Phil Plait

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

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/

We've discovered over 6,000 alien worlds. But do these exoplanets have exomoons and exorings? Almost certainly! And we're allllllllmost there in discovering them, too.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-alien-exoplanets-have-exomoons-and-exorings/

Premium subbies to my newsletter can watch the debris from a catastrophic supernova explosion expand before their eyes!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/watch-a-supernova-explosion-sweep-through-space

A solar eclipse seen… FROM SPACE?!

Yup. And it's an annular one, too, making it extra cool.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/solar-eclipse-seen-from-space

And oh yeah by the way a small galaxy may be ramming through the Milky Way too so I wrote about that because why not.

A pulsar is one of the scariest objects in the universe, yet we keep finding planets orbiting them. Of course, any pulsar planet is gonna be weird… but still, here's an egg-shaped one that may once have been a star and got mostly eaten. So, yeah.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/an-egg-shaped-planet-orbits-a-death-star

In other news…

This was fun: a reader asked if aliens were in a galaxy 66 million light-years away, how big a telescope would they need to see dinosaurs on Earth?

Guess!

No; bigger. Try again. Nope, still bigger. Third try? Nope. Way, WAY bigger.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-aliens-in-another-galaxy-see-dinosaurs-on-earth/

<ahem>

THE 1000th ISSUE OF MY BAD ASTRONOMY NEWSLETTER WAS JUST PUBLISHED.

</ahem>

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/1000

Venus has lava tubes! That's so cool!

Or hot. Venus is a sucky place to live, but is super amazing for science.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/venus-has-lava-tubes

A dying star beams a searchlight into space, illuminating its past.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/hubble-unscrambles-the-egg-nebula

Hey! Tomorrow (Saturday Feb 14) at 11:15 Eastern US time I'll be talking to my friend, author/videoer John Green on the annual Project for Awesome livestream, raising money for great charities! You can get perks through donating, including meteorites I've sent them. See here:

https://projectforawesome.com/

Hey, if you want your mind absolutely crushed into dust today then read my article at Scientific American about how much energy is released when two supermassive black holes collide. To borrow from Douglas Adams, it's the best bang since the big one.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-energy-is-released-when-supermassive-black-holes-collide/

A newly discovered comet might — MIGHT — get bright enough to put on an interesting show. Also, astronomers may have found evidence of the very first stars!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/a-new-comet-to-watch-for-and-more-evidence-for-the-very-first-stars

[Thursday issues are for Premium subscribers, but you can become one! All the cool kids do it.]

This amazing pic of the galaxy IC 5332 from JWST gave me some arachnophobic-like chills, but damn, it's so amazing. Read about it here!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/a-spider-web-a-million-trillion-kilometers-wide-jwst-s-view-of-ic-5332

[PS: this Tuesday issue is usually for paid subscribers but I put a lot of it above the fold because it's cool]

We can now take *1,500-color* images of galaxies! Here's a gorgeous nearby spiral to sculpt your interest.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/the-spectacular-sculptor-spiral-galaxy-in-1-500-colors

[words by me; this issue is free for all!]

Near the top of the FAQs I get from curious readers:

How can galaxies collide if the Universe is expanding?

The short answer is: gravity. The longer answer is fun to read, IIDSSM.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/if-the-universe-is-expanding-how-can-galaxies-collide/

There's only one planet in our solar system Hubble has never observed. But there's another that *technically* it shouldn't, but has. Multiple times!

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/the-most-difficult-planet-hubble-s-ever-seen

[This article is for my paid subscribers, who literally keep me alive. Thanks! I like being alive.]

The full Moon still catches me by surprise sometimes