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Astronomy News 16 September 2025 - 20 September 2025

‘God of Chaos’ Asteroid Apophis to Skim Earth in 2029 – Inside the Historic Flyby and the 3 Probes Racing to Study It

‘God of Chaos’ Asteroid Apophis to Skim Earth in 2029 – Inside the Historic Flyby and the 3 Probes Racing to Study It

Overview: Meet Asteroid Apophis, the “God of Chaos” 99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid that shot to notoriety soon after its discovery in 2004. On June 19, 2004, astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi at Kitt Peak Observatory first spotted this 340-meter space rock science.nasa.gov. Early orbit calculations startled scientists – there appeared to be a 2.7% chance that Apophis could hit Earth on April 13, 2029, an unprecedented level of risk that briefly ranked Level 4 on the Torino impact hazard scale, the highest rating ever assigned to a near-Earth object livescience.com. In light of this potential
20 September 2025
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Solar System’s Hidden Edge: NASA’s Bold Quest to Map the Invisible Cosmic Boundary

Solar System’s Hidden Edge: NASA’s Bold Quest to Map the Invisible Cosmic Boundary

The Solar System’s Invisible Boundary – What and Where Is It? When we gaze up at the night sky, it’s easy to imagine the solar system simply fading into the depths of space. In reality, our solar system ends at a distinct, albeit invisible, boundary. This boundary is not marked by a wall or a halo of light, but by a balance of forces: it’s where the Sun’s influence ends and interstellar space begins indiatoday.in. Scientists call this frontier the heliopause, and understanding it is key to answering the age-old question: Where does the solar system end? At the heart
19 September 2025
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Black Hole Feasts, AI for Teens & Climate Alarms: Science News Roundup (Sept 18–19, 2025)

Black Hole Feasts, AI for Teens & Climate Alarms: Science News Roundup (Sept 18–19, 2025)

Space & Astronomy Record-Breaking Black Hole Growth Astronomers have identified a “black hole on overdrive” in the early universe, feeding faster than theory predicted. The supermassive black hole — about a billion solar masses and observed 12.8 billion light-years away — is devouring matter at 2.4 times the Eddington limit (the usual maximum rate) nasa.gov nasa.gov. This quasar’s extreme X-ray output makes it the brightest black hole of the universe’s first billion years nasa.gov. Its existence helps explain how giant black holes grew so quickly after the Big Bang. The lead researcher, Luca Ighina of the Center for Astrophysics, was
19 September 2025
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Don’t Miss This Weekend’s Celestial Show: Moon & Venus Dawn Dance, Saturn at Peak Brightness, and Aurora Alerts

Don’t Miss This Weekend’s Celestial Show: Moon & Venus Dawn Dance, Saturn at Peak Brightness, and Aurora Alerts

In-Depth: This Weekend’s Celestial Highlights (Sept. 19–20, 2025) 1. A Dazzling Dawn Conjunction (Moon, Venus & Regulus) – Sept. 19 & 20 If you’re up early, look east before sunrise on Friday, Sept. 19. You’ll be rewarded with a gorgeous trio of celestial objects clustered together in the growing dawn light earthsky.org. The crescent Moon, just 27 days old and barely 7% illuminated, will hover right above brilliant Venus (the brightest “star” in the sky at that hour) predicalendar.com earthsky.org. Just adjacent to Venus you’ll spot Regulus, the blue-white heart of the Leo constellation. NASA calls it “a magnificent conjunction”
19 September 2025
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Don’t Miss 2025’s Rare Triple Conjunction: Moon, Venus & Regulus Light Up Dawn Sky

Don’t Miss 2025’s Rare Triple Conjunction: Moon, Venus & Regulus Light Up Dawn Sky

A Rare Celestial Trio in Context Triple Conjunction is the term for an apparent meeting of three celestial bodies in close proximity in the sky. In astronomy, a conjunction means two or more objects share a similar line-of-sight or celestial longitude, appearing near each other from Earth’s perspective science.nasa.gov livescience.com. When three objects rendezvous in this way, it becomes a triple conjunction. Such events are special because getting three bright objects all in the same tiny patch of sky is uncommon – their orbital paths (and the tilt of those paths) rarely line up so perfectly at the same time
18 September 2025
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6,000 Exoplanets and Counting: NASA’s Cosmic Milestone in Planet Discovery

6,000 Exoplanets and Counting: NASA’s Cosmic Milestone in Planet Discovery

What Are Exoplanets, and Why Does 6,000 Matter? Exoplanets are planets that orbit a star other than our Sun – in other words, worlds beyond our own solar system. Some even drift freely in space without a parent star (so-called “rogue planets”) science.nasa.gov. Ever since the first exoplanets were confirmed in the 1990s, they have reshaped our understanding of the universe. We now know planets are abundant: over 6,000 have been confirmed so far, and astronomers estimate billions more likely exist in our galaxy alone nasa.gov. Reaching 6,000 confirmed exoplanets is more than just a number – it’s a testament
18 September 2025
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6,000 Alien Planets & a Healing Ozone Layer: Biggest Science News (Sept 17-18, 2025)

6,000 Alien Planets & a Healing Ozone Layer: Biggest Science News (Sept 17-18, 2025)

Key Facts Space Exploration: 6,000 New Worlds & Starship Progress In a milestone for astronomy, NASA confirmed the 6,000th exoplanet – planets orbiting other stars – in its records this week. The official tally of alien worlds crossed the 6k mark after only ~30 years of exoplanet hunting, reflecting an exponential discovery rate space.com. “We’re entering the next great chapter of exploration – worlds beyond our imagination,” a NASA video proclaimed space.com. NASA noted that because new planets are added on a rolling basis by scientists worldwide, “no single planet is considered the 6,000th entry… There are more than 8,000
18 September 2025
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Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: A Visitor from Beyond the Solar System

Rare Interstellar Comet Racing Through Our Solar System Could Be the Oldest Ever Seen

A Mysterious Visitor from Beyond the Solar System Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS photographed under dark skies during a lunar eclipse, revealing an emerald-green coma surrounding its nucleus space.com. This rare alien comet carries chemical clues from a distant star system. In September 2025, skywatchers in Namibia captured a stunning sight: a ghostly green comet drifting against the starry backdrop of space. This was 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar comet – a piece of another star system – paying a brief visit to our cosmic neighborhood. Only two interstellar objects had ever been seen before (the infamous ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and comet 2I/Borisov in
17 September 2025
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Mysterious Comet SWAN R2: New Interstellar Visitor or Oort Cloud Wanderer?

Mysterious Comet SWAN R2: New Interstellar Visitor or Oort Cloud Wanderer?

Discovery of Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) was spotted in early September 2025 in a rather unconventional way – by searching for faint glows in SOHO satellite images. The SOHO spacecraft’s SWAN instrument scans the entire sky in ultraviolet light, primarily to track solar wind interaction with hydrogen. Astrophotographers and amateur astronomers often comb through these SWAN images for telltale moving smudges that betray new comets. On 11 September 2025, Ukrainian amateur Vladimir Bezugly noticed such a moving fuzzball in SWAN’s data universetoday.com. Within hours it was confirmed by others and reported, earning the provisional label “SWAN25B”
17 September 2025
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Rare Meteor Shower, Auroras & Planetary Spectacles: Skywatch Alert (Sept 17–18, 2025)

Rare Meteor Shower, Auroras & Planetary Spectacles: Skywatch Alert (Sept 17–18, 2025)

Key Facts Below is your full skywatching guide for the nights of September 17–18, 2025, with details on each phenomenon and tips for viewing. Clear skies! Meteor Showers: Slow Shooting Stars of September Chi Cygnids – a Rare 5-Year Meteor Shower: The headline event is the chi Cygnid meteor shower, a newly confirmed minor shower that appears to produce enhanced activity roughly every five years earthsky.org foxweather.com. First noticed after an outburst in 2015, the Chi Cygnids have shown bumps in meteor counts in 2010, 2015, 2020, and now 2025 earthsky.org. NASA/SETI astronomer Peter Jenniskens and colleagues detected increased meteors
17 September 2025
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Rocket Launch Frenzy, Solar Surprises & Space Race Showdowns: 48 Hours of Space News (Sept 16–17, 2025)

Rocket Launch Frenzy, Solar Surprises & Space Race Showdowns: 48 Hours of Space News (Sept 16–17, 2025)

Rapid-Fire Rocket Launches and Satellite Deployments SpaceX’s Starlink blitz: SpaceX continued its high-frequency launch campaign, highlighting how routine orbital deployment has become. On Wednesday, Sept. 17, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into a polar low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California spaceflightnow.com. Liftoff occurred at 8:43 am PDT (15:43 UTC), and about eight minutes later the veteran booster (B1088 on its 10th flight) landed on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You spaceflightnow.com spaceflightnow.com. This “Starlink Group 17-12” mission was SpaceX’s 83rd Starlink launch of 2025, pushing the year’s Starlink satellite tally above 2,000 deployed so
17 September 2025
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Baby Black Hole Booted Across Space: First-Ever Measurement of a Cosmic “Natal Kick”

Baby Black Hole Booted Across Space: First-Ever Measurement of a Cosmic “Natal Kick”

A Cosmic Kick: Newborn Black Hole Sent Careening Through Space On April 12, 2019, two black holes collided 2.4 billion light-years away – an event detected as gravitational-wave signal GW190412. What happened next was extraordinary: the newly merged black hole was launched across space by a “natal kick,” like a cosmic cannonball. Now in 2025, scientists have measured the speed and direction of this recoiling black hole for the first time ever livescience.com igfae.usc.es. The remnant black hole blasted off at over 50 kilometers per second (about 180,000 km/h), likely fast enough to escape the cluster of stars it came
16 September 2025
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