Astronomy news

• 29 Jul 2022 (16 hours away): The Moon at perihelion

  29-07-2022 03:13 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon reaches its closest point to the Sun.
  
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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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• 25 Jul 2026 (6 days away): The Moon at apogee

  19-07-2026 01:05 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 (5 days away): Lunar occultation of Antares

  19-07-2026 01:05 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 (2 days away): Moon at First Quarter

  19-07-2026 01:05 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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• Another reusable rocket? Japan launches, lands RV-X prototype (video)

  18-07-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  Japan has succeeded in the first-ever flight test of its RV-X experimental reusable rocket prototype. The launch — or hop, considering its duration and distance — took place at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Noshiro test facility on July 11 and lasted about 40 seconds. The 24-foot-tall (7.3 meters) test vehicle, powered by a single engine, rose just over 33 feet (10 m) in the air and traveled a horizontal distance of approximately 50 feet (15 m) across the site's con
  
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• This Week In Space podcast: Episode 219 — SpaceX Goes to War!

  18-07-2026 15:40 via space.com
  
  On Episode 219 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik discuss the space headlines for the past few weeks.It's been busy, and some exciting things are happening! A couple ofcompanies are moving into the space solar power arena — something we'velong advocated — and that's welcome progress. Starship is set to flyStarship test number 13, and a lot is riding on this — the system isoverdue for some proof of concept to keep up with NASA's HLS contract.An exoplanet spotted a d
  
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• 'We knew we had a lot to live up to': As 'Aliens' turns 40, we chat to the legendary VFX masters who created the Alien Queen (interview)

  18-07-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  It's almost inconceivable that 40 years have passed since what's been called the greatest sci-fi action film of all time (and not just by us) assaulted theaters with the juiced-up sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 classic, "Alien." Director James Cameron's propulsive vision for a gung-ho military-style movie would call upon Stan Winston Studio's elite creature effects crew from 1984's "The Terminator" — a team that would later work on "Predator," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," "Jurassic Park,"
  
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• Beyond the Perseids: 6 meteor showers worth watching this summer

  18-07-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  The Perseids may be the summer meteor shower everyone marks on the calendar, but they are not the only reason to look up this season. From mid-July through late August, Earth plows through several other streams of comet and asteroid debris, triggering a series of lesser-known meteor showers across Northern Hemisphere skies. Most will not deliver the dazzling hourly rates of the Perseids, and moonlight will spoil some peak nights in 2026. But for patient skywatchers under dark skies, these lesser
  
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• 27 Jul 2026 (9 days away): 134340 Pluto at opposition

  18-07-2026 02:19 via in-the-sky.org
  
  134340 Pluto is optimally positioned for observation.
  
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• 27 Jul 2026 (9 days away): Asteroid 3 Juno at opposition

  18-07-2026 01:35 via in-the-sky.org
  
  Asteroid 3 Juno makes closest approach to the Earth.
  
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• 26 Jul 2026 (8 days away): Saturn enters retrograde motion

  18-07-2026 01:35 via in-the-sky.org
  
  Saturn reverses its direction of motion across the sky.
  
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• 25 Jul 2026 (7 days away): The Moon at apogee

  18-07-2026 01:35 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.
  
  Read more

• 24 Jul 2026 (6 days away): Lunar occultation of Antares

  18-07-2026 01:35 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.
  
  Read more

• 21 Jul 2026 (3 days away): Moon at First Quarter

  18-07-2026 01:35 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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• 17 Jul 2026 (Today): Messier 55 is well placed

  18-07-2026 01:35 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The globular cluster M55 (NGC 6809l; mag 6.3) in Sagittarius culminates at around midnight local time.
  
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• Remembering 'Ulysses 31', the '80s cartoon that transported 'The Odyssey' to outer space

  18-07-2026 00:00 via space.com
  
  It's not known whether "Ulysses 31" was on Christopher Nolan's radar in his teenage years, but it's intriguing to think it could have influenced the director's decision to take on Homer's "The Odyssey". This animated space opera, a French/Japanese co-production, delivered a crash course in Greek mythology to a generation of kids who grew up in the '80s. And, although it looks more like "Star Wars" than Homer's original tale, it had a decent stab at transferring the Classics to the 31st century (
  
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• These 'metallic' dunes on Mars look like sci-fi. What are they really?

  17-07-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  If you still picture Mars as a monotonous red desert, it may be time for an update.The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has been capturing some of the Red Planet's most surreal landscapes, and its latest images reveal a sprawling field that looks like molten metal frozen across the floor of an ancient Mars crater.The shimmering "waves" aren't metal at all, however. They are dark sand dunes dusted with seasonal frost, much of it carbon dioxide, or "dry ice," that settles on the surfac
  
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• The Perseid meteor shower starts this week. Here's why you should look up now

  17-07-2026 21:00 via space.com
  
  People keep asking me about the total solar eclipse on August 12. That's understandable. For anyone in the Northern Hemisphere, it is shaping up to be a joyous day of astronomy. Totality will cross eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain, but much of Europe will see a very deep partial eclipse, and even parts of North America will see a small bite taken from the sun. Then, just hours later, the Perseid meteor shower will peak beneath perfectly moonless skies. What a double-act! The
  
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• 'Aliens' at 40: Here are 26 reasons why James Cameron's sequel is still the greatest sci-fi action movie of all time

  17-07-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  Making a sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 classic "Alien" should have been a disaster. This was a movie that defined a whole new sub-genre of outer-space horror, a perfectly structured scarefest that also introduced one of cinema's greatest-ever monsters to the world.Luckily, James Cameron — then one of Hollywood's hottest properties off the back of "The Terminator" — has never been a shrinking violet, and was brave enough to face the Xenomorph challenge head-on. Reinventing the franchi
  
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• Earth's largest particle accelerator opens new window into the early universe just after the Big Bang: 'A culmination of a decades-long quest'

  17-07-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  After more than two decades of searching, scientists have finally observed a phenomenon in a hot and dense particle 'soup' similar to that which filled the cosmos moments after the Big Bang. The observation could help cosmologists better understand the incredibly hot and dense state of the universe in its earliest moments.The world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), regularly creates this so-called quark-gluon plasma by smashing together the atomic nuclei of h
  
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• 27 Jul 2026 (10 days away): Asteroid 3 Juno at opposition

  17-07-2026 18:36 via in-the-sky.org
  
  Asteroid 3 Juno makes closest approach to the Earth.
  
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• 17 Jul 2026 (Yesterday): Conjunction of the Moon and Venus

  17-07-2026 18:31 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon and Venus share the same right ascension, at a separation of 2°01'.
  
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• 17 Jul 2026 (9 hours ago): Conjunction of the Moon and Venus

  17-07-2026 18:31 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon and Venus share the same right ascension, at a separation of 2°01'.
  
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• 17 Jul 2026 (8 hours ago): Conjunction of the Moon and Venus

  17-07-2026 18:31 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon and Venus share the same right ascension, at a separation of 2°01'.
  
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• 17 Jul 2026 (7 hours ago): Conjunction of the Moon and Venus

  17-07-2026 18:31 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon and Venus share the same right ascension, at a separation of 2°01'.
  
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• 17 Jul 2026 (6 hours ago): Conjunction of the Moon and Venus

  17-07-2026 18:31 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon and Venus share the same right ascension, at a separation of 2°01'.
  
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• 17 Jul 2026 (57 minutes ago): Conjunction of the Moon and Venus

  17-07-2026 18:31 via in-the-sky.org
  
  The Moon and Venus share the same right ascension, at a separation of 2°01'.
  
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