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This artist impression illustrates how astronomers using the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have made multiple detections of rock-forming elements in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized exoplanet, WASP-76b. The so-called “hot Jupiter” is perilously close to its host star, which is heating the planet’s atmosphere to astounding temperatures and vaporized rock-forming elements such as magnesium, calcium and iron, providing insight into how our own Solar System formed.

This exoplanet is over 2,000-degrees Celsiu, has vaporized metal in its atmosphere

The puffy, scorching-hot planet has elements in its atmosphere that would normally form rocks, but are so hot that they have vaporized.
A new rollout solar array on the ISS.

Watch NASA’s new solar array unfurl on the space station

Two NASA astronauts completed a successful spacewalk at the ISS on Thursday, installing a solar array as part of work to upgrade the facility's power supply.
VSS Unity during a test flight to the edge of space.

Virgin Galactic reveals date for its first commercial spaceflight

Virgin Galactic's first commercial flight is a scientific research mission, while the second one will carry passengers who each paid up to $450,000.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its black-and-white navigation cameras to capture panoramas of “Marker Band Valley” at two times of day on April 8. Color was added to a combination of both panoramas for an artistic interpretation of the scene.

See a postcard from Mars taken by the Curiosity rover

The image combines two different views of the same area and is colorized to show off the undulating martian landscape in a region called the Marker Band Valley.
During a 2005 flyby, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took high-resolution images of Enceladus that were combined into this mosaic, which shows the long fissures at the moon’s south pole that allow water from the subsurface ocean to escape into space.

The search for habitable moons in the solar system is heating up

Recent research has found phosphorus, one of the building blocks for life, at Saturn's icy moon Enceladus.
An artist's illustration shows that the stars in the TOI 1338 system make an eclipsing binary — they circle each other in our plane of view.

Tatooine-like exoplanet orbits two stars in rare astronomical discovery

Astronomers recently discovered a planet which orbits two stars, meaning it would have two suns in its sky like Tatooine.
The Mori3 robot developed by a team of researchers in Switzerland.

This remarkable shape-shifting robot could one day head to Mars

A team of researchers has developed an impressive shape-shifting robot that could one day find itself on a mission to Mars.
NASA astronaut and Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Steve Bowen is pictured outside the International Space Station during his eighth career spacewalk, during which he routed cables and installed insulation to ready the orbital outpost for its next set of roll-out solar arrays.

How to watch ISS astronauts install a new solar array tomorrow

Tomorrow two astronauts will head out of the International Space Station to install a new solar array. Here are the details on how to watch the spacewalk.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster landing in June 2023.

SpaceX marks 200th rocket landing with perfect touchdown

SpaceX achieved its 200th Falcon 9 landing on Monday, confirming yet again the viability of its reusable spaceflight system.
nasa europa clipper mission confirmed

Send your name to space as part of Europa Clipper mission

Traveling to space may be the stuff of dreams for most folks, but sending your name instead is a distinct possibility.
a woman peering into a telescope

NASA’s latest method for hunting exoplanets? Enlisting amateurs

NASA has a new program that gathers data from millions of amateur astronomers, and it could be a game-changer for astronomy.
The jellyfish galaxy JO206 trails across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, showcasing a colorful star-forming disk surrounded by a pale, luminous cloud of dust. A handful of foreground bright stars with crisscross diffraction spikes stands out against an inky black backdrop at the bottom of the image. JO206 lies over 700 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius.

Hubble image of the week shows an unusual jellyfish galaxy

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows an unusual type of galaxy named for its aquatic look-alike: a jellyfish.
Astronaut Woody Hoburg watches as a new roll-out solar array deploys after he and fellow NASA spacewalker Stephen Bowen (out of frame) successfully installed it on the space station.

Astronauts install a fifth new solar array at the International Space Station

Two astronauts performed a spacewalk yesterday, heading outside the International Space Station (ISS) to install a new solar array.
Artist's impression of Cheops, ESA's Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, in orbit above Earth.

CHEOPS planet-hunter detects four rarely seen mini-Neptunes

Though they are thought to be the most common planet type in our galaxy, mini-Neptunes are rarely spotted because they are hard to detect.
This image captures the streak of an Earth-orbiting artificial satellite crossing Hubble's field of view during an observation of "The Mice" interacting galaxies (NGC 4676). A typical satellite trail is very thin and will affect less than 0.5% of a single Hubble exposure. Though in this case the satellite overlaps a portion of the target galaxy, the observation quality is not affected. That's because multiple exposures are taken of the same target. And the satellite trail is not in other frames. Developers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, have software that identifies the bad pixels from the satellite photobombing, the extent to which they affect the image, and then flags them. When flagged, scientists can recover the full field of view. Even as the number of satellites increases over the decade, these tools for cleaning the images will still be applicable.

Hubble scientists create tool for erasing satellite trails from images

Astronomers worry about how satellites could impact scientific research. Now, researchers have created a tool to deal with satellite streaks in Hubble images.
Gemini North, part of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, is back observing the night sky following the repair and refurbishment of its primary mirror. The telescope’s debut observation captured the supernova dubbed SN 2023ixf (lower left), which was discovered on 19 May by Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki. This dazzling point of light, the closest supernova seen in the past five years, is located along one of the spiral arms of the Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101).

Gemini North telescope’s chipped mirror has been repaired

The large Gemini North telescope suffered damage last year when its primary mirror was chipped. Now it's back and has captured an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy.
Astronaut on spacewalk

How to watch two U.S. astronauts on a spacewalk at the ISS on Friday

NASA will live stream a spacewalk being conducted by two American astronauts at the International Space Station on Friday.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster coming in to land.

Watch this awesome tracking footage of a SpaceX rocket coming home

SpaceX has shared some stunning footage of one of its Falcon 9 first-stage boosters returning to Earth shortly after launch.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching on Monday, June 5, 2023.

A SpaceX Dragon spaceship is carrying lots of fresh fruit to ISS

Besides science gear and hardware, SpaceX's Dragon is also carrying apples, blueberries, grapefruit, oranges, various cheeses, and cherry tomatoes for the crew.
NASA tests the SLS rocket's new RS-25 engines for the Artemis V mission.

NASA performs critical tests for Artemis V moon rocket

NASA is performing hot fire tests of the new RS-25 engines that will power the agency’s SLS rocket toward the moon in the Artemis V mission.
A Falcon 9 booster coming in to land on Sunday, June 4, 2023.

SpaceX video shows awesome view of Falcon 9 landing

Those watching SpaceX's latest mission on Sunday were treated to a clearer-than-usual view of the first-stage booster's spectacular landing on a barge.
A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The bright tendrils of gas and stars belong to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, whose bright central bar is visible in the upper left of this image. NGC 5068 lies around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Peer inside the bar of a barred spiral galaxy in new James Webb image

The newest image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a stunning display of dust and stars that form the bar of the barred spiral galaxy NCG 5068.
best cassini images 7

James Webb spots huge plumes of water from Saturn’s moon Enceladus

The entire moon of Enceladus is just over 300 miles across. And yet the plume Webb observed spanned more than 6,000 miles.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter.

NASA lost contact with Mars Ingenuity helicopter for a week — but it’s OK now

NASA recently lost contact with the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars for a week, and the team had to work fast to avoid a collision with the rover.
how to photograph perseid meteor shower night sky with

NASA’s June skywatching tips include Mars in the Beehive

NASA's skywatching tips for June include the spectacle of Mars among the Beehive Cluster, and Saturn and Jupiter rising with the crescent moon.
Engineers working on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

NASA’s first crewed test flight of Starliner spacecraft delayed

Several new safety issues have come to light, and no date has been set for the next launch effort, Boeing said on Thursday.
An artist's impression of the Juice spacecraft fully deployed.

Juice spacecraft has overcome its stuck antenna issue and is ready for Jupiter

The European Space Agency's Juice spacecraft is now fully deployed and on its way to study the icy moons of Jupiter.
Earth from space.

New space record set for crew in Earth orbit

For a brief time on Tuesday, there were more people in Earth orbit than ever before with 17 people present on two different space stations.
An artist's concept of the Kepler spacecraft.

Astronomers discover three exoplanets in final data from Kepler Space Telescope

The Kepler Space Telescope was retired in 2018, after discovering 2,600 confirmed exoplanets. But now there are three more to add to the mission's total,
An artist's impression of the MBR Explorer spacecraft approaching an asteroid.

UAE to send its first mission to solar system’s main asteroid belt

Following its mission to Mars, the United Arab Emirates plans to send spacecraft to the asteroid belt to investigate the history of the solar system.
iSpace's Hakuto-R Series 1 lander.

Crater confusion caused Japan’s Hakuto lunar mission to fail

After examining all the data, Japanese startup ispace believes it now knows why its privately funded lunar mission ended in failure last month.
The Axiom Mission-2 and Expedition 69 crew members pose for a portrait together during dinner time aboard the International Space Station. In the center front row, is Expedition 69 crew member and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi flanked by (from left) Axiom Mission-2 crew members Commander Peggy Whitson, Mission Specialist Ali Alqarni, Pilot John Shoffner, and Mission Specialist Rayyanah Barnawi. In the back (from left) are, Expedition 69 crew members Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin, NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen, Roscosmos cosmonauts Andrey Fedyaev and Sergey Prokopyev, and NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg. Not pictured is NASA astronaut Frank Rubio.

How to watch the Axiom-2 mission depart from the ISS on Tuesday

This Tuesday, the crew of the second ever all-private mission to the International Space Station will be returning to Earth. Here's how to watch the departure.
This image reveals the fine structures of a sunspot in the photosphere. Within the dark, central area of the sunspot’s umbra, small-scale bright dots, known as umbral dots, are seen. The elongated structures surrounding the umbra are visible as bright-headed strands known as penumbral filaments. Umbra: Dark, central region of a sunspot where the magnetic field is strongest. Penumbra: The brighter, surrounding region of a sunspot’s umbra characterized by bright filamentary structures.

Horrifying up-close images of a sunspot captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope

A new set of images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope shows the surface of the sun -- including frankly disturbing images of sunspots seen up close.
james webb chandra images chandrawebb2 1

See stunning images combining James Webb and Chandra X-ray data

NASA has shared a new view of some famous space images, by combining infrared data from Webb with X-ray data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.