Video Killed the Radio Star? Not XTE J1810-197 🤩

6 planets will align next month 🪐

A rare celestial event is set to grace the sky next month and you won’t need special glasses or an exact location to see it 🪐

A large planetary alignment, known as a planet parade, will be mostly visible to the naked eye just before dawn on June 3.

6 planets will align:

• Mercury
• Mars
• Jupiter
• Saturn
• Uranus
• Neptune

You’ll need high-powered binoculars or a telescope to see Uranus and Neptune 🔭

The same alignment will also happen August 28

Magnetar XTE J1810-197’s spiraling comeback

😳 Scientists were shocked to receive radio signals far from home —about 8,000 lightyears away. Even more intriguing, they came from a magnetar thought to be dead: XTE J1810-197.

🌠 What’s a magnetar? 🌠

A magnetar is a neutron star with a super strong magnetic force (think quadrillion times more intense than a standard star, or 1 with 15 zeroes times). It’s the result of a supernova explosion, which takes place when a star can no longer battle the imploding force of its own gravity.

Fun fact: magnetars have such dense stellar cores, a teaspoon of it would weigh 10 million tons on Earth 💪

👻 XTE J1810-197 was a rarity when it was discovered in 2003 because it produced radio wave pulses. However, it went silent on us for over a decade. 

🔭 In 2018, the University of Manchester’s Lovell telescope (76 m) detected radio waves from this magnetar once again, and not just any radio waves…

🌀 XTE J1810-197’s new radio waves moved in a spiraling direction! While most magnetars give off light waves oriented in only one direction, XTE J1810-197 appears to be circularly polarized, meaning that its light does not move unilaterally.

If you’re going to get a surprise message from an ex, might as well be an interesting one.

Have Northern Lights FOMO? You still have a chance to spot them!

If you missed the aurora Borealis display, don’t sweat it: the geomagnetic storms that caused their unexpected sightings haven’t even peaked yet 😏

Yep — peak activity is estimated to occur in July 2025 with 115 sunspots (the points where the geomagnetic storms originate). 

That’s the good news. The bad news? Even scientists struggle to predict exactly when the storms, and the subsequent Northern Lights viewings, will occur. 

🌌 To increase your odds of a sighting, keep in mind that:

👉 Most action will likely occur between September and April, between the hours of 9 PM and 3 AM.

👉 The farther you can get from light pollution, the better.

👉 Folks within a 1550-mile radius of the North Pole will have the best luck.

May the odds be ever in your favor, ✨

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