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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  

Not just individual rogue planets. Planets can form new planetary systems without host stars Back in 2023, we chatted about how planets can be found wandering the Milky Way without a host star. You can read that blog post here. Astronomers theorised that there could be trillions of planets in the Milky Way that aren't part of a star system. How planets could be removed from their host star was a subject of some conjecture, including possible interactions with nearby stars or larger parts of the galaxy.  One of the problems of finding these "rogue" stars is that don't emit light on their own, and they're not close enough to stars to cause them to wobble. They were found by watching the light from more distant stars dim as the planets pass between observer and the star.  Now researchers have found evidence of infrared light from planets in deep interstellar space, a sign usually associated with circumstellar disks of dust from where planets are formed. Using the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) astronomers found six possible candidates for "Solar Systems" made up of just planets. This means that planets could possibly form into their own mini Solar System without stars.    An illustration of a dust cloud surrounding a free floating planet. Image via: University of St Andrews Lead author Dr Belinda Damian from the University of St Andrews said: “These discoveries show that the building blocks for forming planets can be found even around objects that are barely larger than Jupiter and drifting alone in space. This means that the formation of planetary systems is not exclusive to stars but might also work around lonely starless worlds.” (One thing we're always asked about when talking about exoplanets is whether you'd be able to see them with your telescope. It's not something that can be done.) Read more about this fascinating discovery here at the University of St Andrews website here. When are humans heading back to the Moon? A bit soon than you might think Many folks would know that the last time that humans left Earth orbit and headed to the Moon was on the Apollo 17 mission back in 1972. Since then, all human space missions have been in Earth orbit. The highest altitude achieved in recent years was the crew of Polaris Dawn at approx. 1,400km in September 2024.  It was 54 years ago this week when the first Lunar Rover was driven on the surface of the Moon as part of the Apollo 15 mission There's likely going to be quite a few changes in the next years, with changes to NASA priorities and staff especially. One mission that looks like it will taking place is Artemis II. This flight will leave Earth orbit and will perform the a single orbit around the Moon before returning to Earth. It will not enter Lunar orbit. No Moon landing will be attempted until later missions.  While Artemis II might seem unexciting compared to the heady days of the Apollo program, humans leaving the Earth's orbit after such a long break marks the beginning of a more permanent presence deeper in space.  Artemis II crew.  From left: mission specialist Christina Koch, pilot Victor Glover, commander Reid Wiseman, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. Image via: NASA At this point the Artemis II mission will return humans to the Moon no later than April 2026 or about 9 months away, although there are some suggestions that the launch could be as early as February 2026. The program is due to be cancelled after Artemis III, slated for 2027.   Is K2-18b an ocean world? There was a lot of interest about the announcement a few months ago that the exoplanet K2-18b harboured life. (You can read our blog article about it here. ) This was based on chemical signatures found by the JWST.   The authors of the original research while confident in their results cautioned, that much more study would be needed. Given the significance of their claims, there has been a lot of controversy and even counter-claims by other scientists dismissing their finds of life signatures.  Some have argued that life indicating molecules were not found in the original JWST data, while others have found other, non-living pathways to the chemicals that were observed. An illustration of K2-18b showing the planet and its host star. Image via: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser One thing researchers do seem to agree on is that further studies of K2-18 b by the JWST have confirmed that it is a Hycean world or one covered by a planet wide ocean. Such planets are considered prime targets in the search for life beyond Earth both within the Solar System or beyond.  For example, NASA's Europa Clipper is travelling to Jupiter to investigate the possibility of life in the ocean under the frozen surface of its moon, Europa.  "This has certainly increased the chances of habitability on K2-18 b" Nikku Madhusudhan, the University of Cambridge scientists who part of the team behind the study published earlier in the year.  "This is a very important development and further increases the chance of a Hycean environment in K2-18 b. It confirms K2-18 b to be our best chance to study a potential habitable environment beyond the solar system at the present time." he continued. There's going to be a lot more discussion on this topic in the next years and final conclusions might have to wait until the next generations of large, Earth based telescopes come online.   Read more here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 2nd August 2025                    

Betelgeuse has a companion Anyone who's spent time looking up at the sky during summer nights downunder would know the large constellation of Orion with its distinctive "saucepan" of comparatively bright stars in the middle. There's a good chance you'd know one of the four "shoulders", bright, reddish star called Betelgeuse.  Where to find Betelgeuse in the northeastern sky from Sydney around 9.30pm local time on Christmas Day, 2025. Betelgeuse is a large red supergiant star, probably only around 10 million years old. It's likely to explode as a supernova sometime in the next few or hundred thousand years. (Large, bright stars have short lives. Our own Sun will go through a red giant phase, although not for some billions of years.) Astronomers have observed brightness changes in Betelgeuse. There could be a number of reasons for this, but a long held theory is that this massive star has a much smaller companion. Finding such a small star has always been tricky given the brightness of Betelgeuse itself. Now scientists lead by NASA’s Ames Research Center have found a clever way to do this and it didn't involve either the James Webb or Hubble Space Telescopes. Betelgeuse and Siwarha via: NSF NOIRLab Steve Howell from Ames and his colleagues used a combination of the large Gemini North telescope in Hawai’i, and a clever camera called the Alopeke Speckle Instrument. This camera is able to take multiple short exposures and combines them in such a way to overcome atmospheric disturbances. (Those keen on planetary imaging are probably recognising these sorts of techniques.)  “I hope our discovery excites other astrophysicists about the robust power of ground-based telescopes and speckle imagers – a key to opening new observational windows,” said Howell. “This can help unlock the great mysteries in our universe.” Apart from the challenges of capturing the images of the companion star, with the title of “Siwarha" for now, astronomers were also working on a short timeframe before its orbit around Betelgeuse took it even further into the main star's glare.  There's a great read about this discovery at the NASA website here Vera C. Rubin Observatory spotted Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS before it was discovered Strange things certainly happen in astronomy! The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has stunned the world over the last few weeks with its widefield deep-sky images. This massive telescope is already producing unparalleled  amounts of astronomical data, that will without doubt reveal the unexpected in our Universe. These discoveries could take years to uncover in the data. Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS, captured by the Vera Rubin observatory on July 3rd. Image: C.O. Chandler et al. For example, analysis of images from the new telescope have found the recently found visitor to the Solar System, Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS, was captured by Vera C. Rubin on the 21st of June 2025, some ten days before it was observed by the ATLAS facility and its discovery announced.  You can read more on this here. NASA Fixes an astronomy camera from 595 million km away One of the big problems with space missions, especially those heading on long journeys to explore outer planets, is the damage that Solar radiation can cause to sensitive computer electronics and camera sensors. Even with the best precautions, unexpected problems can occur, and they can put entire missions at risk. NASA encountered just that with its Juno mission to Jupiter. JunoCam, a high resolution, visible light camera, started to deteriorate due to the high radiation environment around the gas giant.  Image from JunoCam showing noise due to radiation damage to the camera sensor. Image via: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS A work around was presented last week at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nuclear & Space Radiation Effects Conference in Nashville. The never tried before solution? Turn up the heater and try to re-anneal the surface of the sensor.  “We knew annealing can sometimes alter a material like silicon at a microscopic level but didn’t know if this would fix the damage,” said JunoCam imaging engineer Jacob Schaffner of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, which designed and developed JunoCam and is part of the team that operates it. “We commanded JunoCam’s one heater to raise the camera’s temperature to 77 degrees Fahrenheit — much warmer than typical for JunoCam — and waited with bated breath to see the results.” This long-distance gamble seems to have restored much of JunoCam's capabilities, at least in the short term. Read more about this camera repair here.  Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 26th July 2025        

The largest Martian Meteorite is auctioned by Sotheby's Some cool space news this week was the auction of the largest known meteorite to have originated from Mars. Sotheby's in New York sold the hunk of space rock for USD$5.3 million, or somewhat over $8 million in local money. The 25kg rock is a called NWA 16788 and was found in North West Africa, hence the name. This looks like an ordinary rock to me. How do we know it's from Mars? There's been nearly 80,000 confirmed meteorite finds on Earth. These are distinguished from "local" rocks by their composition and structure. This is often the result of many millions or even billions of years in space and a fiery journey to the Earth's surface. They're also identified based on where they're found, sometimes even polar regions where somewhat recently descended space rocks stand out from permanent ice and snow.  Only 770 of these meteorites have been confirmed to have come from Mars.  They're different from other meteorites in a few ways. First of all, they're younger, having arrived from Mars after the red planet was impacted by a large body which threw parts of the surface into space. (Meteorites from elsewhere in the Solar System are often much older.)Pockets of gas trapped in them match the atmospheric composition found on the surface of Mars by landers such as Viking and Curiosity. Their chemistry also doesn't match either Earth rocks or asteroids.  If we have meteorites from Mars, why do we need to carry out a sample-return mission there? We don't know when the event that caused them to be ejected into space happened or what part of Mars it came from.  The shock of having a space rock large enough to throw material not just into Mars orbit, but into the Solar System would have been vast. Any delicate structures would have been altered by this process. A (tiny) part of a Mars meteorite at BINTEL Any traces or fossils of ancient life, if it ever existed on Mars, would have likely been destroyed as well. NASA and other space agencies including the Chinese have plans for Mars surface landings with sample returns in the next decade. There's going to be some fascinating discoveries once we have proper samples of Mars rocks in Earth laboratories.   Can I buy Mars meteorites?  Yes. They are available. Big ones like this week's 25kg Mars rock might be worth millions, although smaller samples are a lot more affordable! The Great Sydney Solar Eclipse - 3 years to go! The 2017 Solar Eclipse in the USA (image via NASA/Aubrey Gemignan) This coming week marks the three year countdown to the next Total Solar Eclipse visible in Australia which will occur on the 22nd of July 2028.  It will cross right over Sydney as well as cutting a path across much of the central parts of the country. Path of the 2028 eclipse. More info here. While three years might seem a long way off, these events capture the world's attention and tourists will arrive from everywhere. You'll have to plan your travel well in advance to experience this amazing event! Gilmour Space scrubs the Eris-1 launch again A combination of weather and technical issues has again caused Gilmour Space to delay the launch this week of their rescheduled Eris-1 mission.  This will go ahead, possibly in August.  There's an interesting article with some more background info here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 19th July 2025          

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS could be truly ancient More news following on from last week's announcement of the discovery of the third known interstellar visitor to the Solar System, 3I/ATLAS, which has now been confirmed to be a comet.  Further observations have put the path of this visitor on a steep incline to the plane of the Solar System, indicating it's from region of the Milky Way where many older stars are located. Findings presented this week at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2025) in Durham by astronomer Matthew Hopkins suggest it could be as old as 7 billion years.  By comparison, the Solar System is around 4.6 billion years. "All non-interstellar comets such as Halley's comet formed with our solar system, so are up to 4.5 billion years old," Hopkins said. " But interstellar visitors have the potential to be far older, and of those known about so far our statistical method suggests that 3I/ATLAS is very likely to be the oldest comet we have ever seen." There'll be a lot more about this in the next week or two as more observations are made. We'll have a detailed update on it shortly. Meanwhile, we suggest you check out this extraordinary animation of Comet 3I/ATLAS as is moves against the background stars. it was captured by astrophotographer Andy Casely with a Celestron C14 from the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Check the post to the BINTEL Society Facebook page here. A still image from Andy Casely's video Interstellar Navigation Demonstration Speaking of interstellar travel, there are currently three objects made by humans that are headed away from the Solar System into deep-space. They are the Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 probes sent in the 1970s and the New Horizon mission which brought our first close up views of the dwarf planet Pluto and is now travelling into the Kuiper Belt. For future mission, how can spacecraft "get their bearings" and work out their location and direction? We now establish the positions of probes based on the timing of radio signals from Earth based tracking stations such as NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). However, these become increasingly week as the distance between us and the probe increases.  Now researchers have a demonstrated a surprisingly simple way to keep track of position in interstellar space and is based on how stars look from Earth compared to how stars look where the probe is.  As a quick experiment, hold up a pen a few centimetres from the end of your nose. If you close one eye and then the other, the position of the pen will change compared to objects in the background.  In much the same way, scientists were able to compare how the position of nearby stars against more distant stars change from where New Horizons is located compared to the view from Earth. How the position of our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, changes when viewed from New Horizons compared to Earth The technique is more of a proof of concept for now, although likely to be used in future space missions exiting the Solar System. “This pioneering interstellar navigation demonstration and its accompanying publication show that a deep-space mission can use its onboard imaging system to find its way among the stars,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “While for New Horizons, this method isn’t as accurate as NASA’s sophisticated tracking from Earth, it could be highly useful for future deep space missions in the far reaches of the solar system and in interstellar space.” Read more here. 3D Asteroid Images - and yes, you have to squint We talked about NASA's Lucy Mission visit to the asteroid Donaldjohanson in a previous blog entry that you can find here. Now further image processing by the Lucy team has  produced a series of images of the asteroid, designed for viewing in 3D either by using red/green glasses or defocussing your eyes. A stereo image pair combining the last complete approach image (right) with a slightly clipped image taken 72 seconds later (left). For a three-dimensional view of the asteroid’s structure, cross your eyes while focusing on the image. Lucy itself is now in a fairly quiet period while it passes through the asteroid belt at about 50,000 km per hour on the way to the Trojan asteroids nearer to Jupiter.  There's another six asteroids it will encounter, the first being Eurybates in August 2027. If you'd like to see these new images and try to view them in 3D, you can squint here Celebrate the third birthday of the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) with the Cat's Paw Nebula It's been three years since the JWST began its science mission and over that time has produced some ground breaking discoveries and thrilled the planet with some of the most spectacular space images ever taken.  To celebrate, this week the JWST team released this video showing a wide field pan of the Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334). This is a large, star forming region and a favourite of many of our BINTEL customers to photograph. Check out some of their images here. “Three years into its mission, Webb continues to deliver on its design – revealing previously hidden aspects of the universe, from the star formation process to some of the earliest galaxies,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “As it repeatedly breaks its own records, Webb is also uncovering unknowns for new generations of flagship missions to tackle. Whether it’s following up on the mysteries of dark matter with NASA’s nearly complete Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, or narrowing our search for life to Earth-like planets with the Habitable Worlds Observatory, the questions Webb has raised are just as exciting as the answers it’s giving us.” Click on the YouTube video above or read more, including in-depth discussion about the feature of the region here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 12th July 2025

Another interstellar visitor to the Solar System - meet  A11pl3Z or Comet 3I/ATLAS (I'm putting this blog entry up a couple of days early as there's been some breaking news astronomy news overnight.) Observers using the ATLAS telescopes in Chile have observed a new object in the Solar System, called A11pl3Z for now, on the 1st of July 2025. It has been confirmed as a visitor from interstellar space. Provisional naming also has this called 3I/ATLAS as it's highly likely to be a comet. Once it was found, researchers were able to look at images from the 14th to the 21st of June 2025 and found it there as well. There's been over 100 other confirmed observations and this number is expected to grow dramatically. It is currently about as far out as Jupiter's orbit. You can find more information via the Minor Planet Center listing here  The discovery of new bodies travelling around the Sun happen every day and the number of known objects in the Solar System grow by many thousands each year. This new observation is of something quite different. Rather than finding another member of the local family, A11pl3Z appears to have arrived at the Solar System from another star. It won't go into orbit around the Sun and will depart for interstellar space.  A11pl35Z / 3I/ATLAS is travelling at around 60 km per second or around 216,000 km per hour which means it's going too fast to be captured by the Sun's gravity. A11pl3Z or 3I/ATLAS, as seen by Deep Random Survey, Chile. You can see it near the middle of the image moving compared to the background stars. Image via K Ly (astrafoxen) This is also only the third* object from deep-space to visit the Solar System that we have found and quite different from the other two visitors from other stars we've seen previously.  First of all, A11pl3Z won't hit Earth.  "It will fly deep through the solar system, passing just inside the orbit of Mars." said Richard Moissl who is the European Space Agency's head of planetary defence.  The predicted high-speed path of A11pl3Z through the inner Solar System. Image via Catalina Sky Survey How big is this new object? Current size estimates have it at 10-20 km wide. This figure is likely to be updated as more observations are made. Given its speed, location and recent discovery, there are no plans to send a space mission to intercept or observe it.  We simply don't have anything that would be able to catch it! There have been a number of proposals of how to intercept interstellar visitors such as this one from MIT, but none of these are likely to be built soon. Can I see it with my telescope? "It will get brighter and closer to the sun until late October and then still be observable (by telescope) until next year." Moissl added.  However statements like these are about A11pl3Z   3I/ATLAS being visible in extremely large, professional telescopes located in major observatories. You won't be able to see or photograph it with your own telescope at this point. We will be publishing charts to show which region of the sky it's located in as it progresses through the Solar System. Where did A11pl35Z 3I/ATLAS come from and has it encountered any stars previously? Where's it heading to next? Good questions! We'll soon know more about what part of the Milky Way it arrived from as more is known about its path. It may have originated from a nearby star and had its orbit disturbed by another large planet or passing star, ejecting it from is host system. It might have also been travelling from a far more distant part of the Milky Way. Along the way if A11pl35Z encountered other stars, it might have even experienced in increase in speed as it "slingshotted" around them, much like we use gravity assisted flybys for space missions.  What were the other two known visitors from interstellar space and is A11pl35Z different? There's been two other confirmed interstellar objects. The first was ʻOumuamua (1I/2017 U1) which was found in 2017. This is quite a fascinating object and nothing like anything we've seen before or since. It was a reddish coloured body that seemed to be tumbling. It also appeared to be highly elongated, and accelerated slightly as it "left" the Solar System, likely due to outgassing or pressure from Solar radiation. It was travelling from the Sun's perspective at less than half the velocity of A11pl35z, although this speed almost matched the Local standard of Rest for this part of the Milky Way. In other words, from our home galaxy's point of view, it was keeping still while the Sun, the Earth and other parts of the Solar System passed by.  There's a LOT of things we don't know about ʻOumuamua and this will be a topic of research and discussion for some time. Comet 2I/Borisov (C/2019 Q4) was found in 2019 by amateur astronomer and telescope maker, Gennadiy Borisov. Rather than being an exotic body like ʻOumuamua, Comet Barisov behaved like a fairly standard comet as it entered the Solar System from interstellar space. It's chemical composition was rare, but not unheard of. It disintegrated as it made its closest approach to the Sun as many comets do.  A11pl3Z  / 3I/ATLAS appears to be a circular as there's no variations in brightness observed so far. This could change as it gets closer to the Sun.  Are we going to find more interstellar visitors and why are the important? With new, large survey telescopes becoming operational, it's highly likely we will discover more interstellar visitors. Many expect the Vera. C. Rubin Observatory which we talked about last weekend could find one new interstellar object per month.  Visitors like these, even though they might be beyond our capabilities to visit close up or land on for the foreseeable future, do allow us to observe chunks of other star systems in more detail than if they were orbiting their host stars light years away. They could help us learn more about exoplanet formation. We could also discover more about the conditions for life on other star systems if chemicals like amino acids are found as well. Planetary astronomers David Jewitt and Darryl Z. Seligman modelled data in a 2023 study that proposed there could be as many as 10,000 interplanetary visitors passing through the Solar System at any one time. We've obviously got a lot more to find. There's going to be a lot of news about this discovery in the coming days. I'll update this article as we know more.  Gilmour Space Launch slips another week or so We mentioned last week that Gilmour Space was planning to attempt a launch from their base in Bowen QLD of their Eris-1 spacecraft. This would be the first commercial launch of a mission into orbit from Australia. This has now slipped another week or so, with a NET (No Earlier Than) date of July 16th 2025. You can stay up to date with their progress here. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 3rd July 2025 PS: *Ok, so while I've said this is the third visitor to the Solar System, there have been a couple of other objects that are not fully accepted by the wider scientific community. This includes Interstellar meteor 1 (IM1) or CNEOS 2014-01-08 which is thought to have impacted off the coast of Papua New Guinea in early 2014.    

Vera C. Rubin Observatory delights the world with its "First Look" Unless you've been hiding under a rock or down a burrow this week, you would have seen the magical "First Look" images released by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in recent days.  We've been talking about this new observatory for a number of years now, and it's the result of decades of planning by astronomers.  Images from the First Look The first batch of images released this week were some of the most detailed, wide field views of the Universe ever produced. What's more, they were the results of a comparatively few hours of observation and while stunning, are only hints of what will be captured over the next decade. The Virgo Cluster A popular region of the sky for amateur astronomers, this is a collection of prominent galaxies many of which were discovered by early observers using some of the first telescopes. Some of the galaxies can be seen with your eyes even using binoculars and many more are visible in even small telescopes. It's over 53 million light years from Earth. The Virgo Cluster is visible tonight in the northern part of the sky just after dark from most parts of Australia.  The crosshairs mark the region of the sky containing The Virgo Cluster as seen from Sydney, on the 28th June 2025 at around 6.30pm local time The "First Look" image of the same region contains some 10 million galaxies.  A version of The Cosmic Treasure Chest image release by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory with labels indicating many main features. Click here for a larger version What's staggering about this image is both the amount of sky it covers, and the details captured even during the Vera C. Rubin's initial observing run. If you have the computing resources, you can even download a 14 Gb full size image to explore the vast number of different galaxies it contains. No two of them appear the same either. The scale, type and age of each galaxy appears unique. Remarkable as this image is, it captured just 0.05% of the 20 billion galaxies the Rubin C. Observatory will photograph in the next few years. Trifid and Lagoon Another set of images released in The First Look is of part of the sky where the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae are located. There's a few different types of nebulae in the sky.  They're usually regions of interstellar gas some light years across where new stars are being formed. We see them as they are lit up either by reflecting the light from nearby stars or emitting their own after absorbing energy from them. Nebulae are favourites for visual observers where they appear as ghostly patches of "clouds" through a telescope eyepiece, as well as popular targets for astrophotographers. The Trifid Nebula (M20) and Lagoon Nebula (M8) are located in the rich star fields embedded in the Milky Way and are visible tonight.  Where to find the Trifid Nebula (M20) and Lagoon Nebula (M8) on the 28th of June 2025 from Sydney at around 10.00pm local time.  (We'll be covering both in more detail in an upcoming BINTEL What's in the Sky Southern Hemisphere YouTube video.) The Vera C. Rubin Observatory First Look release of this part of the Milky Way showed both of these nebulae embedded the in rich clouds of gas and stars. This image is the result of just seven hours of imaging by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Larger version here.  Full sized 24 Gb image here. When zooming into the full sized image, some areas that seem to the gas clouds are actually made up of almost countless individual stars. Again, this expansive panorama is only scratching the surface of what we'll see down the track from this new telescope.  Other highlights of the First Release Another major part of the initial data was the discovery of 2104 new asteroids of various types including 7 near-Earth objects. Check out this YouTube video to learn how new asteroids were discovered during the first imaging runs of the new telescope About 20,000 new asteroids are found every year by observatories around the world. Asteroids are mainly found by comparing two different images of the same part of the sky. If a "star" moves from one image to the next, it's likely an object in the Solar System and astronomers can investigate further. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory discovered around 10% of this figure in just 1,185 frames from its camera. What's more, there are just under 4,000 objects detected of which around 1,800 were previously observed. This means that a quick peek at a part of the sky more than doubled the number of asteroids known to be visible at that time.  The telescope has a unique sensitivity to help us detect fast moving bodies.  More than just cataloguing more objects of the same sort we already know of, there's a strong possibility it will find something unexpected and possibly even the long conjectured "Planet 9". The ongoing unveiling of unknown parts of the Solar System will help us understand its formation and history and possibly even help us spot threats to the Earth.  Can I explore The Very C. Rubin Observatory data myself? Yes! Simply head over to their SKYVIEWER Website that can be found here. They have tours and guides. More data will be added as the telescope completes further imaging sessions. Gilmour Space Technologies aims for a launch this week The first commercial orbital space launch from Australia, the delayed Gilmour Space Technologies Eris 1 mission, now has a possible launch date of No Earlier Than (NET) the July 2nd 2025, due to expected weather conditions. You can stay up to date with the Eris 1 launch schedule from its Bowen, QLD facility, here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 28th June 2025  

First images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory are due this coming week Astronomers, from complete beginners to renowned academics, are excitedly waiting for the release of the first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in an event they're calling the "First Look". (It will happen at 1.00am on the 24th of June 2025 Sydney time, but I'm sure many will be staying awake for it!) We've talked about this new observatory in several articles in recent times.  It's certainly not the largest telescope ever built. Even larger telescopes are under construction and will become operational in the coming years. What's so exciting about the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is the amount of astronomical information it will produce.   The Vera C. Rubin Observatory during the commissioning phase The telescope's unique optical design will allow its 8.4 metre primary mirror to see a 3.5 degree field of view. By comparison, the full Moon is about 0.5 degrees wide. It images the sky with the largest digital camera ever constructed, the 3.5 tonne Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) with 3,200 megapixels.  This combination will photograph the entire sky visible from its location in Chile every three nights. This means when fully operational, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will generate more astronomical data in a single month than all other telescopes throughout history - combined! We'll of course be showcasing these new images next week and touch on some of the science objectives the new facility hopes to explore in the next decade. SpaceX Starship explodes. On the ground this time, not in flight We'd all hoped that SpaceX's Starship program would be producing successful launches with the largest rocket ever built busily preparing to carry heavy payloads into orbit and further towards Mars in the coming years. The recent launches of Starship, while producing precious engineering data according to SpaceX, have seen many failures and explosions. The most recent one happened this week while the Starship 36 was undergoing testing on the ground in Texas. Starship 36 explosion in Texas this week. Luckily, there were no injuries although there was extensive damage to the facilities. This latest setback is making Elon Musk's projected timeline for uncrewed exploration of Mars before the end of this decade and landing humans on the red planet in the first part of the next even more difficult to achieve. I asked the president of the Mars Society Australia, Dr. Jon Clarke, why timing is critical when going to Mars. "This is problematic for Musk’s Mars ambitions because, unlike for an Earth orbiting mission, where failure means you can try again as soon as you are able to launch again, Mars missions can depart for Mars only when the launch window opens.  If Musk misses that he will have to wait for 26 months until the next window is available.  The 2026 window will be in November-December.  The one after that is December 2028-January 2029.  This means that Musk has 17-18 months to orbit, recover, and reuse Starship and successfully and reliably along with its booster, demonstrate and then bring into service the tankers needed to refuel the Starship going to Mars, be able to perform the necessary orbital refuelling, all before the end of next year." Astronomers find most of the Universe's missing matter If you've ever wondered where most of the "stuff" or baryonic matter that makes up the Universe is located, you've probably thought most of it would be clumped together in the stars, planets and ever nebulae that form galaxies, the with the vast distances between them empty. (Baryonic matter is the everyday ordinary matter you're familiar matter. The device you're reading this on is made of baryonic matter for example.) Rather we've known for many years that the majority of ordinary matter is missing. There were estimates, but no way of determining the amount or location with any accuracy.  There'd been various attempts to do so using quasars, but thin, high temperature gasses could not be seen by telescopes.  Astronomers found that Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) can be used to measure baryonic matter but had trouble finding locations. Fast radio bursts are high intensity, short bursts of radio waves from galaxies. We're not sure what they are exactly. How intense? They can emit as much energy as they Sun puts out in several days over a period of just a few seconds.  By investigating 60 FRBs, including the most distant one ever observed at over 9 billion light years away, they've been able to map the space between galaxies and found the missing matter in the regions between them. This is called the intergalactic medium (IGM). "The decades-old 'missing baryon problem' was never about whether the matter existed," said Liam Connor, CfA astronomer and lead author of the new study. "It was always: Where is it? Now, thanks to FRBs, we know: three-quarters of it is floating between galaxies in the cosmic web." In other words, scientists now know the home address of the “missing” matter. Bottom line - about 76% of the ordinary matter in the Universe is in the IGM, floating around in the space between galaxies  You can read more about this announcement here.  Astronomers have now found the largest Oort cloud comet has started to become active Many would know about the Oort Cloud, a large region between the outer extremities of the Solar System that extends most of the  way to the nearest star system. It's thought to contain billions of objects bigger than 20km wide and trillions of bodies more than a kilometre in size. Occasionally, one of these bodies are disturbed from their position in the Oort cloud and start heading towards the inner Solar System. These Oort Cloud comets haven't been into the inner parts of the Solar System where the planets and the Sun are located and can result in some displays so bright they can even be seen during the day. Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) was first found in archival data in 2024, and has now been observed to be active by astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) while it was some 16.6 times the distance from the Sun and the Earth. What's amazing about this Oort Cloud comet is its size, at about 140km across. This is more than 10 times the size of most comets we've ever observed.  An illustration of Comet C/2014 UN271. Image via NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M.Weiss C/2014 UN271 was found to have jets of carbon monoxide gas and producing heat emissions while the comet was still at a large distance from the Sun. “These measurements give us a look at how this enormous, icy world works,” said lead author Nathan Roth of American University and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. “We’re seeing explosive outgassing patterns that raise new questions about how this comet will evolve as it continues its journey toward the inner solar system.” Sadly for astronomers this giant comet won't be visible with just your eyes when it makes its closest approach to the Sun in January 2031. It will be some 10.9 AU or about the distance between the Earth and Saturn and it will not enter the inner Solar System. More about this discovery here. In All, a Rather Ho-Hum Week... Just the usual: we’ve found most of the missing matter in the Universe, the biggest astronomical data stream in history is about to open, the largest comet ever seen is headed our way (sort of), and Starship exploded again. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 21st June 2025    

Should we paint satellites black to help astronomers? Well, maybe. Many of our customers have found trails from satellites appearing as streaks in their astro images. While the odd one or two might look interesting, more satellites will make it harder and harder to take clear, long exposure photos of night sky. There are around 8,000 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) at the moment, and this figure is expected to rise to over 60,000 in the next five years. It's an even more serious problems for professional observatories. We've talked about the "first light" of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the coming weeks. This remarkable new observatory will image the entire sky visible from its location every few nights. Estimates are that up to the 40% of what it captures will be affected by trails in long exposures left by satellites. An example of what satellites can do with an astro photo of the Milky Way. Image via Bernt Olsen What we see when satellites leave streaks across images or when we spot them in the evening sky is sunlight reflecting from their surfaces. They don't emit light themselves.  Given this, one solution would be to simply paint satellites so they don't reflect light. You've probably seen matt black cars, caravans or even buildings in daylight and while they appear darker than their surroundings, they're still visible as they're still reflecting some light.  There are special coatings that reflect almost no light and can make an object practically disappear from view. Could this be the answer for astronomers? Once such coating is Vantablack 310 from Surrey NanoSystems. This reflects around 2% of the light that fall on it. Made from carbon nanotube arrays, this coating is also able to handle the tough conditions found in orbit.  The company is teaming up with researchers from the University of Surrey to test how effective Vantablack 310 is hide the reflections from satellites. The coating will be trialled on Jovian 1, the first satellite mission from JUPITER – the Joint Universities Programme for In-Orbit Training, Education and Research due to launch in 2026.  It's certainly a promising way to solve a major problem facing astronomers of all types. Companies like SpaceX have identified this as problem and it's something they're "working on" for both optical and radio astronomers. Check out more on this project here. If you've never seen something painted in Vantablack or similar, it's a bit freaky. Our brains can't really process looking at something with no light reflecting from it. It makes things appear like a strange void with no details. South pole of the Sun seen for the first time Seen for the first time this week was the south pole of the Sun, a region previously unexplored by spacecraft.  The region around the Sun's south pole. Image via ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team, D. Berghmans (ROB) The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft has provided a unique perspective of our nearest star thanks to a change in the plane of its orbit around the Sun. On the 23rd of March, it took this image from an angle some 17 degrees south of the Sun's equator.  There will be further changes to the orbit of Solar Orbiter, so more detailed images of these regions will be on the way in the future.  They will add to our understanding of the Sun by helping us learn more about is cycles, magnetic fields and more. Until now, all the images of the Sun have been from the ecliptic plane, or the same angle the Earth and major Solar System orbit around.  “Today we reveal humankind’s first-ever views of the Sun’s pole,” says Prof. Carole Mundell, ESA's Director of Science. “The Sun is our nearest star, giver of life and potential disruptor of modern space and ground power systems, so it is imperative that we understand how it works and learn to predict its behaviour. These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science.”  You can read the full news release and check out some more images here.  The strange workings of the "Bunny Ears" galaxy Astronomers lead by Harrison Souchereau and Jeffrey Kenney from Yale University have observed a strange galaxy in the Coma cluster, some 300 million light-years away. A Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 4858, with orange tendrils overlayed showing the "bunny ears" and inner tail taken by the ALMA radio telescope Dense galactic clusters like the collection of galaxies in the Coma formation are some of the largest and most extreme bodies we've observed in the Universe.  All galaxies are moving on their own path, including our own Milky Way. Interactions with other galaxies will change their shapes or even merge with together as they get close over vast timescales.  In dense clusters, they can even be torn apart by other members and this is what appears to be happening with NGC 4858.  Interactions with other galaxies cause extreme outside pressures (called ram pressure or “wind”) and this can strip away part of a galaxy’s interior gas.  “This galaxy, NGC 4858, is traveling very quickly through the Coma cluster,” said Souchereau, a doctoral student in Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and first author of the new study. “It is effectively in a wind tunnel, and its gas is in the process of being stripped away by the wind.” This stripping away of gases causes this galaxy to have its jellyfish shape and unique "bunny ears". It also has features from fallback. This is where is gasses are pulled away from the galaxy but don't have enough velocity to escape the galaxy's gravity and fall back elsewhere into the galaxy. Read more at Yale here. Another example of the vast array of galactic wonders that make up the visible Universe.  Winter Solstice next Saturday Next week we'll be chatting about the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL  14th of June 2025