#bskycometography no. 302 C/1963 R1 (Pereyra) 1963 Sep 14: Discovered by Z. M. Pereyra (Argentina) at 2 mag. This member of the Kreutz group of sungrazing comets had passed perihelion already on Aug 23 at 0.005 au. Max tail length ~18°. The comet was last seen on Dec 18. ☄️🔭 #CometWatch

And also congratulations to our #post-doctorate members (Lisa, Samuele, and @trygveprestgard.bsky.social) for presenting their ongoing work on fossil micrometeorites! ☄️ @amgc-vub.bsky.social

Lastly, the FLUX PhD and Post-docs wrapped up their week at the #EPSC with a few group photos! 📸 ☄️😀 @amgc-vub.bsky.social @fienjo.bsky.social @trygveprestgard.bsky.social

#bskycometography no. 301 C/1996 R3 (Lagerkvist) 1996 Sep 13: Disc by K. I. Lagerkvist (Chile) at 18.5 mag. The comet was well past perihelion (1995 Jul 20 at 5.21 au) and did not become brighter. Last seen Oct 30. I was involved with orbit improvement (see link in ALT text). ☄️🔭 #CometWatch

Surprise! A bright new comet is entering darker skies, with a relatively close approach with Earth (~0.25 AU) in October! Read more about this discovery (provisionally designated SWAN25B) in my latest blog post! 😄 #CometWatch #ESA #NASA

About 37 years ago, the final moments of #comet C/1988 Q1 were captured by the Solar Maximum Mission. The below animation contains the only images of this sungrazer, which may have reached negative magnitudes prior to disintegrating! Image credit: The HAO/SMM C/P project team & #NASA #CometWatch

Yayy more #Raman spectroscopy of #micrometeorites! 😁☄️

Yesterday a fragment of Kracht-II group comet P/2002 R5 (SOHO) was reobserved! This periodic comet likely split in 2002 and was recovered as two fragments in 2008, then as four in 2014 and 2019! It was recovered in public data from the CCOR-1 telescope, but was also visible in LASCO. ☄️ #CometWatch

#bskycometography no. 271 115P/1985 Q1 (Maury) 1985 Aug 16: Discovered by A. J. Maury (USA) on POSS plates at 16 mag. The comet was past perihelion (Jun 8 at 2.01 au) and did not become brighter. It was last seen on 1986 Jan 7. Period 8.84 years. The comet was recovered in 1994. ☄️🔭 #CometWatch

Today SOHO/LASCO C3 caught this cool image of a bunch of dust passing infront of the camera. It's likely the result of debris released by the spacecraft's insulation layers from a tiny micrometeorite impact. ☄️

Nine years ago this beautiful Kreutz-group sungrazer (SOHO-3109) was plunging towards its demise! Likely reaching mag 0 at its brightest, it is one of the brightest SOHO-discovered comets ever observed! ☄️ #CometWatch

WE PUBLISH: INTERSTELLAR VISITORS AND ELUSIVE EXTRASOLAR METEORITES to exemplify how Oort cloud objects gravitationally perturbed by stellar encounters can simulate interstellar visitors: www.astroscu.unam.mx/rmaa/RMxAC..... Based in our #Icarus journal paper:⤵️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Had a really nice time at #Goldschmidt2025 in Prague! 😁

#bskycometography no. 136 C/1951 G1 (Groeneveld) 1951 Apr 2: Disc by I. Groeneveld (USA) as a 15 mag small diffuse object. Announced in 1954 as unconfirmed. Finally confirmed by G. W. Kronk & yours truly in further images of the same survey (Mar 31-Apr 7). Announced in 2023. ☄️🔭 #CometWatch

How amazing! The Great Comet of 1744 appears to be periodic, with an estimated return in 2097! ☄️😀 #CometWatch

We are happy to end this week with a "family photo" of most FLUX (and related) team members! Despite the Sun being absent, our smiles remained present! A big thanks to Jean-Guillaume Feignon for the photo 😄☄️

It's nearing the end of another productive week! Today's post features @fienjo.bsky.social and Samuele hunting for cosmic spherules, as well as @trygveprestgard.bsky.social measuring micrometeorites using the Raman spectrometer! Included is also an image showing *some* finds made by Sam this week!

It's great using the Raman spectrometer again! 😀

Did you know anyone can discover comets in images taken by the CCOR-1 telescope aboard @noaa.gov's #GOES-19 satellite? Read more about the early success of CCOR-1 as a comet hunting tool in my latest blog post! 😃☄️ #CometWatch skyhuntblog.wordpress.com/2025/03/30/a...

Nice paper out today by Francisco Carrasco-Varela et al. looking at blue straggler stars in #galactic open and globular clusters! ☄️ #stellarastro These weird stars form in mergers, and in their comprehensive survey they find an increasing fraction with age and multiple 'bumps' over time.

#bskycometography no. 132 C/1987 F1 (Torres) 1987 Mar 28: Disc C. Torres (Chile) at 15 mag shortly prior perihelion on Apr 10, at 3.62 au. Two visual observations at ~13 mag in June. The comet was followed until 1992 Jan 31, when it was last seen at a solar distance of 13.3 au! ☄️🔭 #CometWatch

A couple pictures from yesterday showing @zelclara.bsky.social, Julius and @trygveprestgard.bsky.social going through their micrometeorite finds here @amgc-vub.bsky.social ☄️☄️

It seems that a small cloud of particles passed infront of the SOHO/LASCO telescopes yesterday, leading to these pretty images! The cause was most likely debris flaking off the spacecraft's insulation layers, possibly from a small micrometeorite impact. This is actually not uncommon! ☄️

The micrometeorites keep rolling in here @amgc-vub.bsky.social! Here are six (among several tens) of cosmic spherule candidates recently spotted by Samuele in Antarctic sediments! ☄️✨

Today, among other activities, @fienjo.bsky.social and Julius are diligently searching through sand for tiny cosmic spherules @amgc-vub.bsky.social ! Below are only a couple of the spherules that they have uncovered. Great job! ☄️👍

Nathalie Korhonen Cuestas reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on what might be powering the strange, puzzling young galaxies known as little red dots. aasnova.org/2025/03/12/t... 🔭

My largest cosmic spherule candidate to date! Crossing my fingers! ☄️✨

It's a busy week at @amgc-vub.bsky.social's FLUX team! Among the ongoing activities, Deepak and @trygveprestgard.bsky.social are hunting and verifying potential micrometeorite finds from two different deserts! ☄️✨

In addition to C/2024 G3 (ATLAS), a tiny Kreutz-group sungrazer also briefly made an appearance in SOHO/LASCO C3! Unfortunately, the small sungrazer rapidly fell apart. Both comets are (were) completely unrelated. ☄️

Saji Observatory reports that comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) appears to be falling apart, with a fragment 4.5 arcsec away in images from their 103 cm telescope on 2025 Jan 12 UT. This is not confirmed yet, but they plan to reobserve next night. One can hope...☄️🔭 #CometWatch x.com/sajiastropar...

An updated animation of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) transiting the SOHO/LASCO C3 FOV! ☄️

The ULTIMO team is currently returning from Antarctica with a final yield of 110 meteorites and ~80 kg of (micrometeorite-rich) sediments! We look forward to analyzing these samples when they make it to the AMGC! ☄️ We wish the team a safe trip back to Belgium! 😊

The FLUX team now has their own bsky account! Go check out the work we do there! ☄️😀

Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is currently entering the SOHO/LASCO C3 FOV, looking very bright! ☄️

Was scrolling through DECaLS images and came across this rare polar-ring galaxy! This one, designated 2MASX J13594168+2500460, is also an active galaxy. 😍

Could Szabo Bluff (SZA) 12432 stem from the surface of a primitive carbonaceous Near-Earth asteroid with a low perihelion distance? Maybe? It's difficult to say, but this might be a possibility if SZA 12432 is a mildly hydrated, severely heated, CM chondrite! ☄️☄️☄️

Are there Ornans-type chondrites that have experienced significant aqueous alteration? NWA 16476 may be such a candidate! Hydrated minerals were particularly evident in spectra that I obtained at the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG)! 😀

It's so cool that already-processed real time DSCOVR/EPIC images are accessible online! Below is an animation I put together showing the shadow of the April 8th (2024) solar eclipse! 😃 Data can be found here: epic.gsfc.nasa.gov

Oued Chebeika 002 is the first CI chondrite "find"! Until now, all CIs have been "falls". This is interesting as the porous nature of CIs implies rapid desctruction through weathering. CIs are interesting due to their chemical primitivity, plus are analogous to asteroid Ryugu! ☄️