Earth’s orbit is getting crowded. About 16,000 satellites currently circle our planet, supporting everything from GPS navigation and weather forecasting to banking, emergency services and internet communications. Dozens more are launched every few weeks. Some estimates suggest the total number of satellites could exceed 100,000 within this decade, with more conservative estimates landing on up to 60,000 satellites byContinue reading "There are already 16,000 satellites in Earth’s orbit. How will we manage the next 100,000?"

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Nearly 400 days and a billion kilometers after leaving Earth, China’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft has arrived at its target: the near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, also known as 2016 HO3. And the mission’s first photo of the rock has already had scientific impact, reopening an ongoing investigation over whether Kamoʻoalewa began as a chunk of the Moon.Continue reading "Tianwen-2 arrives at target asteroid Kamoʻoalewa"

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When massive stars die, they explode, leaving behind supernova remnants. Given how common binary star systems are — more than half the stars in our galaxy have a companion — it stands to reason that paired supernova remnants would also be common. But astronomers have never found one. Now, hiding in the bright shine ofContinue reading "Is this the first known binary system to produce two supernova remnants?"

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Let the science begin: The world’s first commercial space telescope is up and running. On July 6, Blue Skies Space delivered data from its Mauve satellite to the international roster of universities enrolled in the Mauve Science Program, shifting the mission into full scientific operations. It’s the next step for a mission that reached orbitContinue reading "The first commercial space telescope delivers"

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Rocket launches this week Tonight, Monday, June 22, according to tracking from Next Spaceflight, The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) plans to launch a Long March 7A rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site located in the South China Sea on the island of Hainan at 10:10 p.m. EDT. The payload has notContinue reading "SpaceX tests new vehicle, Swift gets a lift"

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On my way to Tash Rabat from Son-Kul, both in Kyrgyzstan, sitting on the comfortable seats of a minibus, I had to pinch myself just to realize that it wasn’t a dream. I could see green valleys on one side of the road and the rugged brown Pamir Plateau on the other. As someone whoContinue reading "Capturing the night sky in Kyrgyzstan"

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The wait is almost over. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is just weeks, maybe even just days, away from officially beginning its landmark 10-year sky survey, according to officials at the 248th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Pasadena this week. “A lot of people in the community are waiting for that moment for theContinue reading "Vera C. Rubin Observatory days away from launching decade-long sky survey"

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In Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, opening tomorrow, protagonists race across the globe to expose a decades-long government cover-up and reveal to the world that extraterrestrial life is real. It’s a question Spielberg has been asking since his 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind: How would the knowledge of extraterrestrial intelligence change us? Spielberg makesContinue reading "The real disclosure day: The protocols for announcing extraterrestrial intelligence"

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There is a pattern found in nature. It is indeed the largest pattern there is. It is so vast that it spans the universe, filling up its observable volume. The pattern is made of individual units in the same way your body is made of cells — if each of your cells were a galaxyContinue reading "Untangling the cosmic web"

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When NASA added a low Earth orbit test flight to the Artemis program in February, pushing the lunar landing from Artemis 3 to Artemis 4, it left the details sparse. On Tuesday, the agency filled them in. At a press conference, NASA named the four-person crew for Artemis 3, a 2027 Earth-orbit test flight thatContinue reading "Meet the astronauts flying on Artemis 3"

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NASA has ended its attempts to reconnect with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft and begun decommissioning the orbiter, closing the book on a mission that spent over a decade studying how Mars lost its atmosphere. At a June 3 media conference, NASA officials announced that an anomaly review board — which wasContinue reading "NASA fails to reestablish contact, decommissions MAVEN"

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Rocket launches this week According to tracking from Next SpaceFlight, Chinese aerospace firm Landspace’s ZhuQue-2E Block 2 is scheduled to lift off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China at 4:20 a.m. EST on Tuesday, June 9. The ZhuQue-2E is a medium-lift rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane — the first methane-fueled vehicleContinue reading "SpaceX and Rocket Lab set for liftoff this week"

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NASA has told crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to resume normal operations, ending a roughly two-hour period in which five astronauts sheltered inside a docked SpaceX capsule. The shelter order came Friday morning as a precautionary measure to protect crew while Russian cosmonauts attempted a fix on the Zvezda service module’s transfer tunnelContinue reading "ISS crew back to normal after emergency shelter order"

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NASA announced new contracts for the rovers and landers that will lay the groundwork for the agency’s proposed $30-billion Moon Base — some of which they plan to launch as soon as this fall — during a May 26 press conference. The announcement offered the most detailed look yet into the Moon Base plan NASAContinue reading "How NASA plans to build a Moon Base"

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New observatories and spacecraft missions are probing environments in our solar system that could potentially host life but have long remained hidden. Icy moons like Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa likely contain oceans beneath frozen outer shells. But a layer of ice prohibits space probes from sampling them directly. Exploring these icy moons is almost forensic: Their surfaces keep aContinue reading "Scientists used a method from ecology to identify whether icy moons could hold conditions for life"

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What’s launching this week Early this morning, Monday, June 1, the state owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) successfully completed the maiden flight of the reusable Long March 12B — a two-stage, 236-foot (72-meter) rocket powered by nine liquid oxygen and kerosene engines with a 44,000-pound (20,000 kilogram) payload capacity. The mission launchedContinue reading "SpaceX, China set for busy launch week"

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On May 22, 2026, the Pentagon released a second batch of previously classified photos and videos showing what appear to be unexplained flying objects. These file dumps were the culmination of a process that was set in motion back in July 2023, when a group of government whistleblowers testified before Congress that the U.S. government was secretly inContinue reading "Could aliens ever visit Earth?"

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Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida resumed operations Friday following the explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket during a test Thursday night. Space Launch Delta 45 (SLD 45), which manages the U.S. Space Force’s Eastern Range and oversees all East Coast rocket and missile launches, said Friday that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket deployedContinue reading "New Glenn explosion: what it means for Blue Origin and SpaceX"

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After completing what it said was a “thorough assessment,” the FAA on Wednesday ordered SpaceX to investigate anomalies that its Super Heavy booster experienced during the 12th test flight of its behemoth Starship rocket. The aviation regulator on Tuesday was ambiguous about whether an investigation would be required into Starship Flight 12, which launched Friday evening fromContinue reading "FAA grounds SpaceX Starship after V3 debut"

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Ahead of what observers anticipate will be the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, SpaceX debuted its largest rocket yet on a mostly successful mission. Though Starship and the Super Heavy booster — which combined stand more than 400 feet (122 meters) tall, nearly the length of a Boeing 777 — suffered multiple engineContinue reading "What Starship Flight 12 means for SpaceX’s IPO"

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