Tiny frozen world unexpectedly appears to have an atmosphere

 

Image courtesy of NAOJ/Ko Arimatsu.

Joel Kontinen

A tiny The object, located in the Kuiper Belt of distant frozen bodies at the edge of the solar system, is formally named (612533) 2002 XV93, after the date of its discovery nearly a quarter of a century ago. It has a diameter of less than 500 kilometres.

he object also belongs to a class of objects known as plutinos because they are in the same stable orbit as Pluto, completing three revolutions around the sun for every two made by Neptune.

It seems that this object, though it is small,  has an atmosphere,   

On 10 January 2024, 2002 XV93 passed in front of a distant star, causing what is called an occultation. Ko Arimatsu at Kyoto University and his colleagues observed this event from three locations in Japan.

The team saw the star gradually fade and recover over about 1.5 seconds near the edge of the shadow.

“These gradual changes are best explained if the star’s light was bent by a very thin atmosphere around 2002 XV93,” says Arimatsu.

The team estimates a surface pressure of about 100 to 200 nanobars, roughly 5 million to 10 million times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere and about 50 to 100 times thinner than Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere.

“You could not breathe it, feel wind from it, or see anything like Earth’s sky,” says Arimatsu. “But it is not negligible scientifically because even such a thin atmosphere can measurably bend starlight, and it tells us that volatile gases are present or being supplied around a very small icy body.”

The team couldn’t determine the composition of the atmosphere directly from the data. Arimatsu suggests methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide are the most plausible candidates because they are among the few substances volatile enough to become gases at the very low temperatures of the outer solar system.

“This discovery challenges our conventional view of small worlds in the outer solar system,” says Arimatsu. “Until now, clearly detectable atmospheres in the solar system were essentially associated with planets, dwarf planets and some large satellites. 2002 XV93 appears to be one of the smallest solar system bodies yet with a clearly detected atmosphere.”

Souurse:

James Woodford 2026 Tiny frozen world unexpectedly appears to have an atmosphere | New Scientist 4 May

 

Earth may have formed from two separate rings around the sun

 

Models suggest something is wrong with our picture of the early solar system. Image courtesy of Panther Media Global / Alamy.

Joel Kontinen

According to evolutionary story, our solar system’s rocky planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – may have formed from two rings around the young sun, rather than a single disc.

The inner solar system may have formed differently from how scientist thought must have. For decades, researchers have thought that according to evolution, the rocky planets formed from a single disc of dust and debris in the early solar system, but new simulations indicate there might have been two separate discs of material.

Models featuring a single disc or ring of material around the young sun tend to be unable to recreate several features of the solar system as we observe it. For one, Earth seems to be made of two different kinds of rocks, which wouldn’t make sense if they all came from the same ring.

Also, single-ring models tend to end up with Mercury and Mars too big, Venus and Earth too close together and the compositions of Earth and Mars too similar.

The real history of the planets can be read from the book of Genesis, in which God made the planets and stars at one go.

Source:

Leah Crane 2026 Earth may have formed from two separate rings around the sun | New Scientist 24 March 

3I/ATLAS: Interstellar comet has water unlike any in our solar system

 

The levels of a heavy form of hydrogen in 3I/ATLAS are 30 to 40 times higher than in Earth's oceans, suggesting the comet has a cold and distant origin. Image courtesy of International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Bolin.

Joel Kontinen

The presence of water does not mean that this comet is teeming with life. It needs intelligent design to make water and other ingredients turn into life.

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains water and carbon molecules at levels never before seen in our solar system. This suggests that it formed around an alien star radically different from and much older than the sun.

Astronomers have been tracking 3I/ATLAS since it entered our solar system last year – and it is weird. It appears to be packed with far more carbon dioxide and water than almost any other comet we have seen, and early estimates put its age at 8 billion years – almost twice as old as the sun.

Martin Cordiner at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and his colleagues have found that its levels of deuterium – a form of hydrogen with an extra neutron – are at least 10 times higher than in any comet we have seen before.

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2026 3I/ATLAS: Interstellar comet has water unlike any in our solar system | New Scientist 17 March 

 

 

There might be a 'Planet Y' hiding in the outer solar system

 Image courtesy of Peter Jurik/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Are there unseen planets in our solar system?

"Somewhere at the edge of the solar system a new Earth-sized world might be lurking, dubbed Planet Y.

Astronomers have long proposed that there might be hidden planets beyond the Kuiper belt, a region of icy objects that is home to Pluto. Some of the more famous suggestions include Planet X, a hypothesised world about seven times the mass of Earth orbiting around 50 times the Earth-sun distance – now mostly debunked – and Planet Nine, which would be 10 times the mass of Earth and at least 300 times further from the sun than our planet and which remains a promising possibility."

Source:

Jonathan O’Callaghan 2025 There might be a 'Planet Y' hiding in the outer solar system | New Scientist 21 August

Interstellar invader Comet is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth

 

Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))

Joel Kontinen 

Can the comet 3I/ATLAS be older than earth? It is packed with water that could be older than Earth some scientists say. The comet about 7 billion years old, which would make it older than the solar system itself.

"It could represent some of the oldest and most pristine water ever observed, formed in another planetary system and preserved throughout its interstellar journey.

Some scientists estimate there could be as many as 1 million interstellar visitors in the solar system at any one time. It's thought that many of these could lurk in the Oort cloud, a shell of comets located at the very edge of the solar system. The study of 3I/ATLAS and other interstellar interlopers could reveal what conditions are like in other planetary systems.”

The timing of the solar system is false.

Source:

Robert Lea 2025 Interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth | Space  23 July

Laws of quantum physics may rule out a universe that came before ours

 

Image courtesy of Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

Instead of the Big Bang, some physicists have suggested tha t our universe may have come from a big bounce following another universe contracting – but quantum theory could rule this out.

Did our solar system had a beginning that was before  God created it at the beginning, Some evolutionists think so, but others are not so sure.

Could our universe be expanding and shrinking back into a tiny point, reliving a kind of big bang over and over again? Probably not, according to a mathematical analysis that argues that the laws of physic forbid such a cyclic universe.

A key moment in the life of a cyclic universe is the big bounce, an alternative to the big bang as the beginning of the known universe. The big bang starts with a singularity – matter and energy packed into a point so dense that gravity becomes strong enough to elude the laws of physics as we understand them – followed by an endless outwards expansion. But if the universe began with a big bounce, we could look beyond what we think of as the beginning and see another universe contracting to form an incredibly dense point, but not necessarily a singularity, before bouncing back out into the expanding universe we live in today.

Source:

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan 2025 Laws of quantum physics may rule out a universe that came before ours | New Scientist 18 July   

Venus may be geologically 'alive' after all, reanalysis of 30-year-old NASA data reveals

 

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL

 Joel Kontinen

Is Venus geologically active? Some articles state that she is not, but new research points that this is not so.

The Solar System is especial, God created the planets with water and made it geologically active, that is seen in Pluto and Mars. 

New research strengthens the case that Venus, long considered a geologically stagnant world, may be more Earth-like in its internal dynamics than once believed.

Scientists have uncovered fresh evidence that Venus is not dead — geologically speaking. Venus and Earth are similar in size and were bombarded by comparable amounts of water billions of years ago. This shared This research has provided a new and important insight into the possible subsurface processes currently shaping the surface of Venus," Gael Cascioli, an assistant research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland who co-led the new study, said in a statement.

"We could hardly believe our eyes"

The latest evidence focuses on dozens of large, ring-shaped features on Venus' surface. These features, known as coronae, form when plumes of hot rock rise from deep within the mantle, pushing the crust upward. As the surface cools and collapses, a circular structure is left behind. Cascioli and his team simulated several formation scenarios for these features and compared their results with data from Magellan.

Origin has long fueled one of planetary science's biggest questions: Why did Venus become a hellish, uninhabitable world while Earth flourished into a cradle for life?

The predicted and actual data aligned so closely for some coronae that "we could hardly believe our eyes," Cascioli told Scientific American.

Of the 75 coronae they resolved in the Magellan data, 52 appear to sit above buoyant mantle plumes, according to the new study.

"We can now say there are most likely various and ongoing active processes driving their formation," Anna Gülcher, a planetary scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland who co-led the new study, said in the statement. "We believe these same processes may have occurred early in Earth's history."

Venus hosts hundreds of such coronae, many of which are found in areas where the planet's crust is particularly thin and heat from below is high. Recent research simulated how different rock types behave under Venus' extreme conditions. The findings suggest that the planet's crust may break off or melt once it reaches around 40 miles (65 kilometers) thick, and in many areas, it is likely even thinner.

"That is surprisingly thin, given conditions on the planet," Justin Filiberto, deputy chief of NASA's Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division in Houston, who co-authored the study about Venus' crust, said in a different statement.

Source:

Sharmila Kuthunur 2025 Venus may be geologically 'alive' after all, shocking analysis of 30-year-old NASA data reveals | Live Science 21 May

Astronomers identify first 'good' candidate for controversial Planet Nine deep in our solar system

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

 Joel Kontinen

What is the current stage for discovering the planet 9, which some astronomers think that existed in outr solar system?

Researchers have found a candidate for the hypothetical Planet Nine, which could be an undiscovered giant planet way out in our solar system. However, as with all ninth planet research, the new findings were met with some skepticism.

Astronomers searching for a ninth planet in our solar system say they've found a "good" candidate far beyond Neptune, according to a new preprint study.

This could be humanity's first glimpse at the long-theorized Planet Nine, which — if it exists — is a giant, undiscovered world distantly orbiting our sun. However, the ninth planet proposal is contentious, and the new findings are unlikely to change that.

Researchers discovered this latest planetary candidate while studying old satellite data. At this stage, the candidate is simply a curious dot across a few infrared images. But the dot seemed to be moving in a way that was consistent with a large, distant planet.

The scientists say that they have no indication for the look for this planet. So the search continues.

Source:

Patrick Pester 2025 Planet Nine? Astronomers spot potential ninth planet far beyond Neptune — but not everyone is convinced | Live Science May 2.

Meteorite crystals show evidence of hot water on ancient Mars

 

A Martian meteorite nicknamed Black Beauty

Image courtesy of Carl B. Agee (University of New Mexico)

Joel Kontinen

 ”Crystals inside a Martian meteorite hint that there may have been plentiful hot water on Mars when the rock formed "4.45 billion years" ago.

The rock, nicknamed Black Beauty, was blasted into space by an impact on the surface of Mars before ultimately crashing into the Sahara Desert Morocco in 2011 and is formally known as Northwest Africa 7034.

Aaron Cavosie at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and his colleagues have spent years studying a tiny fragment of it that includes a zircon crystal measuring 50 micrometres across.

Cavosie describes Black Beauty as a “garbage can” rock because it was formed from hundreds of fragments smashed together. “It’s a wonderful buffet of Martian history, a mixture of very old and very young rocks,” he says. “But many of the fragments in it are among the oldest pieces of rock from Mars.”

The evolutionists believe that the solar system was formed 4,5 billion years ago, but the dating methods are full of danger.

Source:

 James Woodford 2024 Meteorite crystals show evidence of hot water on ancient Mars | New Scientist 22 November 

 

 

 

 

Huge asteroid impact may have knocked over Jupiter's largest moon

 

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Joel Kontinen

When did Ganymede get its present shape?

According  to Darwinists, ”a massive collision billions of years ago may have dramatically reoriented Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon”.

But they have not known which meteor hit Ganymede, so its just a series of Darwinian  tales.

”Naoyuki gata at Kobe University, Japan, and his colleagues studied Ganymede’s extensive furrow system, a series of concentric troughs believed to be remnants of the largest impact structure in the outer solarsystem.”

The centre of the furrow system aligns closely with Ganymede’s tidal axis – the imaginary line running  tales to Jupiter from the centre of the moon’s side that always faces its planet. This led the researchers to suggest that the impact that formed the furrows caused a significant redistribution of mass that reoriented the moon.

Through simulations, the researchers determined that the impactor responsible probably had a diameter of about 150 kilometres ­– significantly larger than the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs on Earth, which is estimated to have had a diameter of about 10 kilometres.

Andrew Dombard at the University of Illinois Chicago says that if an asteroid like that hit Earth, “it would be a global sterilising event, a bad day”.

Upon impact, this asteroid would have breached Ganymede’s icy crust into the liquid oceans below, creating a transient crater and hurling vast amounts of material across the moon’s surface.”

Source:

Jacklin Kwan, 2024. Huge asteroid impact may have knocked over Jupiter's largest moon | New Scientist 3 September. 

Perfectly straight ridges may cover the poles of Saturn’s moon Titan

 

 Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Nantes/University of Arizona

Joel  Kontinen

Evolution with its millionsof years poses many problems for the universe. Some features are not as old  as the age of the solar system,

What is new about Saturn’s moon Titan? New research is claiming that ridges cover its poles.   

It is said that landforms called “yardangs can form on Earth – and they might also be on Saturn’s moon Titan.”

They might be yardings or some other features, There is still much we don’t know about Saturn and its moons.

 Source:

Leah Crane, 2024, Perfectly straight ridges may cover the poles of Saturn’s moon Titan | New Scientist  15 March.

Earth has extra moons, and they may hold the secrets of our solar system's past

 

Image coutesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Joel Kontinen

Earth's closest cosmic companions, known as 'minimoons' or 'quasi-moons', could hold the secrets to the history of our early solar system.

Near-Earth asteroids are similar to time capsules, holding secrets to the early history of the solar system, experts say. Temporary companions called 'minimoons' may be the best place to unearth these secrets.

The solar system has many secrets that researchers are still trying to unravel. They are turning to space rocks that according to evolutionists may unravel to story of how we got here. For instance, NASAs “OSIRIS REx mission discovered water and carbon — two of the precursors for life on Earth — on the 4.5billion-year-old asteroid Bennu.”

According to evolution, ”among the thousands of asteroids swarming near Earth’s orbit, minimoons — tiny cosmic bodies, whose orbits are partially governed by Earth and partially by other solar system bodies — may be prime candidates for learning about the origins of the solar system, said Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”

Miniscule objects, such as “Bennu or a minimoon, are "like time capsules," Paul Abell, chief scientist for small body exploration at NASA, told Live Science. "They give us indications of what the early solar system was like [and] what the conditions were."

Source:

Kiley Price 2024 Earth has extra moons, and they may hold the secrets of our solar system's past | Live Science 26 February

A renegade moon may have flipped Venus’s spin

 

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.  

Joel Kontinen

Some astronomers think that Venus rotates in the opposite direction to the other planets in the solar system, and astronomers aren’t sure why – but it may have been caused by the drag of an ancient moon in a backwards orbit. It is called Theia.  

Now, this calls for an ancient moon that may or not   to do the trick. But we do not know if the planet or moon existed,

According to evolutionists, the early solar system was a chaotic place, with rocks hurtling around at extraordinary speeds. Valeri Makarov at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington DC and Alexey Goldin at Teza Techno. logies in Chicago performed a series of’examples

 

Source:

Leah Crane. 2024. A renegade moon may have flipped Venus’s spin | New Scientist 4 January 

Organic molecules in Bennu

 

A view of the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector. Sample material from asteroid Bennu can be seen on the middle right. 

Image courtecy of NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold)

What is that material?': Potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu stumps scientists with its odd makeup.

Scientists found signs of organic molecules in the first samples of potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu, as well as a 'head scratching' material that has yet to be identified.

Some scientist say that the asteroid Bennu has organic molecules. Tasked with finding clues about origins of life on Earth, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft scooped up pieces of a rugged, rubble-pile asteroid named Bennu in late 2020 and delivered them to Earth about two months ago. On Monday (Dec. 11), scientists got their first detailed description of some of that extraterrestrial collection.

Some scientist say, "We definitely have hydrated, organic-rich remnants from the early solar system, which is exactly what we were hoping when we first conceived this mission almost 20 years ago."

They said that Bennu has since its discovery is millions of years old.

Source:

Sharmila Kuthunur. 2023. 'What is that material?': Potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu stumps scientists with its odd makeup | Live Science 13 December.

 

 

NASA finds key ingredient for life gushing out of Saturn's icy moon Encelaudus

 

Image courtesy of  NASA)

 Joel Kontinen

Scientists have discovered complex molecules in the gas and vapor plumes escaping from Enceladus's icy core — and some say one of them, hydrogen cyanide, is a precursor for life.

“On Earth, hydrogen cyanide is toxic to most organisms. But scientists believe it played an important role in the early origin of life, potentially serving as a precursor molecule in the evolution of amino acids — the building blocks of proteins required for life.”

“Encelaudus has intrigued astrobiologists since 2005, when NASA's Cassini probe detected jets of gas and icy crystals erupting from cryovolcanoes near its south pole.”

So this by no means confirms the presence of life, for evolutionists does strengthen the case for it on Enceladus. 

Source:  

Joanna Thompson. 2023. NASA finds key ingredient for life gushing out of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus (msn.com). 20 December

 

A comet will approach Earth in a few weeks

 

Image courtesy  of NASA/Dan Bartlett. 

Joel Koninen

A newly discovered comet that is approaching Earth may have as its origin from outside the solar system.

That is what evolutionists  suppose, as they have a  source of comets just outside the solar system, in theo Oort cloud, which may also be the origen to this comet. 

A japanese amateor astonomer astronomer Hideo Nishimura found the Comet Nishimura. It will be as its closes to Earth on September 13,. 

 Source:

 Baker,  Harry, 2023, New 'potentially interstellar' comet will be visible to the naked eye next month before leaving our solar system forever Live Science  August 8. 

Earth should not exist

 

Image courtesy of  BlenderTimer / Pixabay. 

Joel Kontinen 

Earth and the other inner solar planets —Mercury, Venus, and Mars —“should be a chaotic messaa nd models have suggested that they should not exist.

 “Planets constantly exert a mutual gravitational pull on each other – and these little tugs constantly make minor adjustments to the planets' orbits. The outer planets, which are much larger, are more resistant to little tugs and so maintain comparatively stable orbits.” 

They should have should have crashed into each other by now. However, that hasn't happened. 

Source: 

 Demming , Anna. 2023,  Scientists discover secret 'symmetries' that protect Earth from the chaos of space.  Live Science 9 May. 

 

Mercury has a weird cloud of dust following it

Image courtesy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith.

Joel Kontinen

Mercury has secrets.  It appears to share its orbit with a huge ring of dust millions of kilometres thick, and scientists aren’t sure how it got there.

The solar system is created, and we would not catch anything like it anywhere,

Researchers can not explain why the  sun’s gravity almost did not immediately pull in the debris.  

Source: 

Crane,  Leah, 2023.Weird dust ring orbits the sun alongside Mercury and we don't know why New Scietist. 8 February 

Asteroid will zip past Earth on November l

 Image courtesy of Shutterstock, 

Joel Kontinen 

NASA scientist have seen an asteroid that is "potentially hazardous".iit is to rush past earth just in time for Halloween,

It is called 2022 RM4 and it is almost as tall as the world’s tallest building in Burj Khalifa in Dubai and has a diameter of 330 and 740 meters or 1,083 and 2,428 feet

 The asteroid will come to within 2.3 million kilometres   or 2.3 million miles  on November 1. this distance is six times the average distance between Earth and the moon, 

Source:

Turner,  Ben , 2022,  A monstrously large, 'potentially hazardous' asteroid will zip through Earth's orbit on Halloween Live Science 28 October, ,