Astronomy news

• 12 Jul 2026 (10 hours away): Lunar occultation of Beta Tauri

  12-07-2026 02:54 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon will pass in front of Beta Tauri (Elnath), creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru and Argentina amongst others.
  
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• 21 Jul 2026 (18 hours away): Moon at First Quarter

  20-07-2026 18:18 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches first quarter phase – appearing high in the sky at sunset and remaining visible until around midnight.
  
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• Twice in a row: SpaceX rocket aborts launch at last second again (video)

  20-07-2026 18:09 via space.com
  
  That's two last-second launch aborts in a row for SpaceX.One of the company's Falcon 9 rockets tried to loft 24 Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California this morning (July 20), but the attempt was aborted just as the first-stage engines started firing up.Something similar happened on Thursday afternoon (July 16), when SpaceX attempted to launch the 13th test flight of its Starship megarocket. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket tries to launch 24 Starlink satellites from
  
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• Four astronauts, 3 spacecraft, 2 weeks in orbit: Artemis III will be NASA's most complicated mission ever

  20-07-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  NASA has never flown a mission like Artemis III, and it's shaping up to become one of the most elaborate spaceflights in history. NASA has provided more details about the Artemis III flight scheduled for next year, and, if all goes according to plan, the objectives the astronauts will be checking off their list will contain more than a few "firsts" for the Artemis program and human spaceflight overall. That includes the first crewed NASA mission to rendezvous and dock with two separate designed
  
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• 21 Jul 2026 (19 hours away): Moon at First Quarter

  20-07-2026 17:20 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches first quarter phase – appearing high in the sky at sunset and remaining visible until around midnight.
  
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• Artemis II was an incredible reminder of our shared humanity just when we needed it most (op-ed)

  20-07-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  For ten glorious days starting on April 1, 2026, one human endeavor captivated our home planet across continents and time zones: the NASA Artemis II mission to orbit the moon, the first crewed mission to cislunar space since 1972. In an Easter-Passover week that had especially demoralizing headlines on global conflicts, this mission presented a powerful vision of what journeying together and taking enormous risks for a shared purpose towards a shared future could look like.Much has been spoken a
  
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• Get stabilized views of the cosmos with the Canon 18x50 IS binoculars, now almost 30% off

  20-07-2026 16:27 via space.com
  
  The Canon 18x50 IS binoculars are ideal for stargazing and are able to deliver clarity on night sky objects, thanks to their image stabilization. The 50mm objective lenses are the benchmark for stargazing binoculars and are able to deliver bright views of the night sky. They are currently 30% off their retail price.You can get the Canon 18x50 IS all-weather binoculars on sale for $1195 from Amazon.When it comes to stargazing, image-stabilized binoculars are a cut above the rest. Even at high mag
  
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• 21 Jul 2026 (20 hours away): Moon at First Quarter

  20-07-2026 16:25 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches first quarter phase – appearing high in the sky at sunset and remaining visible until around midnight.
  
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• Ancient sandstorm leaves behind wreckage on Mars | Space photo of the day for July 20, 2026

  20-07-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  NASA's Curiosity rover snapped this image on the surface of Mars, and scientists think it's the wreckage of an ancient sandstorm.(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)NASA's Curiosity rover has uncovered evidence of ancient sandstorms on the Red Planet. What is it?Scientists think ancient Mars was quite different than it is today. While we might know it now as a barred, reddish wasteland, billions of years ago it actually had an atmosphere. Scientists even think that it had flowing rivers and exp
  
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• 21 Jul 2026 (21 hours away): Moon at First Quarter

  20-07-2026 15:30 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches first quarter phase – appearing high in the sky at sunset and remaining visible until around midnight.
  
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• Rocket launch costs have dropped 96% since 1960. How low can they go?

  20-07-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  The costs of space launch have fallen 96% in the past six decades and have the potential to plummet by nearly as much by 2040, a new study finds.However, such an improvement might get hampered by a number of challenges, such as the rise of space debris in orbit or a single company monopolizing commercial space launch, researchers added.Although previous analyses of space launch suggested that costs had dropped over time, one major problem with these prior studies was that they "considered the co
  
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• 21 Jul 2026 (22 hours away): Moon at First Quarter

  20-07-2026 14:30 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches first quarter phase – appearing high in the sky at sunset and remaining visible until around midnight.
  
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• Did Viking 1 find life on Mars 50 years ago? Here's why the debate continues

  20-07-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  In looking back and commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Viking missions to Mars, one is struck by the bold and audacious undertaking.Twin spacecraft missions — each consisting of a lander and an orbiter — made their way to Mars and into the history books. The Viking 1 lander planted its legs on the terrain of Chryse Planitia 50 years ago today, on July 20, 1976, while its Viking 2 counterpart touched down at Utopia Planitia on Sept. 3 of that year.Among their duties, the dual l
  
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• 21 Jul 2026 (23 hours away): Moon at First Quarter

  20-07-2026 13:33 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches first quarter phase – appearing high in the sky at sunset and remaining visible until around midnight.
  
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• An artificial 'Saturn's ring' of satellites could soon fill the sky, astronomers warn

  20-07-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  A bright "Saturn's ring" of satellites could circle the night sky if plans to launch a million data center spacecraft and tens of thousands of space mirrors come to pass. This ring, traversing the sky for hours after dusk and before dawn, would outshine every star and planet, and be visible from every spot on Earth.Hugh Lewis, a professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in, the U.K., told Space.com that the only way to accommodate the high number of data center constellations tha
  
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• 27 Jul 2026 (7 days away): Asteroid 3 Juno at opposition

  20-07-2026 01:01 via in-the-sky.org
  
  Asteroid 3 Juno makes closest approach to the Earth.
  
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• 27 Jul 2026 (7 days away): 134340 Pluto at opposition

  20-07-2026 01:01 via in-the-sky.org
  
  134340 Pluto is optimally positioned for observation.
  
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• 26 Jul 2026 (6 days away): Saturn enters retrograde motion

  20-07-2026 01:01 via in-the-sky.org
  
  Saturn reverses its direction of motion across the sky.
  
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• 25 Jul 2026 (5 days away): The Moon at apogee

  20-07-2026 01:01 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon recedes to its orbit's furthest point from the Earth, making it appear fractionally smaller than at other times of the month.
  
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• 24 Jul 2026 (4 days away): Lunar occultation of Antares

  20-07-2026 01:01 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon will pass in front of Antares (Alpha Scorpii), creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including Antarctica, French Southern Territories, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and Falkland Islands amongst others.
  
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• 21 Jul 2026 (Tomorrow): Moon at First Quarter

  20-07-2026 01:01 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches first quarter phase – appearing high in the sky at sunset and remaining visible until around midnight.
  
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• 'Aliens' at 40: James Cameron's sequel is a sci-fi icon, but did you know he quit the movie twice?

  19-07-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  Where does James Cameron's "Aliens" rank among the other Alien movies? That depends on who you ask. Some might say it's the best, while others put it just behind the original (spoiler alert: it's the best). Regardless, there's no denying that this 1986 film shifted gears, moving the franchise from horror to horror-tinged sci-fi action and paving an alternate path for the future.As Cameron stated in an interview with Lofficier, the plan always was "to do a film that was not as scary... it's scary
  
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• Should we trust AI in the search for alien life? Scientists aren't so sure

  19-07-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  Artificial intelligence could easily fall into the trap of identifying non-life as life on other worlds, claim two researchers from Michigan State University who have tested AI on simulated life in a computer program."We had previously seen that AI has a big Achilles heel when it is trying to classify things that are unlike the things in its training examples," Michigan's Christoph Adami told Space.com. "We call these 'out-of-distribution' samples and it is just incredibly easy to get AI to misc
  
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• How Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar' turned general relativity into the bad guy

  19-07-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The biggest blockbusters of 2014 threw up a varied rogues' gallery of bad guys. In "Transformers: Age of Extinction", it was a reincarnated version of Optimus Prime's perma-nemesis, Megatron, while Captain America faced off against a reborn Hydra infiltrating the upper echelons of the US government in "The Winter Soldier". For Spider-Man, it was Electro, while Maleficent showed up in live-action to give Sleeping Beauty nightmares. Christopher Nolan has never been one to go with the Hollywood cro
  
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• 10 places in the US and Canada to see August's partial solar eclipse and Perseid meteor shower in 1 trip

  19-07-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  Aug. 12, 2026, offers a rare double-header for skywatchers across northeastern North America: a partial solar eclipse during the afternoon followed, hours later, by the peak of the Perseid meteor shower beneath dark summer skies. The eclipse is part of a total solar eclipse happening in eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain. "The neat thing about seeing a partial eclipse, especially one that is total somewhere else, is that you get to join in with the whole event that's going on,
  
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• James Webb Space Telescope discovers how black holes feed themselves

  19-07-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have been given a glimpse of the mechanisms that supermassive black holes use to feed themselves. The observations could help scientists discover how supermassive black holes with masses millions, often even billions, of times that of the sun grew so fast so soon after the Big Bang.While all large galaxies have supermassive black holes at their hearts, some are slumbering giants, consuming little surrounding gas and dust, while others
  
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• Scientists told them, 'No, it's too dangerous,' but they did it anyway: Inside Japan's super-close asteroid flyby

  19-07-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned spectacular images of a near-Earth asteroid following a super-close flyby on July 5, but heated debate was needed before teams signed off on the daring attempt.When images of the asteroid Torifune arrived on the morning of July 6 Japan time, Makoto Yoshikawa and his team at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) got two surprises at once. Torifune turned out to be a contact binary, in which two chunks of rock have come together under gravity, and the
  
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• 27 Jul 2026 (8 days away): Asteroid 3 Juno at opposition

  19-07-2026 01:05 via in-the-sky.org
  
  Asteroid 3 Juno makes closest approach to the Earth.
  
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• 27 Jul 2026 (8 days away): 134340 Pluto at opposition

  19-07-2026 01:05 via in-the-sky.org
  
  134340 Pluto is optimally positioned for observation.
  
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• 26 Jul 2026 (7 days away): Saturn enters retrograde motion

  19-07-2026 01:05 via in-the-sky.org
  
  Saturn reverses its direction of motion across the sky.
  
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