Astronomy news

• Scientists have discovered the oldest quasar ever seen, and it shines with the light of a trillion suns

  09-07-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  Using the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope, astronomers have discovered a treasure trove of 31 black-hole-powered quasars in the early universe. The most impressive of these new discoveries is the most ancient and distant quasar ever seen, shining with the light of a trillion suns just 670 million years after the Big Bang.Quasars occur when supermassive black holes with masses millions or even billions of times that of the sun are surrounded by swirling disks of matter called accre
  
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• SpaceX wants to launch 100,000 Starlink satellites to orbit

  09-07-2026 21:28 via space.com
  
  SpaceX is nothing if not ambitious.Elon Musk's company just filed an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate a 100,000-member constellation of "Gen3" satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).This will presumably be an updated version of SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, according to astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, who reported the news via X today (July 9).SpaceX have filed for a 100,00 satellite "Gen3 NGSO" system. Presumably Starlink Gen3,
  
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• 'Reckless' space-based data centers lack environmental review, drawing criticism

  09-07-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  Environmental and scientific organizations are banding together to demand federal environmental reviews of space-based data center projects, which plan to put more than a million new satellites in Earth orbit over the coming years. Over the last few months, a number of different companies have requested licenses from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch data centers into space. SpaceX's proposal alone requests licenses for up to one million satellites in low Earth orbit (LE
  
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• 'Silo' season 3 showrunner Graham Yost explains the time jumps and turning half of the show into a political thriller (interview)

  09-07-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  Apple TV’s riveting sci-fi series, "Silo," is stretching its narrative legs for its third and penultimate season. Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) deals with amnesia after her fiery return to Silo 18, satisfying secrets are revealed, and we strap in for temporal jumps 352 years back to the "Before Times" to figure out how the apocalypse arrived."We rolled the dice a bit and hoped it would work and weren’t entirely sure, but felt it would," Executive Producer and Showrunner Graham Yost tel
  
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• Could evidence of life on Mars be hiding in clay? Europe wants to send a rover to check

  09-07-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  Is there life on Mars … in clay? Scientists think that the minerals in clay could be the key to finding signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. The European Space Agency is still working toward launching its ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars to search for signs of life. And, according to a statement from the space agency, the rover is now aiming to land at Oxia Planum, a depression on the Martian surfacewhere it's thought that water was once plentiful. There, scientists think that
  
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• Take a trip to the turquoise waters of the Bahamas (from space) | Space photo of the day for July 9, 2026

  09-07-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  Sandbars and waves of rippling sand dunes can be seen from space amongst the turquoise ocean in the Bahamas.(Image credit: NASA/Chris Williams)If you look at this picture for too long, you might start to hear the waves lapping up against the shore or feel a salty breeze in the air. You might not have a trip to the Bahamas planned, but you can always enjoy its beauty in this spectacular summertime snapshot captured by NASA astronaut Chris Williams from aboard the International Space Station. What
  
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• The US wants to build offshore rocket launch sites. Critics say 'our coasts deserve better'

  09-07-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  The United States government is looking into launching commercial rockets from sea-based launch sites, but some ocean advocacy experts say the move is part of a larger trend of allowing the spaceflight industry to use the ocean as a dumping ground.The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on Tuesday (July 7) announced a Request for Information (RFI) to look into launching rockets and recovering spacecraft from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), a region of the United States that extends
  
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• China announces plan to build early-warning system for dangerous asteroids

  09-07-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  China has announced that it wants to develop a "space-ground" asteroid early-warning network, while providing few details on what it could look like. But recent papers and presentations to the United Nations provide clues as to what the country has in mind for planetary defense.The China National Space Administration (CNSA) made the announcement on June 30 — International Asteroid Day — stating plans to construct a coordinated ground-and-space monitoring system for near-Earth asteroi
  
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• Staffing the moon base: How many astronauts should live in NASA's lunar outpost?

  09-07-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  The success of NASA's future moon base depends in large part on mission design, which should allow astronauts to work together well in a way independent from psychological training, a new study asserts.The goal of the study was to identify "specific conditions" for mission success and to look for any "red flags" that may stand in the way, lead investigator Anamaria Berea, a computational social scientist at George Mason University (GMU), told Space.com via email. (The first author of the PLOS ON
  
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• Watch a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch for record-breaking 36th time early on July 9

  09-07-2026 01:00 via space.com
  
  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch for a record-breaking 36th time early Thursday morning (July 9), and you can watch the action live. The Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday at 5:25 a.m. EDT (0925 GMT), carrying 29 of the company's Starlink broadband satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO).You can watch it live via SpaceX beginning about 10 minutes before launch.This particular booster, known as 1067, has already completed 35 orbital mis
  
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• SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches for record-breaking 36th time

  09-07-2026 01:00 via space.com
  
  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched for a record-breaking 36th time early Thursday morning (July 9).The Falcon 9 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday at 5:25 a.m. EDT (0925 GMT), carrying 29 of the company's Starlink broadband satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO).This particular booster, known as 1067, has already completed 35 orbital missions, more than any other SpaceX rocket in history. The overall record is held by NASA's space shuttle Discovery, which flew t
  
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• Japanese company books 1,100 pounds of cargo space on SpaceX Starship mission to the moon

  09-07-2026 00:00 via space.com
  
  ispace is expanding its already extensive moon plans to include SpaceX's Starship megarocket.The Tokyo-based company announced today (July 8) that it has booked 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of cargo capacity on Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, for a moon mission that could launch as soon as 2030. The deal is worth $50 million, according to Tokyo Brief."We are very pleased to be able to offer the new Lunar Access Integration service utilizing Starship's payload space thr
  
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