Spacebytes

🚨 Another cosmic record-breaker! Spotted just 280 million years after the Big Bang 😱
Something’s gotta give—📉 the age of the universe, or 🧠 our understanding of redshift and cosmic distances!

JWST breaks its own record with new most distant galaxy MoM-z14 Coming from just 280 million years after the Big Bang, or 98% of cosmic history ago, this new, massive galaxy is a puzzle, but not a mirage.

🧊☄️ The largest Oort Cloud comet ever observed just revealed some wild secrets!

Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli–Bernstein) is:
✨ 140 km wide — 10× bigger than typical comets
🌀 Spewing CO gas jets — even 2.5 billion km from the Sun
🛰️ It was spotted by the ALMA Observatory in Chille, showing it's alive and active way out past Uranus!
This cosmic giant could help us unlock the origins of water & life in the solar system 🌍💫

Largest Oort Cloud comet ever observed reveals its secrets under ALMA's powerful gaze A team of astronomers has made a groundbreaking discovery by detecting molecular activity in comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein)—the largest and second most distantly active comet ever observed from the Oort Cloud.

A Comet Visible in the Evening Sky

(Please respond with a quick "I got it" if you see this post, so others will be shown it too.) A newly discovered comet is now faintly visible in our skies right after sunset, if you have clear skies and a view low toward the west-southwest horizon. See our diagram from Sky & Telescope magazine, in which the yellow numbers show you the comet's location in the evening sky for dates in October.

Comet 2023 A3 (also known, after the two observatories that discovered it, as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is best seen with binoculars or telescopes, to reveal its faint tail. For the next few days, it will be visible close to the brightest night object, the planet Venus. The comet, like many, is falling around the Sun, and was closest to the Sun Sept. 27th and closest to Earth on Oct. 12.

A comet is a left-over from the process that formed the Sun and the planets -- a small chunk of icy material with lots of dirt frozen within the ices. When the comet comes near the Sun, the heat evaporates some of the gas and frees some of the dust, which is then left behind (and pushed outward by the Sun's wind) in a streamer called the comet tail.

Astronomers are not yet sure of its orbit, and are estimating its complete path around the Sun takes 80,000 years! In which case, the last appearance was before written records were made, and the next one may see a very different Earth from the one we have today.

A long exposure photo will show you more of the tail. Or just search for the comet's name in Google Image and you will see wonderful images from astronomical observers around the country and the world.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_images_new_cold_exoplanet_12_light-years_away

Webb images new, cold exoplanet 12 light-years away An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have directly imaged an exoplanet roughly 12 light-years from Earth. While there were hints that the planet existed, it had not been confirmed until Webb imaged it. The planet is one of the coldest exoplanets obse...