Astronomy news

• Were there 'lost cosmonauts' in the early Soviet space program?

  10-11-2026 18:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  In the final weeks of 1960, two young radio enthusiasts were monitoring transmissions from a home-built listening station on a rooftop in Turin, Italy, when the brothers detected something extraordinary: a faint signal that bore the hallmarks of one originating from space. That wasn't the only surprising thing about the alleged signal:, the transmission carried a very familiar message: it was Morse code for the international distress signal SOS.As the youths listened, the signal seemed to grow w
  
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• SpaceX launches 2nd mystery mission for US Space Force in 6-day span (photos)

  12-11-2026 06:24 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX launched a classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California tonight (Nov. 11), the second such flight for the company in a six-day span.A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base tonight at 11:36 p.m. EST (8:36 p.m. local California time; 0136 GMT on Nov. 12), kicking off a mission called USSF-627.Vandenberg hosted a similar liftoff less than a week ago: On Nov. 6, a Falcon 9 sent the USSF-432 mission skyward from the site, which lies on Californ
  
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• NASA kick-starts a fresh push to bring Mars samples home

  11-11-2026 23:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  A long-term goal at NASA has been the ability to robotically haul back to Earth specimens from the Red Planet.NASA is kickstarting a new initiative for its troubled Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, called the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture, or PSRA in space shorthand. The plan is to establish a fresh NASA strategy for gathering Mars samples collected by the Perseverance rover and launching them back to Earth. The PSRA initiative was noted on Nov. 9 by Tiffany Morgan, director of the
  
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• We can't see Fast Radio Bursts but we can now hear them thanks to a Finnish Cathedral

  11-11-2026 22:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Fast radio bursts, flashes of energy from faraway galaxies, are invisible to our eyes. However, we can now hear their melody, thanks to a composer who has turned them into sound.Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are among the most extreme events in the universe, releasing as much energy in a millisecond as the sun puts out in three days and briefly outshining entire galaxies. Since the first FRB was discovered in 2007, astronomers have detected thousands of them; however, exactly how these cosmic flar
  
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• On this day in space! Nov. 11, 1966: NASA launches Gemini 12 mission with astronaut icons Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell aboard

  11-11-2026 21:50 via Latest from Space.com
  
  On Nov. 11, 1966, the Gemini 12 mission launched an astronaut crew into orbit and set the stage for NASA's Apollo program to land humans on the moon. Gemini 12 was the last mission of the Gemini program. It had two astronauts on board: Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. NASA wanted to send humans to the moon. But first, it needed to make sure crews had the right skills, like docking vehicles in space and taking spacewalks. Before Gemini 12, astronauts struggled with spacewalks because there weren't eno
  
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• Andy Weir's 'Exoplanet' just landed on Audible, but what actually makes an exoplanet habitable?

  11-11-2026 20:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Imagine you’ve crash-landed on an alien planet. Your ship is destroyed, your oxygen supply is dangerously low, and the landscape around you is completely unknown. Where would you begin looking for clues to your survival? Surprisingly, the best place to start could be the star overhead.This is the predicament that three crew members of the Wild Blue Yonder face in Audible’s new sci-fi thriller, "Exoplanet." This sci-fi thriller is written by acclaimed comic writer Benjamin Percy, executive pr
  
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• Did comets bring building blocks of life to Earth? Scientists aren't so sure anymore

  11-11-2026 18:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The origin of life on Earth remains a mystery. New research shows that comets almost certainly did not bring the chemical building blocks of life to our planet.Life as we know it is based around carbon chemistry, also known as organic chemistry. Complex organic molecules are the fundamental building blocks of biochemical compounds such as nucleobases, amino acids, sugars and so on that act as the machinery for biochemistry on Earth. Two big questions are where did this complex chemistry originat
  
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• 'There's tremendous demand': Rocket Lab raises price of Neutron launch from $55 million to $70 million

  11-11-2026 17:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The coming launch bottleneck has ramped up demand for a rocket that has yet to leave the ground.Rocket Lab announced on Monday (Nov. 9) that it recently raised the price of a Neutron launch from $55 million to $70 million — an increase of more than 25%, for a ride on a rocket that's set to debut in 2027."Launch is extremely constrained, and that is exactly the situation we predicted," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said on Monday during the company's third-quarter earnings call. "We saw
  
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• Hubble Space Telescope reveals glittering stars with mysterious origins | Space photo of the day for Nov. 11, 2026

  11-11-2026 16:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a breathtaking view of thousands of stars glittering like cosmic jewels in a dazzling display of blue, gold and orange. But this spectacular scene is far more than just a pretty picture. Some of these stars are almost as old as the universe itself and could hold clues to how our Milky Way formed. M30 is a globular star cluster located approximately 27,500 light-years from Earth. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Libralato, G. Piotto, A. Sarajedini)W
  
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• Why I recommend the Seestar S30 Plus smart telescope for beginners — full review

  11-11-2026 14:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  I’ve used several smart telescopes over the last few years, but I'd recommend the ZWO Seestar S30 Plus to almost anyone wanting to get started in astrophotography. At $499/€499, it’s a complete imaging system that can photograph galaxies, nebulae and star clusters automatically, even from a light-polluted city. Better still, it’s so small that it can live on a bookshelf.The Pleiades (M45), photographed in mosaic mode with the Seestar S30 Plus. (Image credit: Jamie Carter)Jamie CarterThe
  
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• NASA's new UVEX space telescope will peer deep into the universe's most violent events

  11-11-2026 14:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  A new NASA space telescope will study the universe in ultraviolet light to reveal the violent and turbulent events that bubble under what appears to be a cosmic sea of tranquility.The Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX) mission, developed by NASA in conjunction with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), will be the first mission to create deep all-sky maps in ultraviolet light. Thus, when it launches in 2031, UVEX will join new sky-mapping surveys like NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for
  
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• What time will SpaceX launch Starship Flight 15, its 1st double landing test, on Nov. 13? (Full mission timeline)

  11-11-2026 12:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is just days away from what might be its most ambitious test flight yet of the company's massive Starship megarocket, the largest launch vehicle ever built. On Friday (Nov. 13), SpaceX will launch its next Starship test flight on a mission that, if successful, will return both its Super Heavy first-stage booster and Ship upper stage to Earth for back-to-back landings at their launch pad. It will be the first full recovery of an orbital rocket in history. And if you want to watch it live,
  
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• SpaceX moves Starship Flight 15 booster to launch pad for 'squeeze test' ahead of epic double-catch attempt (photos)

  10-11-2026 23:09 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is one big step closer to the 15th test flight of its Starship megarocket. The company announced today (Nov. 10) that it had moved its latest Starship first stage, known as Super Heavy Booster 22, to the launch mount at its Starbase facility in South Texas ahead of Flight 15, which is scheduled to lift off this Friday (Nov. 13).During the upcoming launch test, SpaceX plans to catch both Booster 22 and Starship's Ship upper stage with its launch tower's "chopstick" arms in a double landing
  
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• Anthony Mackie, Ariana DeBose, and John Leguizamo reveal why they joined Andy Weir's sci-fi audio drama 'Exoplanet' (interview)

  10-11-2026 23:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  In any respectable audiobook project, finding the names of Andy Weir ("The Martian," "Project Hail Mary") and Benjamin Percy ("The Ninth Metal," "Wolverine") attached would elicit intense fan interest, but add the superstar vocal talents of Anthony Mackie ("Avengers: Infinity War," "Avengers: Doomsday"), Ariana DeBose ("West Side Story"), and John Leguizamo ("Ice Age"), and it catapults this sonic odyssey into the stratosphere.Such is the case with "Exoplanet," Audible Original’s new 7-episode
  
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• On this day in space! Nov. 10, 2013: Europe's GOCE satellite, the 'Ferrari of space,' fell out of orbit after mapping Earth's gravity field

  10-11-2026 22:51 via Latest from Space.com
  
  On Nov. 10, 2013, Europe's GOCE satellite fell to Earth after four years in orbit mapping the planet's gravitational field. GOCE, its name was short for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, launched in 2009 on a mission to map Earth's gravity like never before. But despite that successful mission, it was doomed in 2013 when it ran out of fuel. At the time, controllers weren't sure where GOCE would fall back to Earth. Some people worried that it might crash into a populated
  
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• A distant exoplanet mysteriously vanished from sight. Astronomers just discovered why

  10-11-2026 22:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Astronomers have solved the mystery of an extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, that "disappeared" after seven years of observations. New research suggests that the planet hasn't vanished at all, but has been dragged off its orbit by an unseen planet.The exoplanet, designated TOI-2535 b, is located around 1,000 light-years away. TOI-2535 b was routinely observed with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope for seven years between April 2019 and March 2026 as it completed i
  
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• How to watch 'We Chose to Go to the Moon' online — stream space race stage show from anywhere

  10-11-2026 21:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Humanity's first 239,000-mile voyage to the moon may have taken place more than five decades ago, but the drama of this endeavor, and stories of the individuals who made it happen, still capture our imaginations to this day.While television screens may have shown countless factual and dramatic retellings of the space race, "We Chose to Go to the Moon" takes the stories to the stage of New York City's renowned Carnegie Hall for an 'immersive performance' that combines music, archival film, and st
  
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• SpaceX Starship Flight 15 live updates: T-2 days to SpaceX's 1st-ever double Starship landing attempt

  10-11-2026 20:46 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is counting down to make history with the launch of its Starship Flight 15 mission on Friday, Nov. 13, with liftoff scheduled for 5:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) at Starbase, Texas. Starship Flight 15 will attempt to land both Starship Ship and Super Heavy Booster. It will be the first-ever full recovery of an orbital rocket and spacecraft, if successful. Follow our Starship Flight 15 coverage here as SpaceX completes its final prelaunch work for the launch, which will also deliver 26 new Starli
  
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• SpaceX Starship Flight 15 live updates: Super Heavy rocket moved to launch pad for 1st Starship double landing test

  10-11-2026 20:46 via Latest from Space.com
  
  SpaceX is counting down to make history with the launch of its Starship Flight 15 mission on Friday, Nov. 13, with liftoff scheduled for 5:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) at Starbase, Texas. Starship Flight 15 will attempt to land both Starship Ship and Super Heavy Booster. It will be the first-ever full recovery of an orbital rocket and spacecraft, if successful. Follow our Starship Flight 15 coverage here as SpaceX completes its final prelaunch work for the launch, which will also deliver 26 new Starli
  
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• Uranus has a weird magnetic field that's stumped scientists for 40 years — we may finally know why

  10-11-2026 20:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  The posided magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune may stem from extreme conditions lying within their deep interior. Unravelling the mystery behind the magnetic fields of these worlds is giving us new insight into the little-known interiors of the ice giants.Only one spacecraft has ever visited Uranus and Neptune, the Voyager 2 spacecraft which spend past Uranus in January 1986 and Neptune in August 1989. Voyager 2 found that their planetary magnetic fields were, to put it bluntly, wonky. Uranus
  
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• A robot just built a structure autonomously in space for the 1st time ever

  10-11-2026 17:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  A robot just played Tinkertoys in space, assembling the first satellite structure ever made without a human touching the controls.The DARPA-funded project saw a robotic "truss builder" create a reflective antenna using Kapton film, composite fiber tubes and aluminum joints. The implications are huge for future missions, potentially opening up new possibilities to build — or fix — satellites in the final frontier."This is the first time that a structure has been autonomously constructed in sp
  
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• Curiosity Mars rover sizes up new 'Nazca' dig site | Space photo of the day for Nov. 10, 2026

  10-11-2026 16:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this close-up image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager, showing the abundance of disc-shaped potential crystal forms on our next drill target, dubbed "Nazca." (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is sizing up its next dig site on the Red Planet.The Curiosity team will characterize the surface composition of the Mars site, informally named "Nazca," as thoroughly as possible before drilling into it.What is it?Curiosity snapped the clo
  
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• See the first images from the new ZWO Seestar S30 Plus — a smart telescope aimed at beginners

  10-11-2026 15:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  As rival makers announce increasingly ambitious smart telescopes, ZWO has taken a different approach. Its new Seestar S30 Plus launches today and will be available online from Seestar’s website and Amazon, just in time for Christmas. Better still, we’ve been using it for a month and can bring you a first look.Announced a few months after the flagship Seestar S50 Pro and replacing the now-discontinued Seestar S30, the new Seestar S30 Plus retains its 30mm aperture and compact chassis, but upg
  
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• Total solar eclipse 2027 vs 2028 — Which one should you choose, Egypt or Australia?

  10-11-2026 14:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  For those who want to experience a total solar eclipse, the next two years present the best kind of problem. On Aug. 2, 2027, the so-called "eclipse of the century" will sweep across southern Spain, North Africa and the Middle East, bringing more than six minutes of totality to parts of Egypt. Then, on July 22, 2028, another exceptionally long total solar eclipse will cross Australia, putting the remote Outback and Sydney Harbor in the path of the moon's dark central shadow before it reaches New
  
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• NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes slingshot around Earth in unprecedented double 'gravity assist'

  10-11-2026 12:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Twin NASA spacecraft are wrapping up a year-long escapade, ready to make a beeline to the Red Planet.The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) spacecraft launched in November 2025 on the second-ever flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. But rather than head straight to Mars, the two spacecraft dawdled through a looping trajectory. Now, they are back in Earth's neighborhood where they tackled a crucial engine burn unusually close to Earth that — if all goes well �
  
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• On this day in space! Nov. 9, 1967: NASA launches the Saturn V moon rocket for the first time on Apollo 4, but no astronauts were aboard

  09-11-2026 23:11 via Latest from Space.com
  
  On Nov. 9, 1967, NASA launched the powerful new Saturn V rocket on its maiden voyage. The Saturn V moon rocket was 363 feet tall. That's taller than the Statue of Liberty! It was the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built at the time (though SpaceX's Starship megarocket has since surpassed it). NASA needed such a powerful rocket to launch astronauts to the moon. However, the first Saturn V launch didn't carry astronauts, because it was only a test flight. During the launch, the rocket creat
  
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• Jupiter and Mars are set for a breathtaking close approach later this week: Here's how to see it

  09-11-2026 23:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Jupiter and Mars will shine side by side in a spectacular close approach in the heart of the constellation Leo on Nov. 15. Here's what you need to know.Mars and Jupiter reach their closestapparent separation in Earth's sky at 9:04 p.m. EST on Nov. 15 (0204 GMT on Nov. 16), according to astronomy website In-The-Sky. The planets will be below the horizon for U.S. stargazers at the moment of their closest approach, but observers can catch the pair rising above the eastern horizon around midnight lo
  
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• Are the James Webb Space Telescope's mysterious Little Red Dots actually tiny black holes left over from the Big Bang era?

  09-11-2026 22:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Ever since NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) started observing the early universe, it has been providing almost as many surprises as it has answers. One such surprise are the so-called Little Red Dots, cosmic objects that seemingly disappear completely before the universe is two billion years old.New research suggests that Little Red Dots may actually be connected primordial black holes, tiny black holes born not from dying stars but rather from fluctuations in the density of matter just
  
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• NYT bestseller ‘Robopocalypse’ is getting a TV series with Oscar winners Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman at the helm

  09-11-2026 20:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  They say all good things come to those who wait… and WAIT. Well, the wait for "Robopocalypse" fans might finally be over, as Oscar winners Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman have announced they're working on a TV adaptation.It does seem like an eternity since news first broke that Portland-based New York Times bestselling author Daniel H. Wilson’s "Robopocalypse" (Doubleday, 2011) was bought by Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG for a sci-fi spectacle, with Drew Goddard ("The Martian") brought i
  
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• Starfish Space loses contact with 1st 'Otter' servicing spacecraft, ending NASA tech-demo mission

  09-11-2026 19:00 via Latest from Space.com
  
  Starfish Space's first Otter has died, just a month after it reached the final frontier.The Seattle startup announced on Tuesday (Nov. 3) that its Otter 24C satellite suffered a glitch in low Earth orbit (LEO) and is not recoverable.The anomaly killed an ambitious mission in the cradle, as Otter 24C was still in the commissioning phase.Otter 24C launched Oct. 1 on SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission, a rideshare flight that carried a total of 130 payloads to LEO (including a prototype satellite for
  
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