Stargazer  

October 2025
Compiled by John Panek

Monthly Highlights 

An interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS is zooming through our solar system. Unfortunately it will not be visible to the unaided eye from Earth at any time, reaching an expected peak brightness of Magnitude 11.  But watch this summary of recent observations for this extraordinary object:  https://youtu.be/bwJgcflf0lM?si=xgAzHdR2RHzeCkl3

NASA's Mars rover Perseverance may have found evidence of ancient microbial life in a dry riverbed in Jezero Crater!  The sample, called "Sapphire Canyon", was taken from a rock named "Cheyava Falls" in July 2024.  Containing organic carbon alongside vivianite and gregite minerals, the "leopard-spotted" texture is commonly produced on Earth by microbes that consume organic matter.  No evidence was present that the sample was exposed to high heat or acidity that could have formed the minerals via a non-biological process.  The Confidence of Life Detection (CoLD) scale is a seven-level framework for ranking the strength of evidence for extraterrestrial life -  this discovery ranks a solid Level 3!  This is above the Level 2 attributed to seasonal methane variability and organic molecule discovery in Gale Crater.  The next steps to increase confidence of life detection would require returning a sample to Earth for further study.  https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-says-mars-rover-discovered-potential-biosignature-last-year/

The brightest fast radio burst (FRB) observed to date has been detected at a relatively close 130 million light-years from Earth by CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment).  A millisecond long flash released the same amount of energy that our sun does over a few days!  The burst originated from the edge of a young star-forming region, and additional infrared signals were found at the burst location by JWST.  This supports the theory that a red giant lost mass to a companion magnetar, initiating the burst.  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf29f

The highest resolution image of our Sun was taken by the NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope - showing features as small as 24km across - a resolution of 29 milliarcseconds!  Imaging an X-class flare for the first time, the fine coronal loops are thought to possibly be the building blocks of a solar flare's entire architecture.  "If that's the case, we're not just resolving bundles of loops - we're resolving individual loops for the first time...like going from seeing a forest to suddenly seeing every single tree" according to Cole Tamburri, lead author of a study publishing the results here:  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf95e