Space

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 […]

Webb Unveils Millions of Stars in Centaurus A, Resolving a Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision Date: 2026-07-07 Featured image: [Webb NIRCam and MIRI composite image of Centaurus A (NGC 5128), showing millions of individually resolved stars and the galaxy’s distinctive dust lane; credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI] The James Webb Space Telescope has resolved millions of individual stars […]

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 […]