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Latest by G. Torbet

This star-studded image shows the globular cluster Terzan 9 in the constellation Sagittarius, toward the center of the Milky Way. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this glittering scene using its Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Hubble Space Telescope snaps sparkling globular cluster near the heart of our galaxy

Stars shine like diamonds in this week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope, which shows globular cluster Terzan 9.
The Andromeda galaxy, or M31, is shown here in far-infrared and radio wavelengths of light.

See our galactic neighbors as you’ve never seen them before

Images of four nearby galaxies to the Milky Way show the dust in and around these galaxies in all its glory.
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, shown in this illustration, has been exploring our solar system since 1977, along with its twin, Voyager 2.

The long goodbye of NASA’s forty-year-old Voyager probes

The Voyager probes, the most distant human-made objects in the universe, are entering their twilight years.
Illustration of two newly discovered, rocky "super-Earths" that could be ideal for follow-up atmospheric observations.

Two rocky super-Earths discovered just 33 light-years away

Researchers using NASA's TESS satellite have discovered two rocky exoplanets in a system in our cosmic backyard, located just 33 light-years from Earth.
This illustration shows a white dwarf star siphoning off debris from shattered objects in a planetary system. The Hubble Space Telescope detects the spectral signature of the vaporized debris that revealed a combination of rocky-metallic and icy material, the ingredients of planets. The findings help describe the violent nature of evolved planetary systems and the composition of its disintegrating bodies.

Hubble Space Telescope finds destructive white dwarf ripping apart planetary pieces

The Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a case of cosmic cannibalism, with a white dwarf consuming rocky and icy material from its surrounding environment.
china fast telescope open for business

‘Alien’ signal seen by Chinese telescope likely due to radio interference

A signal detected by a Chinese telescope and originally reported as possible evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence is almost certainly due to human factors.
An image of NASA’s moon rocket at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, rolling out of the Vehicle Assembly Building for a 4.2-mile journey to Launch Complex 39B on March 17, 2022.

NASA beginning its 4th go at crucial Artemis mission rocket test tonight

NASA is once again preparing for a major test of its new Space Launch System rocket, intended to carry astronauts to the moon under the Artemis program.
spacexs new super heavy rocket shown off in elon musk tweet spacex logo

SpaceX fires employees for open letter critical of Elon Musk

A group of SpaceX employees who circulated an open letter criticizing the company's founder, Elon Musk, have been fired from the company.
spacex sarah 1 livestream

How to watch SpaceX launch a German radar satellite this morning

This morning, SpaceX will be launching a German radar satellite using one of its Falcon 9 rockets. Here's how to watch.
astra tropics 1 livestream nasa launch

Astra rocket fails to deliver two NASA storm satellites to orbit

Today, Sunday June 12, private rocket company Astra will launch two satellites for NASA.
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7496, which lies over 24 million light-years away in the constellation Grus. This constellation, whose name is Latin for crane, is one of four constellations collectively known as the Southern Birds.

Hubble images a globular cluster that holds a mystery

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a sparkling collection of thousands of stars.
Artist's conception of a neutron star with an ultra-strong magnetic field, called a magnetar, emitting radio waves (red). Magnetars are a leading candidate for what generates Fast Radio Bursts.

What is creating these incredibly bright radio flashes?

Exceedingly brief but incredibly bright, the strange phenomenon of Fast Radio Bursts continues to puzzle scientists.
This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows part of the scarred and colourful landscape that makes up Aonia Terra, an upland region in the southern highlands of Mars.

See the crater scar left on Mars by an ancient impact

The surface of Mars is dotted with craters, created when asteroids, meteoroids, or comets smashed into the planet and caused large impact marks.
Navy UAP UFO Footage

NASA to wade into the issue of UFOs with new study

NASA is stepping into an age-old debate to take what it describes as a scientific perspective on the issue of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).
This is an artist’s impression of a black hole drifting through our Milky Way galaxy. The black hole is the crushed remnant of a massive star that exploded as a supernova. The surviving core is several times the mass of our Sun. The black hole traps light because of its intense gravitational field. The black hole distorts the space around it, which warps images of background stars lined up almost directly behind it. This gravitational "lensing" effect offers the only telltale evidence for the existence of lone black holes wandering our galaxy, of which there may be a population of 100 million. The Hubble Space Telescope goes hunting for these black holes by looking for distortion in starlight as the black holes drift in front of background stars.

Hubble spots isolated black hole drifting alone through our galaxy

Out in the depths of our galaxy roam lonely monsters: Isolated black holes which drift through space unattached to stars or other black holes.
A rock in the front left wheel of Perseverance on Sol 343, image was acquired on Feb. 6, 2022 (Sol 343).

Perseverance rover picks up a rock friend on Mars

The Mars rover Perseverance has picked up a rock hitchhiker which has been riding in its wheel for the past four months.
This illustration shows the Lucy spacecraft passing one of the Trojan Asteroids near Jupiter.

The painstaking process of fixing NASA’s Lucy solar array issues

Engineers have been working to fix a problem with NASA's spacecraft Lucy which launched in October 2021 and is on its way to the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter.
Clockwise from top left are three of the observatories that participated in a 2021 planetary defense exercise: NASA’s Goldstone planetary radar, the Mount Lemmon telescope of the Catalina Sky Survey, and NASA’s NEOWISE mission. At bottom left is an illustration of the path of Apophis’ close approach in 2029.

Astronomers model an asteroid striking Earth using asteroid Apophis

An international team of space researchers recently came together to test what might happen if Earth were threatened by a large asteroid strike.
A test version of the payload module of ESA's exoplanet-detecting Plato spacecraft underwent a prolonged vacuum soak within Europe’s largest thermal vacuum chamber, to evaluate its endurance of space conditions.

Next-generation exoplanet hunter Plato goes through vacuum testing

Plato is a next-generation exoplanet-hunting satellite, set for launch in 2026.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:07 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021, carrying the Dragon spacecraft on its journey to the International Space Station for SpaceX’s 24th commercial resupply services mission.

How to watch SpaceX launch a cargo ship to the ISS this week

This week, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft will travel to the International Space Station carrying supplies and research. Here's how to watch.
The crewed spaceship Shenzhou-14, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, is launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, June 5, 2022.

Three Chinese astronauts arrive at new space station Tiangong

Three Chinese astronauts -- Chen Dong, Liu Yang, and Cai Xuzhe -- have arrived at China's new space station, which is currently under construction.
In this image, taken on 23 May 2022, engineers at Thales Alenia Space in Turin are attaching a combined sunshield and solar panel module to the main body of ESA’s Euclid spacecraft. The module has two functions: whilst the solar panels will provide the spacecraft with power, the sunshield will shade the instrument-carrying payload module from the Sun’s intense radiation.

Dark matter studying spacecraft Euclid gets its sunshield

Dark matter telescope Euclid is getting ready for launch, and recently a module of combination sunshield and solar panels has been added to the spacecraft.

Perseverance rover captures a Martian dust cloud forming for first time

Images captured by the Perseverance rover on Mars show a gust of wind lifting up a dust cloud, and data reveals how dramatic dust storms form.
The James Webb Space Telescope.

The first images from James Webb will be released in July

NASA has announced the date when the first full-color images from the new James Webb Space Telescope will be released.
Illustration of the MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars.

NASA’s Mars orbiter MAVEN saved in a ‘race against time’

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft is back up and running following a scare that put it into safe mode for several months.
Blue Origin launching its fourth crewed flight.

How to watch Blue Origin launch space tourists to the edge of space today

Blue Origin, the private launch company owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, will shortly be launching six space tourists on a suborbital trip to the edge of space.
Scientists believe that the moon's snakelike Schroeter's Valley was created by lava flowing over the surface.

Ancient volcanoes could be a source of ice on the moon

Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have found that there could be thick sheets of ice on the moon, created by ancient volcanoes.
This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope features the Grand Design Spiral, NGC 3631, located some 53 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. The “arms” of grand design spirals appear to wind around and into the galaxy’s nucleus.

Hubble captures a perfectly formed Grand Design Spiral

An image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and shared by NASA this week shows the most stunning of spiral galaxies: A Grand Design Spiral called NGC 3631.
Diffractive solar sails, depicted in this conceptual illustration, could enable missions to hard-to-reach places, like orbits over the Sun’s poles.

New developments in solar sails could enable missions to the sun’s poles

NASA is looking into new designs for solar sails which would improve their navigational capabilities.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made a record-breaking 25th flight on April 8, 2022.

See stunning footage captured by Mars helicopter Ingenuity in flight

NASA has released a stunning video, showing a helicopter's eye view of surface of Mars as seen from the air.
This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the broken Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann 3 skimming along a trail of debris left during its multiple trips around the sun. The flame-like objects are the comet’s fragments and their tails, while the dusty comet trail is the line bridging the fragments.

There could be a brand new meteor shower visible on Monday

This memorial day weekend there's a chance to view a special astronomical event: A never-before-seen meteor shower called the Tau Herculids.
This new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope looks at two spiral galaxies, collectively known as Arp 303. The pair, individually called IC 563 (bottom right) and IC 564 (top left), are 275 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sextans.

Two galaxies captured by Hubble are a hotbed of star formation

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows two galaxies that are a hotbed of star formation.
The Psyche spacecraft sits in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft launch delayed by several weeks

The launch of NASA's Psyche spacecraft, set to visit a metal asteroid, has been delayed due to a software issue.
An image of NASA’s moon rocket at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, rolling out of the Vehicle Assembly Building for a 4.2-mile journey to Launch Complex 39B on March 17, 2022.

NASA’s next test of its new rocket is set for June

NASA has set the date for its next test of its new rocket, the Space Launch System, and the accompanying Orion spacecraft.