Astronomy news

• Supermassive black holes put a brake on stellar births

  20-07-2021 01:16
  Black holes with masses equivalent to millions of suns do put a brake on the birth of new stars, say astronomers. Using machine learning and three state of the art simulations to back up results from a large sky survey, the researchers resolve a 20-year long debate on the formation of stars.
  
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• SpaceX rocket launch creates incredible 'space jellyfish' visible throughout US East Coast (photos)

  13-10-2026 19:02 via space.com
  
  Rockets are launching to space on a near-daily basis these days, but short of livestreaming a liftoff from the comfort of your Wi-Fi router, relatively few spectators are in the right place and time to see one with their own eyes. That wasn't the case Tuesday morning (Oct. 13), when SpaceX launched the CRS-35 mission for NASA. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:35 a.m. EDT (1035 GMT), carrying a cargo variant of SpaceX's Dragon spacecra
  
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• 2 spacecraft in orbit and 8 more coming soon: Varda has big plans for in-space manufacturing

  13-10-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  Reentry and orbital-manufacturing provider Varda Space Industries is operating two spacecraft in orbit right now, with another expected to launch "in the coming days" and seven more next year.The Los Angeles-area startup, which bills itself as one of just two companies that can currently do commercial reentry from space, successfully launched its latest two refrigerator-sized spacecraft aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission on Oct. 1. "It's humanity's first time launching multiple com
  
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• 'Space Gal' Emily Calandrelli launches into the Marvel Universe this week on Disney Jr.'s 'Iron Man' series (exclusive)

  13-10-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  "The Space Gal" is blasting off onto her next adventure to promote STEM education with out-of-this-world content. Science communicator and citizen astronaut Emily Calandrelli, better known to millions of social media followers as "The Space Gal," is bringing her real-world spaceflight experience to the Marvel universe. Calandrelli is lending her voice to an upcoming episode of Disney Jr.'s animated series, "Marvel's Iron Man and his Awesome Friends."She is stepping into the role of a character c
  
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• ‘Space Gal’ Emily Calandrelli launches into the Marvel Universe this week on Disney Jr.'s 'Iron Man' series (exclusive)

  13-10-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  "The Space Gal" is blasting off onto her next adventure to promote STEM education with out-of-this-world content. Science communicator and citizen astronaut Emily Calandrelli, better known to millions of social media followers as "The Space Gal," is bringing her real-world spaceflight experience to the Marvel universe. Calandrelli is lending her voice to an upcoming episode of Disney Jr.'s animated series, "Marvel's Iron Man and his Awesome Friends."She is stepping into the role of a character c
  
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• NASA's Perseverance Mars rover breaks interplanetary driving record — and it's far from done

  13-10-2026 16:14 via space.com
  
  In a milestone achievement, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover hasbroken the record for most miles driven on a world beyond Earth.On Oct. 11, Perseverance hit 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers) traveled on Mars,breaking the record previously held by NASA's Opportunity rover which went 28.06 miles (45.16 km). It took Oppy 14 years to cover all that ground; Perseverance, by contrast, has been on Mars for just 5.5 years. The new record is far from the end of Perseverance's journey, however; the mission tea
  
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• Astronaut captures mesmerizing auroras with iPhone from ISS | Space photo of the day for Oct. 13, 2026

  13-10-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  Earth's night side is wreathed in colorful auroras in a new smartphone image captured from the ISS. (Image credit: Anil Menon, NASA)NASA astronaut Anil Menon captured a gorgeous view of the northern lights dancing over the night side of Earth from the International Space Station on Oct. 10 using an iPhone camera.What is it?Menon's photo reveals spectacular pink, purple and red auroras glowing in Earth's upper atmosphere above a sparse dappling of city lights, subtly blurred by the motion of the
  
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• The great Halley's Comet disappointment of 1986 — and the discoveries that changed astronomy forever

  13-10-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  This year, 2026, marks the 40th anniversary of the most recent appearance of Halley's Comet, the most famous comet in the solar system. Roughly every 76 years, Halley punctuates history like an exclamation mark in the night sky. As writer Guy Ottewell has said, it is the "wildest of the tame comets."It is a tame comet because it can be anticipated. It is wild because it is still fresh and bright; the brightest of all the recurring comets.It is the only one that periodically becomes conspicuous t
  
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• A faint glow from the early universe could help solve the mystery of dark energy

  13-10-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  Hydrogen may be the most common element in the cosmos, but scientists could use it to do something unique: uncover the nature of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.This new line of dark energy investigation comes from the fact that researchers have determined that the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) project can detect the faint radio glow of hydrogen from the universe's distant past.Not only does this represent a faster and
  
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• SpaceX launches Falcon 9 Starlink mission for 1st time in more than 3 weeks (video)

  13-10-2026 05:15 via space.com
  
  SpaceX just broke an uncharacteristically long Starlink launch drought.The company sent 27 of its Starlink internet satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) today (Oct. 12), launching them atop a Falcon 9 rocket from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:28 p.m. EDT (5:28 p.m. local time; 0028 GMT on Oct. 13)It was the first Starlink mission for a Falcon 9 since Sept. 19, which was another 27-satellite liftoff from Vandenberg. For some perspective on this recent gap: Between Aug. 19 and Sept.
  
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• SpaceX launches Falcon 9 Starlink mission for 1st time in more than 3 weeks (photos)

  13-10-2026 05:15 via space.com
  
  SpaceX just broke an uncharacteristically long Starlink launch drought.The company sent 27 of its Starlink internet satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) today (Oct. 12), launching them atop a Falcon 9 rocket from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:28 p.m. EDT (5:28 p.m. local time; 0028 GMT on Oct. 13)It was the first Starlink mission for a Falcon 9 since Sept. 19, which was another 27-satellite liftoff from Vandenberg. For some perspective on this recent gap: Between Aug. 19 and Sept.
  
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• SpaceX successfully launches 6,300 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station

  12-10-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  SpaceX launched its latest cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday morning (Oct. 13).A Falcon 9 rocket launched a robotic Dragon capsule to the orbiting lab from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday at 6:35 a.m. EDT (1035 GMT).The launch kicks off the CRS-35 mission, so named because it will be the 35th that SpaceX flies under a Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. A side by side view of a rocket engine in space and the interior of a rocke
  
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• SpaceX launching 6,300 pounds of cargo to the ISS today: Watch it live

  12-10-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  SpaceX will launch its latest cargo mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday morning (Oct. 13), and you can watch the action live.A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch a robotic Dragon capsule tothe orbiting lab from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday at 6:33 a.m. EDT (1033 GMT).You can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, starting at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 GMT).A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the company's Dragon spacecraft on the CRS-34
  
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• SpaceX launching 6,300 pounds of cargo to the ISS on Oct. 13: Watch it live

  12-10-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  SpaceX will launch its latest cargo mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday morning (Oct. 13), and you can watch the action live.A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch a robotic Dragon capsule tothe orbiting lab from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday at 6:33 a.m. EDT (1033 GMT).You can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, starting at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 GMT).A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the company's Dragon spacecraft on the CRS-34
  
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• Astronomers witness supermassive black hole gorge on a cosmic meal before 'burping' radio jets 300 days later

  12-10-2026 22:00 via space.com
  
  Using the NASA X-ray spacecraft Swift combined with radio observations, astronomers have observed a supermassive black hole burping radio jets 300 days after a heavy cosmic meal. The team was also able to roughly estimate the mass of this feeding cosmic titan, which sits at the heart of the Perseus Cluster, a massive collection of thousands of galaxies.The black hole sits at the center of the galaxy NGC 1275, located around 225 light-years away, and is the brightest galaxy of the Perseus Cluster
  
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• The moon could turn astronauts into 'walking, high voltage capacitors' that accidentally zap spacecraft

  12-10-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  NASA is asking for ideas to stop static electricity from zapping astronauts or critical hardware during moon missions.The agency opened a "Lunar Grounding Challenge" to avoid situations where an astronaut on the moon could become "a walking, high voltage capacitor." Submissions for the $150,000 competition are due Jan. 15 and you can see the requirements here.NASA is hoping to put astronaut boots at the lunar south pole in 2028 during the Artemis 4 or 5 missions, on the first landing mission sin
  
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• The 'Halloween Fireballs' are coming. Here's what to expect from the Taurids this year

  12-10-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  They don't produce anything like the torrent of "shooting stars" associated with August's Perseids or December's Geminids, but the Taurid meteor showers have something else going for them — fireballs.The Taurids are famous for occasionally producing exceptionally bright, slow-moving meteors that can streak dramatically across the night sky from September to December. As a bonus, they're visible from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. That's because they appear to emanate from the
  
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• The 'Halloween Fireballs' are coming. Here's what to expect from the Taurids this October

  12-10-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  They don't produce anything like the torrent of "shooting stars" associated with August's Perseids or December's Geminids, but the Taurid meteor showers have something else going for them — fireballs.The Taurids are famous for occasionally producing exceptionally bright, slow-moving meteors that can streak dramatically across the night sky from September to December. As a bonus, they're visible from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. That's because they appear to emanate from the
  
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• On this day in space! Oct. 12, 1964: The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1, the 1st multi-person cosmonaut crew, into space

  12-10-2026 16:29 via space.com
  
  On Oct. 12, 1964, the Soviet Union launched Voskhod 1, a 24-hour crewed mission that achieved several "firsts" for human spaceflight. This was the first time that a spacecraft carried more than one person into orbit, with three cosmonauts packed inside the spacecraft. Only two cosmonauts were originally supposed to fly on this mission, but Soviet politicians pressured the Russian space program to add one more. This left no room for spacesuits on board, so this also became the first spaceflight w
  
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• On this day in space! Oct. 12, 1964: The Soviet Union launches 1st multi-person cosmonaut crew into space

  12-10-2026 16:29 via space.com
  
  On Oct. 12, 1964, the Soviet Union launched Voskhod 1, a 24-hour crewed mission that achieved several "firsts" for human spaceflight. This was the first time that a spacecraft carried more than one person into orbit, with three cosmonauts packed inside the spacecraft. Only two cosmonauts were originally supposed to fly on this mission, but Soviet politicians pressured the Russian space program to add one more. This left no room for spacesuits on board, so this also became the first spaceflight w
  
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• Namibian salt flats look like an alien planet | Space photo of the day for Oct. 12, 2026

  12-10-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The Etosha Pan, Namibia's largest salt pan, seen from space.(Image credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA)A neon blue pool swirls amongst what look like clouds, all surrounded by a bright red stretch of land. This might look like the surface of an alien planet, but it's actually a salt flat right here on Earth, seen from space. What is it?Etosha National Park in northern Namibia hosts the largest salt pan, or piece of land covered with salt and other minerals
  
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• How the impossible geometry of 'Tomb Raider III''s UFO level was made

  12-10-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  "Tomb Raider" celebrates its 30th anniversary this month. While many remember the iconic T-Rex or locking Winston the Butler in the freezer, many forget about the UFO in 1998’s "Tomb Raider III"; a mysterious alien craft that worked a lot like Doctor Who’s TARDIS.Coming off the back of the hugely successful "Tomb Raider 2", developer Core Design had big plans for the third entry, including kayaking, those iconic London levels, and, of course, a level featuring a UFO in Area 51. Altho
  
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• What caused a mysterious atmospheric explosion in Siberia in 1908?

  12-10-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Fire erupted in the morning skies over Siberia on June 30, 1908, as an atmospheric explosion occurred that remains unmatched by any similar event in modern history.That day, at approximately 7:15 a.m. local time, observers in Siberia's remote Tunguska region became witnesses to the entry of a brilliant fireball into Earth's atmosphere, trailing smoke across the dawn sky and culminating in a flash brighter than the sun itself. Within seconds, the explosion and resulting shock waves that followed
  
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• UAE unveils lander for bold 7-asteroid mission set to launch in 2028 (photos)

  12-10-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has moved a step closer to launching its second-ever interplanetary mission — an ambitious, eight-year exploration of seven asteroids between Mars and Jupiter that will culminate with a landing on the mysteriously red asteroid 269 Justitia.The mission team unveiled a half-scale model of the homegrown probe that will make that landing during an Oct. 1 press conference in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. The autonomous craft will ride attached to the main spa
  
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• On this day in space! Oct. 11, 1968: Apollo 7 launches into space, NASA's 1st Apollo astronaut crew in orbit

  11-10-2026 16:21 via space.com
  
  On. Oct. 11, 1968, Apollo 7 launched into space with NASA astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham. This was the first mission of the Apollo program that carried a crew into space.Apollo 7 rebooted the Apollo program after a fire killed three astronauts during a launch rehearsal 20 months earlier.NASA needed to prove that their Apollo spacecraft worked with this mission, which was really more of a test flight. Though the spacecraft seemed to work alright, the crew got a little
  
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• Alien: Isolation 2: This highly anticipated sequel has no release date yet, but here's everything else we know

  11-10-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  We’ve had a lot of good Alien video games in recent years, but nothing has quite matched the highs and authenticity of 2014’s Alien: Isolation. It took a decade of players clamouring for a sequel, but in late 2024, our prayers were answered when developer Creative Assembly dropped a trailer announcing Alien: Isolation 2.Now, we’re slowly learning about what developer Creative Assembly has in store for us. Scary teasers and comments from creative director Al Hope suggest we're l
  
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• Astrophotographer captures 110 galaxies, star clusters and nebulas in stunning 352-hour mosaic (photo)

  11-10-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  Behold! Amateur astrophotographer ing. Cornelis van Zuilen has created a stunning cosmic mosaic of all 110 galaxies, star clusters and nebulas of the Messier catalog — a leviathan effort that took hundreds of hours and many nights of sleeping in his car to complete."One of the first Messier objects I photographed was Messier 45 (the Pleiades) back in 2024, when I had just purchased my cooled deep-sky camera and was beginning my deep-sky astrophotography journey," van Zuilen told Space.com
  
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• 10 times 'Red Dwarf' beat other TV shows and movies to brilliant sci-fi ideas

  10-10-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  For a show with no aliens or faster-than-light travel, "Red Dwarf" has crammed an awful lot of sci-fi concepts into its 13 seasons. Frequently as smart as "Star Trek" — albeit on a much smaller budget — Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's BBC sitcom always punched above its weight when it came to big genre ideas. In fact, many of its stories were truly ahead of their time, built around concepts that have since turned up in hit American shows (including the recent "Strange New Worlds" season
  
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• This Week In Space podcast: Episode 231 — Sailing the Stellar Seas

  10-10-2026 14:32 via space.com
  
  On Episode 231 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik take a dive deep into their favorite space si-fi across the ages. From the earliest works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to the best of contemporary space science fiction, Rod and Tariq also challenge you with some of the most obscure titles they know. Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Space news of the weekThe Integral TreesT
  
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• On this day in space! Oct. 10, 1967: The Outer Space Treaty is ratified to lay out how countries can use outer space

  10-10-2026 13:43 via space.com
  
  On Oct. 10, 1967, the international Outer Space Treaty was ratified. This treaty established a set of rules regulating how different countries can explore and use outer space. Specifically, it says "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind." The treaty dictates that no one can claim territory in outer space and that other celestial bodies must be used "exclusively for peaceful purpos
  
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