iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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China Space Watch @chinaspace.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Tianwen-2 reached Kamo'oalewa nearly two months ago, but there have been no further updates since the encounter. Fortunately additional images released by CNSA from the spacecraft in early July have been uncovered. Hopefully, more news from the mission will be coming soon. #Tianwen-2 #Asteroid

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Jason Perry @volcanopele.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

So as I mentioned yesterday, there are 10 new paterae with official names approved by the IAU as of July 23.

screenshot of excel table, listing names, location information, and sizes for 10 paterae. The origin of these names are included.

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Dr. Raphael Marschall @spacemarschall.net · 29/07/2026

We are used to seeing weird shapes of small asteroids, but this is next level! look at the shape of 44 Nysa from Minker et al. This is 75 km volume-equivalent diameter object! Also it has a satellite! #planetSci 🧪

Residuals of R-band images of the Nysa system on 2026-
02-15 after processing with the blind deconvolution method of
Appendix A.3. The position of the satellite is marked with a pink
arrow. To improve the S/N, the deconvolution residuals were av-
eraged with a a ±5 frame sliding window. To provide scale, the
primary has been superimposed. An extended video version of
this figure and the same processing for the 2026-03-21 dataset is
available online.

Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.25786

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Amazing #arXiv pull today with new direct imaging of asteroid 44 Nysa. I just wanna say- WOAH WHAT THE HEY WTF IS THIS ASTEROID SHAPE?? What's with all those concavities?? And holy crap it's apparently a contact TRINARY with a half-kilometer-sized moon??? arxiv.org/abs/2607.25786

Surface features identified on Nysa in the 2026-02-15 SHARK-VIS dataset. Edge indentations are marked with pink ovals and shadowed features are marked with purple arrows. Each feature is marked with a corresponding letter; the measured size and description of these features can found in table 5 as shown below:

Feature Type Width (km) Depth(km)
A Crater/secondary basin 38 6
B Crater 20
C Crater 35
D Crater 21 3
E Southern cavity * 53 17
F Northern cavity 44 5
G Crater 17
H Crater 8
I Collum/Valley
J Collum/Valley

Image of the Nysa system taken by the Large BInocular Telescope on 2026-Feb-15 after processing with a blind deconvolution method. The position of the moon is marked with a pink arrow.

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voyager16751.bsky.social @voyager16751.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Hello everyone! My name is Voyager, and I’m an animation and game design student from Texas. My passion is with space, hard sci-fi, worldbuilding, and alternate history. I use Autodesk Sketchbook as my main software - and it has been for 9 years. Commissions are open! Info is in a separate post

Solar System Portrait - Studies made from 2025-2026

black hole art study - drawn in October 2025

“To the Moon We Go!”, art piece drawn in celebration for Artemis 2’s launch in April 2026.

WALL-E, 18th anniversary piece - drawn in June 2026

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Second photo of an asteroid released today! This time it comes from JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission, which flew by Torifune yesterday. It's a 300-meter-wide contact binary rubble pile. It looks uncannily identical to Itokawa, another asteroid visited by JAXA's first Hayabusa mission back in 2005. ☄️🔭

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Smallest asteroid ever photographed up close, and WOW I've never seen anything like this before!! No obvious craters and very jagged shape. Just a single, 30-meter-long chunk of solid rock, unlike other asteroid visited by space probe.

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Last year I rewrote Wikipedia's article on Makemake and it's now featured on the front page!! i spent 2 months hyperfixating on this topic and doing all the research and writing. It was SO worth it :D Special thanks to @renerpho.bsky.social & others for reviewing it ^^ (1/12 thread) 🔭 #planetsci

A screenshot of the "Today's featured article" section on the Main Page of Wikipedia. The section, highlighted in green, features an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Makemake:

"Makemake is a dwarf planet orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. It has a diameter 60% that of Pluto, and is the fourth-largest trans-Neptunian object and the largest member of the Solar System's classical Kuiper belt, a disk of icy bodies beyond Neptune's orbit. Its discovery on March 31, 2005, by American astronomers Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz at Palomar Observatory contributed to the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006. Makemake's surface, like Pluto's, is largely covered by frozen methane and stained reddish-brown by tholins. It has one known satellite, unnamed, whose orbit suggests that Makemake's rotation has a high axial tilt. Makemake shows evidence of geochemical activity and cryovolcanism, which has led scientists to suspect that it might harbor a subsurface ocean of liquid water. No high-resolution images of its surface exist because it has not been visited up close by a space probe."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makemake

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Just survived a whole year of undergrad E&M and quantum mechanics, yaaaay now to worry about applying for grad school and figuring out where to go and what to do :(

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GamGyuls @gamgyuls.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Commissioned painting for Tailnoms!

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thunkii.bsky.social @thunkii.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

This is a graph of the inclination vs semi-major axis (distance from the sun) of 1,249,051 asteroids in the asteroid belt. Using proper elements allows us to see the belt's fine structure, including asteroid families that are fragments of past collisions. Each asteroid is (roughly) to scale.

A plot of 1,249,051 asteroids within the asteroid belt, showing (proper) inclination vs semi-major axis (in AU) and orbital period (in years). The size of the circles is proportional to the diameter of each asteroid. The main asteroid belt is shown in shades of white, while Hungaria asteroids are in orange and the Cybele asteroids are in blue. Red markers note the position of the 1:4, 1:3, 3:8, 2:5, 3:7, 4:9, 5:11, 1:2, and 3:5 orbital resonances with Jupiter.

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telescyote 🔭 @cosmicyote.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Neat stuff! This was done by observing an occultation which is pretty cool. The team in Japan basically did the math to predict this ~500 km object, at 5 billion km ish from Earth, passing in front of a distant star for less than 30 seconds and watch it from several locations.

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

oohhh my god, this tiny iceball has an atmospheric pressure of 100-200 nanobars?? Not even the dwarf planets (except Pluto) have atmospheric pressures this high, and JWST has only found water ice with apparently little to no CO/CO2/CH4 ice on this object.

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NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 18/04/2026

Spotted: curious locals on Cerro Pachón 👀🦊 At NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory, it’s not just about galaxies and asteroids. Sometimes foxes wander by to check out what we’re up to, reminding us we’re part of a bigger ecosystem right here on Earth. Science is wild. Sometimes literally! 🔭🧪

A fox sitting calmly on rocky ground illuminated by warm, low sunlight during dusk or dawn.

A fox peeks out from behind rocky terrain, its alert eyes focused forward in a natural, rugged environment.

Grid of four photos of foxes, each standing on rocky terrain with dry bushes and shadows in a sunny outdoor setting.

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Caz @timberwind.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

arxiv.org/abs/2603.150... This coming May the weird goose-egg shaped dwarf planet Haumea will eclipse two (!) distant stars, from our perspective - one of them being way brighter than the star that gave us a glimpse of its ring system back in 2017! There's a lot to be learned here, potentially.

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tlactl @tlactl.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

luhman 16

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

My favorite binary brown dwarf system, ZTF J1239+8347! These two red-hot dwarfs orbit so closely together that one devours gas from its partner and becomes superheated with a brilliant blue glow. Handdrawn over 2 days. (1/5; see my explanation!) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTF_J12... #spaceart #sciart

Artistic illustration of ZTF J1239+8347, an extremely tight binary brown dwarf system that is undergoing mass transfer, where the more massive component (the accretor) directly pulls material from the less massive component (the donor). Material pulled from the donor is concentrated into a narrow stream of gas that flows directly into the accretor's atmosphere, heating up to a very high temperature of 8900 K and creating a bright blue hotspot in the accretor's atmosphere.

Due to the extremely small separation between the components (center-to-center separation of ~170,000 km), both are tidally deformed into teardrop shapes pointing toward each other. In addition, both components orbit and rotate extremely quickly with a period of 57.41 minutes, which further deforms them into oblate teardrops (oblateness ~10%).

Both components are L-type brown dwarfs, having temperatures a bit above 1000 K. This temperature makes them glow orange-red in visible wavelengths, though the slightly hotter accretor glows slightly more orange (ignoring its bright blue hotspot). Due to their extremely fast rotation, the components' atmospheres are highly turbulent and extremely windy, dominated by numerous bands over their latitudes. Numerous convection cells and vortices are depicted on their poles, inspired by brown dwarf atmosphere simulations.

Due to the highly oblate shapes of the brown dwarfs, internal light is blocked out by their thicker equators, resulting in a darker and more opaque equator (gravity darkening). The gravity darkening effect is depicted for the donor but not for the accretor, whose equator glows bright blue to yellow due to the hotspot being smeared across the accretor's equator via strong zonal winds.

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

what the actual heck, an (almost) contact binary brown dwarf????

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Michael Busch @michael-w-busch.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

The shape of the near-Earth asteroid 2000 RS11 is inevitably compared to that of comet 67P. But it has to have formed differently, since nothing is sublimating off of the rock pile. RS11 remains unusual as compared to other contact-binary asteroids. bsky.app/profile/agas...

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

For fun, I decided to check how the orbit of one of Saturn's newest moons changes over time. The Gallic group moon S/2023 S 54 shows a sinusoidal oscillation in eccentricity and inclination with an offset phase. Kozai mechanism perhaps? I'll defer the work to the folks at JPL since that's their job

Six graphs showing how each orbital element of Saturn's Gallic moon S/2023 S 54 changes over time (1950-2050). The graphs are arranged in 3 rows, 2 columns.
From top to bottom, the left column shows eccentricity, argument of pericenter, and semi-major axis.
For the right column, going from top to bottom shows inclination with respect to ecliptic, ascending node, and longitude of pericenter (aka, the sum of ascending node and longitude of pericenter).

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Luke Bones 🦴 @lukemeister.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Saturn 285, Jupiter 101. Time to invoke the mercy rule. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_o...

en.wikipedia.org

Moons of Saturn - Wikipedia

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Luke Bones 🦴 @lukemeister.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Four more irregular satellites of Jupiter dropped so far today S/2011 J4 [a=0.07, e=0.14, i=27.5, H=16.8] S/2018 J5 [a=0.16, e=0.31, i=165.3, H=17.0] S/2024 J1 [a=0.16, e=0.31, i=162.9, H=16.9] S/2011 J5 [a=0.16, e=0.21, i=164.7, H =17.2] www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/RecentM...

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Just updated the Wikipedia article on Kallichore with new information and graphics! Crazy that we might finally get a close view of one of Jupiter's tiny outer moons in 2031… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallich... I really want Juice to flyby Kallichore, pleaseplease let it happen

en.wikipedia.org

Kallichore (moon) - Wikipedia

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

I personally headcanon Haumea's equator to be pretty jagged with ridges, considering that it's quite close to rotational breakup and has previously undergone rotational fissioning. Something like this 2017 Haumea art by @astraplanetshine.bsky.social (gorgeous btw) www.deviantart.com/astra-planet...

deviantart.com

Haumea Flyby

Deviantart.com image by Astra-Planetshine

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Chara @astrochara.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Yesterday we got two papers on direct imaging and characterization of Epsilon Indi A b, so I decided this is a good time to draw it again. It is now depicted to be much cloudier. #art #astronomy #space #planet #exoplanet #EpsilonIndi

This artwork depicts the extrasolar planet Epsilon Indi A b, a superjovian orbiting nearby star Epsilon Indi A. Despite orbiting far from its star and receiving much less sunlight than Earth, it retained enough heat from its formation to be about as warm as water's melting point.

The planet is white due to water clouds, tinted creamish by its parent star's light. The planet features faint darker and lighter bands, and there are also white high altitude clouds and storms.

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Leigh Fletcher @leighfletcher.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Any Sydney-based astronomers here? A team at Andalucia is coordinating an occultation campaign for one of Jupiter's small (2-5km) irregular moons, #Kallichore (a candidate for an #ESAJuice flyby) that'll be passing in front of a star at ~12:20UT on March 18th. opop.obspm.fr/media/data/c...

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₊❅*̩❆[YULETIDE]❆*̩❅₊ @scourgezoned.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

anyways its inexplicably so funny to me how charon is basically an ariel clone. like, pluto went to þe kuiper belt store and couldnt afford a real ariel so it just bought a knockoff instead no seriously whats up wiþ u charon

a grayscale digital elevation model of charon, pluto's binary companion. darker shades correspond to lower elevations, showing off various chasms and impact craters on charon's surface. þe lower ~2/3rd of þe DEM is absent.

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

So today the IAU officially renamed Charon's iconic north pole from "Mordor Macula" to "Neverland Regio"… Not sure why it's renamed now, even though "Mordor" has been in scientific use for over a decade. Everyone I've talked to hates the new name lmao. This'll take time getting used to…

A screenshot of the Wikipedia article for "Neverland Regio", the new name of Charon's red-colored north pole. Neverland Regio was previously known as "Mordor Macula"

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Now that the news are out... Rivkin's Feb 2026 JWST observations of asteroid 2024 YR4 shows that it'll pass 21,938 ±2,320 km from the Moon (according to JPL SBDB), while Deen's precoveries from 2016 found that YR4 will pass of 22,001 ±49 km from the Moon. Both independent results are spot on! 🔭☄️

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I named an asteroid after Cary Huang (that guy from @jacknjellify.bsky.social) all I did was write the name proposal and email it to the IAU WGSBN back in February 2021 cause I was bored during COVID lockdown. It got accepted in June 2021 somehow

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

MORE underrated astro Youtubers! Subscribe to them please! (1) * Geo Girl (geology/planetary) youtube.com/@geogirl * Dr. Fatima (academia/politics) www.youtube.com/@dr.fatima * Oge Okoronkwo (PhD vlogs) www.youtube.com/@ogeokoronkwo * Syzygy "Z" Altair (Vtuber) www.youtube.com/@SyzygyAltai...

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Hi yall! Please check out JayChoken, he's a super underrated worldbuilding Youtuber who makes videos about exoplanets! :D He's approachable, straight to the point, & shows his analysis of sources with proper visuals, unlike most astro Youtubers. No drama-doc BS here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G7P...

youtube.com

The Weird Worlds of Gliese 876

YouTube video by JayChoken

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

i see this as an absolute win :3

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

Some stuff I did for the first 3 days of @morgandenman.bsky.social's #SpacetoberChallenge! Been too busy with college so I can't do these on time blehhhh (I'll post these individually later)

#SpacetoberChallenge Day 2: Planet (Uranus & Cordelia)

#SpacetoberChallenge Day 3: Space Weather (Black Widow Pulsar)

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

(update) This teeny meter-wide asteroid C15KM95 was officially announced with the new name "2025 TF" today! minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K25/K25... (and a neat photo of the asteroid by @filipp-romanov.bsky.social over at: bsky.app/profile/fili...) Now to wait an hour until this gets on Wikipedia...

minorplanetcenter.net

MPEC 2025-T36 : 2025 TF

We are the official body that deals with astrometric observations and orbits of minor planets (asteroids) and comets.

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Melina Thévenot🏳️‍⚧️ @melina-iras07572.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Dwarf Planet #Quaoar and its moon #Weywot with #Hubble WFC3/UVIS filter F350LP. Quaoar is located in the Kuiper Belt (beyond planet Neptune). I combined different epochs and oriented them with north being up. I removed stars. The moon changed position during its orbit around the #DwarfPlanet.

A moderate bright point-source in the middle and smaller sources around them, labeled with dates.

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Daniel Machacek @danielmachacek.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

My new color photographic map of Pluto is now online. Full resolution image version (~322Mpix) is available on Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/10958... PDF version (~73MB) is available here: drive.google.com/file/d/1EW-x... 🧵 1/5

Small preview of color photographic map of Pluto in Mollweide oblique projection. It contains one large global map with four small hemispheric maps and basic description. Full version of this map is available for download in links in the main post.
Credit: NASA/JHU-APL/SwRI/Marc W. Buie/ESA/Daniel Machacek.

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Mike Kelley describes spectra of the icy surface of comet Hale-Bopp, taken at a distance of 46 AU (!!) with JWST 🔭 : similar to Water-type TNOs but with organic features

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

heck yeah Makemake getting that makeover from JWST! So now we have evidence of geochemical activity, a cryovolcanic hotspot, and a potential atmosphere. I swear if Makemake turns out to also have rings or a second moon, it's gonna become my 4th favorite dwarf planet

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Dr. Adeene Denton @spacewhalerider.com · 09/09/2025

Mimas science is serious business

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Chara @astrochara.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Today on arXiv: The recent JWST TRAPPIST-1 e papers. They are somehow not even the biggest news in the list. Today's arXiv day's absolutely stacked.

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

MORE DWARF PLANETS AND BIG TNOS NAMED BY THE IAU TODAY YEAHHHHH 2004 GV9 → Goibniu 2005 RM43 → Rumina 2002 UX25 & moon → Uni & Tinia * Uni is weird because it's made of holey ice less dense than water 2002 XW93 → Xewioso 2013 FY27 → Chiminigagua (named 3 weeks ago, but nobody mentioned it on bsky)

Size and color comparison of the largest trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and dwarf planets of the Solar System. Newly named TNOs are highlighted in yellow.

Starting from the top row, going from left to right:
1st row: Pluto & Charon, Eris & Dysnomia, Haumea & 2 moons, Makemake, Gonggong & Xiangliu
2nd row: Quaoar & Weywot, Orcus & Vanth, Sedna, Salacia, Mani, Aya
3rd row: Varda & Ilmare, Chiminigagua (formerly 2013 FY27), Achlys, Ixion
4th row: Varuna, Goibniu (formerly 2004 GV9), Ritona, Uni & Tinia (formerly 2002 UX25), Gǃkúnǁʼhòmdímà & Gǃòʼé ǃHú, Rumina (formerly 2005 RM43)
5th row: 2014 UZ224, 2010 JO179, 2005 QU182, Xewioso (formerly 2002 XW93). Saturn's moon Enceladus is shown for scale.

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astrafoxen @astrafoxen.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

weyWHAT An unexpected occultation discovery of a potential 2nd moon or 3rd ring arc around dwarf planet Quaoar! The new moon/ring is 30±2 km wide and seems to be 5757 km from Quaoar—suspiciously close to 7:2 orbital resonance with Quaoar's big moon Weywot! iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3... ☄️

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