Astronomy news

• NASA astronaut Mike Fincke retires after 30 years at the space agency

  13-08-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  Prolific NASA astronaut Mike Fincke has announced his retirement from the U.S. space agency after 30 years of public service. NASA announced Fincke's decision on Wednesday (Aug. 12), celebrating his contributions to spaceflight and long career of accomplishments. “Few people have had the opportunity to shape as many chapters of NASA’s history as Mike Fincke,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that day in a statement. Fincke departs as NASA's fourth-most flown astronaut, ra
  
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• Supermassive black hole spews energy 300,000 light years into deep space

  13-08-2026 22:00 via space.com
  
  Supermassive black holes are best known for their immense gravity, pulling in everything that strays too close, even light. But new research suggests these cosmic giants can also hurl enormous amounts of energy outward, driving powerful disturbances that ripple hundreds of thousands of light-years through space.A study led by Satoshi Yamada of Tohoku University in Japan found that winds generated by an actively feeding supermassive black hole are about 100 times more powerful than astronomers pr
  
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• NASA's canceled lunar space station tech will help build the Artemis moon base

  13-08-2026 21:00 via space.com
  
  Not every canceled NASA program earns a halo after its demise, but one scrapped project is finding new life by contributing its parts to help the space agency achieve its moon base goals faster. Northrop Grumman is repurposing hardware and technology from the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) space station module for use on a new series of Lunar Infrastructure Demo (LID) missions. HALO was originally designed as the habitation module for NASA's since-cancelled moon-orbiting Gateway space s
  
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• 'The X-Files' creator Chris Carter says new director's cut of 'I Want to Believe' is 'the horror movie that we really wanted to make' (interview)

  13-08-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  Eighteen years later, it still gives me a jump scare, even though I know it's coming.Agent Mulder, hot on the trail of a group of murderers who are harvesting their victims' organs, breaks into a makeshift laboratory in an attempt to save an abducted woman. He finds a gruesome scene of bodies on ice and surgeons, scalpels in hand, preparing to transplant the villain's head onto the abducted woman's body. Mulder turns and  — there it is! The villain's severed head on ice! And it opens
  
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• How to image the planets with a telescope and camera

  13-08-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  The night sky holds endless wonders, but few experiences match the thrill of photographing planets in vivid detail. With even a modest telescope and camera setup, you can capture cloud bands on Jupiter, the majestic rings of Saturn or the polar caps of Mars — images once the preserve of professional observatories. This technique, known as lucky imaging, records short video clips at high frame rates to freeze fleeting moments of steady air, then stacks the sharpest frames into one crisp pho
  
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• Virgin Galactic delays next commercial spaceflight to 2027

  13-08-2026 18:03 via space.com
  
  Virgin Galactic's next customers will have to wait a bit longer to get off the ground. The suborbital space tourism company hasn't been to the final frontier since June 2024. It had been targeting late 2026 for the resumption of commercial service, but that's not going to happen, we learned on Wednesday (Aug. 12)."We've moved our first commercial spaceflight to this coming February to allow additional time to complete avionics and systems installations," Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier sa
  
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• The Perseid meteor shower peak was spectacular: Here are our favorite photos

  13-08-2026 17:23 via space.com
  
  The Perseid meteor shower peaked last night in spectacular fashion, dazzling stargazers as countless shooting stars blazed overhead mere hours after a total solar eclipse saw the lunar disk hide the sun over Greenland, Iceland and Spain.Perseid shooting stars appear as Earth enters the debris trail cast off by the icy comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Each year, countless shards of this ancient comet collide with our wandering planet. What follows is truly spectacular. Most are no larger than a particle
  
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• Total solar eclipse stuns skywatchers | Space photo of the day for Aug. 13, 2026

  13-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The moment just before totality during the Aug. 12, 2026 total solar eclipse, captured from Scoresby Sund near Greenland.(Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)The total solar eclipse of Aug. 12, 2026 was one for the books. And this photo, snapped just as the eclipse was about to enter totality, really captures the drama of the moment. What is it?On Aug. 12, 2026, millions of people around the world witnessed a total solar eclipse. This happens when the moon passes in front of the sun, completel
  
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• On this day in space! Aug. 13, 2014: Game-changing WorldView-3 Earth-observing satellite launches to orbit

  13-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  On Aug. 13, 2014, a company called DigitalGlobe launched what was then the sharpest-eyed satellite of all time. WorldView-3 is a high-resolution imaging satellite that can resolve features as small as 1 foot (31 centimeters) across. Its instruments allow it to peer through fog and smoke to see Earth's surface at a level of detail that was unprecedented for a non-governmental spacecraft. WorldView-3 lifted off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California
  
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• 'Strange New Worlds' latest lookalike episode is part of a long line of 'Star Trek' doppelganger stories

  13-08-2026 15:15 via space.com
  
  MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD! ANYONE YET TO WATCH "A CASE OF CHIAROSCURO" SHOULD PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO AVOID VIOLATING TEMPORAL PRIME DIRECTIVES.You're on a top-secret mission to recover a lost Federation probe from enemy territory. A close encounter with a Klingon cruiser forces you into hiding on the surface of an alien world, which — thanks, in part, to the local star's radiation making everything appear stylishly monochrome — looks like it's been lifted from a classic 20th-century film
  
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• Number One's doppelganger in 'Strange New Worlds'' latest episode is part of a long line of 'Star Trek' lookalikes

  13-08-2026 15:15 via space.com
  
  MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD! ANYONE YET TO WATCH "A CASE OF CHIAROSCURO" SHOULD PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO AVOID VIOLATING TEMPORAL PRIME DIRECTIVES.You're on a top-secret mission to recover a lost Federation probe from enemy territory. A close encounter with a Klingon cruiser forces you into hiding on the surface of an alien world, which — thanks, in part, to the local star's radiation making everything appear stylishly monochrome — looks like it's been lifted from a classic 20th-century film
  
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• When is the next solar eclipse? Mark your calendar for an upcoming 'ring of fire' and the 'eclipse of the century'

  13-08-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Yesterday (Aug.12), millions of people enjoyed a total solar eclipse as it swept across parts of Greenland, Iceland and Spain, while a partial solar eclipse was visible across much of Europe and northwest Africa. If all that eclipse excitement has you eager for more, the good news is you won't have to wait long, because two remarkable solar eclipses are coming in 2027. First comes a dramatic "ring of fire" annular solar eclipse on Feb 6, followed six months later by the total solar eclipse on Au
  
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• New private 'Perceptor' probes will keep an eye on satellites high above Earth

  13-08-2026 11:30 via space.com
  
  Satellites high above Earth may soon have fewer places to hide.San Francisco-based company Astranis announced today (Aug. 13) that it's developing a line of spacecraft called Perceptor, which will keep an eye on satellite activity in geostationary orbit (GEO).GEO lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth, an altitude at which orbital speed matches our planet's rotational velocity. It's therefore a popular destination for communications, weather and reconnaissance spacecraft — and,
  
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