Veritasium – The Ames Window
An evening pause: A wonderful demonstration that one should never assume your first glance is right.
Tag: science
The growing X-ray shell of the 1604 Kepler supernova
Click to see movie.
Cool image time! Astronomers now have created a short movie from X-ray data compiled by the Chandra X-ray Observatory accumulated during the past quarter century showing the expansion of the cloud ejected from the 1604 supernova discovered by astronomer Johannes Kepler.
The two images to the right are the first and last frames in the movie. Though they appear the same, if you look closely you will see that in the more recent image the cloud is larger. From the press release:
Supernova remnants, the debris fields left behind after a stellar explosion, often glow strongly in X-ray light because the material has been heated to millions of degrees from the blast. The remnant is located in our galaxy, about 17,000 light-years from Earth, allowing Chandra to make … detailed images of the debris and how it changes with time. This latest video includes its X-ray data from 2000, 2004, 2006, 2014, and 2025. This makes it the longest-spanning video that Chandra has ever released, enabled by Chandra’s longevity. Only Chandra, with its sharp X-ray images and longevity, can see changes like those seen here.
…The researchers used the video to show that the fastest parts of the remnant are traveling at about 13.8 million miles per hour (2% of the speed of light), moving toward the bottom of the image. Meanwhile, the slowest parts are traveling toward the top at about 4 million miles per hour (0.5% of the speed of light). This large difference in speed is because the gas that the remnant is plowing into toward the top of the image is denser than the gas toward the bottom. This gives scientists information about the environments into which this star exploded.
This is one of the curses that astronomers live with. Things take a loooong time to unfold, often several generations. Thus Kepler might see this supernova when it erupts, but the explosion continues for many centuries.
Scientists: We think the little red dots in the early universe are supermassive stars
The uncertainty of science: Using the Webb Space Telescope, scientists now believe that the mysterious little red dots that Webb had previously detected in the early universe are actually supermassive stars, the predicted first stars to form after the Big Bang that also might produce the universe’s first black holes.
In 2022 the first deep images from Webb, a telescope designed to see longer wavelengths of light, revealed little red dots in the distant universe. The new results gave scientists more context into what these mysterious, compact, and very old objects could be. Past theories explaining little red dots required complicated explanations involving black holes, accretion disks and dust clouds, but the new model shows that a single massive star can also naturally produce all of the key signatures in little red dots: extreme brightness, a distinctive V-shaped spectrum, and the rare combination of one bright hydrogen emission.
Now, for the first time, astronomers have created a detailed physical model of a rare, metal-free, rapidly growing supermassive star about a million times the mass of the Sun, and showed that its unique features are a perfect match for little red dots.
Models outlining the early stages of the universe had predicted that the first stars formed after the Big Bang would be much more massive than the stars seen today. This hypothesis fits that model.
At the same time, no one should take any theory to the bank. The data remains very slim, so that all conclusions remain based on a very weak foundation.
Computer model: A thin ice cap can preserve liquid water on Mars
Figure 1 of the paper, showing the parameters
used in the computer model
Using a computer model, scientists have found that a thin cap of ice can act to allow liquid water to exist in lakes on Mars, for extended periods of time.
You can read their paper here. From the abstract:
Working at a localized scale, we combine climate input from the Mars Weather Research & Forecasting general circulation model with geologic constraints from Curiosity rover observations to identify potential climatic conditions required to maintain a seasonally ice-free lake. Our results show that an initially small lake system (10 m deep) with ∼50 mm monthly water input and seasonal ice cover would retain seasonal liquid water for over 100 years, demonstrating conditions close to long-term lake survivability.
From the press release:
In some simulations, the lakes completely froze during colder seasons, whereas in others, the lakes remained liquid and were covered by a thin layer of ice instead of freezing solid. This thin ice acted as an insulating lid, significantly reducing water loss while still allowing sunlight to warm the lake ice during warmer months. As a result of this seasonal cycling, some simulated lakes barely changed in depth over decades, suggesting that they could be stable for longer durations even with average air temperatures below freezing for much of the time.
Because this research is based on computer modeling, it carries great uncertainties. At the same time, it seems to explain the puzzling nature of Martian geology, which has repeatedly suggested the existence of liquid water in the past on a planet that has always been too cold with too thin an atmosphere for liquid water to exist. Data has also suggested that pockets of liquid water might have existed at the base of glaciers. This research aligns with that data.
Sunspot update: Ramp down to minimum continues?
Another year, another month, another sunspot update! Time to post my monthly update of the never-ending sunspot cycle on the Sun, using NOAA’s own monthly update of its graph of sunspot activity and annotating it with extra information to illustrate the larger scientific context.
The green dot on the graph below indicates the level of sunspot activity on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere during the month of December. Unlike November, when activity plunged, in December the sunspot count recovered, producing more sunspots, though the number still reflected the ramp down to solar minimum that NOAA’s panel of solar scientists had predicted in April 2025 (as indicated by the purple/magenta line).
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Detection of the wake of Betelgeuse’s companion star
Astronomers believe they have detected evidence of the wake created by Betelgeuse’s companion star as it plows through the primary star’s vast atmosphere.
You can read their paper here [pdf]. The cartoon to the right, annotated by me to post here, is figure 5 of the paper, looking down at Betelgeuse’s pole. It is not to scale. The scientists have nicknamed the companion Siwarha.
The team detected Siwarha’s wake by carefully tracking changes in the star’s light over nearly eight years. These changes show the effects of the previously unconfirmed companion as it plows through the outer atmosphere of Betelgeuse. This discovery resolves one of the biggest mysteries about the giant star, helping scientists to explain how it behaves and evolves while opening new doors to understanding other massive stars nearing the end of their lives.
Located roughly 650 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Orion, Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star so large that more than 400 million Suns could fit inside. Because of its enormous size and proximity, Betelgeuse is one of the few stars whose surface and surrounding atmosphere can be directly observed by astronomers, making it an important and accessible laboratory for studying how giant stars age, lose mass, and eventually explode as supernovae.
Using NASA’s Hubble and ground-based telescopes at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, the team was able to see a pattern of changes in Betelgeuse, which provided clear evidence of a long-suspected companion star and its impact on the red supergiant’s outer atmosphere. Those include changes in the star’s spectrum, or the specific colors of light given off by different elements, and the speed and direction of gases in the outer atmosphere due to a trail of denser material, or wake. This trail appears just after the companion crosses in front of Betelgeuse every six years, or about 2,100 days, confirming theoretical models.
Betelgeuse is essentially a giant blob that undulates like a blob of water floating in weightlessness on ISS. Knowing the location and orbit of this companion will help astronomers better understand the central star’s periodic inexplicable changes.
“Round Deposits” in Martian crater
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image could also be entered into my “What the heck?!” category of strange Martian geology. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 19, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labels this as “Round Deposits in Crater.” And yup, that’s what we have, round and flat small mesas inside an unnamed 3,500-foot-wide very shallow crater (no more than 10-20 feet deep) that also appears to be sitting higher than the surrounding landscape. Furthermore, several nearby craters are also raised, with one having its own oblong flat interior mesa. Moreover, the terrain around the crater appears stippled, as if it has been eroding or sublimating away.
The latitude, 37 degrees north, provides the first clue for explaining this weird landscape.
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Many Martian mysteries in one spot
Click for original image.
Just because there are no new images coming back from Mars at this time because the Sun is in the way does not mean we can’t enjoy more cool Martian images. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 20, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Labeled merely a “terrain sample,” this means it was taken not as part of any particular research project but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule. The camera team needs to take regular photographs in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature, and when there is a long gap they add a terrain sample image to the schedule. Usually they try to pick some target of interest.
In this case the target is this 2,500-foot-high cliff, in which we can see a whole range of Martian geological mysteries. First there are the slope streaks on the cliff, a feature unique to Mars but as yet unexplained. Resembling avalanches, these streaks leave no debris piles at their base, do not change the topography in any way, and can appear randomly throughout the year, fading with time. Though the streaks in this picture are dark, streaks can also be bright.
Both the parallel ridges at the base of the cliff, as well as the cliff itself, are remnants of other major geological events, at least based on present theories.
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The three week communications blackout from Mars has begun
Click for original.
Click for original.
The two images to the right, both downloaded today (here and here) from the Mars rovers Curiosity (top) and Perseverance, illustrate quite clearly the beginning of the three-week-long communications blackout from Mars caused every two years when the orbits of Earth and Mars places the Sun in-between. As the Curiosity science team noted in a December 22, 2025 update:
This holiday season coincides with conjunction — every two years, because of their different orbits, Earth and Mars are obstructed from one another by the Sun; this one will last from Dec. 27 to Jan. 20. We do not like to send commands through the Sun in case they get scrambled, so we have been finishing up a few last scientific observations before preparing Curiosity for its quiet conjunction break.
Apparently engineers were able to squeeze data and images from Mars for a few extra days, but the incomplete nature of these two pictures — combined with the lack of any other new images today — tells us that the blackout has definitely begun. That they were able to get these additional images after conjunction began suggests the blackout might also end a bit earlier than expected.
Though there is always a concern that something could go wrong while communications are blocked, the risks are small. The science teams for all the Mars orbiters and rovers have dealt with this situation now almost a dozen times since operations became routine there more than a quarter century ago.
The only spacecraft at real risk this conjunction is Maven. Contact was lost from it in early December for unknown reasons, and all efforts to regain communications have so far failed. All engineers know from the little data they have gotten back is it appears to be tumbling. This three week blackout will make any chance of recovery extremely unlikely.
Archeologists find what they think is evidence of fire-making by early Neanderthals
Archeologists have found a Neanderthal campsite from 400,000 years ago that shows strong evidence of the ability to make fire.
The researchers found two fragments of pyrite, a mineral that can produce sparks when struck against flint, indicating that the early Neanderthals used them as “a fire-making kit.” These ancient deposits mark the earliest known evidence of fire-making, roughly 400,000 years ago.
…The Barnham site lies in a disused clay pit in Suffolk, UK, preserving traces of the period around 427,000 to 415,000 years ago. In this area, the team found a small patch of reddened sediment, about the size of a modest campfire, surrounded by two pyrites, 19 flints, and four broken hand axes, showing clear signs of heating. Pyrites are rare locally, and the early Neanderthals likely carried them in from elsewhere.
Previously, the earliest known evidence of the ability to make fire had been dated from 50,000 years ago, and was done by homo sapiens, not Neanderthals.
Analysis of the sediment said the heat there matched that of a campfire, not a wildfire. The data also said the spot had been used repeatedly.
This one campsite suggests Neanderthals in general had the knowledge and tools to make fire, but it also could simply show the work of one particularly smart Neanderthal.
Colliding galaxies, as seen in the infrared and X-rays
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image illustrates how beautiful images of heavenly objects don’t always have to be in wavelengths our eyes can see. With the wonders of modern technology, we can now see wondrous things in wavelengths that are invisible to us.
The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is a perfect illustration. It was released on December 1, 2025, and combines X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory with infrared data from the Webb Space Telescope. From the caption:
This view of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 takes a James Webb mid-infrared image (white, gray, and red) and adds the X-ray view from Chandra (blue). Together, it is quite an eye-catching result.
…Here, both spirals are shown face on, with the smaller of the two galaxies, IC 2163, at the upper left of the larger galaxy, NGC 2207, which dominates the center and lower right of the image. Both galaxies have long, spiraling, silver blue arms, dotted with specs of blue and red. Toward our upper left, the curving arms overlap, and bend toward their neighbors’ core.
In optical wavelengths the gossamer lines of structure would be lost, overwhelmed by the light of each galaxy’s stars.
The headwaters of an ancient Martian channel
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labels this simply as “irregular terrain.” It is far more than that. We are looking at a three-mile-wide shallow canyon, with what appear to be eroding glacial features on the canyon floor.
The location is at 35 degrees north latitude, so finding glacial features here is entirely unsurprising, especially because this location is the southern edge of the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude strip in Mar’ northern hemisphere I label glacier country, because almost every picture shows such glacial features.
In this case, the channel also suggests a much more complex geological history, that could involve flowing water though flowing glaciers are increasingly becoming an alternative explanation.
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Layers in the biggest canyon in the solar system
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The white dot on the overview map above marks the location, on the lower slopes of the south rim of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon on Mars and by far the largest so far discovered in the solar system. From the rim to the floor the elevation drop here is about 23,000 feet, with the layers shown in the picture to be about 5,000 feet above the canyon floor.
Those layers cover about 500 feet of that elevation drop. Each layer suggests a past event, possibly volcanic eruptions. The curved headwall near the upper left also suggests that some layers were avalanches or mass wasting events flowing downhill to the northeast, one on top of another.
As always, the scale of Valles Marineris is hard to imagine. The rim is 20 miles to the south, but the canyon’s opposite rim is from 140 to 300 miles to the north. You could fit two to five Grand Canyons in this part of Valles Marineris and each would look small in comparison.
Recovering Maven appears increasingly dim
According to a NASA update late yesterday, engineers have still not been able to recover the Maven Mars orbiter since all communications ceased suddenly on December 6, and are now facing a month-long period when the Sun will block all communications with Mars entirely.
The MAVEN team also continues to analyze tracking data fragments recovered from a Dec. 6 radio science campaign. This information is being used to create a timeline of possible events and identify likely root cause of the issue. As part of that effort, on Dec. 16 and 20, NASA’s Curiosity team used the rover’s Mastcam instrument in an attempt to image MAVEN’s reference orbit, but MAVEN was not detected. Additional analysis will continue, but planned monitoring will be affected by the upcoming solar conjunction.
Mars solar conjunction – a period when Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun – begins Monday, Dec. 29, and NASA will not have contact with any Mars missions until Friday, Jan. 16. Once the solar conjunction window is over, NASA plans to resume its efforts to reestablish communications with MAVEN.
That December 6th tracking data had suggested the spacecraft was tumbling. Though NASA management has not yet given up hope, the longer the spacecraft remains out of touch and in an uncontrolled state, the less chance there will be for it to survive. Batteries will drain, equipment will freeze, and the spacecraft will die. Right now, that appears to be its fate.
Hubble images gigantic protoplanetary disk
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on February 8, 2025, and shows what scientists believe is the largest protoplanetary disk so far measured.
Located roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth, IRAS 23077+6707, nicknamed “Dracula’s Chivito,” spans nearly 400 billion miles — 40 times the diameter of our solar system to the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt of cometary bodies. The disk obscures the young star within it, which scientists believe may be either a hot, massive star, or a pair of stars. And the enormous disk is not only the largest known planet-forming disk; it’s also shaping up to be one of the most unusual.
…The impressive height of these features wasn’t the only thing that captured the attention of scientists. The new images revealed that vertically imposing filament-like features appear on just one side of the disk, while the other side appears to have a sharp edge and no visible filaments. This peculiar, lopsided structure suggests that dynamic processes, like the recent infall of dust and gas, or interactions with its surroundings, are shaping the disk.
You can read the peer-reviewed paper here [pdf]. The structure of this system has left them with more questions than answers. They can’t see the central star due to the dust. They don’t know if any planets exist as yet in the system. They don’t really understand the structural details that they can see.
No contact with Mars’ rovers for the next month
The Sun is about going to cause a month-long break in communications with Curiosity and Perseverance, the two rovers on Mars.
This communications pause occurs every two years, when the orbits of Earth and Mars align with the Sun in between.
This holiday season coincides with conjunction — every two years, because of their different orbits, Earth and Mars are obstructed from one another by the Sun; this one will last from Dec. 27 to Jan. 20. We do not like to send commands through the Sun in case they get scrambled, so we have been finishing up a few last scientific observations before preparing Curiosity for its quiet conjunction break.
This is not a unique situation. Both rovers have gone through conjunction several times previously. The science teams will place the rovers in secure positions to hold them over during the break.
As for the orbiters circling Mars, it isn’t clear how much their operations will be impacted. The update at the link above makes no mention of them, and my memory says communications with them is less hampered, though reduced somewhat.
Two very different galaxies
Click for original.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was released today as the Hubble picture of the week. From the caption:
The trick is that these galaxies are not actually very close. The large blue galaxy MCG-02-05-050 is located 65 million light-years from Earth; its brighter smaller companion MCG-02-05-050a, at 675 million light-years away, is over ten times the distance! Owing to this, MCG-02-05-050a is likely the larger galaxy of the two, and MCG-02-05-050 comparatively small. Their pairing in this image is simply an unlikely visual coincidence.
The smaller blue galaxy, also called Arp 4, has an active nucleus that emits a lot of energy, suggesting the presence of a supermassive black hole. Less is known about the more distant orange galaxy.
Curiosity’s exploration of boxwork on Mount Sharp
Click for high resolution panorama. For original images, go here, here, and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above was created from three photographs taken on December 18, 2025 (here, here, and here) by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity.
The view is north, looking down the flanks of Mount Sharp and across the floor of Gale Crater to its rim about 20 to 30 miles away. In comparing this view with a similar one taken in July, it is obvious that the Martian atmosphere has become far dustier during the last six months. The rim and the mountains beyond are hardly visible now through the haze.
The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Curiosity’s present position. The yellow lines indicate roughly the area covered by this panorama. The while dotted line indicates the rover’s travels, while the red dotted line its planned routes.
As you can see by both the rover’s tracks in the panorama above and the white dotted line in the overview, Curiosity has been traversing back and forth across the boxwork formation of criss-crossing ridges for more than half a year, as the science team attempts to decipher what caused these ridges and hollows. They have also done some drilling in this effort.
The science team has been getting close to the day it will move on, resuming Curiosity’s climb of Mount Sharp, but they keep finding things amidst this boxwork that requires additional study. For example, consider this from yesterday’s update:
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A new commercial smallsat space telescope is now operational and offering its data to scientists
Mauve space telescope. Click for source.
Capitalism in space: A new commercial optical space telescope with a 5-inch-wide mirror and dubbed the Mauve Telescope is now operational in orbit, with its private owner, UK startup Blue Skies, offering its data to scientists for an annual subscription fee.
Blue Skies is in the process of commissioning the Mauve and plans to start delivering data to scientists in early 2026. Customers include Boston University, Columbia University, INAF’s Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Konkoly Observatory, Kyoto University, Maynooth University, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Rice University, Vanderbilt University, and Western University.
The spacecraft’s three-year mission is to study flares from stars and their impact on the habitability of planets around them. From low Earth orbit, it hosts a telescope that can collect data in the ultraviolet to visual light range (200-700 nm spectrum).
With such a small mirror Mauve is not going to be able to do a lot of ground-breaking work, though there are definitely observations of value it can accomplish, such as those listed above. Its main purpose is as a demonstration project to attract a bigger round of new investment capital, from universities like the ones listed above, for launching a larger private telescope with greater capabilities.
This is how all telescopes were funded in the U.S. until World War II, through private funds privately built. Blue Skies effort here suggests we are heading back to that model, with government budgets increasingly constrained. The company is already working on a second and larger space telescope, dubbed Twinkle with a 18-inch primary mirror. It hopes over time to continue to scale up its orbital telescopes until it is matching Hubble and Webb, and doing so faster and at far less cost.
And for profit no less!
Scientists think they have detected a collision in the debris disk surrounding the star Fomalhaut
Click for original.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have detected a bright object in the debris disk that surrounds the nearby star Fomalhaut that wasn’t there previously, suggesting it is a glowing cloud of material left over from the collision of two asteroids.
You can read the published paper here [pdf]. Fomalhaut is a young star about 25 light years away, and has one of the best-mapped debris disks known.
The image to the right, reduced to post here, shows this new object, labeled CS2 and detected in 2023. CS1 is a similar detection from 2012 that was initially thought to be an exoplanet. When CS1 faded over time that theory was dismissed, replaced instead with the hypothesis that it was a cloud produced by an asteroid collision.
The recent appearance of CS2 strengthens this hypothesis, which will be further confirmed by future observations that show CS2 fading in the same manner. It also provides scientists a chance to measure the rate of such collisions within Fomalhaut’s debris disk, which scientists believe is essentially a baby solar system in formation. While very uncertain due to the short time scale, this data will help them begin to figure out the rate in which planets will form in such a disk.