Tony Dunn

@tony873004 • 20,055 subscribers

Orbit simulations of planets, comets, asteroids, spacecraft, and other interesting stuff. Amateur astronomer. BA: Physics & Astronomy, SFSU.

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Tony Dunn

Shorts

3rd interstellar object discovered? Maybe. There's a lot of buzz right now in the Astro community. More observations should come in tonight to confirm if A11pI3Z is from beyond the solar system.

A rocket booster will slam into the Moon on August 5. 2025-010D is the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket that brought the Blue Ghost Mission 1 to the Moon.

Interstellar #comet 3I/ATLAS is hidden on the far side of the Sun from Earth. But today it sweeps past Mars, where orbiting spacecraft have ringside seats. Let’s hope they look up. #astronomy #NASA

New observations came in over night. Here's A11pl3Z's updated path. It now passes inside Mars' orbit. In yesterday's animation, the camera was below the ecliptic. This is from above, so if it looks mirrored, that's why. #astronomy #A11pl3Z

10 #asteroids passed closer than the Moon in a 5-day period from September 23-28. All were discovered this month. The largest up to 41 meters wide. #astronomy

Why is tonight's Full Moon so low? For the Northern Hemisphere, around the June Solstice, the full Moon takes its lowest path of the year. We're also near a minor lunar standstill, making the Moon's nightly path even lower than usual.

#asteroid 2024 YR4 and 200 clones pass through the Earth-Moon system on Dec 22, 2032. Three of these clones hit Earth. Another hits the Moon.

Apophis will race through Earth's sky at naked-eye brightness in less than 3 years.

October's comets. SWAN C/2025 R2, and Lemmon (C/2025 A6). Our interstellar visitor 3I/Atlas aka C/2025 N1, is unfortunately on the wrong side of the Sun for viewing, but I included it anyway because... well... it's interstellar. #Astronomy

#Asteroid 2024_YR4 may collide with the Moon 🌙. Its nominal trajectory, based on updated observations, shows a lunar impact on Dec 22, 2032. But the odds of collision remain low.

Georgia bolide: A fiery visitor streaked through the sky today, dropping meteorites across the Peach State. The devil might’ve gone down to Georgia, but this one came in fast from above. This animation is an educated guess at its path. #Atlanta #Georgia #Astronomy #Meteor

8 new Near-Earth Asteroids have been discovered by the Vera Rubin Observatory from just 10 hours of sky scanning over the course of a few nights. Imagine what Rubin will do when it's fully operational. #LSST #RubinObservatory #NEO

🚨 New dwarf planet candidate: 2017 OF201 🚨 ~700 km wide, now 90.5 AU from the Sun. Orbit: a = 838 AU, q = 44.9 AU — deep into the inner Oort Cloud. Possibly part of a hidden population totaling ~1% of Earth’s mass. 📄 Paper: #astronomy #dwarfplanet

Happy Halloween. Yesterday, #asteroid 2024 UG9 buzzed Earth just 2476 km above the Indian Ocean. 6 hours later, it passed 18279 km above the Moon. It is the size of a giant pumpkin 🎃.

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Asteroid 2025 MH348 discovered last year is possibly a trojan of Neptune. #astro 🔭

Artemis II doesn’t reverse direction. Far out, its motion is mostly radial (toward Earth), so its small eastward speed is slower than Earth’s rotation, so it appears to drift west. Closer in, tangential speed grows and overtakes Earth’s rotation, so it moves east.

After billions of years heading towards us, interstellar comet #3IATLAS is currently at its closest approach to the Sun right NOW. Perihelion. #astronomy #comet

In 1 year from today, Voyager 1 will be one light day from the Sun. 🔭

A view of Earth from Artemis II. If you can see your region, then you might be able to spot Artemis II with a telescope or binoculars.

18 asteroids passed closer than the Moon in November. And every one of them was discovered this month. #Astronomy

Newly-discovered #asteroid 2024 UQ impacted Earth's atmosphere off the coast of North America early yesterday morning. It was 1-2 meters wide.

In the last 6 days, 9 asteroids passed inside the Moon’s orbit. Estimated sizes: ~1–38 m. All were discovered this month, a reminder that countless small, faint NEOs slip by unnoticed until they make a close pass.

In the past 3 days, two asteroids — 2025 PF2 and 2025 PU1 — passed closer than the geostationary satellites delivering our preseason #NFL games this weekend. #asteroid #astronomy

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Saturn has 128 newly-discovered moons. Here they are color-coded by their MPEC release. Orange: MPEC 2025 E153, Purple: MPEC 2025-E154, Green: MPEC 2025-E155.

Polaris is not always the North Star. Due to Earth's precession, over the course of 26,000 years, Polaris, Alderamin, Vega, and Thuban take turns as the closest prominent star to the celestial pole.

Watch Earth’s newest quasi-moon in motion. 🌍🌀 The new paper “Meet Arjuna 2025 PN7” confirms #asteroid 2025 PN7 is trapped in a quasi-satellite orbit, looping around Earth (in a rotating frame) from the 1960s to the 2080s.

Another October comet? Recently-discovered A11bP7I may be a Sun-grazing comet poised to put on a show in late October.

The #EuropaClipper mission will launch today. After Mars and Earth flybys, it will arrive at Jupiter in 2030. It will study the habitability of Europa, and possibly confirm the existence of its subsurface ocean.

The ESCAPADE mission to Mars is about to launch. It will stay near Earth for about 1 year before using an Oberth maneuver to send it to Mars.

Newly-discovered #comet C/2025 K1 (Atlas) will be a northern hemisphere gem for much of the rest of the year, making 2 close approaches to Earth: 0.58 AU in August, and 0.40 AU in November.

What if Juno left Jupiter to get a closer look at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS? With a couple of burns, Juno can get as close as 25 million km. Purely hypothetical, fun orbital mechanics! 🔭 Thanks Adam Hibberd I4IS for the research and trajectory data.

Asteroid 2022 RD₂ will become a mini-moon not once, but three times in 2043–2044. This may not exactly look like an orbit, But during each capture, if the Sun suddenly vanished, RD₂ would remain gravitationally bound to Earth indefinitely.

Sixteen of the brightest Kuiper Belt objects.

Lunar eclipse begins soon. If you were on the Moon, it would be a solar eclipse. Here's a view from the Moon.