News

iSpace RESILIENCE lunar lander appears lost Japan's iSpace appears to have failed in its second attempt to land a robotic spacecraft on the Moon's surface near a region called Mare Frigoris or the "Sea of Cold" on its northern hemisphere. Contact was lost during the spacecraft's descent, about 20km from the Lunar surface. In a statement about the final moments of the landing attempt, iSpace said: "Based on the currently available data, the Mission Control Center has been able to confirm the following: The laser rangefinder used to measure the distance to the lunar surface experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values. As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface." The failed mission included the Tenacious rover, the first European vehicle to explore the Moon. An illustration of the Tenacious rover next to the Resilience lander on the moon. Image via: ESA/ispace You can read more about this via the ispace statement here.  It's taken more than two centuries to discover about 1.5 million asteroids. That number could double in two years. There are eight known planets in our Solar System, and well over a million smaller bodies of sizes that range from dwarf planets such as Pluto or Ceres down to tiny objects a few metres across.  These are all largely unchanged since the early part of the Solar System's history and astronomers already regard them as fossil records that are key to understanding its past.  Now the team at Sorcha have produced a simulation of how many more Solar System bodies instruments at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will discover in the coming years and the predicted results are staggering. This new telescope will photograph the entire night sky visible from its location in Chile every three nights and will build over the next decade a catalogue not just of the sky, but also capture changes in the sky or transient phenomena.  It's in the final stages of testing with first images set to be revealed to the world on the 23rd of June 2025. (And most certainly yes - we'll be featuring these!) The Simonyi Survey Telescope inside the Rubin Observatory dome on Cerro Pachón in Chile. Image via: RubinObs/NOIRLab The combined size of telescope along with observations of the same part of the sky on frequent basis with different filters means faint Solar System bodies can be discovered and identified on a large scale for the first time.  The simulations suggest that the results could mean: Visit the Sorcha website here to learn more about their estimations and some background on the different types of Solar System bodies. It's certainly an exciting time for astronomy. Are the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies going to merge? Maybe not, but it now looks like we're on course to merge with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the next two billion years. It's long been thought that the two largest members of our local group of galaxies, our own Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) are likely to merge together in the distant future. Unlike other galaxies which have a redshift in the light coming from them, meaning they're moving away, M31 is heading towards us and is blue shifted at some 109 km per second. In fact, we'd known this even before M31 was recognised as being another galaxy.  Given the speed of M31 towards us and the size of our two respective galaxies, the collision seemed inevitable and unavoidable.  How the night sky could appear from Sydney in 3.75 billion years around 9.30pm daylight saving times. Image via NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel Now astronomers have delved deeper in the movements of other galaxies in the local group. They've found there's a high chance of the orbit of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) running perpendicular to the Milky Way, along with the movement of third largest member of the local group, M33 called the Triangulum Galaxy has reduced the chance of the collision to around 50%. "The future collision - if it happens - would be the end of both the Milky Way and Andromeda, with the structure of both being destroyed and a new galaxy with an elliptical shape arising from the merger." said University of Helsinki astrophysicist Till Sawala, lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. "If a merger happens, it is more likely to occur 7-8 billion years in the future. But we find that based on the current data, we cannot predict the time of a merger, if it happens at all," Sawala said. Given how far apart star systems are in galaxies, the chances of planets or stars or even black holes running into each are remote. Think of it more like two ultra-thin, vast clouds of smoke merging.  You can read more here. Massive planet found around a tiny star The theories about how planets form around stars might have to be fine tuned after the discovery of a large gas planet called TOI-6894b, about 53 times the mass of the Earth, orbiting a red dwarf star.  For some time, astronomers have thought that low mass stars less, than one third the mass of our Sun, would not have enough material bound to them by the star's gravity to form planets. Large planets pull in or accrete matter via gravity from the region around the host star. This was likely the case with Jupiter for example, but current thinking puts this as unlikely to have occurred around a red dwarf. This discovery plus a number of other examples are challenging this theory and pointing towards the need for new theories about how planets are formed. Using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) astronomers identified 15 potential giant planets orbit low mass stars.  The red dwarf hosting TOI-6894b has about 20% of the mass of the Sun and the planet orbits the star every three days.  You can read more here. Antares scoots behind the Moon Finally for this week, the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius, the red giant Antares, will slide behind the Moon on the 10th of June 2025 at 7.23pm Sydney time and reappear a little later at 8.41pm.  This event, called an occultation, will be visible in the western sky when the Moon is almost full. The Moon from as seen from Sydney on the 10th of June 2025 around 7.30pm You can observe this with your eyes or binoculars, although even a small telescope will let you see Antares approach and disappear behind the Moon.  More here, where you can also check the timing for other locations. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 7th June 2025              

SpaceX Starship 9 flight Big space news this week is no doubt the 9th test flight of SpaceX's Starship mega rocket.  On the plus side, this was the second flight of the massive booster which was flown on flight 7 in January of this year and captured back at the launch pad with its "chopsticks". (Check out more here.) Starship 9 launch. Image via SpaceX  While the booster made it to space, it broke apart some 6 minutes and 20 seconds into the flight just as it had started its return burn. It suffered a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" (RUD) as described by SpaceX or as we like to call here at BINTEL a "Ballistic Angular Non-recoverable Gyrations" (BANG). The Starship spacecraft itself got further into the compared to flights 7 and 8, however its mission objective of releasing dummy Starlink satellites failed when the doors failed to open. It also suffered a breakup during re-entry. Starship re-entering over Namibia No firm date for the next Starship launch. SpaceX have indicated an increase in their frequency, aiming to launch every three to four weeks. Has another cousin for Pluto been found? One of the reasons Pluto was booted from the line up of Solar System main planets in 2006 was Pluto was simply the first discovered of what was turning out to be a another group of Solar System locals called dwarf planets. In fact, there's now  general agreement on the largest nine potential dwarf planets :  Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Sedna, Ceres, and Orcus.  (The IAU has recognised five of these.) Dwarf planets recognised by the IAU, plus the newly discovered 2017 OF201 There's another few that under investigation, with researchers from Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Natural Sciences lead by Sihao Chen announcing this week the discovery of an extraordinary trans-Neptunian object (TNO), which has been assigned the name  2017 OF201. (This is just a catalogue number for now. No doubt a more prosaic name will be bestowed to it soon.) This object is the largest new body found in the Solar System for some years, and may be large enough to qualify as a distant dwarf planet. It was found by trawling through large chunks of publicly available data obtained from Victor M. Blanco Telescope and Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).  2017 OF201 was found in 19 different images taken over 17 years. It appears to be around 700km in diameter, although more observations using ground-based radio telescopes will be needed to narrow this figure down.It has an extreme orbit around the Sun which takes some 25,000 years to complete.  “The object’s aphelion—the farthest point on the orbit from the Sun—is more than 1600 times that of the Earth’s orbit,” explains Cheng. “Meanwhile, its perihelion—the closest point on its orbit to the Sun—is 44.5 times that of the Earth’s orbit, similar to Pluto's orbit.” Illustration of where 2017 OF201 is currently located and how its vast orbit compares to the inner Solar System. Such an orbit might also point to history of interactions with other large planets or it  maybe even ejected to the Oort cloud and then pushed back into the inner Solar System. The discovery of 2017 OF201 might also pose problems about for existence of "Planet 9" a large body at the edge of the Solar System we talked about last week which has been proposed to explain the movements of groups of TNOs. Read about this fascinating discovery here. Yet again, there seems to be much to discover about our home in the Milky Way, the Solar System. JWST Deep Field peers back in time A new image released this week from the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) peers back even further than the 2016 image of the same region taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.  An image of galaxy cluster Abell S1063 taken by Hubble as part of  as part of the Frontier Fields programme. In this image, the bright central region is the vast galaxy cluster Abell S1063 which is approx. 4.5 billion light years away from Earth. The combined mass of this group of clusters is enough to bend the light of even more distant galaxies through a process called gravitational lensing.  Much like a telescope's lens, this galactic "lens" brightens these galaxies so they can be observed. The JWST specialises in deep field images such as this.  It's where the telescope spends large amounts of time observing a single target. In this case, Webb spent over 120 hours peering into this view obtaining images of some the earliest parts of the Universe's history.  This image was obtained as part of Webb's GLIMPSE program, which aims to observe galaxies that existed when the Universe was only 200 million years old as well as the earliest but as yet unobserved Population I stars.  (We touched on the various populations of stars in an earlier BINTEL blog article.) You can read ore about this amazing Webb image here Comet C/2025 K1 (Atlas) A new comet has been discovered, C/2025 K1 (Atlas). It's still very faint and at this point more than likely visible in binoculars in the Northern Hemisphere in October after possibly a brief stint in our southern sky in September.  Path of C/2025 K1 (Atlas) via The SkyLive You can follow this comet here. Like all comets, a lot will depend on how it survives its closest encounter around the Sun. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 31st May 2025      

A Solar storm far more destructive than the Carrington Event A lot of keen astro folks would be familiar with the Carrington Event, where a large storm on the Sun sent a huge stream of charged particles called a Coronal Mass Ejection or CME towards the Earth in 1859. This produced spectacular aurora even at latitudes close to the equator. More importantly, it happened when there was a new network of telegraph and powerlines. The current these charged particles induced burnt out miles of wiring and caused widespread electrical fires.  Sunspots of 1st September 1859 as drawn by Richard Carrington It's always been a sobering thought about the damage a Carrington type event would cause to our complex electrical communications networks, transport systems. and to our society in general. Solar storms are not rare, with events like the 1989 storm causing widespread power outages in the USA and the 1972 storm which was severe enough to damage spacecraft in Earth orbit. In 2012, a Solar storm large enough to produce another Carrington level event was observed. Luckily for us, it was pointed away for Earth. Even more concerning is that multiple even larger solar storms have been recorded both through remarkable displays of aurora observed by writers of the time and also in tree rings which can then be carbon dated. Scientists had recorded a huge spike in 12,350 BCE, some 14,300 years ago, but didn't have enough information about to work out the strength of the event.  Researchers from the University of Oulu, Finland, have now been able to model the event in more details and found it be some 18% stronger than the 775 AD storm which was the largest ever recorded in the tree ring history.  “Compared to the largest event of the modern satellite era — the 2005 particle storm — the ancient 12350 BC event was over 500 times more intense, according to our estimates”, says Dr. Golubenko, one of the finding's authors.  It certainly indicates just how strong Solar storms can get. While a Carrington type event  might cause severe damage to our modern infrastructure, the Sun has a long history of throwing even more dangerous events our way. Read more here. Jupiter used to be double its current size New research released this week by astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Fred C. Adams have calculated the size of Jupiter around 3.8 million years after the Solar System's first solid bodies formed and the cloud of material from which the planets and other bodies formed was disappearing.  At the time Jupiter was about twice its current size or about 2,000 times that of the Earth. Its magnetic field was also 50 times stronger than what we currently observe. This was discovered by looking the orbits of some of the gas giant planet's moons. An illustration of the magnetic fields surrounding Jupiter. Image via: K. Batygin "Our ultimate goal is to understand where we come from, and pinning down the early phases of planet formation is essential to solving the puzzle," Batygin says. "This brings us closer to understanding how not only Jupiter but the entire solar system took shape." These results help to complete more details around the early history and formation of the Solar System.   Read more about this discovery at the Caltech news site here. "Clean rooms" not as clean as we thought All interplanetary spacecraft go through a rigorous decontamination process in clean rooms here on Earth before they head off on their missions. There's a few reasons for this, with the one main being the need to avoid possible contamination of another world with terrestrial microbes that might take up residence in their new, pristine environment.  As many interplanetary missions look for signs of life as part of the main science objectives, sterilization also increases the chances of instruments spotting local lifeforms instead of hitchhikers from Earth.  Even NASA's Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s underwent a long and thorough sterilization process to avoid Earth microbes making the journey to the red planet and taking up residence there.   A Viking Mars lander in its bioshield for sterilization in nitrogen gas at more than 110 degrees C for 40 hours prior to launch in 1975. Image via NASA Researchers have now discovered 26 unique species of bacteria in NASA Spacecraft Assembly facilities. What's more, they were previously unknown and their DNA included characteristics found in microbes known to able to handle extreme environment like space.  Critters like these microbes are often referred to as extremophiles. "Our study aimed to understand the risk of extremophiles being transferred in space missions and to identify which microorganisms might survive the harsh conditions of space. This effort is pivotal for monitoring the risk of microbial contamination and safeguarding against unintentional colonization of exploring planets," explained King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Professor Alexandre Rosado, the lead KAUST researcher on the project and a contributor to several NASA working groups on planetary protection and space microbiology. Not only does this study point to ways that spacecraft sterilization can be further improved, it also shows how just how hardy life is, even in the most hostile of environments. Have we found Planet 9? No - not that Planet 9, another one....  There's been a lot of speculation about a large planets that orbits the Sun at enormous distance, with the only way to detect it is by the effects of a group of small asteroids referred to as ETNOs (Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects). There seems to be something BIG on the fringes of the Solar System that we haven't been able to track down and identify. There's a BINTEL blog article from last year about it here.  If identified this large "Planet 9" might help explain the history of the Solar System and add to our knowledge of how planetary systems form.  It's been a long and arduous search but hopes are high that it will be found.  An illustration of what Planet 9 might look like. Image via Caltech Astronomers have been trawling through archival data from Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), a NASA-Netherlands-U.K. satellite launched in 1983; and AKARI, a Japanese satellite launched in 2006. By comparing catalogues compiled decades apart by these two spacecraft and shifting through millions of points of data, they narrowed down two points of small dots that might be a distant planet. The problem is that this "Planet 9" lies in a completely different direction from the original region that appeared to be effected by a large and hidden body. It's effectively another Planet 9.  This mismatch “doesn’t mean it’s not there, but it means it’s not Planet Nine,” says Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology who, along with his colleague Konstantin Batygin, came up with the Planet Nine proposal nearly a decade ago. “I don’t think this planet would have any of the effects on the Solar System that we think we’re seeing.” Hopefully when next generation telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory start imaging the entire sky every few nights for year on end,  we'll more easily be able to spot small movements in the outer regions of the Solar System. Read more here. SpaceX Starship 9 Flight At this point, the next launch of the massive Starship is due for the next week. Stay tuned for news..... Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 24th of May 2025  

Gilmour Space Launch Postponed Probably the biggest space news in Australia this week is the postponement of the launch of the Gilmour Space rocket, Eris, from their Bowen complex in north Queensland.  Image via Gilmour Space After a delay from the first attempt, the next planned launch early on the 16th of May was scrubbed due to an equipment failure. The mechanism that opens the rocket's nosecone unexpectedly activated just before the planned launch window. There was no fuel onboard Eris at the time and there were no injuries or damage to the launch pad or the rocket itself. Especially important is the payload including a jar of Vegemite was unharmed. (Although as we all know, it would take more a rocket explosion to cause any problems with that particular Aussie delicacy.)  Gilmour Space CEO, Adam Gilmour, commented that a replacement nosecone will need to be sent to the launch site while a full investigation is carried out as to the cause of the incident.  It's certainly better to have happened when it did and not 15 seconds into the flight. As they say - "space is hard!" More here. Is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) being torn apart? Astronomers led by Satoya Nakano and Kengo Tachihara from Nagoya University in Japan have discovered groups of Cepheid variable stars that are being pulled apart in different directions in one the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Cepheids are often referred to as "standard candles" because their variations are tightly linked to brightness and can be used to measure their distance.  The SMC captured by Chi Chan and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook page. By looking at the movement of these groups of stars, they estimated there's complex movements within the SMC beyond its own gravity. The galaxy seems to be being pulled in one direction by its large neighbour, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in one direction and another, unknown body the opposite direction.  “When we first got this result, we suspected that there might be an error in our method of analysis,” Tachihara said. “However, upon closer examination, the results are indisputable, and we were surprised.” You can read more about their research here. It's always fascinating to learn about the slow and complex movements of our galactic neighbourhood.  Both the LMC and the SMC will be visible in southern skies tonight, although the glare from the nearly full Moon can make observation tricky.  The LMC and SMC as seen from Sydney around 6.30pm tonight, the 16th of May 2025. Image via Stellarium. Webb finds water in another early star system The JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) has scored another first - the observation of water in another star system. It's long been thought that water is likely to be found at other stars. It is not only found in  liquid form here on Earth, but elsewhere in the Solar System as ice, and water Illustration of water ice around the star HD 181327. Image via  NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) Now Webb has found water around a young, Sun-like star, HD 181327, which is some 155 light years away.  “Webb unambiguously detected not just water ice, but crystalline water ice, which is also found in locations like Saturn’s rings and icy bodies in our solar system’s Kuiper Belt,” said Chen Xie, the lead author of the new paper and an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Ice in particular is important to the formation of a solar system, influencing things like the way giant planets are formed and then delivering water to the surface of rocky planets.  “The presence of water ice helps facilitate planet formation,” Xie said. “Icy materials may also ultimately be ‘delivered’ to terrestrial planets that may form over a couple hundred million years in systems like this.” You can read more at the NASA's science news here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  17th May 2025            

Russian Komsos 428 is about to return to Earth - and not in a good way One of the big space news items this week is the expected crash landing later today of the Soviet era Kosmos 428 spacecraft.  This was originally launched on a Molniya 8K78M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the 31st of March 1972. The Russian Soviet space program had an early focus on exploring Venus which has some unique challenges compared to landing on the Moon or even Mars. The atmospheric pressure at the surface on Venus is over 90 times greater than at sea level on Earth, with a temperature more 450 degrees C, due to it being closer to the Sun and a massive runaway greenhouse effect.  Despite these extreme conditions, the Russians managed to land successfully on Venus and even broadcast some images from the surface. Sadly, Kosmas 428 was not a mission that even made it out of extended Earth orbit. During the burn to send the probe towards Venus, the multi-part booster partially failed and the rocket disintegrated. Two parts of the spacecraft fell towards Earth and landed near New Zealand a few days later. What is thought to be the main probe only received enough of an increase in speed to put it into an extended orbit, but did not have enough to escape Earth's gravity. It's remained there since, with its orbit slowly decaying.  It's now predicted to impact the Earth this Saturday 10th May 2025 in the afternoon Sydney time. Even this close to impact, there's still a large degree of uncertainty about when and where it will land. A model of the Venera-4, very similar to the lander due to impact the Earth this weekend. Image via Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics Will it survive a journey through the Earth's atmosphere? Won't it burn up? There's a lot of space junk whizzing above our heads with items ranging from small nuts and bolts or scraps of metal falling to Earth every day, sometime producing a quick flash much like a "shooting star". Even much larger pieces rarely make it through the heat of re-entry intact.  Kosmos 428 is a different critter.  The lander was designed to enter the much denser and hotter atmosphere of Venus. It's unlikely to be bothered too much by the journey through our own thinner and cooler atmosphere. It's basically an armour plated ball that will land at several thousand kms per hour. The chances of it causing damage to property is very remote however.  NASA Receives the Artemis II Spacecraft  Earlier this week, NASA received the Orion crew module for the Artemis II mission.  Image via Lockhead Martin This is the first time NASA has been in possession of a spacecraft destined to take humans to the Moon since 1972 when all the "Moon walkers" including Neil Armstrong and original Apollo designers and engineers such as Wernher von Braun were still alive.  The Artemis II mission is now due to launch in 2026 and its flightpath is a loop around the Moon on a free-return trajectory. There are no plans for Artemis II to enter Lunar orbit as was achieved by the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 and by Apollo 10 in 1969.  NASA's position is the Artemis III mission slated for 2027 will be the return to the Moon's surface. Given the delays in the program and cuts to NASA's budget, this date might change.  SPHEREx starts mapping the Universe Another space telescope, Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explore or SPHEREx to its friends, has commenced its two year mission of cataloguing some 450 million galaxies and 100 stars in the Milky Way. Image via NASA This image of an emission nebula was released this week and marks the first patch of sky captured by SPHEREx.  Over the next couple of years it will take more than 3,600 images per day, with each of its six different detectors each taking 600. These are combined into a single exposure. The mission aims to probe the origins of the Universe and more locally, investigate the ingredients to life in the Milky Way. The whole spacecraft moves after each imaging run, rather than the instruments moving.  This video shows how SPHEREx captures the sky in different wavelengths. “Thanks to the hard work of teams across NASA, industry, and academia that built this mission, SPHEREx is operating just as we’d expected and will produce maps of the full sky unlike any we’ve had before,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This new observatory is adding to the suite of space-based astrophysics survey missions leading up to the launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Together with these other missions, SPHEREx will play a key role in answering the big questions about the universe we tackle at NASA every day.” Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 10th May 2025

Celestron StarSense Explorer Model Guide The StarSense Explorer range from Celestron is no doubt the bestselling line-up of telescopes in the world. They've helped turn complete novices into keen star gazers, delighted families and found homes with the young and young at heart.  Plus, it's not just beginners - many have found a home with more experienced observers who want something ultra simple to setup and transport with just enough tech to assist without it getting in the way. There are a few different options in the StarSense Explorer range and this is a quick explainer to help you decide the best one for you (and maybe some hints about selecting telescopes in general.) With all of these telescopes you'll be able to see planets such as Saturn, Jupiter and Mars but as we like to point out, there's much to observe beyond the Solar System. You will easily view other deep-sky astro objects such as nebulae, star clusters and much more. All StarSense Explorer telescopes use Celestron's technology to help you find objects in the night sky using your Android phone or Apple iPhone.  Think of it being similar to the maps system in your car.  StarSense Explorer doesn't control your telescope, rather it tells you where to move it to so you can find what you're looking for. For example, you've heard the Great Orion Nebula is worth a squizz, so you put that into the StarSense app on your phone attached to the telescope and it will put arrows on the screen to show you where to move the telescope to find  If you are not sure what to look for, the StarSense Explorer app can take you on a personalised tour of "what's up" for your location. You also don't need Wi-Fi or even a 4G/5G connection. All the data you need is loaded onto your phone when you install the app. You can head away the bush to observe the night sky without having to worry about needing a phone signal.  First up: how do we measure telescopes? The main thing a telescope does is collect light and either concentrate it on an observers eyeball or camera sensor. The tiny Celestron FirstScope and the Hubble Space Telescope both work on the same principle.   The width of its main lens or mirror - also called the aperture - is one of the main contributors to how powerful a telescope is. Basically, the larger the aperture the more light it collects. This lets the telescope see things that are fainter and in more detail.  For example, the Celestron StarSense Explorer LT70 AZ is the introduction to the range and its lens has diameter of 70mm. It's also one of our most popular telescopes. By comparison the "lens" at the front of your eye has a diameter of about 7mm. Celestron StarSense Explorer LT70 AZ This means the StarSense Explorer LT70 AZ can see collect about 100 times as much as your eye can, letting it see things that are too faint to be seen with your eyes alone. A slightly larger and more expensive model is the Celestron StarSense Explorer LT80 AZ.  This has a 80mm aperture lens. You might think "why am paying for such a tiny increase in size? It's only centimetre bigger!"  Yes, it's one 1cm larger in size, but compared to the 70mm lens, the 80mm has a 30% larger surface area in total. This mean is doesn't collect 100 times as much light as your eye, but rather about 130 times - a very useful bump in capability if it's within your budget. Reflector vs Refractor You'll notice two types of Celestron StarSense Explorer telescopes. The LT70 AZ and LT80 AZ are refractor type telescopes. They have lens at the front of the telescope and you view through the other end.  The StarSense LT114 AZ and LT127 AZ models use curved, parabolic mirror at the end of the tube. It collects and concentrates the light and then use a small mirror at 45 degree angle to view at the side of the tube. This style of telescope is often called a Newtonian Reflector as it was invented by Sir Isaac Newton back in 1668. The design was so effective, we still use it today! Why use a mirror? The main reason Sir Isaac came up with his design back in the day was to avoid the colour fringes around objects that were common with early refractor telescopes.  We can now get around this with refractor telescope by using a more complex lens, however it costs much less per cm of aperture to make a reflecting telescope.  The LT114 AZ telescope has a mirror 114cm across and you can probably guess what the size of the mirror in the LT127 AZ. In much the same way the amount of light captured by the LT80 AZ is greater than the LT70 AZ, the larger telescope collects more light and will let you "see" more.  Reflecting telescopes like these produce an image that's upside down. There zero problems with this when looking at objects in space, however it's less than ideal for things on planet Earth. The Celestron StarSense Explorer LT70 AZ and LT80 AZ will also produce an image that's the right way up.  This is something you might want to consider if you're planning on using your Celestron telescope for viewing scenery or say whale watching.  Another model is the even larger DX130 telescope. Celestron StarSense Explorer DX130 Newtonian Telescope This has a 130mm aperture main mirror that collects more than 340 times the amount of light compared to the human eye, so the reason for observing with a larger telescope is images will be brighter and clearer.  What can be seen will in the StarSense Explorer LT70 AZ will be more detailed in the DX130 and there's things that you'll see that are too faint to be seen in the smaller LT70 AZ.  The DX130 also has a sturdier tripod as well as slow motion control for fine tuning the movement of the telescope.  Another option is the tabletop versions of the StarSense Explorer range.  Celestron StarSense Explorer 130mm Tabletop Dobsonian Telescope If you have a solid picnic table or outdoor place to put these telescopes onto, their Dobsonian mounts will provide a smooth movement and rock steady viewing.  Can I take astro photos with StarSense Explorer telescopes? These are great visual telescopes and not designed to take astro photos as they don't have electric motor drives to follow the movement of the night sky. Having said that, the Celestron have an accessory that holds a mobile phone over the telescope's eyepiece. This lets you take great photos of the Moon and maybe the planets.  Celestron NexYZ Photo Adaptor Are there any upgrades that would be useful? Yes, additional eyepieces for both higher power magnification and wider field viewing would be handy. Have a chat with us for your best options. There's also a very complete Celestron Eyepiece and Accessory kit.  Celestron Eyepiece and Accessory Kit We can also supply Solar filters for safe viewing of the Sun - it's a great time to catch sunspots! To wrap it up -  There's a few different Celestron StarSense telescope to suit different budgets and requirements.  Larger telescopes in the range will deliver better viewing and all models feature the ability to find astro objects in the night sky via an app on your phone.  This makes discovering and learning about the night sky an easier process, even under city and suburban skies.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 9th May 2025  

NASA's Lucy spacecraft has an encounter with a strange object: say g'day to Asteroid Donaldjohanson This week, the spacecraft Lucy made its second close up observation of an asteroid.  Astronomers had observed asteroid Donaldjohanson as having quite a variable brightness and was thought to be a contact binary - two asteroids touching each other.  Image via: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab They were surprised to find Donaldjohanson is not just two asteroids, but also has a connecting bridge between them. This is the second close up view of asteroids Lucy has produced on the way to its main target, the Jupiter Trojan asteroid Eurybates, in August 2027. Asteroids are seen as ideal ways to study the formation of the environment surrounding the Sun. “These early images of Donaldjohanson are again showing the tremendous capabilities of the Lucy spacecraft as an engine of discovery,” said Tom Statler, program scientist for the Lucy mission at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The potential to really open a new window into the history of our solar system when Lucy gets to the Trojan asteroids is immense.” Read more here. 35 years since Hubble was launched This week the HST (Hubble Space Telescope) celebrated 35 years since its launch.  After a troubled start due to flawed optics that required a daring fix in space, Hubble has churned out a stream of science results and images that have changed our view of the Universe and delighted us folks here on planet Earth.  NASA has produced a wonderful online gallery here as well as this YouTube video of Hubble highlights.  If you can, well worth a watch on a big screen TV. It's also worth remembering that Hubble was launched a little while before the web was generally available to the public! The world's largest Solar Telescope receives a major upgrade Many of our customers have been taking detailed images of the Sun during the current Solar Maximum using a variety of gear from Lunt, Sky-Watcher and Vaonis. At the other end of the scale, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii has received a new camera after a 15 year development process. Inouye Solar Telescope  The new instrument is the Visible Tunable Filtergraph (VTF) and is now producing images of the Sun with more detail than has ever been seen previously. The first image take with the VTF. Further enhancements will reveal further details.  If you'd like to see this in more detail, click here for a high resolution image - each pixel in it is about 10km across! The VFT was developed in Germany and you can read more about it here. Say farewell to Mars for a little while The view from Sydney around 7.30pm local time on the 27th of April 2025 facing north west.  Mars will appear as a bright red star low on the horizon. Mars is now low in the early evening sky and will disappear into the glow of the setting Sun shortly. This and the next few weekends will be your last chance to observe Mars until it returns to our pre-dawn skies.   Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 26th April 2025        

Have we discovered life on an another planet? Short answer - there's a possibility we have! Keen BINTEL newsletter readers will remember that in the first blog entry for 2024 we chatted about what was on the horizon for that year. We mentioned that the discovery of life on another planet via the detection of biological processes in its atmosphere by the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) could possibly happen and a number of leading figures thought this was entirely possible and would be announced soon. You can read the January 2024 post here.  I wrapped up the blog with this as such a discovery was on the cards. Many astronomers have long thought this is how life outside the Solar System would first be found. They now have the tools (in the form of the Webb telescope) and the ever growing list of exoplanets and more detailed knowledge about them. It's long been thought that life would most likely be found on a rocky terrestrial planet like the Earth, although "ocean worlds" might also be targets to investigate.  A few months into 2025 and it looks like such an announcement has been made! What was found. Astronomers from the University of Cambridge used data from Webb to detect the fingerprints of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS).  These chemicals seem to exist in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b. This planet orbits K2-18, which is a red dwarf star some 124 light years away from Earth and is in the host star's "habitable zone" - meaning conditions on the planet might be suitable for life to exist. It's a hycean world, with a hydrogen atmosphere and likely a deep ocean.  Since its discovery in 2014, water vapour and then methane and carbon dioxide have been found in its atmosphere. You can read more about this in the NASA article from 2023 here. These earlier results were important as they also hinted at the presence of the chemical, DMS. While they were not robust, they warranted further investigation using Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) which observes through different wavelengths. Further evidence of DMS was found, along with the discovery of DMDS in K2-18b's atmosphere. Why is the discovery of DMS and DMDS important? Both of these chemical are found on Earth and are the results of life processes from phytoplankton and other very small aquatic lifeforms. The concentrations of DMS and DMDS in the atmosphere of K2-18b are also vastly larger than what is found on Earth and in-line and what we'd expect life on hycean planet to produce.  Currently, we know of no purely chemical process outside of life that produces DMS and DMDS in the quantities found in the atmosphere of K2-18b.  How confident are astronomers in this result? Does is mean life on another planet has been discovered? Astronomers have calculated the result as being a 0.3% chance  or about one-in-three hundred of them occurring by chance. This means the results are likely but not fully confirmed. A "five sigma" confirmation of a 0.00006% confidence requires more time spent observing K2-1b with either Webb or future telescopes both in space and in the ground.  For example, a recent study suggested the ELT (Extremely Large Telescope) which is under construction in Chile and due to start observations in 2028 could possibly confirm life on planets orbiting nearby stars through detecting chemicals in their atmospheres within hours. An illustration of the ELT when completed. Image via Swinburne Astronomy Productions/ESO There's still the possibility of scientists working out how DMS and DMDS can be formed and replenished in large volumes without the involvement of life processes. It's not the announcement of the discovery of life on another world, rather that life on K2-18b is highly likely and worthy of a lot of further investigation. The results published by the team from Cambridge University are likely to be vigorously  debated for some time to come.   Can I see K2-18b with my telescope? No. You won't be able to see K2-18b. Even Webb observes the planet indirectly by the way it changes how the host star, K2-18 appears. K2-18 is a magnitude 13.8 red dwarf star in the constellation of Leo. It could be seen in very large amateur telescopes but would be extremely hard to observe or image.  Could observers on other planets find life on Earth using this technique? Yes. The Earth's atmosphere is full of observable carbon molecules that could be spotted from other planets as "biomarkers" for the life processes that occur here. We could also be found via our technosignatures - radio transmissions etc.  How significant is this discovery? There's also implications about how common life could be in the Milky Way. If life occurs only every 130 light year or so and even if we discover no more life nearby - in other words there's nothing "alive" between us here on Earth and K2-18b - that could still indicate that there might be life on over 800,000 other planets in the Milky Way. When humanity decides that life does exist elsewhere in the Solar System or further out in the Milky Way, the results announced the team at Cambridge University on the 17th of April 2025 will always be remembered as an important milestone.  You can read more about their research here. A planetary alignment in the pre-dawn sky on ANZAC Day If you're heading to the ANZAC Day dawn services next Friday,  there will be a lovely planetary alignment in the eastern sky a little while before the Sun rises.  The view towards the east around 5.30am the ANZAC Day, 25th of April 2025 as seen from Sydney Low in the sky as dawn approaches will be the crescent Moon, Saturn and Venus. A little below that will be hard to spot Mercury.  Planets in the sky this weekend This chart shows the rise and set times for planets over the next few days. You can create this chart at any time from Stellarium. A New "Dish" for the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex The 70m DSS-43 at the DSCC outside of Canberra this week.  I was fortunate to visit the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (sometimes called the Tidbinbilla Tracking Station) a couple of days ago on a stunning autumn day in the ACT.  Last month this facility celebrated 60 years of being a part of NASA's Deep Space Network tracking station, helping to keep track of hundreds of missions including the Apollo Moon landings and the Voyager spacecraft.  On the 8th of April NASA announced a "New Dish" to be built at the facility. “Canberra has played a crucial part in tracking, communicating, and collecting data from some of the most momentous missions in space history,” said Kevin Ferguson, director of the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. “As the network continues to advance and grow, Canberra will continue to play a key role in supporting humanity’s exploration of the cosmos.” You can read more about this via the NASA website here. Has Comet C/2025 F2 (SWAN) disintegrated? A recently discovered comet, found by several astronomers including Australian Michael Mattiazzo, seems to have brightened and then appears to be fading quickly. This is often a sign that a comet has broken up as it nears the Sun and common fate for many.  News about this is coming in at the moment. You can get the latest here. I hope all our BINTEL customers and friends have a safe and relaxing Easter long weekend! Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL  19th April 2024      

What's the perfect sized binoculars? We talked about different sizes of binoculars last week. (You can read more here.) Binoculars capture the light that falls on their front lenses,  concentrates it, magnifies the image and presents it to your eyes. The larger the binoculars, the more light is collected and the better the image will be. The problem is that as binocular increase in size and complexity their cost and more importantly their size increases dramatically.  For bird watchers and nature viewers especially, getting the right balance becomes important when you need to travel out in the field.  The magic "just right" number for many are binoculars with a lens of 42mm in diameter. In fact, 42mm binoculars are probably the most popular in the world, with around 60% of global sales being this size.  So, while there's no one "perfect" binoculars, the 42mm size is very popular as it's large enough to collect enough light for great views, while not being too heavy carrying around. Why go bigger? There's certainly advantages in using larger binoculars. 50mm binoculars will gather more than 40% more light than a pair of 42mm. This results in brighter views, especially in the early morning or when it starts to get dark at the end of the day. The additional "information" collected by the larger lenses will also produce a more detailed image, even at the same magnification.  For example, the birds on the other side of the river will appear the same size in the eyepieces of 8x42 and 8x50 binos, except there will be more details visible the larger size.  The larger exit pupil in the 8x50 is larger for more in-depth experience. BUT - the 8x50 binos will be heavier and larger.   Why not both?  The ZEISS SFL 50 What's exciting us here at BINTEL about the new ZEISS SFL 50 binoculars is the chance to have the advantages larger optics in the smaller form factor normally found with 42mm sizes.  All of the ZEISS SFL 50 - the 8x, 10x and 12x - are all shorter than other premium 42mm sized binoculars. More importantly, they're also lighter. ZEISS has been able to achieve this with the use of thinner glass lenses, along with use of magnesium throughout the chassis.  The current SFL 30 and 40 binoculars are remarkable small for their optical size and have become popular with our bird watching customers and we imagine the new ZEISS SFL 50 models being a popular choice for serious observers. They simply let you see more while carrying less. You can check out the entire ZEISS SFL range here. We're expecting the new SFL 50 models to available in Australia next month. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  12th of April 2025

You've heard of a "Super Moon" - make sure you catch this weekend's "Micro Moon". Have you ever heard of a "Super Moon"?  Because the Moon travels around the Earth not in a circular orbit, but rather along a slightly elongated or elliptical path, it's sometime closer to us than other times. These Full Moons occur a few times are year and often get a lot of attention.  The Full Moon this Sunday, the 13th of April 2025 is the opposite - it's a "Micro Moon". The Full Moon will be the furthest away from us this year and will be slightly smaller than at any other of the year. While the difference won't be huge, much like a Super Moon, it will be a fabulous view. This Full Moon also plays important part in setting the date of Easter this year and we'll touch on this in more detail next week. Asteroid 2024 YR4 is not going to hit the Earth BUT it might impact the Moon - and it's HUGE! I talked a few months ago about an asteroid, 2024 YR, which was headed in our general direction. You can read the article here. At the time, the chances of it whacking into Earth were low but not so low it could be ignored altogether.  I also mentioned that the chances of it hitting the Earth would likely diminish as more data was collected. It turned out that, yes, there's now next to no chance of it hitting the Earth, however there's an approx. 3.8% of it impacting the Moon in 2032.  Yellow points showing possible paths of asteroid 2024 YR4 on Dec. 22, 2032, as of Apr. 2, 2025. Image via: NASA JPL/CNEOS The estimated size of 2024 YR has also been refined. It's now thought to be about 53-67 metres in size, or about as big as a 10 storey building.  You can read more about at NASA's Planetary Defense website here. How long is a day on Uranus? A new figure, discovered by observing aurora on the ice giant. We mentioned in a BINTEL blog post a couple of weeks ago that the JWST had observed aurorae on the furthest ice giant, the planet Neptune. The Hubble Space Telescope has been keeping a close eye on the aurora on the other ice giant closer to Earth, Uranus, for the last ten years or so. Working out the rotation period of a planet can be tricky, especially where solid features aren't visible and only clouds or weather related features can be seen from Earth. Astronomers lead by Laurent Lamy came up with a clever solution - they kept track of aurora on Uranus, and this allowed them to measure the length of the planet's "day" with more accuracy. Knowing this is critical when planning a trip to Uranus, such as NASA's Uranus Orbiter and Probe which might launch early next decade. “Our measurement not only provides an essential reference for the planetary science community but also resolves a long-standing issue: previous coordinate systems based on outdated rotation periods quickly became inaccurate, making it impossible to track Uranus’ magnetic poles over time,” explains Lamy. “With this new longitude system, we can now compare auroral observations spanning nearly 40 years and even plan for the upcoming Uranus mission.” More information here. A day on Uranus is 17 hours, 14 minutes, and 52 seconds. Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) for the Moon The Lunar Gateway is a planned space station. Unlike the ISS (International Space Station) which is in low orbit around the Earth, this new space station will be in orbit around the Moon and a play key part in exploration missions to the Lunar surface and beyond to Mars. An artist’s rendering of ESA’s Lunar I-Hab module in orbit around the Moon. Image via: NASA/Alberto Bertolin, Bradley Reynolds One of the two main modules - the HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) - has now been delivered to the USA from Italy where it was manufactured.  HALO will be connected another main Gateway Module, the Power and Propulsion Element, before launching onboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy sometime from 2027 onwards. Read more here. Cheers, Earl White - BINTEL 11th of April 2025