Universe Explorer
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NASA Picture of the Day
APOD
M82: Starburst Galaxy with a Superwind
2026-04-17
Messier 82 is a starburst galaxy with a superwind. In fact, through supernova explosions and powerful winds from massive stars, the burst of star formation in M82 is driving a prodigious outflow. Evid…
© Arnaud Malleval
Space News
NASA
ESA
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- NASA NASA's SPHEREx Observatory Maps Interstellar Ice in Milky Way 2026-04-17 14:20
- NASA NASA’s SPHEREx Observatory Maps Interstellar Ice in Milky Way 2026-04-17 14:14
- Universe Today To Survive Deep Space, Astronauts May Owe a Debt to Microscopic Worms 2026-04-17 11:57
- Universe Today Watch This Dark Volcanic Ash Creep Across the Red Planet 2026-04-17 10:55
- Universe Today What Happens When Light Goes Boom? Part 2: The Crowd, the Molasses, and the Speed of Light (Sort Of) 2026-04-17 02:06
- Universe Today Early Galaxies Were Surrounded by Huge Clouds of Hydrogen, and Astronomers Found a Whole Bunch! 2026-04-16 23:02
- Universe Today The Moon Might Be More Prone To Fires 2026-04-16 16:41
- NASA NASA Invites Media to Latvia Artemis Accords Signing Ceremony 2026-04-16 16:41
- NASA At the Edge of Light 2026-04-16 14:40
- NASA At the Edge of Light 2026-04-16 14:38
Rocket Launches
LL2-
LaunchedSoyuz 2.1b/Volga | Kosmos (Unknown Payload)In Flight
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LaunchedLong March 4C | Daqi-2 (AEMS)Success
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22h 4minFalcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-22Go
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1d 18hNew Glenn | BlueBird Block 2 #2Go
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2d 15hFalcon 9 Block 5 | GPS III SV10Go
Space Weather
NOAA
AIA 193 A (Corona) (SDO)
Earth (EPIC/DSCOVR) — 2026-04-16
Moon Phase
☾🌑
New Moon
0.2% illuminated
Next Full Moon
1. May (14d)
Next New Moon
16. May (29d)
Meteor Showers
IMO-
Lyrids 4dPeak: 22. Apr 2026 ZHR: ~18 49 km/sC/1861 G1 (Thatcher)
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Eta Aquariids 18dPeak: 6. May 2026 ZHR: ~50 66 km/s1P/Halley
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Delta Aquariids 103dPeak: 30. Jul 2026 ZHR: ~25 41 km/s96P/Machholz
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Perseids 116dPeak: 12. Aug 2026 ZHR: ~100 59 km/s109P/Swift-Tuttle
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Draconids 173dPeak: 8. Oct 2026 ZHR: ~10 20 km/s21P/Giacobini-Zinner
Near-Earth Asteroids
CNEOSNext 14 days, < 0.1 AU
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2026 GM12026-Apr-18 14:0 3.5 LD 1.329.731 km 5.6 km/s
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2026 GL22026-Apr-22 08:5 7.1 LD 2.721.303 km 10.4 km/s
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2026 GR22026-Apr-18 03:0 7.7 LD 2.946.052 km 6.5 km/s
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2026 GJ12026-Apr-21 07:5 8.7 LD 3.338.588 km 22.2 km/s
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2022 UU82026-Apr-25 06:3 8.7 LD 3.343.118 km 4 km/s
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2026 HF2026-Apr-20 09:0 9.8 LD 3.751.545 km 5.5 km/s
LD = Lunar Distances (384.400 km)
New Papers
arXiv- Consistent Treatment of Muons in Binary Neutron Star Mergers
- Could the high-mass black holes from gravitational-wave observations be explained by lensing?
- Deep Imaging Meets Motion: Complementing Stream Photometry Through Planetary Nebula Kinematics
- Cold vs. Hot Gas Accretion and Angular Momentum in FIRE Simulations: From Halo to Galaxy Scales
- Combining spectroscopy and wavefront control at deep contrast with photonic lanterns
- Stream on: Evolution of stellar shells and streams - A case study
Astronomer's Telegrams
ATel- #17745 Radio Flaring of the FSRQ B2 1420+32
- #17744 The detection of OH 18 cm lines in C/2025 R3 with FAST
- #17743 PRIME discovery and IRTF confirmation of a bright nova PRIME26aaabsh at the Galactic center
- #17742 New giant radio flare of microquasar Cyg X-3
- #17741 XRISM/Xtend Transient Search (XTS) detected an X-ray flare from ATO J079.1066-00.5215
- #17740 Fermi-LAT detection of enhanced gamma-ray activity from the FSRQ PKS 1958-179.
Current Comets
Heavens-Above| Comet | Mag | Constellation | Alt |
|---|---|---|---|
| C/2025 R3 PANSTARRS | 4.6 | Pegasus | 13.9° |
| 88P Howell | 10.2 | Aquarius | -14.9° |
| 29P Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 | 12.5 | Leo | 7.7° |
| 24P Schaumasse | 12.9 | Virgo | -23.6° |
| C/2024 E1 Wierzchos | 12.9 | Taurus | 56.7° |
| C/2025 A6 Lemmon | 13.9 | Centaurus | -39.3° |
| C/2023 R1 PANSTARRS | 14.4 | Aquila | -39.9° |
| 235P LINEAR | 14.5 | Ophiuchus | -51.7° |
Live Services
Latest Publications (peer-reviewed)
- ApJ Supermassive Black Hole Imaging with a Self-consistent Electron-temperature Prescription Alejandro Cruz-Osorio, Claudio Meringolo, Christian M. Fromm
- ApJ Stratification of the Active Galactic Nucleus–Driven Multiphase Outflows in the Dwarf Seyfert Galaxy NGC 4395 Payel Nandi, Luis Colina, Rogemar A. Riffel, Miguel Pereira
- ApJ Binary Disruption during the Early Phase of Open Clusters* Zepeng Zheng, Long Wang and Holger Baumgardt
- ApJ Mapping the Milky Way with Gaia Bp/Rp Spectra. IV. The Broken and Asymmetric Density Profile of the Stellar Disk Traced by a Large Sample of Red Clumps Wenbo Wu, Yuqin Chen, Jianhui Lian, Martín López-Corredoira,
- ApJ ODIN: Searching for LyC Emission from Lyα Emitters at z = 4.5 in the E-COSMOS and XMM-LSS Fields Eunsuk Seo, Hyunmi Song, Lucia Guaita, Kyoung-Soo Lee, Eric
- ApJ Dichotomy in Long-lived Radio Emission from Tidal Disruption Events AT 2020zso and AT 2021sdu: Multicomponent Outflows versus Host Contamination Collin T. Christy, Kate D. Alexander, Tanmoy Laskar, Noah Fr
- ApJ Correlations between Kilohertz Quasiperiodic Oscillations and Spectral Parameters from Time-resolved Spectrotemporal Analysis of 4U 1728-34 Kewal Anand, Ranjeev Misra, J. S. Yadav and Pankaj Jain
- ApJ Retrieving the Red Edge on Earth-like Planets with Heterogeneous Clouds and Surfaces Zachary Burr, Mario Damiano, Vincent Kofman, Renyu Hu and Ge
- ApJL The Steep Redshift Evolution of the Hierarchical Binary Black Hole Merger Rate May Cause the z-χ eff Correlation Amanda M. Farah, Aditya Vijaykumar and Maya Fishbach
- ApJL A Unified Dark-matter-driven Relativistic Bondi Route to Black Hole Growth from Stellar to Supermassive Scales Chian-Shu Chen and Feng-Li Lin
- ApJL Preferential Appearance of Hα Moreton Waves along Photospheric Magnetic Network Boundaries C. H. Zhai, Y. W. Ni, J. H. Guo and P. F. Chen
- ApJL BE Lyncis: A Pulsating Star in the Most Eccentric Binary with a Massive Unseen Companion Jia-Shu Niu, 家树 牛, Ying Zhang, 颖 张, Hui-Fang Xue and 会芳 薛
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