occurred to allow this happen. Comet C/2025 R1 (SWAN) and Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) capture nears Mars by Glenn Pickford on the 21st of September and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook group. Check out his post here. How do I track where and when to see theses comets from my location? The easiest way is to use any one of a wide variety of apps or websites to make a personal viewing chart for your location.  Stellarium is an astronomy website as well as an Apple and Android app that we're quite fond of.   Another option is TheSkyLive which is possibly a more complete guide to the night sky with "What's up tonight" sections for planets and special objects like these comets.  Again, this can be used both in a browser and as apps. There Why do comets sometimes have more than one tail? You might spot comets with two or more tail, emerging from it in different directions. These are from different stream of dust and other small particles being pushed away from the body of the comet that reflect sunlight and from gas streaming away which is ionised and lit up by energy received from the Sun. Tails can even become detached from the comet's body! Do comets shoot across the sky? No. Comets move from night to night but so slowly you don't really notice them. If you see something in the night sky that suddenly appears and streaks across the sky, even if it does have a "tail", it's not a comet. What you are seeing is a meteor* which is a small piece of space rock or even a fragment of a spacecraft or rocket that's fallen to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere. Larger chunks can be quite bright and even make a sound as they move across the sky. These are sometimes called "fireballs" and will spark a search by keen meteorite hunters to recover a fallen piece of space rock. Why are some comets green? You might see some photos of comets that show their central core glowing a pale, ghostly green. Here's photos taken of Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) taken with a Seestar S50 Smart Telescope that shows this. Photo of Comet C2025 R2 (SWAN) showing the green nucleus taken by Mike Kane with a ZWO Seestar S50 from his observatory in Port Macquarie. You can check out his full post here. What was even more intriguing was that while the central nucleus of some comets glow green, their tails don't Despite many decades of head scratching, his has been something that astronomers hadn't been able to fully explain until a recent discovery by researchers at the University of NSW about a certain type of carbon molecule that's created and then quicky destroyed before it can migrate to the comet's tail.  You read about  green comets and their non-green tails at our BINTEL article from a few years ago here.  One thing to note is that while the green-ish colours are fairly easy to photograph, comets will only appear as shades of black, white and grey to your eyes through a telescope or binoculars. Do other stars other than our Sun have comets? Absolutely! We've already had at least two comets visit the Solar System from elsewhere in the Milky Way that have arrived in recent years. There's likely been an untold number in the past. With new, more powerful observatories coming online, astronomers expect to find many more.  We know these comets originate from outside the Solar System because of their high speed. They're travelling too fast to be captured by the Sun's gravity and will continue through the Solar System and head into deep space.  Comet 2I/Borisov was discovered in 2019. ("2I" meant it was the second interstellar interloper and the "Barisov" of the name it from its discoverer, Gennadiy Borisov.) It seemed to very similar in composition to other comets that have arrived from the Solar System's Oort Cloud.  Comet 2I/Borisov went through a large outburst as it made a close approach to the Sun and largely broke up. Comet 3I/ATLAS is in the news at the moment. (Again, "3I" means it's the third interstellar visitor and "ATLAS" is the instrument that captured the images on which it was first found.) This new arrival might sneak up to be bright enough to see with your eyes along, however grab a pair of binoculars to make viewing it easier.  Where to see Comet 3I/ATLAS, a comet from another star, tonight from Sydney in the western sky not long after dark. You'll need binoculars or a telescope to spot it! It's also very old, possibly between 7.6 and even 14 billion years old. In comparison, the Sun, the planets around it and our Earth are about 4.6 billion years. It's certainly older than any comet we've seen before and more than likely the oldest object we've had this close to us. Due to its complex path and interaction with other stars over a truly vast length of time, we have no real chance of identifying of identifying the star it is originally from.  Could comets bring life from elsewhere in the galaxy? This is something that astronomers have wondered about for generations. With NASA announcing recently that there's a very high chance of life on Mars in ancient times that produced similar biosignatures to those found on Earth - more on that discovery at our blog here -  we could be facing a range of scenarios that involve life originating from outside of Earth and not only being transported to here but also to other planets. Comets could be one way that happened.  It's certainly something to ponder about when the clouds keep you away from your telescope eyepiece.  Can we send a spacecraft out to meet Comet 3I/ATLAS to get a closer look before it leaves the Solar System? No.  Studies carried out in July 2025 showed that any spacecraft launched from Earth would need to travel at over 86,400 km/h to catch up with Comet 3I/ATLAS.  This significantly faster than any current rocket system humanity has managed to build.  Saturn and Neptune in the same field of view for binoculars It not only was it the opposition of Saturn a few days ago, but it was also the opposition of Neptune this week. We didn't make a big thing about it as outer planets such as Uranus and Neptune are hard to spot and their great distances means the variations seen at opposition aren't much.  This year Neptune and Saturn appear close together in the same part of the sky, making our outermost planet much easier to spot.  Neptune will be visible all night in the constellation of Pisces and is only a couple of degrees away from the much brighter Saturn. A chart showing where Neptune is located in the sky compared to Saturn in the coming weeks.  If you can find Saturn in binoculars or a telescope a couple of hours after sunset, use this guide to help locate Neptune. It appears as a pale blue star or small "dot" depending on the size of your telescope. The outer red circle marking is 4 degrees across, or less than the field of view of most binoculars.  Sunrise at the South Pole: Spring Equinox    You might have read in last week's BINTEL Newsletter that we had spring equinox on the 23rd of September 2025. This is the part of our path around the Sun each year when the Earth is aligned "upright" and all parts of our planet receives an equal length of day and night. It's also an extended "sunrise" after a long night at the South Pole and "sunset" at the North Pole. Check out the post here. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 25th September 2025 *A meteor is a piece of rock or dust that burns up in the Earth's atmosphere. A meteorite is a piece of space rock that is large or tough enough to survive this fiery journey and hit the Earth. You find meteors up in the sky and meteorites on the ground. And before you ask, I have no idea what you call a piece of space rock that hits the Earth and then bounces back up into the air..... **Learning about comet formation and the outer Solar System is a complex and developing area of astronomy. I've only just touched on this topic here. 

 Comet 3I/ATLAS: How rare are interstellar visitors? "There's almost always one within the solar system." The third known interstellar visitor to our Solar System, Comet 3I/ATLAS, is in the news at the moment, and there's going to be more updates as further observations are made by astronomers. We'll be doing a further deep-dive into this cosmic visitor in an upcoming BINTEL blog. 3I/ATLAS glowing green during the recent lunar eclipse. | Credit: Michael Jäger/Gerald Rhemann The "3I" in this comet's name indicates it's the third interstellar object we've found in in the Solar System so far. Astronomers have conjectured that these comets and rocky bodies, travelling through the Milky Way too fast to be captured by stars they encounter, are likely quite numerous. Since the first interloper, 'Oumuamua, was found in 2017, the question has been, what else have we missed? This issue was address at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) and Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) joint meeting, which was held in Helsinki last week.  "These sorts of interstellar objects are the most common macroscopic objects in the galaxy," Chris Lintott, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford, said during the meeting. "The fact that we've only found three of them is quite fun." Many researchers think the number of interstellar objects found in the Solar System will jump dramatically from the current three once more powerful instrument such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory commence extended and regular programs.  The latest estimate by some astronomers this week including Chris Lintott is that interstellar objects in the Milky Way may number from a hundred million trillion to a staggering trillion trillion. This make them the most numerous type of body in the galaxy. In much the same way we now think that rogue planets, those not in set orbits around stars outnumber planets like those in our own Solar System, there might be vastly more comets and asteroids in interstellar space compared to those orbiting stars. NASA’s Tally of Planets Outside Our Solar System Reaches 6,000 It's amazing to think that when the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched in 1990, there were no confirmed planets around other stars. As far as we knew, the Earth and the other planets that make up the Solar System were unique in our galaxy.  The number of confirmed exoplanets passed the 6,000 count this week and continues to rise.  Since the first confirmed discovery of an exoplanet, or a planet outside our Solar System, in 1992* and the discovery of a planet around a regular star in 1995, the number has been rising steadily. Astronomers use a variety of techniques to find exoplanets, including wobble in their host stars, dips in the star's light as planets pass between the star and observers here on Earth and more. In a small handful of cases, we've been able to even directly image stars around other planets.  A question we get asked now and then here at BINTEL is "can I see planets around other stars?" The answer to that is sadly, a firm no.  If you'd like to check out the NASA Exoplanet Catalogue to keep up with the latest discoveries, visit it here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 20th September 2025 *The earliest recorded evidence of an exoplanet was made in a 1917 using the 60 inch at Mt Wilson. A white dwarf star was found back then that had an unusual and unexplainable spectrum. In 2016 this was was found to be the result of an exoplanet being broken up by the star's gravity and material from its planet falling into the star causing the strange spectrum!      

It's the best time to see the ringed planet, Saturn, for 2025. Check out our BINTEL guide about how and where to see Saturn.  Why Saturn is so bright at the moment and why that matters. Saturn's brightness as seen from Earth varies as both it, and our home planet orbit the Sun throughout their respective years. This month (September 2025) Saturn is at what astronomer's call opposition on the 21st. This term simply means that the Earth and Saturn are pretty much directly opposite each other in their orbits. As we're as close are we're going to get to Saturn for the year, it's the best time to view the spectacle of the planet and its rings. (Along the same lines, if you were an alien astronomer living on the surface of a moon of Saturn, it would also be the best time to turn your telescope towards Earth!) Planetary oppositions happen slowly. Saturn will be great viewing in the weeks leading up the 21st of September 2025 and well worth catching in the weeks and afterwards. There's no need to rush out on the night or worry you might miss it. An illustration showing how the Sun, the Earth and Saturn line up during an opposition. It's not to scale, but rather to give you an idea of their positions. Image by Jess Gilmore, BINTEL  During opposition, Saturn will appear as a brilliant, slightly yellowish "star". It will be one of the brightest stars in the sky, slightly fainter than Betelgeuse, the red star that forms one of the shoulders of the famous constellation Orion. Where can I spot Saturn? Around the time of opposition, Saturn will rise close to sunset and be visible most of the night. For best viewing, I would give it two or three hours after it gets darks for it to get a bit higher in the sky. You can use the chart below to get an idea where it be located around this time. It will appear as a bright yellowish star. Where to find Saturn at around 9.30pm on the 21st of September 2025. The view is from Sydney. Saturn will appear close to the rising Moon and be visible throughout the night.  Over the next couple of months, Saturn will rise later and later in the evening.  If you don't have a telescope like one of the Celestron StarSense Explorer range that have night sky navigation as standard, then there's a wide range of apps to help you find planets and deep-sky objects. One of our favourites is Stellarium that can run on your phone, tablet or PC. Almost any telescope will show the rings of Saturn The rings of Saturn are the most famous single feature in the Solar System* One of the most amazing sights in astronomy is to point your telescope at what looks like a bright star with your eyes and then spot a small ball with rings around it in the eyepiece! I remember it doing exactly that as a youngster and it was one of the things that got me hooked on space and astronomy for the rest of my life. BINTEL sells a wide range of telescopes that will deliver great views of Saturn and what's more, you don't have to spend a lot of money either. For example, this Celestron StarSense Explorer LT127 AZ is great for viewing Saturn as well as Jupiter, Mars, the Moon and thousands of deep-sky objects.  Celestron StarSense Explorer LT127 AZ Solar System planets will reveal more as you increase the magnification and telescopes such as this Celestron have higher powered eyepieces as standard. We can also help with optional eyepieces, filters and Barlow lenses to further improve your views.  You won't see the rings of Saturn with binoculars, especially this year. The varying angles of Saturn's Rings Saturn, like the Earth, orbits the Sun at slight tilt. This tilt is the reason we have seasons and Saturn too has seasons.  It also means that during some oppositions Saturn's rings, which are aligned around the middle of the planet, are wide open and facing Earth. This is when they're at their most spectacular.  As the seasons on Saturn change and the angle of its tilt changes, how the rings appear to us here on planet Earth will change too.  The varying view of Saturn as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Saturn's rings in 2025 are fairly edge on, more like the bottom left corner of the HST image and will open up more in the coming years. This is a good time to try to spot the faint bands on the surface of Saturn.  (Your views won't be a sharp or detailed as the those in this image as you won't be looking through a multi-billion dollar space telescope like Hubble. You might still be surprised at you can see! through your home telescope!) Why doesn't Saturn twinkle as much as Milky Way stars? One thing that's noticeable about the Solar System planets is that while they appear as "stars" in the night sky, they also lack one feature you'll see when viewing Milky Way stars of similar brightness: planets don't twinkle anywhere near as much as the stars do.  Stars twinkle as due to the disturbances in the air above our heads and this varies night to night. Even the smallest star is vast compared to the size of a planet. As all visible stars range in distance from a handful to possibly even thousands of light years away, light even from these massive disks arrives on here on Earth as a single point of light.** Astronomers call the quality of the air the seeing. It's not always dependant on the weather. Sometimes clear skies can have very poor seeing and you can often get sharp views when patchy clouds are overhead.  We can see the disk of major planets with even a small telescope. The light from the planets spread over a slightly larger region and as they're not pinpoints, are less impacted by wiggles and fluctuations in the air.  Have we visited Saturn? Yes! Several spacecraft have visited Saturn, although not as many as you might think. Only four spacecraft have been there. Three were just flybys, with one sophisticated mission spending years observing the ringed planet and its moons from complex orbits.   Humanity got its first close up of Saturn in 1979 with a flyby of Pioneer 11.  The famous Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes made flybys as part of their "Grand Tour" of the Solar System that also included exploring beyond Saturn with visits to Uranus and Neptune.  In 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft which was a joint NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) project, arrived at Saturn where it spent the next 13 years imaging and observing Saturn and its moons. It finished with the Cassini probe deliberately crashing into Saturn itself to avoid any contamination of Saturn's moon with microbial life from Earth.  What's next for exploring Saturn? For such an amazing place, human beings aren't expending a lot of effort in making firm plans to return to Saturn***. The only confirmed mission is the car sized Dragonfly due to launch sometime in July 2028 and arrive at Saturn's moon Titan, in 2034. You can read more about NASA's Dragonfly mission here.  Until then, we'll need to observe Saturn from Earth or with space telescopes.  Next week: A telescope and some camera options for taking photos of Saturn, Jupiter, the Moon and more.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 13th of September 2025 PS: Here's a few further bits of info you might find useful: * Other planets in the Solar System have rings as well Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune all have rings systems; however, Saturn is the only rings you'll be able to see with your telescope ** But I can see a small "disk" when looking at some stars? Is this the surface of the star? No. Humans have only seen the surface of a small number of stars using extremely large telescopes. What you are seeing is the single point of light spread over a small area by wobbles in the atmosphere, a view that's not totally focussed or some kind of aberration caused by your telescope's optics. Or maybe a combination of all of the above.  *** The discovery of possible signs of past life called biomarkers in the Solar System such as on Mars would without doubt make Saturn a high priority for future missions. Its moon, Titan, is the only other place in the Solar System apart from Earth that has water on its surface and a thick atmosphere. Another moon, Enceladus, possibly has an ocean under its icy sheets that cover the surface. NASA’s Cassini probe flew through geysers near its south pole and found chemicals including organic compounds which might help life form. 

TL;DR: NASA today announced that a rock they've named "Cheyava Falls" found by their Perseverance Mars Rover in 2024 shows signs of chemicals compounds and features called biosignatures that are likely products of ancient microbial life. The Perseverance team have used every resource available on the rover on the surface of Mars and carried out extensive peer review over the last year, but so far have not been able to come up with alternative reasons for these biosignatures. Full confirmation that ancient life did once on Mars will require these samples to be either returned to Earth or analysed further by future astronauts on the surface of the red planet in the coming years, probably in the 2030s. This is the strongest indication of life beyond Earth humanity has found so far.  The announcement today from NASA that they've found strong indicators of ancient life or potential biosignatures on the surface of Mars was not taken lightly. You can read the NASA press release here. A NASA rover currently on the Martian surface, Perseverance, has been exploring inside Jezero Crater near a region that was known to be an ancient lakebed.  The rover been collecting samples for future missions and drilled into mudstone. There it found a rock nicknamed Cheyava Falls in 2024 in that has a pattern of "leopard spots" and other features. On Earth, these could be products of past microbial life. These chemicals and features can also sometimes be produced by other, non biological processes as well and these need to be ruled out in order to establish that they are indeed a result of past life. A close up of the rock Cheyava Falls show the tiny "Leopard Spots". Image via NASA / JPL-Caltech Over the last year or so, scientists have been investigating whether the leopard spots and other features on Cheyava Falls might have been caused by these, non-life processes. Some of these involve high temperatures or acidity. Cheyava Falls shows no signs of having undergone these types of processes.  Where this discovery was made is also important. It's the only place visited on Mars that once had three key ingredients for the possible formation of life in the distant past: organic molecules from which life is made from, water and energy.  What are these potential biosignatures that have been found? If NASA hasn't found life itself, what has it found? It's important to point out that Perseverance did not find organisms on Mars. Rather, it found what's call potential biosignatures.  A biosignature is a chemical or artefact produced by life processes. It's not life itself or direct evidence of life. For example, dinosaur bones embedded in rocks are direct evidence of a long dead animal and are called fossils. You might also find an imprint of a lifeform that died say in soft mud, which has hardened into rock and the remains of the critter either leaving an imprint or being replaced by rock. Ammonite fossils for example are popular with collectors and are pretty cool things to own! Biosignatures on the other hand are chemicals and features that can be produced by life, not direct evidence of the lifeform itself such as a fossil. In exobiology they refer to chemicals we can observe either directly on a planet's surface using a spacecraft like the Perseverance Rover, from orbit or even deep into space using a telescope. A few months, ago NASA announced they'd found possible biosignatures on exoplanets with the JWST. (Read more about that here.) Biosignatures hint at direct evidence of life. To confirm the existence of life beyond Earth, all of these other ways of forming biosignatures need to be ruled out. NASA has thrown the kitchen sink at this Despite their best efforts using all the tools they have available on the Perseverance rover, researchers have not been able to come up with viable, non-biological alternatives to explain what has been found.  In other words, what have been found so far are signs of ancient life on Mars. While the rover is the most comprehensive science package ever to visit the Martian surface, it was designed to return samples to Earth for more comprehensive investigations. It's also worth pointing out that the search for signs of ancient life is a key mission objective for the Perseverance program. You can read more about those here. Whether this sample return mission now happens is still uncertain. “We basically threw the entire rover science payload at this rock,” said Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance project scientist. “We're pretty close to the limits of what the rover can do. “After a year of review, they have come back and they said, listen, we can’t find another explanation,” said Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “So this very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars, which is incredibly exciting.” Why was NASA so cautious about making this announcement?  Saying there's life on another planet is obviously a big call! NASA made two infamous previous announcements regarding Martian life. In 1996, then president Bill Clinton fronted a news conference to tell the world NASA had found micro bacterial "life" on a Mars meteorite, ALH84001. There was a lot of excitement about this discovery at the time. Subsequent investigations showed what appeared to be fossils of bacteria were in the results of geological processes.  Going back a little further, the first Mars NASA landers Viking 1 and Viking 2 in 1976 carried experiments to detect signs of life. Initial results were that there was current life in Martian soil. These results were found soon after in the opinion of most scientists to be unusual soil chemistry rather than biological process. However, there was continuing disagreement from some, including the lead researcher of the Viking Labelled Release (LR) life detection experiment who maintained that Viking did in fact find life on Mars in the 1970s. Read more about that here. The discovery of Cheyava Falls with its leopard spots was announced over a year ago and was accompanied at the time with a firm "further research is needed."  This time around NASA and the scientific community explored every possible alternative before stating that there might strong possibility of life existing in the past on Mars.  Is there life on Mars now? There's no indication of anything alive on the Martian surface. Today's announcement refers to the possibility of life in the distant past.  Mars once had a thicker atmosphere and liquid water which was more amenable to life. There is a possibility that life exists buried in the soil in the red planet between cracks and fissures in rocks. Investigating these places will require human boots on the ground.  Where did life on Mars come from? We don't know anything much about the organisms that might have caused the biosignatures on Cheyava Falls, except that they appear to have produced similar biosignatures to those found on Earth.  This raises the question of whether life arrived on Mars and Earth from elsewhere in the Milky Way via a process called panspermia or if arose on Mars independently.  Does this have implications for life elsewhere in the Solar Systems? If today's announcement about ancient life on Mars is confirmed in the coming years, it will have profound implications for the existence of life both throughout the Solar System and beyond. Since the confirmation of the first planets around other star systems or exoplanets in the 1990s, we now know that most stars have planets around them. Prior to this the Sun and our Solar System was only planetary system we know off. We see the building blocks of life or organics throughout the Milky Way as well.  If life is not restricted to Earth and is also found on the planet next door to us, just how common is it throughout the Universe? To wrap up.... Today's announcement is a major step in the search for life. After extensive investigation NASA now has the confidence to say there's a high probability of life existing on Mars in the distant past. Confirmation of this will require either the samples from Cheyava Falls and others to be returned to Earth for further study or humans to land on Mars and investigate the region in person. Our search of for life in the Solar System isn't just restricted to Mars. There's currently a mission head towards a moon of Jupiter, Europa Clipper , which will investigate if the conditions for life exist on that icy moon and other missions are planned.    It certainly looks some exciting discoveries will be made in the coming years! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL / Mars Society Australia PS: If you'd like to read the detailed scientific results from the NASA team and associates, you can find the paper here.

The Earth has another moon Say G'day to the Earth newly discovered quasi moon, 2025 PN7! Just in time for this weekend's total Lunar eclipse, astronomers have found another quasi moon, called 2025 PN7 for now. We have one permanent Moon which we all know about. The Earth also has a number of other, small rocky bodies that orbit the Sun long with our home planet. We've known about seven of these and this discovery this week of PN 2025 brings the number to eight.  A diagram showing how another quasi moon discovered in 2026, Kamo'oalewa, orbits the Sun along with the Earth. Image via NASA JPL These small bodies are not in stable orbits around the Earth and will eventually leave the vicinity in a few hundred or thousand years. Their orbits are complex and not stable. This new moon was discovered on August 29th 2025 by the Pan-STARRS observatory. A number of other observatories also confirmed the results. You can see the announcement here. Going back through other images, it seems that 2025 PN7 was first spotted back in 2014. It seems to have been a quasi moon for about 60 years and likely to remain one for another 60 years or so. Astronomers have established that other quasi moons are the result of a meteorite hitting the Moon and throwing rocks into space. Such objects are called lunar ejecta. In a post in the Minor Planets Mailing List (MPML), Alan Harris from the Space Science Institute, stated that 2025 PN is travelling too fast compared to Earth of 3.4 km/s or 12,240 km/h to be lunar ejecta. He adds that it's "most likely just an asteroid that has trickled into a near-Earth orbit from the inner main belt." It's likely to be pushed away from Earth. "Some future close encounter with Earth could put it on an orbit that intersects either (or both) Mars or Venus," Harris continued. There's no formal name for this new moon and sadly, you won't  be able spot this small body in your telescope either. Astronomers are preparing to observe the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes near Mars on October 3, 2025 It might be some the best observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will be from Mars, not Earth. In about a month, the third visitor to the Solar System we've found so far, comet 3I/ATLAS, will be around 30 million kilometres from Mars, compared to its closest approach to Earth of about 168 million kilometres. While there's no telescopes on the red planet, there are a number of sophisticated spacecraft in orbit above it.  A recent image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Image via: NASA/ESA/David Jewitt (UCLA) The European Space Agency's Colin Frank Wilson, project scientist for their Mars orbiters, says their spacecraft will be used to observe 3I/ATLAS. Both the  Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) will be used.  These orbiters were not designed to make such observations, but will possibly provide some good results. "We will attempt to obtain images of the object using the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard Mars Express, and also with the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard TGO," Dr. Wilson said. Astronomers are also planning to use ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft for observations of 3I/ATLAS as well. Next week, a Saturn is at opposition! Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 6th September 2025

SpaceX Starship 10 Flight success After a string of hardware failures that ranged from engines and systems not functioning properly through to major explosions, and after two delays, Starship 10 flew a successful mission this week. This included another launch of the largest flying vehicle ever built, restart of rocket motors in space and the deployment of dummy satellites. Neither Starship itself nor the massive booster were returned back to the launch pad for a "chopsticks" catch. Both had planned but controlled ocean splashdowns which went to plan.  SpaceX Starship 10 launch.  More here. As this was a test flight, SpaceX had taken few measures such as deliberately removing a few heat tiles to stress test the vehicle during re-entry.  Now this flight being largely successful, more launches are expected shortly.    Roo-ver books a flight to the Moon The 20kg Australian Moon Rover, called Roo-Ver, that's a project of the Australian Space Agency and the ELO2 consortium, will be travelling to the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis program.  "Establishing a sustainable human presence on the Moon and Mars is a key focus of the international space community over the coming decades," Australian Space Agency head Enrico Palermo said. "This is also another chapter in our long and valued partnership with NASA in space – a partnership as important today and for our future as it was when it first began almost 70 years ago." While compact, the Roo-ver is a complex device that highlights Australia's expertise. Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science, Tim Ayres, further commented that “This is one of the most specialised robotics and advanced manufacturing projects in the country. It’s accelerating the development of Australia’s advanced technical capabilities and deepening local manufacturing expertise." When will it fly? At this point, Roo-ver is slated to fly on an Artemis related mission sometime towards the end of this decade as part of NASA's CT-4 Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.  Once landed, it will collect data about the Lunar surface and resources, with an aim of assisting with future crewed missions to the Moon. You can read more here. Mars was whacked. By something big.  An artist's illustration of a large impact on Mars some 4.5 billion years age Image via: NASA/JPL-Caltech Scientists have found evidence that Mars was hit by one or more large objects around 4.5 billion years ago. This a result of findings by NASA's InSight lander which finished its mission in 2012. By examining the treasure trove of data such instruments deliver, the found large chunks of the impact, buried deep and spread throughout the red planet's mantle.  This was revealed by data on some of the 1,319 Marsquakes that InSIght's seismometer recorded. What hit Mars? Unfortunately, we'll likely never know.  There were a considerable number of large bodies in the early part of the Solar System and while major impacts were rare, they played a key role in the formation of the rocky planets that we see today. For example, our own Moon might be a result of the impact of an early Earth with body now called Thea. Read more here. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL  30th August 2025    

As usual, lots of space and astronomy news this week! Uranus gets a new moon We might think of the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) making observations deep into interstellar and intergalactic space, but it's also making discoveries somewhat closer to home.  During an observing run on the 2nd of February, 2025, Webb captured a previously undiscovered moon around the ice giant, Uranus. This brings the total of known moons at the planet to 29. The newly discovered moon is only approx. 10km across. Uranus has been extensively observed by ground based telescopes for many years and even visited by spacecraft. The small size meant it remained hidden until now.  “This object was spotted in a series of 10 40-minute long-exposure images captured by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam),” said Maryame El Moutamid, a lead scientist in SwRI’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division based in Boulder, Colorado. “It’s a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something that even NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft didn’t see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago.” While the name S/2025 U1 isn't too fancy, all of the moons around Uranus have been named after characters from Shakespearian plays, so we expect something fitting will be assigned to it soon.  Even with charts showing its position, S/2025 U1 will be too small to observe with your telescope.  More details at the NASA website here. Did comets help make life Earth *the* place for life? The water found on Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is found to be very similar to what's in our oceans. Many folks would know that there water and ice are found on comets. It has long been conjectured that comets were one mechanism that delivered the large amounts of water found on the Earth's surface, mainly in our oceans.  While we observe water on comets, is it the same water we see around us? (Bear in mind I'm writing this during a long and very wet weather spell here in Sydney!)  For starters, water isn't just water. We all know that water is a compound of two common elements: two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen. This is why it's also called "H2O".  There's also a compound called heavy water, "HDO". This is formed by the same number of molecules with the exception of the hydrogen being a heavier isotope called deuterium which has a neutron. This is lacking in "normal" hydrogen.  Heavy water is found in small amounts on Earth, mixed in with regular water.   Astronomers have now observed the water on a Halley class comet 12P/Pons-Brooks to have an almost identical amount of heavy water as the water we find in our oceans.  Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) mapped the ratio of "normal" water and heavy water in the comet as it got close to the Sun. Lead researcher, Martin Cordiner of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, commented: "Comets like this are frozen relics left over from the birth of our Solar System 4.5 billion years ago. Since Earth is believed to have formed from materials lacking water, comet impacts have long been suggested as a source of Earth’s water. Our new results provide the strongest evidence yet that at least some Halley-type comets carried water with the same isotopic signature as that found on Earth, supporting the idea that comets could have helped make our planet habitable.” While it's not definitive, these fascinating results help bolster the theory that much of the water on Earth where life grew and evolved, was delivered from space by comets. Read more here. SpaceX Starship's next flight this week The largest rocket ever to fly is going to fly again. Maybe. SpaceX have announced they've finalised investigations into the causes of the failures of the last Starship mission and are now ready to launch Starship 10 this coming Sunday the 24th of August 2025 from 6.30pm US central time.  (From Monday morning 25th of August 9.30am Sydney time.) You can follow the live broadcast here from a little before via this link. This is again a test flight and not aimed at placing any payload into Earth orbit. Rather, it's focused on testing hardware including engine restarts and thermal characteristics. Neither the booster nor Starship itself will be returned to the launch pad for an attempted "chopsticks" catch and landing. Both will splash down into the ocean, assuming the flight is successful. You can read a detailed mission profile here. We will report back next week with the results of this test. It will be spectacular no matter what the results.  The first launch of the SpaceX Starship was nearly two and a half years ago and it's yet to reach orbit. By contrast, Blue Origin's mega rocket, the New Glenn, is headed to Mars with the twin probes of NASA's ESCAPADE mission as some point from September 29th, 2025 onwards. (This will be the second launch of New Glenn, following its first successful launch in January 2025.) More to come on that mission soon! Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL  23rd August 2025      

For Father's Day 2025 here's some gift ideas for the astro and nature loving Dad in your life. Two Telescope suggestions for beginners and beyond Here's two Celestron StarSense Explorer telescopes that are ideal for Dads starting out in Astronomy, but also have enough power to help you keep exploring the Universe as your observing skill grow. Both of these telescopes will let you see: The rings of Saturn Moons of Jupiter Craters and mountains on the Moon Countless deep-sky delights such as nebulae (interstellar gas clouds), star clusters and other galaxies Both are also light enough to be easily moved around.  Celestron StarSense Explore LT80 AZ For less than $400 Dad will have a Celestron astronomical telescope complete with mount and tripod, two eyepieces for wide field and close up views and the Celestron StarSense Explorer system. We measure telescopes by the width of their main lens or mirror. The larger this is, the more light it collects and the brighter and more detailed what you observe will be. A popular size for beginner's telescopes is 70mm. These sorts of telescopes collects around 100x as much light as your eye does. The larger 80mm lens in the StarSense LT80 AZ collects about 130x, or about 30% more powerful than a 70mm telescope.  Find out more here Celestron StarSense Explorer LT127 AZ Moving up to just under $500, the Celestron LT127 AZ telescope also includes all the same accessories as the LT80 AZ model but with a larger main mirror.  It's a type of telescope called a reflector and collects a smidge over 2.5 times as much light as the LT80 AZ.  If it's within your budget, this a very handy upgrade to the smaller telescope.  Find out more here. The Celestron StarSense Explorer system Introduced by Celestron a few years ago, the strange looking StarSense Explorer gizmo combines with a dedicated app for both iPhone and Android phones to make the sometimes tricky task of finding objects in the night sky simple and easy to manage.  Much like maps on phone or in cars, just put in what you'd like to observe and the StarSense Explorer app will show you where to point your telescope to find it. If you're not sure what you'd like to see, the app will even take you on a guided tour of the night sky, personalised for your time and location. An informative and easy way to learn about the Universe! Quickly start observing planets such as Saturn, Jupiter or Mars. Travelling beyond the Solar System, there's a lifetime of observing star clusters, nebulae, binary stars and more in the Milky Way. You'll even be able to spot other galaxies, millions of light years.  All the data needed by the StarSense Explorer is installed along with the app. This means that you can take your LT80 AZ or LT127 AZ into the bush for dark sky viewing where there's no mobile signal and they'll continue to work just fine.  Nikon Aculon Binoculars under $200 Here's some Nikon Aculon binoculars that are spot on for taking to cricket this summer, general scenery and nature watch and ideal if you're getting into bird watching. The Nikon Aculon 7x50 are a classic sized pair of binos that offer a bright, wide field views and are large enough to keep observing when conditions are poor due to low light or less than ideal weather condition.  Find out more here Moving up to a higher magnification, the Nikon Aculon 12x50 is the same physical size, with the same optical quality. It offers higher magnification compared to the 7x50 model. If you were mainly into long distance viewing such as ocean views or whale watching, these might be a better option. Nikon Aculon 12x50 Binoculars - full details here. (In the optical world, the first number is the magnification and second the size of the front lens.  We have guide that touches on choosing binocular sizes here.) You can use both of these Nikon binos if you need to wear glasses. There's a BINTEL article about eyeglasses and binoculars that you can read here. All Nikon Aculon binoculars include a carry bag and neck strap. Stay tuned for more BINTEL Father's Day 2025 gift ideas this week!

There's always lots of happening in the skies above our heads, and there's even more to learn about and celebrate during Science Week! New BINTEL Online calculator To wrap up Science Week, we launched a new BINTEL astronomy FOV (field of view) online calculator. This features various calculators for both visual and photographic scenarios: Field of view for eyepiece/telescope combinations Magnification calculator Exit pupil calculations  Field of view for camera/telescope combinations Northern/southern hemisphere selection Choice of image catalogues Download of JPG images with field of view and equipment indicators  Plus, lots more on the way! By using established astronomical catalogues and databases such as DSS2 Colour, PanSTARRS etc, you can see how practically any deep-sky object will fit into your telescopes field of view. You're not limited to a small handful of objects.  The BINTEL FOV Calculator showing the size of NGC 253 (The Silver Dollar Galaxy) in a Celestron 8" Newtonian telescope with a 12mm Plossl eyepiece The BINTEL FOV Calculator can provide framing for a wide range of camera, telescope and reducer/corrector combinations. This will assist in the selection of targets and equipment.  How the great globular cluster Omega Centauri will appear in a Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED using a ZWO ASI553MC Pro camera.   Currently support equipment: Currently, there's hundreds of different pieces of equipment and we are adding continuously to this list. There's too many for a drop-down list. Just start typing and you'll quickly find what you're after.   We're aiming for this new calculator to be useful for astronomers globally. The brands included are not just those sold by BINTEL as well. If you'd like to add your own gear, let us know and we'll do our best to add it in.  In both visual and imaging modes you can download JPG images showing the framing as well.  Please note these images are for showing the field of view and the size of the astro object in your gear. They're not for showing how bright your object will appear or the level of detail it will show.  While the main idea is to select from a wide range of telescope gear, there's also an Advanced Mode that allow you to tweak the parameters further. Additional parameters shown in advanced mode This is the first public release of the BINTEL FOV Calculator. It's a beta release and you may run into problems. We'd very much welcome any feedback or bug reports if that's the case. One thing we are after are Solar System images of the planets such as Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and even Mercury, Uranus and Neptune. If you have any that we could use - with full credits of course - we'd be happy to include them. (Sorry, we might have to give Pluto a miss!) Please free to test the BINTEL FOV Calculator out here. New evidence for a planet orbiting our closest star Many of our BINTEL family would already know one of the brightest stars in the sky, Alpha Centauri or the lower of the two "pointers" to the Southern Cross, is a multiple star system. A single star to your eyes alone, it's easily split into two stars (Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B) with even a modest telescope.  The third member of the Alpha Centauri system, Proxima Centauri, is much smaller and dimmer than the two larger stars and is extremely difficult to spot or image. It's also the closest star to Earth. We know of three planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri; however, it's a very different type of star compared to the Sun.  An artist's illustration of a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri A. Image via: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC) Astronomers have announced that there's now strong evidence of a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A. This planet, thought to be a gas giant, would only be the closest planet to Earth around a star around the same age and size of our own Sun. This new planet is in the habitable zone around Alpha Centauri A, although being a gas giant, it's not a place where terrestrial type life could survive.  This discovery was made using an instrument on the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).  One of the researchers, Charles Beichman, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech’s IPAC astronomy centre commented: “With this system being so close to us, any exoplanets found would offer our best opportunity to collect data on planetary systems other than our own. Yet, these are incredibly challenging observations to make, even with the world’s most powerful space telescope, because these stars are so bright, close, and move across the sky quickly." Combined with the new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope due for launch in the next year or two, these observations might open techniques for discovering and observing exoplanets. Read more at the NASA website here. A new way to search for life on Mars using a simple test Can scientists teach an old (Mars roving) dog new tricks? Researchers from Imperial College London’s Department of Earth Science & Engineering have realised that an existing instrument carried on many spacecraft going back to the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s can be used in a novel way to detect signs of existing and recently deceased life.  Using a chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS), they identified a life-based chemical bonds that space missions are not looking for.  What's more, this technique could be used with existing hardware that's already on the surface of Mars as part of the Curiosity Mars Rover as well as on the upcoming ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover. "Space Agencies such as NASA and ESA don't know their instruments can already do this,” said Professor Sephton, lead author of the study. “Here we have developed an elegant method that rapidly and reliably identifies a chemical bond that shows the presence of viable life,” he says. “The Curiosity rover just turned 13 on Mars, but who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” NASA's Mars Curiosity rover taking a selfie on the red planet. Image via: NASA/JPL-Caltech PhD student Solomon Hirsch commented: “Our expectation of finding things alive on the Martian surface is low due to the hostile temperature and radiation conditions. Still, we aren’t ruling out the possibility - life finds amazing ways to survive in extreme circumstances. Furthermore, future missions such as the ExoMars mission plan to drill metres deep into the surface of the planet where the likelihood of finding active life is significantly higher.” Read more here. Oh, there's another BINTEL Calculator Before we go, another Science Week product launch is the new BINTEL Moon Phase Calculator. There's a few such tool available both online and as apps. However, we've designed this to as simple as possible and aimed at astronomers, both visual It shows for the next 30 days the: Moon phase Rise and set times By default, it selects your current location, or you can input another.  August to September 2025 Moon phases with local, Sydney times Please feel to try this calculator here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 15th August 2025          

It's a Full Moon this weekend, so while it shines brightly overhead, let's cover some Lunar related news Have we found meteorites from the Moon here on Earth? After the blog article from a couple of weeks ago where we mentioned that a large Martian meteorite was auctioned off for a record price (You can read about that here) a number of people asked have we found chunks of other planets that have fallen to Earth? These are rocks that were flung into space by a large meteor impact on Mars or the Moon that have then landed on Earth.  There's been a number of meteorites discovered on good ol' terra firma that turned out to have originated from the Moon.  Lunar meteorite called Northwest Africa 10495 which was found in the desert of Morocco in 2015.  Meteorites aren't common. They differ from terrestrial rocks both in their composition and chemistry and they're often quite different from other rocks in the locations where they are discovered.  There can also be long periods of time between when meteorites hit the Earth and their discovery. This means they are subject to Earth weathering, sometimes for thousands of years.  Just about all of the meteorites discovered (almost 99%) have been traced back to asteroids which were formed early on in the history of the Solar System. A small number have been traced back to the Moon (approx. 0.7%) and Mars (approx. 0.5%). When I wrote this blog article, there's been 754 confirmed meteorites that originated from the Moon. You can see the most current list here.  Like the Martian meteorites, it's a fair question to ask how we know these meteorites are from the Moon. There's a number of reasons. First of all, they show signs of passage through the Earth's atmosphere during re-entry. They've been exposed to shorter periods of cosmic radiation while they were in their lengthy transit from the Moon to the Earth compared to meteorites formed much earlier in the Solar System's history.  It's a complex area! If you'd like take a deep-dive into hunks of rock from the Moon that have hit the Earth, check out this article here. A nuclear reactor on the Moon? It mightn't be as crazy as it sounds There was a lot of news this week about the proposal by interim NASA boss, Sean Duffy, to bring forward plans to have a working 100 kilowatt nuclear power plant on the Moon. Acting NASA chief, Sean Duffy NASA had previously submitted research for a 40 kilowatt nuclear reactor to be in place by 2030 called KRUSTY (Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology). Read more about this here. The announcement arrives on the back of a memorandum between Russia and China to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2036.  It would be fair to say there's a new "Space Race" underway. The larger, new reactor proposal is understood to aim for launch to the Moon before the KRUSTY 2030 timeline.  While even the headline "rush to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon" sounds a bit crazy, nuclear power is not a bad option for permanent human settlements on the Moon or Mars.  The slow rotation of the Moon is due to it being tidally locked to the Earth. While each Lunar day is some two weeks long, the night is also two weeks in length. This makes Solar power less than ideal. (While Martian days are similar in length to Earth, the red planet's distance and frequent dust storms also make Solar power for larger projects hard to achieve. For example, NASA's large Perseverance Mars Rover or "Percy" uses a nuclear power source called a MMRTG or Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator). Some of the technologies being proposed for nuclear power on the Moon aren't prone to suffer from the meltdown type events seen with reactors here on Earth.  What do you think? Comment below! Lunar Trailblazer goes dark NASA's Lunar Trailblazer mission has officially ended. The spacecraft was launched on the 26th of February 2025, and contact was lost the next day. Lunar Trailblazer was tasked to survey the Moon's surface, looking at where deposits of water located, how much is there and observe changes over time.  Lunar Trailblazer during testing in 2024. Image via Lockheed Martin Space The limited data received from the spacecraft suggested that its solar panels were not correctly oriented towards the Sun, resulting in loss of power.  “At NASA, we undertake high-risk, high-reward missions like Lunar Trailblazer to find revolutionary ways of doing new science,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “While it was not the outcome we had hoped for, mission experiences like Lunar Trailblazer help us to learn and reduce the risk for future, low-cost small satellites to do innovative science as we prepare for a sustained human presence on the Moon. Thank you to the Lunar Trailblazer team for their dedication in working on and learning from this mission through to the end.” Read more here. Should we not bother with the Moon?  Here's an interesting idea. Should we skip the Moon and head deeper into the Solar System? Humans landed on the Moon, six times from 1969 until 1972. At current rates of progress, there will be new boot prints on the Lunar surface before the end of this decade. There's also strong possibility the 60th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing by a return to the Moon won't be a mission from NASA. Apollo 15 on the Moon in 1971. Image via NASA The return to the Moon is seen a as a jumping off point to Mars, asteroids and even further destinations in the Solar System.  Future explorers could land on the Moon, fill up at bases with resources extracted from the Lunar surface and then scoot off to continue their journey.  There are a few catches to this as NASA advisor Paul Sutter points out in Universe Today. First of all, while the Moon does have major mineral resources, they're not concentrated in certain areas like they are here on Earth. This is because the Moon hasn't seen the types of tectonic activities that result in large quantities in a few locations. Rather, resources are spread far more evenly across the Moon's surface. You would have to mine and sift through large amounts of material to extract resources.  Many of these resources are of course, already available on Earth and it might be simply easier to take them into space directly. Where valuable resources are concentrated are the asteroids and possibly a more sensible long term plan would be to mine those instead.  The Moon maybe should be left alone or used as a place for research. It's no doubt the best place in the Solar System for astronomy that we can easily reach. A thought provoking read and you can find it here. NASA Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell passes away Apollo 13 and Apollo 8 hero also flew on Gemini VII, Gemini XII Sad news this morning is the death at 97 of astronaut Jim Lovell.  He's probably best known as the commander of the ill fated Apollo 13 mission in 1970 that suffered a catastrophic failure to the spacecraft on the way to the Moon and managed to return the crew safely to Earth.  Jim Lovell. Image via: NASA He was also one of the first three humans to leave Earth and orbit the Moon in December 1968 on the Apollo 8 mission as well as two Gemini flights including one with Buzz Aldrin.  There are now only five remaining NASA astronauts who made the journey to the Moon during the heady days of the Apollo program: Buzz Aldrin Fred Haise David Scott Charles Duke Harrison Schmitt A sad day for the space and astronomy community.  Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 9th August 2025