CIRCLE WITH A DOT

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, 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/

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

@badastro So what will happen to those satellites after their service life expires?Will space debris form around the Earth?

If you need a momentary distraction right now — and by heavens (literally) we all do — then here's a story about how our local supermassive black hole undergoes episodes of cosmic indigestion. The last one was just over a century ago!https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/our-milky-way-s-supermassive-black-hole-has-a-hiccuppy-past

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