Astronomy news

• Can Venus cast a shadow? Here's how to see it for yourself

  14-08-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  Can Venus cast a shadow? With Aug. 12's total solar eclipse — where the moon's dark silhouette is everything — now behind us, it's a good time to test another kind of celestial shadow. Astronomical folklore has it that the second rock from the sun, Venus, is, after the sun and moon, the third object able to cast a shadow when it's near peak brightness, albeit extremely faint, according to EarthSky.Is it true? Not in a city, where skylights glow and porch lights blaze, where shadows a
  
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• Cards Against Humanity wants to erect a monument to 'honor' Elon Musk

  14-08-2026 22:00 via space.com
  
  Cards Against Humanity isn't done with its scorched-Earth campaign against SpaceX and Elon Musk.The Chicago-based company behind the popular fill-in-the-blank adult card game is inviting the public to join its design committee to erect an "Elon Musk is a Sad Little B----- with No Friends" monument on a stretch of land it owns near SpaceX's Starbase manufacturing and test facility in South Texas. Cards Against Humanity (CAH) brought a $15 million lawsuit against SpaceX in 2024 for illegally dumpi
  
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• 6 space board games to channel the political drama of 'For All Mankind' and 'Star City'

  14-08-2026 22:00 via space.com
  
  'For All Mankind' was pretty good, wasn't it? Sadly, the show's run has finished now, and while we've got spin-off 'Star City' picking up the mantle, it's still going to be a while before we get any more space politics drama on our screens. Luckily, we can find it on our tabletops instead, with these fantastic space board games.If you haven't seen it, For All Mankind is the story of an alternate history in which the space race between the U.S. and Russia never fizzled out. Instead, it becomes a
  
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• Will the new moon race turn Earth's nearest neighbor into a dumping ground?

  14-08-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  An 8,800-pound (4,000 kilograms) Falcon 9 rocket stage hit the moon last Wednesday (Aug. 5), stirring lunar regolith in a massive plume of dust observable all the way from Earth. The rocket joined some 3,000 manmade objects scattered on the surface of our planet's companion. Some experts think it's about time we start treating the pristine lunar environment with a bit more respect.Around 200 tons of Earth stuff have been either deliberately left on or crashed into the moon since the beginning of
  
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• US Space Force gives Rocket Lab $397 million to build threat-tracking 'Flatellites'

  14-08-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  Amid the major uptick in national defense space contracts since the Trump Administration announced plans to assemble a "Golden Dome" missile-defense system in orbit, Rocket Lab has landed another deal to contribute to the cause. The California-based company was awarded a $397 million Space Force contract to design, manufacture and launch a fleet of "Flatellites" to augment existing infrastructure's ability to track airborne threats in real time. The project is funded under the Space Force's Spac
  
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• Water can survive surprisingly close to the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, James Webb Space Telescope finds

  14-08-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  The heart of the Milky Way may be more hospitable to water than astronomers thought.Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers detected water and cosmic dust around an aging star only 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.The new study suggests that water and dust can form and survive surprisingly close to a supermassive black hole, where intense radiation and other harsh conditions might otherwise be expected to dest
  
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• The ISS photobombs the sun during the total solar eclipse | Space photo of the day for Aug. 14, 2026

  14-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The silhouette of the ISS transiting across the sun's face during the Aug. 12, 2026 total solar eclipse.(Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)This week's total solar eclipse captured the world's attention, and millions of skywatchers looked up (with the correct protective eyewear, hopefully) to experience the moon blocking out our star's light. And, as you can see in this image, even the International Space Station (ISS) itself got in on the fun. What is it?On Aug. 12, 2026, the moon completely blocke
  
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• ISS photobombs the sun during solar eclipse | Space photo of the day for Aug. 14, 2026

  14-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The silhouette of the ISS transiting across the sun's face during the Aug. 12, 2026 total solar eclipse.(Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)This week's total solar eclipse captured the world's attention, and millions of skywatchers looked up (with the correct protective eyewear, hopefully) to experience the moon blocking out our star's light. And, as you can see in this image, even the International Space Station (ISS) itself got in on the fun. What is it?On Aug. 12, 2026, the moon completely blocke
  
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• India-US space ties deepen as NASA invites ISRO to join moon base program

  14-08-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  NASA has formally invited India to participate in its effort to build a permanent base near the moon's south pole, adding a new dimension to the deep-space cooperation between the two countries.The invitation was extended last week at the Indian space agency ISRO's headquarters in Bengaluru during the ninth meeting of the U.S.-India Civil Space Joint Working Group. The CSJWG was established in 2005 as a mechanism for bilateral space cooperation and for addressing challenges and pursuing mutual s
  
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• SpaceX rocket's moon crash highlights 'a tangible operational risk' of lunar settlement

  14-08-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  The moon dust has settled after a 4.5-ton SpaceX rocket body slammed into terrain near Einstein Crater on Aug. 5.That impact site was imaged by South Korea's moon-orbiting Danuri spacecraft, as well as by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Reportedly, a Chinese commercial space debris monitoring satellite tracked and recorded the 5,400-mph (8,690-kph) moon punch, too.Wandering through space for over a year, the leftover Falcon 9 upper stage had sent Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost-1 lande
  
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• Our expert thinks this portable Celestron telescope will delight beginners and younger stargazers

  14-08-2026 11:00 via space.com
  
  Small telescopes have really come on leaps and bounds in recent years. There was a time when refractors with apertures smaller than 4 inches were seldom to be recommended, but manufacturers have been pushing the capabilities of smaller apertures ever further, with optical coatings and high quality, mass-produced optics helping to eke out every little bit of capability from these pocket-sized instruments. While still aperture-limited — a smaller aperture makes less light received, which mak
  
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• 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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• This year's 'Masters of the Universe' movie wasn't Hollywood's first attempt at capturing the power of He-Man; they tried back in 1987, and failed then too

  12-08-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  For the generation that grew up in the 1980s, the release of the recent big-budget "Masters of the Universe" movie would undoubtedly have conjured up a sense of déjà-vu.Picture the scene. The year is 1987. You've got the action figures and the Castle Grayskull playset, you've watched every episode of the cartoon again and again, and you can recite He-Man's opening credits voiceover by heart. He has the power!Then someone tells you there's a live-action film adaptation coming out. Y
  
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• Total solar eclipse 2026 thrills millions with a stunning cosmic spectacle (photos, video)

  12-08-2026 21:30 via space.com
  
  And just like that, it's over.Total solar eclipses are incredible moments in time, but they are fleeting. As the moon passes directly in front of the sun and its shadow sweeps across Earth's surface, the temperature drops and the light takes on an eerie twilight quality. Birds and other animals go quiet. It's a spectacle unlike any other. And for millions today who were lucky enough to be in the path of totality across Greenland, Iceland and Spain, that's exactly what they experienced. "I cannot
  
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• Total solar eclipse 2026 has begun. Here are the first views of totality

  12-08-2026 20:05 via space.com
  
  The first breathtaking photos of totality for the total solar eclipse 2026 are pouring in, revealing incredible views of the sun's atmosphere radiating out from behind the moon's colossal silhouette.Eclipse chasers have spent the past few hours watching in awe, as the moon transformed the sun into an incandescent crescent in the run up to totality, before swallowing it entirely in the skies over Scoresby Sund, Greenland as seen from the deck of the MS Spitsbergen on the HX Expeditions eclipse vo
  
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• Radiation-shielding vest aced Artemis I lunar test, could protect astronauts on moon and Mars missions

  12-08-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  A radiation-shielding vest might one day protect astronauts from dangerous, random outbursts from the sun, a new study finds.More than 50 years after the final Apollo mission, NASA's Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon. To succeed, this project must protect astronauts from solar radiation, especially the intense and unpredictable radiation from solar storms. Coating an entire spacecraft with a meaningfully thick layer of radiation shielding remains impractical due to weight constra
  
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• Farthest 'black hole star' ever found could help solve the James Webb Space Telescope's little red dot mystery

  12-08-2026 17:05 via space.com
  
  The most distant 'black hole star' yet found, existing in the universe less than 660 million years after the Big Bang, has provided a vital clue as to the origin of the mysterious "little red dots" that populate the James Webb Space Telescope's images of the early universe.The consensus seems to be that these bizarre objects, which were first discovered in 2022, are growing supermassive black holes entombed within huge clouds of gas that have spectrums similar to cool, red stars, such as red gia
  
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• Green comet caught soaring over Namibia | Space photo of the day for Aug. 12, 2026

  12-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  Comet 220P/McNaught soaring over Namibia on August 8, 2026. (Image credit: Gerald Rhemann and Michael Jäger)What a view. Astrophotographers in Namibia have captured a bright green comet soaring overhead in a spectacular new photograph.What is it?In this incredible new photograph is the comet 220P/McNaught. Discovered by Australian astronomer Robert H. McNaught, the comet orbits our sun once every 5.5 years. Back in June, the comet reached perihelion, or the closest point in its orbit around
  
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