Hubble watches as a comet tears itself apart. Bonus: It was seen by accident!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/hubble-accidentally-catches-a-comet-tearing-itself-apart

Just how massive can a star get? Pretty danged massive... but it depends on when you look. A thing I wrote for Scientiifc American, just like I do every Friday!

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-the-most-massive-star-in-the-universe/

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

If you throw a bit of coin my way you can read about the colorful shenanigans of an extragalactic red supergiant (one of the largest stars we know of) or how the sun fries little asteroids that get too close to it!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/a-red-supergiant-that-isn-t-yellow

Here's a fun thought: Does the TV show Star Trek exist in the Star Trek universe?

Probably not, but this raises a lot of cool questions to geek out over!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/does-scifi-exist-in-a-scifi-universe

🖖

[And yes, that's me in front of the ACTUAL ENTERPRISE MODEL USED IN TOS]

So, have astronomers found a supermassive black hole blasted away from its galaxy and barrelling through intergalactic space... or is it just a weird galaxy?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/have-astronomers-found-a-runaway-monster-black-hole/

Premium subscribers to my newsletter can read today about a gorgeous but weird galaxy that is not trying terribly hard to hide its cannibalistic tendencies.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/another-gorgeous-hubble-galaxy-but-it-has-many-secrets

Today's Bad Astronomy Newsletter covers a bunch of news from NASA's DART mission, which whacked an asteroid back in 2022. Very cool stuff including streaks on the asteroid moon's surface, the plume generated, and how the orbit of the binary pair changed!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/way-too-much-dart-news

Looks like the moon is safe from a 2032 asteroid impact — unfortunately, kinda — and if you want to keep up with the changing sky, the Rubin Observatory will be happy to alert you millions of times per day.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/looks-like-the-asteroid-2024-yr4-won-t-impact-the-moono-plus-rubin-observatory-sends-out-its-first-c

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/