Astronomy news

• How public–private partnerships can turn Mars into an economic frontier (Op-Ed)

  07-07-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  Futurists and science fiction writers have predicted privately funded missions to Mars for decades, but until recently, the prospect appeared to be decades away. While fully private human missions to Mars are probably not yet practical (given the complexity and cost of such missions), the commercial sector, in partnership with space agencies such as NASA, has a critical role to play in enabling a human presence on Mars. Whether that possibility becomes reality will depend on the choices we make
  
  Read more

• Shoebox-sized 'detector satellites' could sniff out a nuclear bomb in space

  08-07-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  A constellation of cubesats fitted with special detectors could sniff out nuclear weapons hidden on satellites launched by adversary nations, according to a new study.In 2024, rumors began to swirl in military circles that Russia might be developing a space-borne nuclear weapon. At that time, two years into the war in Ukraine, Russia was well aware of how big a lifeline SpaceX's Starlink broadband constellation had been for the Ukrainians. Starlink has not only provided connectivity to ravaged c
  
  Read more

• Venus takes center stage with 2 easy-to-see sky shows this July. Here's when and where to look

  08-07-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  Between July 7 and July 17, Venus will put on two evening-sky shows: first passing close to Regulus, the brightest star in Leo the Lion, and then appearing near a waxing crescent moon.Both events are easy to see with the naked eye and offer excellent opportunities for casual skywatchers and photographers alike.Look low in the western sky after sunset for both events. Viewing times and positions are best suited for observers at mid-northern latitudes; check a local skywatching app for exact timin
  
  Read more

• 'This is the future of spatial intelligence': Vantor unveils stunning 3D satellite views of Earth (photos)

  08-07-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  The American Earth-observation company Vantor maps Earth from space in 3D. The images are available in near-real time, revealing immediate effects of natural disasters and armed conflict. What is more, the images are also absolutely stunning.Vantor, which operates a fleet of 10 satellites that image the surface of the planet with a resolution of 12 inches (30 centimetres), released the first set of its 3D shots from space on July 1. The images capture a variety of targets, all in amazing detail.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• NASA's Roman Space Telescope prepares for launch | Space photo of the day for July 8, 2026

  08-07-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in the clean room at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 26, 2026.(Image credit: NASA/Sydney Rohde (Rocz))NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is hanging out in the clean room at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, preparing for its epic journey to space. What is it?Roman is NASA's next big flagship mission, designed to explore the universe like we've never seen it before. And with just over a month and a half until its expected launch
  
  Read more

• The US Space Force just got a new electromagnetic weapon to jam adversary satellites

  08-07-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  The U.S. Space Force has acquired one of its first publicly acknowledged offensive weapons, one that can blast adversary satellites with beams of electromagnetic radiation to disrupt their signals without physically damaging them.The system, known as Meadowlands, was developed by L3 Harris. It is an electromagnetic warfare system, meaning it is designed to disrupt, deny or degrade an adversary's use of the electromagnetic spectrum  — such as radio waves, for example  — re
  
  Read more

• Revolutionary rocket engine company Venus Aerospace raises $91 million to scale design

  08-07-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Houston-based company Venus Aerospace announced today (June 8) the closing of its "Series B" financing round, which raised $91 million to evolve its rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) from functioning prototype to a scalable propulsion system with multiple applications. Venus completed a demonstration launch with its test vehicle in May 2025, accomplishing the first such flight from U.S. soil powered by an RDRE. At scale, the company envisions a wide variety of uses for the design, includi
  
  Read more

• NASA's New Horizons probe just woke up from hibernation 6 billion miles away beyond Pluto. What's it doing out there?

  08-07-2026 13:45 via space.com
  
  NASA's New Horizons probe has woken up in good health nearly 6 billion miles away beyond Pluto after spending nearly a year in hibernation.Traveling such vast distances between our solar system's most remote objects means New Horizons often cruises for months at a time with little to do other than passively collect data. During these periods, the probe goes into a hibernation mode in which its instruments still collect data, but most other systems power down. New Horizons entered just such a hib
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Earth may survive the sun's death after all, new study suggests

  08-07-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  For decades, astronomers have debated whether Earth's fate was tied to the sun's. When the star exhausts the hydrogen fuel that powers it about 5 billion years, it will swell into a red giant large enough to engulf Mercury and Venus — and, several studies have suggested, Earth as well.New research, however, suggests our planet has a better chance of escaping that fiery end than previously thought. Using updated models of how aging stars interact with their planets, researchers found that t
  
  Read more

• James Webb Space Telescope celebrates its 4th birthday with stunning image of a galaxy crash site

  07-07-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  July 2026 marks four years since NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images were first revealed to the general public, marking a new era for astronomy. To celebrate this anniversary of the most powerful space telescope ever launched, NASA has released a stunning image of the strangely shaped galaxy called Centaurus A.Located around 11 million light-years away, Centaurus A owes its unusual structure to a collision between two galaxies around 2 billion years ago. This merger provided the gala
  
  Read more

• Our Milky Way galaxy might be larger than we thought  

  07-07-2026 22:00 via space.com
  
  Is the Milky Way even bigger than we thought? New observations have revealed that our galaxy's spiral arms could stretch farther and wider than we previously concluded. The Milky Way's spiral structure was discovered over 175 years ago in 1850. But new information could completely change our understanding of our cosmic home. Astronomershave taken a new look at our Milky Way galaxy using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory and have pie
  
  Read more

• 'Project Hail Mary' is finally streaming Amazon Prime Video, and we can't wait to watch it again

  07-07-2026 21:00 via space.com
  
  Amazon MGM Studios' "Project Hail Mary," the science fiction blockbuster starring Ryan Gosling that launched into theaters back on March 20, 2026 is now hitting its streaming stride on Prime Video after a stop on MGM+. The $200 million outer space saga, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ("The Lego Movie," "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse") and adapted from author Andy Weir's 2021 novel of the same name, made a respectable $630 million in its full theatrical run. Despite a general jo
  
  Read more

• Artemis 2's Jeremy Hansen stepping down from active astronaut duty after epic moon mission

  07-07-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  The first non-American to reach the moon is ready for a new mission.Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, best known for his flight around the moon in April on NASA's Artemis 2 mission, will step back from active astronaut duty in September. Hansen, who's also a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), will next serve as a reservist to "enable the vital work happening in Canada with respect to space," the astronaut wrote Monday (July 6) in a statement on X."Our future depen
  
  Read more

• China releases 1st photo of Earth's elusive 'quasi-moon' Kamo'oalewa

  07-07-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  China's first-ever asteroid sampling mission has sent home a picture of its first target, the "quasi-moon" Kamo'oalewa.The Tianwen-2 probe launched in 2025 and traveled 620 million miles (1 billion kilometers) to reach a safe distance about 12 miles (20 km) away from Kamo'oalewa, more formally known as asteroid 2016HO3. The spacecraft will spend nearly a year studying the asteroid with a suite of 11 different scientific instruments before attempting to collect a sample from its surface, which wi
  
  Read more

• 'That's going to come back and bite us': Former NASA chief questions Artemis moon lander plans

  07-07-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  The former head of NASA is questioning the agency's plans to return astronauts to the moon, asking whether the crewed landers selected for the Artemis program are the right vehicles to get the job done. Jim Bridenstine, who served as NASA administrator during President Donald Trump's first term, joined Space.com's Tariq Malik and co-host Rod Pyle on the This Week in Space podcast on June 12 to discuss his recently appointed position as CEO of Quantum Space and current events in the space industr
  
  Read more

• Astronaut flexes his muscles mid-spacewalk | Space photo of the day for July 7, 2026

  07-07-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  NASA astronaut Chris Williams flexes his muscles while on a spacewalk in this image snapped by fellow astronaut Jessica Meir on June 30, 2026.(Image credit: NASA/Jessica Meir)Mid-spacewalk, one NASA astronaut had to take a moment to show off his muscles. What is it? NASA astronaut Chris Williams recently left the confines of the International Space Station for a 7-hour-and-20-minute spacewalk with fellow astronaut Jessica Meir. This was Williams' second spacewalk and Meir's fifth.In a moment of
  
  Read more

• Chinese scientists find the best way to nuke an asteroid on its way to impact Earth

  07-07-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  How do you stop a large, threatening asteroid on its way to Earth? A new Chinese paper, investigating the issue, suggests a "pre-excavation detonation" could be the solution if there's enough warning time.There may be millions of asteroids in our solar system, with a tiny percentage of them posing a possible, very tiny threat to our planet. NASA and many other entities keep an eye on the skies, and continue discovering new asteroids, but have found no imminent threats yet; Apophis, previously be
  
  Read more

• SpaceX just launched the 1st-ever nuclear-powered commercial satellite

  07-07-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  The world's first commercially built nuclear-powered satellite has reached orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The BOHR (Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability) satellite, built by Florida-based company City Labs, launched to space early this morning (July 7) on SpaceX's Transporter-17 rideshare mission. Transporter-17's Falcon 9 rocket, which was carrying a total of 81 payloads, lifted off early this morning from the SpaceX pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and began delivering
  
  Read more

• The sun's atmosphere is way hotter than its surface. Scientists may finally know why

  07-07-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  The mystery of how the sun's corona, which is its outer atmosphere, reaches millions of degrees could have a surprising explanation: cosmic dust riding the magnetic waves carrying plasma on the solar wind."For decades, researchers have focused mainly on how electrons, ions, magnetic fields and plasma waves transport and dissipate energy in the solar atmosphere," said lead researcher Syed Ayaz of the University of Alabama in Huntsville in a statement. "Our work adds a new ingredient to this pictu
  
  Read more

• Even astronauts in space saw America 250 fireworks on the Fourth of July. See their ISS view of Los Angeles (video)

  07-07-2026 00:00 via space.com
  
  The U.S. just celebrated its 250th birthday, and Americans living off the planet had a great view of some of the parties down below."The International Space Station orbited over Los Angeles on July 4th as America marked 250 years of independence with a burst of fireworks lighting up the city below — a celebration so bright it reached all the way to space!" NASA officials said on Monday (July 6) via the agency's ISS X account.That post featured a 15-second video captured from the orbiting l
  
  Read more

• Watch SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch 81 satellites early on July 7

  06-07-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  SpaceX will launch a passel of satellites to orbit early Tuesday morning (July 7), and you can watch the action live.A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 81 payloads is scheduled to lift off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Tuesday, during a 95-minute window that opens at 3:10 a.m. EDT (0410 GMT; 12:10 a.m. local California time).You can watch the mission, which is called Transporter-17, live via SpaceX. Coverage will begin about 15 minutes before launch.As its name suggests, Transporter-1
  
  Read more

• SpaceX launches 81 satellites to orbit from California, lands rocket on ship at sea

  06-07-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  SpaceX launched a passel of satellites to orbit early Tuesday morning (July 7).A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 81 payloads lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Tuesday at 3:12 a.m. EDT (0412 GMT; 12:12 a.m. local California time), kicking off a mission SpaceX calls Transporter-17.As that name suggests, Transporter-17 is the 17th mission of SpaceX's Transporter rideshare program. The company operates another rideshare series as well, called Bandwagon, which has launched four mis
  
  Read more

• More clues surface about the origins of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS

  06-07-2026 22:16 via space.com
  
  More evidence that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is much older than our solar system has come to light, along with clues that it formed on the outskirts of the protoplanetary disk belonging to its parent star long ago.Earlier this year, researchers led by Martin Cordiner of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center revealed that data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggested that 3I/ATLAS is between 10 and 12 billion years old, based on the ratios of its carbon and deuterium isotopes. This
  
  Read more

• NASA just found a planet 'hiding' in TESS spacecraft data, all thanks to Einstein

  06-07-2026 21:00 via space.com
  
  NASA's exoplanet-hunting spacecraft TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has a new method for detecting worlds beyond the solar system. The technique relies on a phenomenon introduced by Einstein in his 1915 theory of gravity, general relativity, called gravitational microlensing. The exoplanet in question is called Gaia23bra b. The first hints of this exoplanet were found in 2023 by the now-retired Gaia space telescope via the slight brightening of a star caused by a microlensing event.
  
  Read more

• Black holes buried in mysterious 'little red dot' galaxies could blast cosmic ghosts at Earth

  06-07-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  Mysterious "little red dots" discovered in the early universe by the James Webb Space Telescope could harbor buried black holes that fire high-energy cosmic "ghost particles" through the cosmos.Neutrinos are referred to as ghost particles because as chargeless and near-massless particles, hundreds of trillions of them stream through your body every second at nearly the speed of light. Plus, the source of high-energy neutrinos frequently detected on Earth is something of a mystery. And another co
  
  Read more

• Unidentified metal spheres found on Australian beach are 'debris from a foreign rocket body', space agency says

  06-07-2026 18:30 via space.com
  
  Mysterious metallic-looking spheres have appeared on a northeastern Australian beach, prompting the Australian Space Agency to warn residents to be on the lookout for what they state is likely space debris.Australia is investigating the possible space debris incident in conjunction with authorities in Queensland as well as the National Emergency Management Agency, the country's space agency wrote on X late on Sunday (July 5)."The recovered objects appear to be pressure vessels from a space launc
  
  Read more

• 'Acceleration without fuel:' Revolutionary superconducting thruster harnesses Earth's magnetic field in 1st orbital test

  06-07-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  New Zealand company Zenno Astronautics has tested the first of its kind thruster based on superconducting magnets to maintain the position of a satellite in space.Superconducting magnets can convert solar energy directly into momentum in space and provide a source of acceleration that needs no fuel, but until recently, the technology was too large and complex to fit on a satellite. That's no longer the case. Zenno Astronautics, a spin-off from the University of Auckland, has flown its new "Super
  
  Read more

• Japan's Hayabusa2 probe captures remarkable photo of a two-headed asteroid 62 million miles away

  06-07-2026 16:20 via space.com
  
  A Japanese spacecraft has gotten up close and personal with yet another asteroid, beaming home stunning new imagery of the distant space rock.On Sunday (July 5), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)'s Hayabusa2 probe performed a close flyby of asteroid Torifune, a 1,475-foot (450-meter) space rock currently traveling through space some 62 million miles (100 million kilometers) from Earth. It was expected to be one of the closest-ever high-speed passes a spacecraft has had with an astero
  
  Read more

• Artemis moon astronauts visit Capitol Hill | Space photo of the day for July 6, 2026

  06-07-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  The Artemis 2 astronauts look up at footage from their flight during a visit to Capitol Hill.(Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)As we reflect on this past July 4 weekend, and America's 250th birthday, we look to NASA's Artemis II astronauts, who recently reflected on their historic mission during a visit to Capitol Hill.What is it? Following their return to Earth from a 10-day journey around the moonin April, NASA's Artemis II astronauts headed to Capitol Hill. This photograph, captured on May 12,s
  
  Read more

• NASA will have to find a way to service its new alien-hunting space telescope

  06-07-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  Pasadena, California — NASA's new alien-hunting telescope, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), will be serviceable out in space (and it will have gamma-ray detectors, to boot).Do you remember seeing NASA's Space Shuttle astronauts working on the Hubble Space Telescope out in space? Well, it will likely be robots this time around, but NASA is planning for HWO to be serviceable, which means that they will need to figure out a way to work on, repair, and maintain the observatory while it
  
  Read more

Follow @newsl_astronomy on Twitter!