Space

!CubeSats deployed into Earth orbit from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Tracy Dyson A Miami company just switched on the first commercial nuclear power source in orbit, opening a new frontier for space energy that has long been the exclusive domain of governments. City Labs launched its BOHR satellite (short for Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability) on […]

!NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson looks through a window in the Cupola of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA / Wikimedia Commons July 9, 2026 — The dream of sending humans to Mars has never felt closer, but a sobering new study from the University of Central Florida suggests the journey itself may come with […]

For decades, the satellite industry told rocket builders what they needed, and launch vehicle designers complied. But in 2026, that dynamic has turned on its head. SpaceX’s Starship, a super-heavy-lift rocket capable of delivering more than 100 metric tons (220,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, is rewriting the rules of the launch business. Rather than engineers […]

Antarctica’s South Pole Telescope Spies 7,000+ Hidden Galaxy Clusters in Five-Year Sky Survey A team of physicists led by Argonne National Laboratory has released a catalog of more than 7,000 galaxy clusters detected by the South Pole Telescope (SPT) over five years of observations, delivering the most extensive census yet of the universe’s largest gravitationally […]

!LAGEOS satellite, a passive laser-ranged spacecraft similar in design to LARES-2, used for precision tests of general relativity. Credit: NASA. The LAGEOS satellite, a passive laser-ranged spacecraft whose design lineage extends to LARES-2. Both satellites use arrays of retroreflectors to bounce laser pulses from ground stations, enabling millimeter-precision tracking of their orbits. Credit: NASA. July […]

The Milky Way just got a little bigger. New measurements from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton show that our galaxy’s outer spiral arms may extend roughly 10% farther from the galactic center than previously thought, a finding that could force astronomers to revise the estimated mass and structure of our home galaxy. The […]

!Artemis II Crew Portrait The Artemis II crew (clockwise from left): NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Credit: NASA / Josh Valcarcel Washington, D.C. — July 9, 2026 — President Donald Trump has gifted the Artemis astronaut corps an American flag that flew above the United […]

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 […]