https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. UK astronomers have uncovered new clues about the origin of 3I/ATLAS—only the third known object from beyond the solar system ever spotted. In a new paper published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers reveal that the comet formed in extremely cold conditions, far from any star. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-interstellar-visitor-3iatlas-clues-frozen.html Astronomy Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:50:01 EDT news708080978 Astronomers at Lund University in Sweden have found evidence of exocomets—comets in other solar systems—orbiting a young star similar to our sun. The observations point to a possible mechanism for how water might be transported from the cold outer regions of the planetary system to regions where planets form. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-young-sunlike-reveals-comets-planets.html Astrobiology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:20:01 EDT news707564222 More than 3 billion miles (4.8 billion kilometers) from Earth, an ancient icy object is slowly awakening. As it drifts inward through the solar system, the frozen body known as Centaur 450P/LONEOS has begun releasing gas and dust—behavior more commonly associated with comets than with centaurs, the small icy objects that typically orbit between Jupiter and Neptune. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-saturn-encounter-distant-centaur-path.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 01 Sep 2026 18:00:04 EDT news707499541 Sometimes images are released before anyone realizes they have been photobombed, meaning something unexpected showed up in the background. A team of researchers found a naked photobombing comet in publicly available archival data from the Subaru Telescope, resulting not in mirth but in serious scientific discoveries. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-naked-photobombing-comet-image.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:20:05 EDT news706874587 Deimos, the smaller and outermost of Mars' two moons, is roughly oval in shape and has a deep depression at its south pole. Unlike its heavily scarred sister moon, Phobos, Deimos is covered by a loose layer of dust and rubble—a so-called regolith layer—which gives it a smoother, dustier appearance. Although numerous space probes have provided increasingly detailed images of its surface over the past decades, the origins of the debris layer and the depression at the south pole remain unclear. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-asteroid-impact-mars-moon-deimos.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:20:06 EDT news706273561 The Perseid summer light show is back—and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-perseid-meteor-shower-summer-dazzle.html Space Exploration Sun, 09 Aug 2026 14:52:39 EDT news705505929 Since 2016, an ordinary-looking F-type star called KIC 8462852, nicknamed Tabby's star, has behaved anything but ordinarily. In a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on July 6, researchers revisited this star to find out what is really causing its irregular dimming. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-hour-dip-tabby-star-decade.html Astronomy Mon, 03 Aug 2026 08:00:05 EDT news704472236 "Dead stars" known as white dwarfs have already shown the potential to help us better understand how planetary systems, including our own solar system, take shape and evolve. Now, research from the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado Boulder suggests that potential could be even greater than anticipated. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-dead-stars-healthy-appetites.html Astronomy Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:40:03 EDT news704380621 Typically, astronomers identify comets by their distinct atmospheres, or comae, and their tails, which are created as the sun vaporizes a comet's ice. These features emit a glow when sunlight bounces off dust and water droplets. As gas escapes the body of the comet, it also acts as a tiny thruster, subtly changing the comet's path. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-asteroid-unexplained-orbital-shift-dark.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:11:43 EDT news703332667 Like a shelf in an old house, the Earth collects a lot of dust from its surroundings. This "space dust" is mostly made up of micrometeorites that survive atmospheric entry and provides researchers with a cheap and easy way to obtain samples to study our cosmic neighbors. However, it can be difficult to determine which objects certain samples originated from if their parent bodies aren't already in available catalogs. A recent study, published in Science Advances, describes a new subset of space dust with such mysterious origins and how researchers are tracking down potential sources. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-earth-space-unidentified-asteroids.html Astrobiology Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:50:02 EDT news702646844 Astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) to study the composition of 3I/ATLAS, the brightest interstellar object ever seen, in detail. By measuring specific chemical fingerprints—the first observations of this kind for a comet that formed outside the solar system—they found that 3I/ATLAS likely originated in the outskirts of an old star system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-older-sun-astronomers-clues-interstellar.html Astronomy Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:03:06 EDT news702543737 Astronomers have spotted many "red and dead" galaxies in the early universe. These are massive systems that stopped forming stars surprisingly early in cosmic history. Now, they may have found evidence of one in the act of becoming dead: a massive galaxy being stripped of its star-forming gas just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. The clues behind why it lost its star-forming material are detailed in a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server on June 16. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-astronomers-caught-early-galaxy-dying.html Astronomy Sat, 04 Jul 2026 09:40:01 EDT news701947729 The Gaia mission has allowed researchers to understand the motions of stars like never before, even revealing possible interactions between our solar system and nearby stars. Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Nathan Kaib and collaborator Sean Raymond (Universite de Bordeaux) have found that a recent stellar passage likely triggered a huge increase in comet formation as the star's gravity altered Oort cloud objects' orbits, sending them cascading into the inner solar system. We may even still be feeling the effects of this passage today. This work is being presented at the American Astronomical Society Division on Dynamical Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-stellar-flyby-period-comets.html Astronomy Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:40:04 EDT news701625061 Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are using a solar wind forecasting method combined with analytic and numerical heliosphere models to find out where the first plasma boundary of the outer heliosphere lies as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward this mysterious region of space. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-solar-heliosphere-boundaries.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:10:01 EDT news701364782 An interstellar comet that blazed past the sun last year could be nearly three times older than our solar system and is unlike anything ever seen before in our cosmic backyard, astronomers said Monday. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-interstellar-visitor-3iatlas-billions-years.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 11:37:07 EDT news701346955 Could Earth have seeded Jupiter's moon Europa with bacterial life, where it could have taken hold in Europa's ocean and perhaps evolved into something more? That's the hypothesis of a new paper in the International Journal of Astrobiology by Zaza Osmanov of the Free University of Tbilisi in Georgia. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-earth-life-jupiter-moon-europa.html Astrobiology Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:20:07 EDT news700742290 The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA's Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet's ultraviolet emissions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dual-spacecraft-capture-hemispheres-interstellar.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 13 May 2026 14:20:01 EDT news697900019 The Eta Aquarid meteor shower soon will light the sky with debris from Halley's comet. But a bright moon will spoil the fun this year, making the display harder to glimpse. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bright-moon-dim-eta-aquarid.html Space Exploration Sun, 03 May 2026 06:40:22 EDT news697009166 New observations of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS include the first measurement of the abundance of deuterated water relative to ordinary water in an interstellar object. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is made of an astonishingly high ratio of semi-heavy water relative to water, indicating that its system of origin likely formed under conditions far colder than our own. The findings are published in Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-3iatlas-semi-heavy-comets-solar.html Astronomy Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:26:02 EDT news696169452 Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is now on its way out of our solar system, never to return. The comet was only the third-ever detected object to originate from outside our solar system. Traveling at high speeds, it looped around the sun within 1.5 AU (one AU, or astronomical unit, is the distance between Earth and the sun) in October 2025; as of April, it is now past the orbit of Jupiter on its way out of the solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-methane-emerges-interstellar-comet-3iatlas.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:40:01 EDT news695572435 The Subaru Telescope observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on January 7, 2026, after it made its closest approach to the sun. By observing colors in the coma around the comet, astronomers could estimate the ratio of carbon dioxide to water. This ratio is much lower than that inferred from earlier observations by space telescopes. These findings suggest that the chemistry of the coma is evolving over time and offers clues to the structure of comet 3I/ATLAS. The work appears in The Astronomical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-subaru-telescope-captures-comet-3iatlas.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 03:58:42 EDT news695444252 Across Earth, every night, thousands of automated stargazers are waiting to take pictures of shooting stars. I am one of the scientists who study these meteors. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sun-asteroid-pieces-earth-flying.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:40:04 EDT news695298482 Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence that the spinning of a small comet slowed and then reversed its direction of rotation, offering a dramatic example of how volatile activity can affect the spin and physical evolution of small bodies in the solar system. This is the first time researchers have observed evidence of a comet reversing its spin. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-hubble-reversal-tiny-comet.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:20:02 EDT news693746521 In a happy twist of fate, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope witnessed a comet in the act of breaking apart. The chance of that happening while Hubble watched is extraordinarily minuscule. The findings are published in the journal Icarus. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-nasa-hubble-unexpectedly-comet.html Astronomy Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:20:01 EDT news693057181 Comet 3I/ATLAS continues to make astonishing headlines, thanks to new findings from astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This new research reveals that 3I/ATLAS is packed with an unusually large amount of the organic molecule methanol—more than almost all known comets in our own solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-interstellar-comet-alcohol-alma-3iatlas.html Astronomy Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:20:03 EDT news692265150 New analysis on 2017 Hubble images of the Jupiter-family comet, 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresak (41P/TGK), indicates that the comet underwent a spin reversal between April and December 2017. While this behavior is not unheard of, 41P/TGK's rotational changes were deemed "particularly dramatic" in the new paper published on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-jupiter-family-comet-41ptgk-reverses.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:40:02 EST news690124139 A newly discovered comet has astronomers excited, with the potential to be a spectacular sight in early April. C/2026 A1 (MAPS) was spotted by a team of four amateur astronomers with a remotely operated telescope in the Atacama desert on January 13. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-comet-visible-broad-daylight.html Astronomy Thu, 05 Feb 2026 13:20:01 EST news689517824 The British astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley was not, after all, the first to understand the cycle of the comet that now bears his name. This is shown by research conducted by, among others, Professor Simon Portegies Zwart. It was the monk Eilmer of Malmesbury who, as early as the 11th century, linked two observations of the comet. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-halley-comet-wrongly-11th-century.html Astronomy Fri, 23 Jan 2026 10:10:01 EST news688384971 Many researchers have spent decades attempting to decode biblical descriptions and link them to verifiable historical events. One such description is that of the Star of Bethlehem—a bright astronomical body that was said to lead the Magi to Jesus shortly after his birth. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-star-bethlehem-comet-ancient-chinese.html Astronomy Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:20:07 EST news686227941 In the run up to Christmas, carols fill the air. Many have an astronomical twist, singing of the "Christmas Star" from the story of the nativity. Described in the Gospel of Matthew, the star guided the three wise men to the cradle of the young baby Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-christmas-star-astronomy.html Astronomy Mon, 29 Dec 2025 10:30:04 EST news686226375