Astronomy news

• Pluto losing its planet status may be the best thing that ever happened to solar system diversity

  24-08-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  Unpopular opinion time, but someone has to say it: I think Pluto being reclassified as a dwarf planet was a great thing for our understanding of the solar system and for the former planet itself. Let me try to convince you, too.First, a little background. The Pluto planet controversy began exactly 20 years ago on Aug. 24, 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified the solar system's (former) ninth planet as a dwarf planet.The reason for the change was the result of the di
  
  Read more

• James Webb Space Telescope observes 72 stars and finds planet formation is a race against time

  27-08-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have studied 72 young, sun-like stars. As a result, they found that forming planets is a real race against time. This is because the material that serves as the building blocks for planets is constantly escaping the swirling platters of gas and dust, or protoplanetary disks, that wrap around infant stars. Some types of planets may find their formation window closing sooner than others.The team's research represents the most in-depth invest
  
  Read more

• Astronaut Jonny Kim leaves NASA, will return to active military duty

  27-08-2026 21:02 via space.com
  
  Jonny Kim is leaving NASA to continue his military career.The 42-year-old astronaut, who has one of the most jaw-dropping resumes of any person alive, is departing today (Aug. 27) after nine years with the agency. He has one mission under his belt, a long-duration flight to the International Space Station (ISS)."Jonny has been an integral part of the agency, and his immeasurable impact will be felt for generations to come," Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston,
  
  Read more

• After failure of private rescue mission, NASA's Swift space telescope will crash back to Earth. But when and where?

  27-08-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  A private spacecraft failed to rescue NASA's Swift space telescope, meaning the big observatory will come crashing back to Earth in the near future. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory launched to Earth orbit in November 2004. Over the past two decades, it studied gamma-ray bursts — the most powerful explosions in the universe — and other cosmic objects and events using a trio of telescopes.But Swift's science work is now done, and its days in orbit are numbered.Call to actionIn Septe
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Starship is coming home! SpaceX loads floating spacecraft onto huge ship in the Indian Ocean (photos)

  27-08-2026 18:45 via space.com
  
  More than a month after its epic spaceflight, Starship is finally headed home.SpaceX announced today (Aug. 27) that it has loaded Starship's 171-foot-tall (52 meters) upper stage — known as Starship, or simply Ship — onto a huge "semi-submersible" ship in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Christmas Island.Ship had been in the water since July 24, when it splashed down to bring an end to the Starship program's 13th test flight. The vehicle will now head back to SpaceX's Starbase site
  
  Read more

• Trump tried to scrap NASA's Roman Space Telescope last year. Now it's ready to launch

  27-08-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  The hours are counting down to the launch of NASA's newest flagship orbital observatory. The spacecraft recently got its last glimpse of terrestrial light before being encapsulated in its rocket's protective payload fairing last week and is imminently bound for liftoff. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA's next-generation research satellite, and it's currently slated to launch on Sunday (Aug. 30). Roman will lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 7:27 a.m. EDT (1127 GMT) from N
  
  Read more

• On this day in space! Aug. 27, 1962: NASA launches Mariner 2 to Venus for ambitious flyby

  27-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  On Aug. 27, 1962, NASA launched Mariner 2, the world's first spacecraft to successfully visit another planet. Mariner 2 flew by Venus after a 3.5-month voyage through space. The mission launched just one month after the Mariner 1 mission failed during launch. After departing from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Mariner 2 almost met the same fate when an electrical problem with the Atlas-Agena rocket caused it to start rolling, which made it unable to respond to any guidance commands from mission contro
  
  Read more

• Glowing galaxy with anomalous extra arms | Space photo of the day for Aug. 27, 2026

  27-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  An image of this spiral galaxy NGC 4258 that combines X-ray observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory (seen here in royal blue), optical light gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope (red, yellow and pale blue), and infrared light seen by the James Webb Space Telescope (bright orange). (Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare)A trio of NASA space telescopes teamed up to capture a gorgeous new loo
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• 'Strange New Worlds' latest episode wastes a lot of time pretending to kill off major 'Star Trek' characters

  27-08-2026 15:00 via space.com
  
  Every so often, "Star Trek" likes to put its brave interstellar adventurers through hell. You know the drill — a bunch of one-off crew members will probably be blown up and/or sucked into space, while set dressers get to have fun making starship bridges look like they've been through the wars. We all know that seeking out new life and new civilisations is the prime directive on that final frontier, but sometimes we just want to see how Starfleet officers respond when the chips are down.The
  
  Read more

• Watch powerful Ariane 6 rocket launch European weather satellite to orbit today

  27-08-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Europe's most powerful rocket will fly today (Aug. 27), and you can watch the action live.An Ariane 6 is scheduled to launch the MTG-I2 weather satellite from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana today (Aug. 27), during a 2.5-hour window that opens at 4:10 p.m. EDT (2010 GMT; 5:10 p.m. local time in Kourou). You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of Arianespace, the French company that operates the Ariane 6. Coverage will begin about 25 minutes before liftoff. You can also foll
  
  Read more

• Powerful Ariane 6 rocket launches European weather satellite to orbit (video)

  27-08-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Europe's most powerful rocket flew again today (Aug. 27).An Ariane 6 launched the MTG-I2 weather satellite from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana today (Aug. 27) at 4:10 p.m. EDT (2010 GMT; 5:10 p.m. local time in Kourou), right at the beginning of a 2.5-hour window.The 8,400-pound (3,800 kilograms) MTG-I2 is the second imaging satellite in the Meteosat Third Generation network (hence the name). It will complete the three-spacecraft constellation in geostationary orbit, which lies 22,2
  
  Read more

• Powerful Ariane 6 rocket launches European weather satellite to orbit

  27-08-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  Europe's most powerful rocket flew again today (Aug. 27).An Ariane 6 launched the MTG-I2 weather satellite from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana today (Aug. 27) at 4:10 p.m. EDT (2010 GMT; 5:10 p.m. local time in Kourou), right at the beginning of a 2.5-hour window.You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of Arianespace, the French company that operates the Ariane 6. Coverage will begin about 25 minutes before liftoff. You can also follow live directly via Arianespace.An Aria
  
  Read more

• An impressive partial lunar eclipse will turn the moon an eerie red for millions of people tonight

  27-08-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  Tonight (Aug. 27-28), the full Sturgeon Moon will slip into Earth's shadow, creating a stunning "almost blood moon" as up to 96.2% of the lunar surface disappears into the darkest part of our planet's shadow, the umbra. At maximum eclipse, much of the moon may take on an eerie reddish hue as sunlight filtered through Earth's atmosphere is refracted into the shadow and onto the lunar surface. Only a thin sliver of moon will escape Earth's umbra, appearing as a bright arc against an otherwise dim,
  
  Read more

• From spy satellite to space telescope: The unlikely origins of NASA's Roman Space Telescope

  26-08-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  NASA took the guts out of old spy satellites to build the groundbreaking Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope – but how? And why? Years of hard work and anticipation are culminating as we sit on the verge of NASA's launch of its next-generation space telescope. Set to lift off this upcoming Sunday (Aug. 30) aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the Roman Space Telescope will push astronomy into the future, exploring the mysteries of dark energy, studying far-off worlds and expanding our unders
  
  Read more

• Astronomers discover hot watery exoplanet destined to be swallowed by its star

  26-08-2026 20:00 via space.com
  
  Astronomers have discovered a new ocean world outside the solar system that orbits extremely close to its parent star. This means that the extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet," is in hot water, both literally and figuratively. The exoplanet orbits the star HD 176071 located around 335 light-years away, and is about two and a half times the size of Earth, but has about eight and a half times the mass of our planet. That indicates to scientists that this planet is about 50% water. At a distance from
  
  Read more

• A black star in a false Spanish twilight: Here's the story of my 1st total solar eclipse

  26-08-2026 19:00 via space.com
  
  I had never seen a total solar eclipse. That's a strange thing to admit for the skywatching writer at Space.com, but the truth is that the opportunity had simply never come up. When it comes to eclipses, I've always been beguiled by their beauty from afar. I've always hoped to see that strange moment when a black sun manifests to extend a glowing atmosphere into the fleeting twilight of totality. But after 37 years I hadn't once found myself in the path of the moon's inner shadow, and it was sta
  
  Read more

• Massive space mirrors could be 40 times brighter than the full moon, astronomers warn. 'It will be worse than big cities like London'

  26-08-2026 18:00 via space.com
  
  Each of the sun-reflecting mirrors proposed by U.S.-based startup Reflect Orbital will appear 40 times brighter than the full moon to observers standing within its beam on Earth, a study has found. The light pollution produced by each of those mirrors would completely wipe out stars from the sky for those underneath them, turning the starry night into an eerie twilight zone."It will be worse than big cities like London," Gaspar Bakos, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Princeton an
  
  Read more

• Chance gaze at old Hubble Telescope image leads to discovery that could reveal dark matter's secrets

  26-08-2026 17:00 via space.com
  
  In late June 2023, on a morning train commuting to work in New York City, David Hendel was scrolling through a recent astronomy paper on his phone when a half-page image caught his eye. The image, captured a year earlier by the Hubble Space Telescope, showed UGC 9050-Dw1, a dwarf galaxy some 115 million light-years from Earth. It appeared as little more than a faint, diffuse smudge of bluish-white light that astronomers call an ultra-diffuse galaxy — a type of galaxy so sparsely populated
  
  Read more

• Heat shield under fire | Space photo of the day for Aug. 26, 2026

  26-08-2026 16:00 via space.com
  
  At the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, researchers are testing the capsule heat shield for the Draco mission.(Image credit: ESA)Sometimes, to accomplish your mission, you have to start a few fires. What is it? At the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) in Belgium, researchers put a heat shield to the test, blasting it with scorching-hot flames to see how it would handle the intense temperatures it would experience when reentering Earth's atmosphere. The heat shield is for Drac
  
  Read more

• 'Star Wars: Zero Company' review: XCOM-like strategically recaptures the magic of your favorite Star Wars films

  26-08-2026 15:17 via space.com
  
  Across the decades, Star Wars' secret sauce has always been a feeling – an intoxicating mixture of whimsy and adventure that’s nearly impossible to replicate. That’s especially true with the original film trilogy and the prequel film trilogy, even if the two have distinctly different flavors. The series forays into video games have seen a lot of success, but Zero Company does something I’ve never seen a Star Wars game do before: it seamlessly combines the two different er
  
  Read more

• 'Star Wars: Zero Company' recaptures the magic of your favorite Star Wars films (review)

  26-08-2026 15:17 via space.com
  
  Across the decades, Star Wars' secret sauce has always been a feeling – an intoxicating mixture of whimsy and adventure that’s nearly impossible to replicate. That’s especially true with the original film trilogy and the prequel film trilogy, even if the two have distinctly different flavors. The series forays into video games have seen a lot of success, but Zero Company does something I’ve never seen a Star Wars game do before: it seamlessly combines the two different er
  
  Read more

• SpaceX's final Falcon 9 Starlink launch from Florida creates gorgeous 'jellyfish' over New York City (video)

  26-08-2026 14:00 via space.com
  
  SpaceX's launch from Florida early this morning (Aug. 25) was memorable in more ways than one.The mission, which sent 29 Starlink internet satellites skyward from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:33 a.m. EDT (0933 GMT), was the 100th flight of 2026 for SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. It was also the 37th flight for this particular vehicle's first stage, setting a new reuse record for the company.And we learned a few hours after liftoff that it was also the last-ever Falcon 9 Starlink
  
  Read more

• SpaceX sends Starlink satellites to orbit on predawn launch from California

  26-08-2026 13:04 via space.com
  
  SpaceX launched 27 more of its Starlink broadband satellites to orbit today (Aug. 26), in a predawn liftoff from California's central coast.The spacecraft rode atop a Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 5:35 a.m. EDT (0935 GMT; 2:35 a.m. local California time). The rocket's first stage came back to Earth as planned about 8.5 minutes later, landing atop the SpaceX droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Pacific Ocean. It was the 24th flight for this particu
  
  Read more

• Inside the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory

  26-08-2026 12:00 via space.com
  
  NASA is just days away from launching its next major space observatory. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to lift off Aug. 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, heading for a spot roughly 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth. Unlike the James Webb Space Telescope, which trades panoramic views for a narrow field of view to peer deeply into small, specific patches of the sky, Roman is built for scale. Its field of view is 100 times
  
  Read more

• Watch the partial lunar eclipse online tonight with these free livestreams

  26-08-2026 09:00 via space.com
  
  A spectacular partial lunar eclipse will darken 96% of the full "Sturgeon Moon" tonight (Aug. 27-28). Here's how you can watch the "almost blood moon eclipse" live online from the comfort of your home. Each phase of the partial lunar eclipse will occur simultaneously for everyone on the night side of Earth. But if clouds ruin your view — or the moon is below the horizon at the time of the eclipse — there's no need to fret!Read on to discover a selection of YouTube live streams that'l
  
  Read more

• Watch the partial lunar eclipse online Aug. 27-28 with these free livestreams

  26-08-2026 09:00 via space.com
  
  A spectacular partial lunar eclipse will darken 96% of the full "Sturgeon Moon" overnight on Aug. 27-28. Here's how you can watch the "almost blood moon eclipse" live online from the comfort of your home. Each phase of the partial lunar eclipse will occur simultaneously for everyone on the night side of Earth. But if clouds ruin your view — or the moon is below the horizon at the time of the eclipse — there's no need to fret!Read on to discover a selection of YouTube live streams tha
  
  Read more

• How to watch the Aug. 27-28 partial lunar eclipse live online

  26-08-2026 09:00 via space.com
  
  A spectacular partial lunar eclipse will darken 96% of the full "Sturgeon Moon" overnight on Aug. 27-28. Here's how you can watch the "almost blood moon eclipse" live online from the comfort of your home. Each phase of the partial lunar eclipse will occur simultaneously for everyone on the night side of Earth. But if clouds ruin your view — or the moon is below the horizon at the time of the eclipse — there's no need to fret!Read on to discover a selection of YouTube live streams tha
  
  Read more

• 'You just saved the video dish': Two astronauts complete spacewalk to replace ISS antenna

  25-08-2026 23:00 via space.com
  
  "Houston, we have a working comm link again." Thanks to the efforts of two astronauts, such a call is possible again using one of two Space-to-Ground antennas outside the International Space Station (ISS). The pair finished the replacement of a faulty dish assembly during a spacewalk on Tuesday (Aug. 25). Anil Menon of NASA and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency (ESA), who previously removed a faulty dish during a spacewalk on Aug. 18, installed a spare in its place and moved the broken
  
  Read more

• 'Aliens: The Video Games' author Mike Diver on overlooked Alien games, tracking down retro game developers, and the future of the Xenomorph (interview)

  25-08-2026 22:00 via space.com
  
  The history of Alien video games is long and twisty, but Mike Diver — veteran writer, editor, critic, and journalist — decided a few years ago to make a complete chronicle of Xenomorph-filled games his next big adventure. Ahead of Aliens: The Video Games' August 30 release, we sat down with him and discussed the franchise's past, present, and future in games.The following interview has been edited for better flow."I played a lot of Alien 3 on Mega Drive," Diver recalls when asked abo
  
  Read more

• Starbase Louisiana: SpaceX announces enormous $100 billion Starbase launch site

  25-08-2026 20:27 via space.com
  
  A new spaceport will bring 10 launch pads to Louisiana's Gulf Coast and support thousands of Starship launches per year.SpaceX and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced Tuesday (Aug. 25) a $100 billion investment in the state's Vermilion Parish to build "Starbase Louisiana," a sprawling new manufacturing and launch facility for SpaceX's massive Starship rocket. It will be one of the biggest projects in the state's history, and serve as SpaceX's largest center for spaceflight operations. Once
  
  Read more

Follow @newsl_astronomy on Twitter!