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Astronomy News 7 October 2025 - 26 October 2025

Hidden ‘Planet-Killer’ Asteroid Found in Sun’s Glare Exposes Dangerous Blind Spot

Hidden ‘Planet-Killer’ Asteroid Found in Sun’s Glare Exposes Dangerous Blind Spot

A “Twilight” Asteroid Breaks Speed Records Astronomers are buzzing about 2025 SC79, a newfound asteroid that’s zipping around the sun at near-record pace. Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer at Carnegie Science, first spotted the object on September 27 using the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile carnegiescience.edu carnegiescience.edu. What he found was astonishing: an asteroid orbiting the sun in just 128 days, making it the second-fastest asteroid ever recorded space.com. Only one known asteroid orbits faster – 2021 PH27, a 1-km rock discovered by Sheppard in 2021 that races around the sun in 113 days livescience.com. Even Mercury, the innermost planet, takes
26 October 2025
Last Chance to See Rare Green Comet Lemmon – A Once-in-a-Millennium Sky Spectacle

Last Chance to See Rare Green Comet Lemmon – A Once-in-a-Millennium Sky Spectacle

A Once-in-a-Millennium Visitor Lights Up the Sky If you haven’t been skywatching lately, now is the time – Comet C/2025 A6, nicknamed Lemmon, is putting on its best show in late October 2025. This rare comet was first spotted in January by the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona sfgate.com. Since then it has been steadily brightening as it races toward the inner solar system space.com. By this week, Comet Lemmon reached magnitude ~4, making it one of the brightest comets of the year and borderline visible to the unaided eye under ideal conditions skyatnightmagazine.com. For context, that’s about as bright
Rare Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS – a 10-Billion-Year-Old Time Capsule – Flies Past Mars

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Shoots Giant Sunward Jet — Experts Debunk Alien Probe Rumors

In recent weeks astronomers have been fascinated by the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it rushes through the inner Solar System. First spotted by the ATLAS telescope (Chile) on July 1 ts2.tech, it turned out to be moving so fast on a hyperbolic path that it could only have come from outside our solar neighborhood. Follow-up orbits confirm it is on a one-way trip, never to return ts2.tech. Importantly, orbital calculations show its minimum distance from Earth is about 1.8 AU (far beyond Mars) ts2.tech, so it will not collide with us. In fact, the comet’s closest brush with any planet was
26 October 2025
NASA Confirms Earth’s “Secret Second Moon” – Tiny Asteroid 2025 PN7 Will Orbit with Us Until 2083

NASA Confirms Earth’s “Secret Second Moon” – Tiny Asteroid 2025 PN7 Will Orbit with Us Until 2083

NASA Announces New “Quasi-Moon” Discovery On Oct 22, 2025, space agencies worldwide celebrated the announcement that Earth has a new celestial companion. A team from the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS survey discovered a tiny asteroid – designated 2025 PN7 – on Aug. 2, 2025, and subsequent orbit analysis showed it has been silently trailing Earth for roughly 60 years chron.com. NASA confirmed in a press report that this 62-foot-wide rock is Earth’s newest “quasi-moon,” meaning it is not a bound satellite but a co-orbital asteroid ts2.tech hindustantimes.com. As one global space news outlet noted, astronomers “confirmed a tiny ‘quasi-moon’ –
22 October 2025
Sky on Fire Tonight: Giant ‘Solar Canyon’ Aims 800‑km/s Wind at Earth—Northern Lights Could Ignite 15 U.S. States & Test Global Tech

Northern Lights Alert: Major Solar Storm Could Ignite Stunning Aurora Displays Across North America

What’s Causing the Aurora Spectacle? The Northern Lights (aurora borealis) occur when bursts of solar plasma slam into Earth’s magnetic field and excite atmospheric gases. In this case, four CMEs from an active sunspot region are en route to our planet. Space weather forecasters describe it as a “train of solar storms” headed our way space.com. As NOAA explains, when the Sun “burps out huge bubbles of electrified gas” (a CME), those particles stream toward Earth and interact with atoms in the upper atmosphere, creating beautiful displays of light ourmidland.com. NASA casually calls this phenomenon a solar “sun burp” –
16 October 2025
SHOCKING: Asteroid Discovered Just Days Ago Will Buzz Earth TODAY (Closer Than the Moon) – What Experts and Investors Are Saying

SHOCKING: Asteroid Discovered Just Days Ago Will Buzz Earth TODAY (Closer Than the Moon) – What Experts and Investors Are Saying

Close Call with Asteroid 2025 TP5 Astronomers have identified Asteroid 2025 TP5 as a very close but safe Earth flyby. According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab data, 2025 TP5 will swoop by at 4:09 p.m. EDT (2009 UTC) on Oct. 15, 2025, at ~60,328 miles (97,089 km) from Earth’s center space.com. By comparison, the Moon orbits ~238,855 miles away. After the Earth flyby, JPL reports that 2025 TP5 will come as close as 74,616 miles to the Moon on Oct. 16 space.com. At an estimated 54 ft (16 m) diameter space.com, it is a medium-sized near-Earth asteroid. Notably, 2025 TP5 was undetected until Oct. 13,
16 October 2025
Rare Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS – a 10-Billion-Year-Old Time Capsule – Flies Past Mars

Alien Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Spewing Water Like a Fire Hose — And Scientists Are Stunned

These astounding discoveries come from coordinated observations worldwide. Below we delve into the details: what we’ve learned about 3I/ATLAS, how it compares to other interstellar visitors, and why scientists are so excited. What Is 3I/ATLAS? A Rare Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (sometimes simply called “ATLAS”) is an interstellar comet – a chunk of ice and rock that formed around a distant star and is now speeding through our Solar System on a one-way trip. It was first spotted on July 1, 2025, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Chile ts2.tech. Follow-up analyses quickly confirmed its hyperbolic orbit
Double Meteor Shower Spectacle: Draconid and Orionid Displays Will Light Up October’s Night Sky

Meteor Storm or Moonlit Fizzle? Draconid ‘Dragon’ Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight with Skywatchers on Alert

The Draconids: A “Dragon” in the Night Sky Every October, the Draconid meteor shower gives skywatchers a chance – however slim – to see fireballs from the Dragon. The Draconids occur when Earth passes through dust debris shed by Comet 21P/Giacobini–Zinner, a small periodic comet that orbits the sun every 6.6 years ts2.tech. As these cometary bits hit Earth’s atmosphere at a relatively languid pace, they burn up and streak across the sky as meteors (often called “shooting stars”) ts2.tech. The Draconids take their name from the constellation Draco, from which the meteors appear to radiate. Because Draco is a northern constellation (its “head” near
9 October 2025
Rare Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS – a 10-Billion-Year-Old Time Capsule – Flies Past Mars

Rare Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS – a 10-Billion-Year-Old Time Capsule – Flies Past Mars

A Visitor from Beyond the Solar System Humanity has waited a long time to study a comet from another star – and suddenly, within a decade, we’ve had three. 3I/ATLAS (officially 3I/2025 A1) is the latest of these rare interstellar interlopers. It was first detected moving through the outer Solar System in June 2025 with an exceptionally eccentric orbit. Follow-up observations quickly confirmed what its speed and trajectory implied: this object was not bound to the Sun’s gravity ts2.tech. By July 2025, the Minor Planet Center designated it the third interstellar object ever found ts2.tech. Like its predecessors – the cigar-shaped 1I/‘Oumuamua and cometary 2I/Borisov –
Northern Lights Alert! Solar Storms, Draconid Meteors & a Bright Harvest Moon Dazzle Oct. 8–9, 2025

Northern Lights Alert! Solar Storms, Draconid Meteors & a Bright Harvest Moon Dazzle Oct. 8–9, 2025

Geomagnetic Storms & Aurora Alerts A geomagnetic storm watch is in effect, as Earth encounters the debris of two solar eruptions from earlier this month. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts minor G1-class geomagnetic storms on October 8, with a slight chance they intensify to moderate G2 level people.com. These disturbances are caused by a pair of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – clouds of charged solar plasma – that launched from the Sun on Oct. 3–4 and are just now arriving at Earth earthsky.org. As a result, skywatchers at high latitudes have an elevated chance to witness the aurora borealis
Space Race Heats Up: Double Launch Blitz, Comet Surprises & Global Space Showdowns (Oct 7–8, 2025)

Space Race Heats Up: Double Launch Blitz, Comet Surprises & Global Space Showdowns (Oct 7–8, 2025)

Rapid Launch Cadence and New Missions SpaceX’s one-day, two-coast launch blitz. SpaceX demonstrated its unprecedented launch tempo by carrying out two Falcon 9 launches on Tuesday, Oct. 7 – one from Florida before dawn and another from California that night. The first mission at 2:46 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral lofted 28 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit, then successfully landed its booster on an Atlantic droneship space.com nasaspaceflight.com. That flight marked SpaceX’s 126th Falcon 9 mission of the year and 130th overall launch of 2025 (counting Starship test flights) space.com – a record-smashing cadence averaging a launch
Northern Lights, Draconid Meteors & Bright Comets – Skywatch Highlights for Oct 7–8, 2025

Northern Lights, Draconid Meteors & Bright Comets – Skywatch Highlights for Oct 7–8, 2025

Draconid Meteor Shower Peaks in Early Evening The Draconid meteor shower – a minor but convenient annual shower – is active October 6–10 and is expected to peak on the night of October 8, 2025 livescience.com. The Draconids are so named because their meteors appear to fan out from the head of the constellation Draco, the Dragon, which lies in the northwestern sky after nightfall in October science.nasa.gov livescience.com. Unlike many meteor showers that are best in the wee hours of morning, the Draconids are most easily viewed in the early evening – just after darkness falls – because Draco’s
7 October 2025
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