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Cassiopaea

Best of the Web: The U.S. saw vivid northern lights as far south as Florida on November 11 - second Aurora Borealis event in 5 days - and more could be coming

Rachel Treisman, Mansee Khurana
npr.org
Wed, 12 Nov 2025 15:26 UTC
The aurora borealis lit up the night sky over Monroe, Wis., on Tuesday night. The northern lights were visible as far south as Alabama and Florida
© Ross Harried/NurPhotoThe aurora borealis lit up the night sky over Monroe, Wis., on Tuesday night. The northern lights were visible as far south as Alabama and Florida
Geomagnetic storms brought the northern lights to much of the U.S. on Tuesday night, painting the sky in vibrant hues of green and pink.

The Aurora Borealis was spotted in a large swath of states, including Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Washington state. Northern lights were visible as far south as parts of Florida and Alabama, a relatively rare occurrence that highlights the severity of this week's storms.

"Well, we had activity tonight — a lot of geomagnetic storm activity," Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center, said in a video on X.

A geomagnetic storm happens when charged particles from the sun's atmosphere interact with the Earth's magnetic field. In addition to creating dazzling displays of color, such storms can disrupt technology on Earth, from satellites and GPS to radio communications and the power grid.


Comment: Just 5 days prior: Powerful geomagnetic storm sparks stunning northern lights across North America

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Info

Chandra spies a supernova shock front speeding along

Lexi Gault
AAS Nova
Fri, 07 Nov 2025 16:23 UTC
supernova remnant N132D
© NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO TeamOptical image of supernova remnant N132D in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud.
Beautiful bubbles of hot ionized gas, supernova remnants trace the dying days of massive stars. A recent study uses the Chandra X-ray Observatory to detail the motion and understand the origins of one supernova remnant.

Retracing Supernova Remnants

Massive stars, about 8 solar masses or larger, will end their short lives in violent core-collapse supernovae. These explosions barrel into any surrounding interstellar medium, carving out low-density cavities and blowing material outward. Appearing as a bubble or shell of hot gas, a supernova remnant carries the signatures of the type of star that produced it and the ways that star shaped its environment throughout its life.

Nearby, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, is the 2,500-year-old supernova remnant N132D — the most X-ray luminous supernova remnant within the Local Group. Though N132D's size, likely progenitor mass, and chemical composition are well constrained, astronomers have yet to nail down the velocity of the X-ray shock front — the outer edge of the supernova remnant that rams into the interstellar medium. This measurement is critical to understanding the local conditions the supernova first encountered and how its expansion will continue to impact the interstellar medium over time.
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Cassiopaea

Powerful geomagnetic storm sparks stunning northern lights across North America

Daisy Dobrijevic
Space.com
Fri, 07 Nov 2025 11:09 UTC
The storm hit earlier than predicted, surprising skywatchers with a delightful aurora show.
© Daisy DobrijevicThe storm hit earlier than predicted, surprising skywatchers with a delightful aurora show.
A surprise strong (G3) geomagnetic storm lit up skies across the Northern Hemisphere overnight (Nov. 5-6), treating skywatchers to dazzling auroras from Canada to northern North America. Geomagnetic conditions have remained unsettled through Nov. 8, meaning aurora activity could continue as additional solar material sweeps past Earth.

Photographers across North America were treated to stunning displays of green, pink, and purple auroras rippling across the sky. We've rounded up some of the best views here.

A G3 geomagnetic storm watch remains in effect through Nov. 8, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. Aurora chasers keep those camera batteries charged and those eyes on the skies, as we could be in for more treats this weekend.

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Question

Best of the Web: 'Something from space' slams into cockpit of United Airlines flight from Denver to LA

Kerry Harrison
Orbital Today
Mon, 20 Oct 2025 22:14 UTC
plane space debris pilot injury
United Airlines Flight 1093 was flying from Denver to Los Angeles when the captain reported hitting space debris at 36,000 feet, forcing a diversion to Salt Lake City. The Boeing 737, carrying 140 passengers, landed safely on Thursday following visible damage to the cockpit windshield and a minor injury to the pilot's arm.

Photos shared online show cracks across the cockpit glass and small fragments scattered inside the flight deck. Aviation social media account JonNYC was the first to report the pilot's theory that orbital debris was responsible.

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Cassiopaea

Arab scholars may have noted the supernovae of 1006 and 1181

David Dickinson
Universe Today
Tue, 14 Oct 2025 17:44 UTC
nebula Pa 30
© NASA/ChandraThe Chandra X-Ray Observatory's view of planetary nebula Pa 30, one of the prime suspects for SN 1181.
A new study finds possible references to two classic supernovae in ancient texts.

It's great to see old astronomical observations come to light. Not only can these confirm or refute what's known about historic astronomical events, but they can describe what early observers actually saw.

A recent study cites two Arabic texts that may refer to accounts of two well-known supernovae seen in our galaxy: one in 1006 AD and another in 1181 AD.

Like Far Eastern observers, Arab astronomers were astute observers of the night sky, and patiently noted what they saw, including changes in the familiar constellation patterns such as novae and supernovae.

While we often see supernovae out across the Universe in distant galaxies, galactic supernovae are a rarity. The last prominent one, Kepler's Star in 1604 occurred just before the telescope came into general use. Here we are, over four centuries later, still waiting for the next one.
Arabic constellations
© Public DomainAn illustration of Arabic constellations, from Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's Illustrated Book of the Fixed Stars.
The two historic supernovae in 1006 and 1181 were prominent in the sky, and noted by observers across the Near and Far East.
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Info

X-ray study reveals new details about Betelgeuse's elusive companion star

Amy Pavlak Laird
Carnegie Mellon University
Wed, 08 Oct 2025 23:15 UTC
Betelgeuse Companion
© Carnegie Mellon University
Astronomers have long suspected that Betelgeuse — the bright red star blazing in Orion's shoulder — wasn't alone. Now, thanks to a fleeting cosmic window and swift action by Carnegie Mellon University researchers, the true nature of its elusive companion has been illuminated.

In a race against time, the CMU researchers secured Director's Discretionary Time on both NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope to investigate the long-predicted — but never detected — companion star to Betelgeuse. The timing was critical: around Dec. 6, the companion, nicknamed "Betelbuddy," reached its maximum separation from the massive red supergiant just before it would disappear behind it for two more years.

"It turns out that there had never been a good observation where Betelbuddy wasn't behind Betelgeuse," said Anna O'Grady, a McWilliams Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon's McWilliams Center for Cosmology and Astrophysics. "This represents the deepest X-ray observations of Betelgeuse to date."

During this ideal observational window, the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii captured a faint image near Betelgeuse that could be its tiny companion. In a separate study, the Carnegie Mellon-led team used Chandra to collect X-ray data to determine the nature of the mysterious object.

"It could have been a white dwarf. It could have been a neutron star. And those are very, very different objects," O'Grady said. "If it was one of those objects, it would point to a very different evolutionary history for the system."
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Comet 2

Brightening Comet Lemmon


SpaceWeather.com
Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:45 UTC
With so much attention on interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS, it is easy to forget a local comet brightening so rapidly that ordinary sky watchers will soon be able to see it with their own eyes: Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6). It is falling toward the sun for a close encounter near the orbit of Mercury on Nov. 8th.

"This comet is developing very nicely and it is already an impressive object, well-placed for observation in the morning sky," says Nick James of the British Astronomical Association. "It is definitely worth getting up for!"

The light curve of Comet Lemmon shows that it is about to cross the threshold (m=+6) of naked-eye visibility:

Comet Lemmon C/2025 A6
© Bum-Suk YeomTaken by Bum-Suk Yeom on October 3, 2025 @ Iksan, South Korea.
"I think we can now be reasonably confident that this will be a very nice evening object when it is at its brightest around New Moon in late October," says James.
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Question

A 'Great Wave' is rippling through our galaxy, pushing thousands of stars out of place

Elizabeth Howell
Live Science
Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:23 UTC
A giant 'wave' is rippling through the Milky Way, pushing thousands of stars across the galaxy, and scientists don't know what triggered it.
'Great Wave'
© ESA/Gaia/DPAC, S. Payne-Wardenaar, E. Poggio et al (2025)An edge-on visual of the Milky Way, based on data from the European Space Agency's Gaia star-mapping mission. An apparent "wave" of star movements is visible, shown by vertical arrows.
A huge "wave" is rippling through our galaxy, pushing billions of stars in its wake, a new study reveals.

The Milky Way's galactic wave was spotted in mapping data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia space telescope, which charted the positions and movement patterns of millions of stars with high accuracy before retiring earlier this year.

Like ripples in a pond, the wave has a very large influence: It affects stars between 30,000 and 65,000 light-years away from the galaxy's center, ESA officials said in a statement. That's a large percentage of the Milky Way, which is roughly 100,000 light-years across.

Astronomers still don't know what started the motion. It could have been a past collision with a smaller, dwarf galaxy that caused the large shake, ESA officials said, but more investigation is required to answer that question.

The results were published July 14 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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Cassiopaea

Amateur discovers supernova in remote galaxy

David Dickinson
Universe Today
Wed, 01 Oct 2025 20:48 UTC
Supernova SN 2025umq
© Filipp Romanov/Liverpool Telescope.Supernova SN 2025umq on August 24th 2025.
One dedicated amateur shows what can be done with remote telescope access, knowledge and a little patience.

Astronomy is increasingly becoming an online affair. Recent discoveries of interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS and R2 SWAN highlighted this fact, when both were first discussed on message boards and verified via remote telescopes before confirmation. Another recent find also shows what's possible, as devoted amateur astronomer Filipp Romanov accomplished an amazing feat, and discovered a supernova in a remote galaxy.

"I managed to discover a supernova using the remote telescope T59 of iTelescope.net and it was confirmed by spectrum," Filipp told Universe Today.

The discovery is designated AT 2025umq (PSN J00481888+0759006) in the galaxy SDSS J004819.14+075856.8. The phone number-esque names denote the galaxy's position in the constellation Pisces the Fishes.

The general location of the discovery in Pisces.
© Stellarium.The general location of the discovery in Pisces.
The discovery was made thanks to a keen process of deduction and perseverance on Filipp's behalf. "I made calculations of the sky coordinates and requested shooting on remote telescopes to search for astronomical objects," Filipp said. "When I received and viewed one of the series of images, I found a star in them, which upon checking in various information sources, turned out to be an already known supernova. Such a find is unusual for me, because in several years of searching in images, I did not come across even a single known supernova."
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Cloud Lightning

Rare 'upside-down' lightning seen in Puerto Rican sky


MSN
Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:04 UTC
On Aug. 20, Puerto Rico-based photographer Frankie Lucena was taking pictures
© Frankie LucenaPhotograph taken in August 2023 of a similar event.
A photographer in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, recorded what he described as an "amazing" lightning event during a storm in the early hours of September 17. Frankie Lucena's video shows what NASA classifies as a rare kind of "Transient Luminous Event," or TLE — a "gigantic jet." "Gigantic jets are powerful electrical discharges that erupt from the top of a thunderstorm and travel upward into the upper atmosphere," NASA says. Credit: Frankie Lucena via Storyful

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