Lunar Grandeur, Comet Dust, and Stellar Breakthroughs

We've been privy to some amazing cosmic events over the past few weeks, beginning with a Hunter’s Moon on October 16–17 — not just any full moon but a supermoon!

As it climbed above the horizon, it seemed impossibly bright and larger than life, casting a glow so vivid it was as if the night had borrowed a piece of daylight. Watching it, you couldn’t help but feel connected to something timeless — this celestial rhythm that has marked the passage of countless generations before us.

Not long after, the Orionid meteor shower stole the spotlight, sprinkling the sky with fiery streaks of light. These meteors are fragments of Halley’s Comet, burning up in Earth’s atmosphere as they complete their ancient journey. Even under the glare of a gibbous moon, they were visible to those patient enough to watch, each streak a fleeting reminder of how small we are in the grand scheme of things. The idea that these tiny grains of comet dust could create such a dazzling show is a poetic kind of magic, isn’t it?

But October wasn’t just about celestial spectacles. Astronomers unveiled a fascinating new exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s Star. Known as Barnard b, it’s a world that completes its orbit in just over three days — a cosmic sprinter compared to Earth’s leisurely 365-day pace.

Although too hot for life, this discovery is a piece of the puzzle in understanding planets around red dwarfs, the universe’s most common stars. Meanwhile, closer to home in the field of stellar evolution, researchers identified 25 hot helium stars stripped of their hydrogen envelopes. These stars, rare and mysterious, are helping us understand the dramatic endings that lead to supernovae and neutron stars — literal cosmic fireworks shaping the universe.

This was a month of perspective. The Moon reminded us of beauty, the meteors reminded us of history, and the stars reminded us of the vast, intricate mechanisms of the universe.