Astronomy news

• 'Dark Matter' showrunner and author Blake Crouch talks the 'daunting' task of moving beyond the original book for season 2 (interview)

  09-10-2026 22:00 via space.com
  
  Apple TV's addictive multiverse thriller, "Dark Matter," has quietly joined their roster of fantastic sci-fi series alongside hits like "Pluribus," "Severance," "Foundation," "Silo," "For All Mankind," and "Star City."Adapted from New York Times bestselling author Blake Crouch's ("Recursion," "Upgrade") novel of the same name from 2016, "Dark Matter" is a mesmerizing amalgam of time-travel, existential crises, alternate dimensions, and romantic love that transcends the multiverse. We're entering
  
  Read more

• Why is Orion lying down? How The Hunter taught me how the sky moves

  09-10-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  I thought I knew Orion. Three stars in a row for the Belt, Betelgeuse above, Rigel below: it's one of the constellations I have long been able to identify with the least thought, along with Cassiopeia and the Plough/the Big Dipper.But one fall evening long ago, when I was learning the night sky, I was looking at three bright stars rising in the east and spent an embarrassingly long time wondering whether they really were Orion's Belt. They were at the wrong angle. The rest of Orion followed them
  
  Read more

• On this day in space! Oct. 9, 1992: Peekskill meteorite hits car in New York after streaking through the atmosphere

  09-10-2026 18:21 via space.com
  
  On Oct. 9, 1992, a space rock the size of a bowling ball fell out of space and crash landed on a woman's Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, New York. Thousands of people along the U.S. East Coast witnessed the Peekskill meteorite blazing through the skies over Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania before it hit the parked car. Eighteen-year-old Michelle Knapp was sitting at home when she thought she heard a car crash outside. When Knapp went to look, she found a hole in the trunk of her car and a smo
  
  Read more

• Scientists engineer microbe to help humanity settle Mars

  09-10-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  A new genetically engineered microbe may one day help humanity settle Mars, a nonprofit biotechnology research startup suggests.Our species has launched nearly 50 missions to Mars since 1960, all of them robotic. If everything goes according to plan, they've all been building toward crewed Red Planet flight, which remains a high priority for national space agencies and private companies alike.Ideally, human crews there will not rely on shipment after shipment from Earth, but can instead make use
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Did the Soviet Union really fire a cannon from a space station?

  09-10-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  Military officials in the U.S. and other nations have increasingly warned about the potential for conflict in space in the coming years. While many would perceive the current push to militarize space as a concern primarily for modern military thinkers, there is a far deeper — and at times, a surprising — history of warfare technologies developed for use in outer space.At the height of the Cold War, one particularly unusual early application for space warfare was pursued by the Soviet
  
  Read more

• Best space and sci-fi themed Halloween costumes for 2026

  09-10-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  Are you stuck for an outfit this spooky season? We've got you covered with our round-up of the best space themed Halloween costumes. Let's face it, even if there aren't any haunted spaceships out there, the vastness of the void is enough to give us the chills. From Aliens to Star Wars, these costumes are sure to make you stand out, get the conversation flowing and maybe even raise a chuckle or two. And if you're a regular convention-goer, many of these costumes can double as cosplay outfits. If
  
  Read more

• The Milky Way glows over telescopes in the Atacama Desert | Space photo of the day for Oct. 9, 2026

  09-10-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The Milky Way over the La Silla Observatory. (Image credit: J. Rodrigues/ESO)Dark clouds swirl across a sky speckled with stars as the Milky Way stretches above the European Space Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert. What is it?In this photograph snapped by astronomer José Rodrigues, the Milky Way splashes across the night sky above two telescopes at ESO's La Silla Observatory. Between the two telescopes, the blue and red Trifid Nebula glows to the left of the lar
  
  Read more

• Trump awards SpaceX founder Elon Musk National Medal of Science

  09-10-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  The world's richest man just got some more hardware for his trophy room.During a ceremony at the White House on Thursday (Oct. 8), President Donald Trump gave SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk the National Medal of Science, the highest honor the U.S. can bestow on a scientist or engineer. Musk was recognized "for engineering achievements of extraordinary ambition and scale that have pushed the frontiers of space exploration, intelligence systems, communications and beyond, renewing American techn
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Private Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft departs the International Space Station after 6-month stay (video)

  09-10-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Northrop Grumman's robotic Cygnus XL spacecraft departed the International Space Station today (Oct. 9) after a six-month stay.Northrop Grumman's uncrewed Cygnus XL freighter was released by the station's huge Canadarm2 robotic arm today at 12:44 p.m. EDT (1644 GMT), while the duo flew 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean.The departing vehicle is the second of Northrop Grumman's "Cygnus XL" line of freighters but the 24th Cygnus of any type to fly cargo to the orbiting lab. The com
  
  Read more

• Private astronaut Kellie Gerardi gets real about motherhood as she prepares to fly to space again

  09-10-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  Kellie Gerardi is preparing for her second spaceflight. And the secret tool up her sleeve? Motherhood. Nearly three years ago, space researcher, online STEM creator and author Kellie Gerardi flew to suborbital space on a Virgin Galactic tourist flight. With this flight, she not only became a private astronaut, but one of the first 100 women to fly to space. Today, she's preparing to leave Earth once again with her second flight. And as Gerardi prepares to fly and conduct new research in microgra
  
  Read more

• How to watch 'Disclosure Day' online — stream Steven Spielberg's sci-fi movie from anywhere

  09-10-2026 03:00 via space.com
  
  Contrary to many people's initial suspicions, "Disclosure Day" is not a story of a weather forecast gone wrong. Meteorologist Margaret Fairchild's (Emily Blunt) creepy report does, however, light the fuse on Steven Spielberg's UFO epic. Margaret teams up with security expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) – and a few woodland creatures – to unravel the biggest cover-up in history. Are aliens here? What do they want? And can humankind handle the truth?Below, we explain the cheap
  
  Read more

• A dead Soviet satellite just broke apart in orbit (again). Experts say it's part of 'a worrying trend'

  09-10-2026 00:00 via space.com
  
  An old Soviet satellite has fragmented into multiple pieces in low Earth orbit, the latest in a string of recent breakup events that suggest satellites may be facing an increased risk of debris impacts.The space domain awareness company LeoLabs detected a "debris generating event" in the known orbital location of the Soviet-era Meteor 2-7 weather satellite as it passed over one of their sites in Western Australia. The company said that an estimated "tens of fragments" were detected in the vicini
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Astronomy on Twitter!