Notices by Phil Plait (badastro@mastodon.social)

It can takes months of analysis to fully understand an astronomical image. But it's pretty amazing what you can tell about it in literally seconds.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/what-can-you-tell-about-an-astronomical-image-at-a-glance

Have you ever heard of Gabriel's Horn? It's a mathematical shape, a deceptively simple "solid of revolution" that will melt your brain. It's also one of my very favorite things of all time. Oh my yes, you'll love this:

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/a-geometric-shape-that-will-destroy-your-brain

Folks, start your telescopes: A SpaceX upper stage booster will impact the moon on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning! It *might* be visible from Earth via telescopes, though it's not clear how bright it will be.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/spacex-rocket-booster-will-hit-the-moon-on-wednesday

Astronomers turned to public crowdsourcing to help them find brown dwarfs in space. It, um, worked. REALLY well.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/citizen-scientists-find-over-3-000-nearby-brown-dwarfs

Two different space missions from Japan and China have seen two more asteroids up very close, and they are both super weird. As usual.

Meet Torifune and Kamo'oalewa:

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/two-more-asteroids-seen-up-close

Happy aphelion! At 1:30 p.m. Eastern US time today the Earth will be farthest from the sun as it will be all year.

To celebrate, I'm taking 25% off annual subscriptions to my newsletter!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/aphelion-day-and-a-subscription-sale

Also: an exoplanet was discovered using relativity. Whoa.

Are you getting tired of STUNNING JWST images? I'm not. Here's an amazing new one: M82, the not-exploding Cigar Galaxy.

As usual, I don't just have the gorgeous pic, I also explain the science behind it.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/another-jwst-jaw-dropper-a-galaxy-that-looks-like-it-s-exploding-but-is-actually-doing-the-opposite

We now have pretty good evidence that red dwarfs sometimes eat their planets.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/sometimes-stars-eat-their-planets

[This is for premium subscribers; but it's just six bucks per month, and I send you a dozen or so articles! Sign up here: https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/subscribe]

Premium subscribers to my newsletter today can read about how we know the Martian moon Phobos isn't hollow! I mean, yeah, maybe that's not a surprise, but there's cool stuff to learn about it that, somehow, involves aliens (or the lack thereof).

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/see-venus-and-jupiter-tonight-plus-phobos-isn-t-hollow-shocker

We are being absolutely *inundated* with bad science lately, far more than in the recent past. How to fight against it? My colleague Mark Boslough breaks down the problem and has advice for how scientists can stem this ill tide. My latest Bad Astronomy Newsletter:

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/how-to-debunk-various-levels-of-nonsense-from-scientists-in-the-trenches

Sooooo, Earth is plowing through radioactive cosmic dust that rains down to the surface.

But hey, this is me talking, so you know what to do: don't panic! In fact, this is a good thing because it can teach us about our galactic environment.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/radioactive-cosmic-dust-is-raining-down-on-earth-s-surface

Look, I can't force you to sign up for the premium level to my newsletter.

Buuuuuut if you did you could read about how Boyajian's Star has calmed down (and it's STILL not aliens), and a very cool story about how trees electrically reach skyward to storms.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/no-aliens-for-boyajian-s-star-and-trees-reach-up-to-connect-electrically-with-the-sky

I was blown away by a spectrum taken by JWST of a galaxy so far away it took its light 13.5 BILLION YEARS to reach Earth.

Even cooler, it shows more heavy elements than we expected. The universe keeps surprising us.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/record-breaking-jwst-observation-shows-the-universe-s-first-stars-were-better-alchemists-than-we-tho

Astronomers strike it rich with exoplanets: TEN THOUSAND new candiadte alien worlds found! If confirmed they'll *more than double* the number known!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/astronomers-find-over-ten-thousand-potential-new-exoplanets

This may be anti-hot take, but dumping billion of tons of particles into the atmosphere to block the sun is maybe a bad idea, which is why I'm very worried some billionaire will want to do it. Words by me.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/dimming-the-sun-is-probably-a-very-bad-idea

The Vera Rubin observatory has already discovered 11,000 *previously unknown* asteroids... and the proper observing sessions haven't even begun yet!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/rubin-bags-11-000-new-asteroids

🧪 🔭

History doesn't always mean the distant past. The woman who discovered what the universe is made of could have seen Star Wars.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/the-astronomer-who-discovered-what-the-universe-was-made-of

So, on top of everything else bad about these zillion-constellation satellite swarms, the debris from them burning up is making the sky brighter.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/space-debris-is-hurting-us-in-another-way-making-the-sky-brighter

Elon Musk has already started plans to launch a million satellites.

Yes. A MILLION.

This is a colossally bad idea, and it's not too late to make your voice heard. I explain everything:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rampant-growth-of-satellite-mega-constellations-could-ruin-the-night-sky/

A pulsar is one of the scariest objects in the universe, yet we keep finding planets orbiting them. Of course, any pulsar planet is gonna be weird… but still, here's an egg-shaped one that may once have been a star and got mostly eaten. So, yeah.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/an-egg-shaped-planet-orbits-a-death-star