Astronomy news

• SpaceX moves Starship Flight 15 booster to launch pad for 'squeeze test' ahead of epic double-catch attempt (photos)

  10-11-2026 23:09 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is one big step closer to the 15th test flight of its Starship megarocket. The company announced today (Nov. 10) that it had moved its latest Starship first stage, known as Super Heavy Booster 22, to the launch mount at its Starbase facility in South Texas ahead of Flight 15, which is scheduled to lift off this Friday (Nov. 13).During the upcoming launch test, SpaceX plans to catch both Booster 22 and Starship's Ship upper stage with its launch tower's "chopstick" arms in a double landing
  
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• Anthony Mackie, Ariana DeBose, and John Leguizamo reveal why they joined Andy Weir's sci-fi audio drama 'Exoplanet' (interview)

  10-11-2026 23:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  In any respectable audiobook project, finding the names of Andy Weir ("The Martian," "Project Hail Mary") and Benjamin Percy ("The Ninth Metal," "Wolverine") attached would elicit intense fan interest, but add the superstar vocal talents of Anthony Mackie ("Avengers: Infinity War," "Avengers: Doomsday"), Ariana DeBose ("West Side Story"), and John Leguizamo ("Ice Age"), and it catapults this sonic odyssey into the stratosphere.Such is the case with "Exoplanet," Audible Original’s new 7-episode
  
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• On this day in space! Nov. 10, 2013: Europe's GOCE satellite, the 'Ferrari of space,' fell out of orbit after mapping Earth's gravity field

  10-11-2026 22:51 via Latest from Space.com
  
  On Nov. 10, 2013, Europe's GOCE satellite fell to Earth after four years in orbit mapping the planet's gravitational field. GOCE, its name was short for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, launched in 2009 on a mission to map Earth's gravity like never before. But despite that successful mission, it was doomed in 2013 when it ran out of fuel. At the time, controllers weren't sure where GOCE would fall back to Earth. Some people worried that it might crash into a populated
  
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• A distant exoplanet mysteriously vanished from sight. Astronomers just discovered why

  10-11-2026 22:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Astronomers have solved the mystery of an extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, that "disappeared" after seven years of observations. New research suggests that the planet hasn't vanished at all, but has been dragged off its orbit by an unseen planet.The exoplanet, designated TOI-2535 b, is located around 1,000 light-years away. TOI-2535 b was routinely observed with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope for seven years between April 2019 and March 2026 as it completed i
  
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• How to watch 'We Chose to Go to the Moon' online — stream space race stage show from anywhere

  10-11-2026 21:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Humanity's first 239,000-mile voyage to the moon may have taken place more than five decades ago, but the drama of this endeavor, and stories of the individuals who made it happen, still capture our imaginations to this day.While television screens may have shown countless factual and dramatic retellings of the space race, "We Chose to Go to the Moon" takes the stories to the stage of New York City's renowned Carnegie Hall for an 'immersive performance' that combines music, archival film, and st
  
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• SpaceX Starship Flight 15 live updates: T-2 days to SpaceX's 1st-ever double Starship landing attempt

  10-11-2026 20:46 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is counting down to make history with the launch of its Starship Flight 15 mission on Friday, Nov. 13, with liftoff scheduled for 5:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) at Starbase, Texas. Starship Flight 15 will attempt to land both Starship Ship and Super Heavy Booster. It will be the first-ever full recovery of an orbital rocket and spacecraft, if successful. Follow our Starship Flight 15 coverage here as SpaceX completes its final prelaunch work for the launch, which will also deliver 26 new Starli
  
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• SpaceX Starship Flight 15 live updates: Super Heavy rocket moved to launch pad for 1st Starship double landing test

  10-11-2026 20:46 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is counting down to make history with the launch of its Starship Flight 15 mission on Friday, Nov. 13, with liftoff scheduled for 5:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) at Starbase, Texas. Starship Flight 15 will attempt to land both Starship Ship and Super Heavy Booster. It will be the first-ever full recovery of an orbital rocket and spacecraft, if successful. Follow our Starship Flight 15 coverage here as SpaceX completes its final prelaunch work for the launch, which will also deliver 26 new Starli
  
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• Uranus has a weird magnetic field that's stumped scientists for 40 years — we may finally know why

  10-11-2026 20:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The posided magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune may stem from extreme conditions lying within their deep interior. Unravelling the mystery behind the magnetic fields of these worlds is giving us new insight into the little-known interiors of the ice giants.Only one spacecraft has ever visited Uranus and Neptune, the Voyager 2 spacecraft which spend past Uranus in January 1986 and Neptune in August 1989. Voyager 2 found that their planetary magnetic fields were, to put it bluntly, wonky. Uranus
  
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• Were there 'lost cosmonauts' in the early Soviet space program?

  10-11-2026 18:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  In the final weeks of 1960, two young radio enthusiasts were monitoring transmissions from a home-built listening station on a rooftop in Turin, Italy, when the brothers detected something extraordinary: a faint signal that bore the hallmarks of one originating from space. That wasn't the only surprising thing about the alleged signal:, the transmission carried a very familiar message: it was Morse code for the international distress signal SOS.As the youths listened, the signal seemed to grow w
  
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• A robot just built a structure autonomously in space for the 1st time ever

  10-11-2026 17:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  A robot just played Tinkertoys in space, assembling the first satellite structure ever made without a human touching the controls.The DARPA-funded project saw a robotic "truss builder" create a reflective antenna using Kapton film, composite fiber tubes and aluminum joints. The implications are huge for future missions, potentially opening up new possibilities to build — or fix — satellites in the final frontier."This is the first time that a structure has been autonomously constructed in sp
  
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• Curiosity Mars rover sizes up new 'Nazca' dig site | Space photo of the day for Nov. 10, 2026

  10-11-2026 16:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this close-up image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager, showing the abundance of disc-shaped potential crystal forms on our next drill target, dubbed "Nazca." (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is sizing up its next dig site on the Red Planet.The Curiosity team will characterize the surface composition of the Mars site, informally named "Nazca," as thoroughly as possible before drilling into it.What is it?Curiosity snapped the clo
  
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• See the first images from the new ZWO Seestar S30 Plus — a smart telescope aimed at beginners

  10-11-2026 15:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  As rival makers announce increasingly ambitious smart telescopes, ZWO has taken a different approach. Its new Seestar S30 Plus launches today and will be available online from Seestar’s website and Amazon, just in time for Christmas. Better still, we’ve been using it for a month and can bring you a first look.Announced a few months after the flagship Seestar S50 Pro and replacing the now-discontinued Seestar S30, the new Seestar S30 Plus retains its 30mm aperture and compact chassis, but upg
  
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• Total solar eclipse 2027 vs 2028 — Which one should you choose, Egypt or Australia?

  10-11-2026 14:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  For those who want to experience a total solar eclipse, the next two years present the best kind of problem. On Aug. 2, 2027, the so-called "eclipse of the century" will sweep across southern Spain, North Africa and the Middle East, bringing more than six minutes of totality to parts of Egypt. Then, on July 22, 2028, another exceptionally long total solar eclipse will cross Australia, putting the remote Outback and Sydney Harbor in the path of the moon's dark central shadow before it reaches New
  
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• NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes slingshot around Earth in unprecedented double 'gravity assist'

  10-11-2026 12:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Twin NASA spacecraft are wrapping up a year-long escapade, ready to make a beeline to the Red Planet.The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) spacecraft launched in November 2025 on the second-ever flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. But rather than head straight to Mars, the two spacecraft dawdled through a looping trajectory. Now, they are back in Earth's neighborhood where they tackled a crucial engine burn unusually close to Earth that — if all goes well �
  
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