Nature Hub

  From - Sky &Telescope By - David L. Chandler  Edited by - Amal Udawatta An artist's illustration of an asteroid N. Bartmann / ESA / Webb / ESO / M. Kornmesser and S. Brunier / N. Risinger    2024 YR4 is no longer a danger for Earth, and a (small) chance of a lunar impact could provide great science data. “We are all rooting for the Moon!” Richard Binzel (MIT) is referring to the asteroid 2024 YR 4 , which for a few weeks had remained at the second-highest-rated probability of potential Earth impact of any asteroid discovered. Now, although its impact probability has fallen to virtually zero for Earth, it still has a slight chance of impacting the Moon on December 22, 2032. An Earth impact by an object of this size — estimated at anywhere from 40 to 90 meters across — could have been serious for a local region, if populated, and astronomers around the world have scrambled for weeks to obtain observations in order to refine the object’s orbit, using the Canada Fr...

      From - Space. Com     By -   Robert Lea    Edited by - Amal Udawatta (Left) An image of the sky in the direction of the cosmic web detection (Right) The image shows the diffuse gas (red) contained within the cosmic filament connecting two galaxies (yellow stars), extending across a vast distance of 3 million light-years.   (Image credit: Joseph DePasquale/Space Telescope Science Institute/Davide Tornotti/University of Milano-Bicocca)   For the first time, we could trace the boundary between the gas residing in galaxies and the material contained within the cosmic web through direct measurements. Astronomers have imaged a spectacular thread in the cosmic web, connecting two actively forming galaxies that existed when the universe was just 2 billion years old. Both galaxies at hand are home feeding  supermassive black holes. The  cosmic web  stretches for an incredible 3 million light-years, making it about 3...

    From -Sky & Telescope By - Bob King  Edited by- Amal Udawatta         The dipper-shaped Pleiades cluster (M45) is also called the Seven Sisters and named for the mythological seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. The young cluster is between 75 and 150 million years and lies 444 light-years from Earth. Jared-Bowens The Pleiades star cluster is one of the night sky's best-known astronomical sights. Alluring to the naked eye, it's even more amazing through binoculars or a small telescope, both of which reveal dozens more stars. As the cluster plows through space at 6 kilometers per second (13,400 mph), its hot, youthful suns illuminate a happenstance interstellar cloud, turning it into a gossamer nebula that temporarily enshrouds the stellar bunch. Additional treasures lie within its bounds: There are also about a half-dozen double and multiple stars within the Pleiades. You might already be familiar with 2.9-magnitude Alcyone, a choice triple st...