Astronomy news

• NASA kick-starts a fresh push to bring Mars samples home

  11-11-2026 23:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  A long-term goal at NASA has been the ability to robotically haul back to Earth specimens from the Red Planet.NASA is kickstarting a new initiative for its troubled Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, called the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture, or PSRA in space shorthand. The plan is to establish a fresh NASA strategy for gathering Mars samples collected by the Perseverance rover and launching them back to Earth. The PSRA initiative was noted on Nov. 9 by Tiffany Morgan, director of the
  
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• We can't see Fast Radio Bursts but we can now hear them thanks to a Finnish Cathedral

  11-11-2026 22:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Fast radio bursts, flashes of energy from faraway galaxies, are invisible to our eyes. However, we can now hear their melody, thanks to a composer who has turned them into sound.Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are among the most extreme events in the universe, releasing as much energy in a millisecond as the sun puts out in three days and briefly outshining entire galaxies. Since the first FRB was discovered in 2007, astronomers have detected thousands of them; however, exactly how these cosmic flar
  
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• On this day in space! Nov. 11, 1966: NASA launches Gemini 12 mission with astronaut icons Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell aboard

  11-11-2026 21:50 via Latest from Space.com
  
  On Nov. 11, 1966, the Gemini 12 mission launched an astronaut crew into orbit and set the stage for NASA's Apollo program to land humans on the moon. Gemini 12 was the last mission of the Gemini program. It had two astronauts on board: Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. NASA wanted to send humans to the moon. But first, it needed to make sure crews had the right skills, like docking vehicles in space and taking spacewalks. Before Gemini 12, astronauts struggled with spacewalks because there weren't eno
  
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• Andy Weir's 'Exoplanet' just landed on Audible, but what actually makes an exoplanet habitable?

  11-11-2026 20:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Imagine you’ve crash-landed on an alien planet. Your ship is destroyed, your oxygen supply is dangerously low, and the landscape around you is completely unknown. Where would you begin looking for clues to your survival? Surprisingly, the best place to start could be the star overhead.This is the predicament that three crew members of the Wild Blue Yonder face in Audible’s new sci-fi thriller, "Exoplanet." This sci-fi thriller is written by acclaimed comic writer Benjamin Percy, executive pr
  
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• Did comets bring building blocks of life to Earth? Scientists aren't so sure anymore

  11-11-2026 18:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The origin of life on Earth remains a mystery. New research shows that comets almost certainly did not bring the chemical building blocks of life to our planet.Life as we know it is based around carbon chemistry, also known as organic chemistry. Complex organic molecules are the fundamental building blocks of biochemical compounds such as nucleobases, amino acids, sugars and so on that act as the machinery for biochemistry on Earth. Two big questions are where did this complex chemistry originat
  
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• 'There's tremendous demand': Rocket Lab raises price of Neutron launch from $55 million to $70 million

  11-11-2026 17:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The coming launch bottleneck has ramped up demand for a rocket that has yet to leave the ground.Rocket Lab announced on Monday (Nov. 9) that it recently raised the price of a Neutron launch from $55 million to $70 million — an increase of more than 25%, for a ride on a rocket that's set to debut in 2027."Launch is extremely constrained, and that is exactly the situation we predicted," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said on Monday during the company's third-quarter earnings call. "We saw
  
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• Hubble Space Telescope reveals glittering stars with mysterious origins | Space photo of the day for Nov. 11, 2026

  11-11-2026 16:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a breathtaking view of thousands of stars glittering like cosmic jewels in a dazzling display of blue, gold and orange. But this spectacular scene is far more than just a pretty picture. Some of these stars are almost as old as the universe itself and could hold clues to how our Milky Way formed. M30 is a globular star cluster located approximately 27,500 light-years from Earth. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Libralato, G. Piotto, A. Sarajedini)W
  
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• Why I recommend the Seestar S30 Plus smart telescope for beginners — full review

  11-11-2026 14:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  I’ve used several smart telescopes over the last few years, but I'd recommend the ZWO Seestar S30 Plus to almost anyone wanting to get started in astrophotography. At $499/€499, it’s a complete imaging system that can photograph galaxies, nebulae and star clusters automatically, even from a light-polluted city. Better still, it’s so small that it can live on a bookshelf.The Pleiades (M45), photographed in mosaic mode with the Seestar S30 Plus. (Image credit: Jamie Carter)Jamie CarterThe
  
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• NASA's new UVEX space telescope will peer deep into the universe's most violent events

  11-11-2026 14:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  A new NASA space telescope will study the universe in ultraviolet light to reveal the violent and turbulent events that bubble under what appears to be a cosmic sea of tranquility.The Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX) mission, developed by NASA in conjunction with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), will be the first mission to create deep all-sky maps in ultraviolet light. Thus, when it launches in 2031, UVEX will join new sky-mapping surveys like NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for
  
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• What time will SpaceX launch Starship Flight 15, its 1st double landing test, on Nov. 13? (Full mission timeline)

  11-11-2026 12:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is just days away from what might be its most ambitious test flight yet of the company's massive Starship megarocket, the largest launch vehicle ever built. On Friday (Nov. 13), SpaceX will launch its next Starship test flight on a mission that, if successful, will return both its Super Heavy first-stage booster and Ship upper stage to Earth for back-to-back landings at their launch pad. It will be the first full recovery of an orbital rocket in history. And if you want to watch it live,
  
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