Apollo 11 & Milky Way's Particle Accelerator Found

⚡ Milky Way's extreme particle source found

🚀 India's first private rocket succeeds

☄️ Near-Earth asteroid is actually a comet

✨ Sun holds more silver than thought

🌟 Ancient astronomers tracked a stellar mystery

Hiroshima University researchers led by Tsunefumi Mizuno analyzed data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to conclusively identify LHAASO J1912+1014u as a rare proton PeVatron, accelerating cosmic rays to extreme energies.

The team combined Fermi-LAT gamma-ray observations at GeV energies with Chandra X-ray data and FUGIN radio mapping, detecting gamma-ray emissions from 400 million to 100 trillion electron volts across the extended source.

According to Mizuno, identifying proton PeVatrons helps scientists understand how cosmic rays reaching peta-electron-volt energies influence galactic events, with dozens more candidates in the Milky Way awaiting similar multiwavelength analysis.

Skyroot Aerospace launched Vikram-1 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 18, 2026, becoming India's first private company to successfully reach orbit with a domestically developed rocket.

The mission, dubbed 'Aagaman,' delivered multiple technology demonstration payloads into low Earth orbit, including commemorative postcards from Prime Minister Narendra Modi aboard the privately manufactured launch vehicle.

According to Skyroot Aerospace, India becomes only the third nation globally to achieve private orbital launch capability, positioning the country's commercial space sector alongside established American and New Zealand private launch providers.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists led by Davide Farnocchia investigated object 1998 SH2 after it failed to appear at predicted coordinates during Deep Space Network radar observations in August 2025.

Observations from the 8.2-meter Very Large Telescope and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope revealed a weak but clear cometary tail, confirming outgassing caused nongravitational perturbations during its 4.5-year solar orbit.

According to Farnocchia, detecting trajectory perturbations from outgassing provides crucial planetary defense diagnostics, helping researchers assess Earth impact risks more accurately than treating all near-Earth objects as asteroids.

Uppsala University researcher Sema Caliskan developed advanced atmospheric models during her PhD studies to recalculate the Sun's silver content using spectroscopic analysis of solar absorption lines.

The team's 3D non-LTE calculations, run on Sweden's Tetralith supercomputer, determined the Sun contains 55 percent more silver than previous estimates, resolving discrepancies with primitive meteorite measurements.

According to Caliskan, the revised solar silver abundance now matches chemically primitive meteorites formed 4.6 billion years ago, improving understanding of how heavy elements distribute throughout the Milky Way.

Researchers submitted findings to arXiv examining historical astronomical records for evidence that ancient observers may have documented a stellar transient event visible from Earth centuries ago.

The preprint study analyzes archival observations of potential transient phenomena, cross-referencing historical accounts with modern stellar catalogs to identify candidate sources matching documented celestial appearances.

According to the researchers, connecting ancient observations with modern astrophysics provides valuable constraints on transient event rates and helps astronomers understand how stellar explosions appeared to pre-telescopic observers.