Space

July 9, 2026 Japanese lunar exploration company ispace has booked 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of cargo capacity on a future SpaceX Starship mission to the moon, marking a major step in the company’s bid to become a leading provider of commercial lunar transportation services. The Tokyo-based firm announced it will pay approximately $50 million for […]

!GPS Block II-F satellite in Earth orbit. Credit: NASA For nearly 60 years, the Outer Space Treaty has banned nuclear weapons in orbit. But the treaty has always relied on an honor system with no way to verify compliance. That may be about to change. A team of researchers led by MIT nuclear physicist Areg […]

TESS Accidentally Finds a Planet 250 Times Farther Than It Was Ever Meant to See Date: 2026-07-08 Featured image: Artist’s concept of a super-Jupiter exoplanet orbiting an orange dwarf star; credit: NASA GSFC NASA’s TESS spacecraft was designed for one job: stare at nearby stars and watch for the periodic dimming caused by planets crossing […]

Webb Peers Through the Dust of Centaurus A, Revealing Millions of Stars and a Galactic Collision’s Hidden History Featured image: Webb NIRCam and MIRI composite of Centaurus A (NGC 5128); credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The James Webb Space Telescope has turned its infrared gaze on Centaurus A (NGC 5128), the nearest active galaxy to […]

One Hour of Listening: How the SKA Could Detect an Alien Civilization in Its First Hour of Operation Featured image: Artist’s impression of the Square Kilometre Array dish core in South Africa; credit: SKA Project Development Office / XILOSTUDIOS (CC BY-SA 3.0) The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is still years away from full operations, but […]

Chandra’s Sharpest X-Ray View Yet Reveals M87’s Jet Moving at ‘Five Times the Speed of Light’ Featured image: Composite X-ray/infrared/radio view of the M87 relativistic jet; credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. Laval/C. Poitras et al.; IR: NASA/CSA/STScI; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA Between 2012 and 2025, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory stared at the same target: the jet erupting from the […]

After 321 days in deep-space hibernation, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has awakened in good health, ready to continue its exploration of the outer solar system from a distance of approximately 9.5 billion kilometers (5.9 billion miles) from Earth. The spacecraft woke up on June 23, 2026, acting on stored commands uplinked in July 2025, its […]

NASA Releases Draft RFP for Second Phase of Commercial Space Stations, Seeks Industry Input by July 27 NASA took a significant step toward securing the International Space Station’s commercial successor on July 6, releasing a draft Request for Proposals for Phase 2 of its Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program. The solicitation seeks contractors to design, […]

Two Nations, Two Debut Rockets: China’s Long March 10B and India’s Vikram-I Set for Historic Launches Date: 2026-07-07 Featured image: [Renderings of the Long March 10B (left) and Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-I (right); credit: CASC/Chinarocket (left), Skyroot Aerospace (right)] A rare double debut in orbital spaceflight is unfolding this week. China’s partially reusable Long March 10B […]

Hayabusa2 Captures Stunning Image of Two-Headed Asteroid Torifune 100 Million Kilometers from Earth Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe has beamed home a remarkable image of asteroid Torifune, revealing it as a contact binary, two distinct lobes fused together in a peanut shape, captured during a high-speed flyby 100 million kilometers (62 million miles) from Earth on July […]