NASA's new sun-studying mission 'PUNCH' attains its final form in Earth orbit.

On Wednesday (Aug. 13), NASA announced that the four satellites of its exciting new sun-studying mission, PUNCH, have successfully reached their stations in orbit around our planet. They all lie along Earth's day-night line to earn a continuous view of our star. PUNCH, w…

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James Webb Space Telescope uncovers 300 mysteriously luminous objects.

Hundreds of unexpectedly energetic objects have been discovered throughout the distant universe, possibly hinting that the cosmos was far more active during its infancy than astronomers once believed. Using deep-field images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST),…

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NASA plans to build a nuclear reactor on the moon.

The first space race was about flags and footprints. Now, decades later, landing on the moon is old news. The new race is to build there, and doing so hinges on power. In April 2025, China reportedly unveiled plans to build a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035. This pla…

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Blue Origin pitches new 'Mars Telecommunications Orbiter' for Red Planet missions.

Blue Origin wants to support NASA's Mars plans during the 2028 planetary alignment launch window. The company has announced plans for a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO), a new spacecraft designed to establish a multi-relay hub for continuous communications between E…

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Trump signs executive order to boost commercial space.

President Trump signed a new executive order Wednesday (Aug. 13) aimed at accelerating U.S. commercial space activity by slashing what are described as regulatory delays and expanding the nation's launch infrastructure. The order, "Enabling Competition in the Commer…

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AI helps astronomers make a potentially major find — an exploding star being attacked by a black hole.

Astronomers have observed what may be the first known case of a massive star exploding while interacting with a black hole, marking a discovery that could reveal an entirely new class of stellar explosions. The event, named SN 2023zkd, was first spotted in July 2023 by the Z…

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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from California with new batch of Starlink satellites.

SpaceX continued the growth of its broadband internet service with the launch of 24 more Starlink satellites from California on Thursday (Aug. 14). A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 1:05 a.m. EDT (0505 GMT or 10:05 p.m. PDT on Aug. 13 local) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at…

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NASA's Perseverance rover spies mysterious 'helmet' on Mars.

NASA's Perseverance rover has stumbled across a curious, volcano-shaped rock on the surface of Mars that looks rather like a weathered battle helmet. Captured by the rover's Mastcam-Z instrument on Aug. 5, 2025, the rock displays a pointed peak and pitted nodular tex…

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China launches 8th satellite batch for constellation.

China is ramping up construction of its national satellite-internet megaconstellation. A Long March 5B rocket lifted off from Wenchang Space Launch Center on the island of Hainan on Wednesday (Aug. 13) at 2:43 a.m. EDT (0643 GMT; 2:43 p.m. local time), carrying a batch of sa…

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Moon rendezvous with the Pleiades on Aug. 16-17.

The moon will sweep close to the Pleiades open star cluster in the early morning hours of Aug. 16-17, with the ice giant Uranus lurking unseen nearby. Look to the eastern horizon an hour after midnight on Aug. 16 to see the half-lit lunar disk — which hits its third quarter …

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New Pluto mission could uncover dwarf planet's hidden ocean.

When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sped by Pluto in 2015, it revealed an incredible world of ice and haze carved by various geological processes — hinting that an ocean may have played a role in the dwarf planet's recent history. The bounty of scientific riches has…

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Earth will spin faster today to create 2nd-shortest day in history.

Earth will complete a full rotation in slightly less time than usual today (July 22), making it one of the shortest days ever recorded. The difference will be just 1.34 milliseconds less than the standard 24 hours — not something you'll notice — but it's part of a pu…

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Earth will spin faster today to create 2nd-shortest day in history.

Earth will complete a full rotation in slightly less time than usual today (July 22), making it one of the shortest days ever recorded. The difference will be just 1.34 milliseconds less than the standard 24 hours — not something you'll notice — but it's part of a pu…

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SpaceX aborts satellite launch 11 seconds before liftoff.

SpaceX aborted the launch of two communications satellites just before liftoff on Monday evening (July 21). A Falcon 9 rocket topped with two of SES' O3b mPOWER internet spacecraft was set to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:27 p.m. EDT (…

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Amateur astrophotographer captures trio of breathtaking nebulas from the Central Australian Desert.

Amateur astrophotographer and full-time wildlife conservationist Tim Henderson captured a trio of breathtaking nebula scenes adorning the pristine skies above the Central Australian Desert. Henderson was able to capture detailed portraits of the Carina Nebula, along with the…

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'Chaos' reigns beneath the ice of Jupiter moon Europa, James Webb Space Telescope reveals.

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are painting a new picture of Jupiter's moon Europa and revealing the hidden chemistry of the icy moon's interior. For decades, scientists pictured Europa's frozen surface as a still, silent shell. But t…

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JWST finds unusual black hole in the center of the Infinity Galaxy.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered an oddball galaxy, dubbed the Infinity Galaxy, that could be host to a "direct collapse black hole." That is, a black hole originally created directly from a vast cloud of collapsing gas and …

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Boeing's Starliner won't fly again until 2026, and without astronauts aboard.

Traffic at the International Space Station (ISS) is busy, with spacecraft coming and going almost every few weeks recently. Astronauts with the private Ax-4 mission undocked early July 14 to make way for SpaceX's upcoming Crew-11 mission for NASA, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon …

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Astronomers witness the birth of a planetary system for the 1st time.

Astronomers have witnessed the birth of a planetary system that could one day resemble the solar system. The discovery offers scientists a proxy to study how our home planetary system formed around the sun around 4.6 billion years ago. The team was able to pinpoint the momen…

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Exoplanet is shrinking before the X-ray eyes of NASA's Chandra space telescope.

Using NASA's Chandra X-ray spacecraft, astronomers have witnessed a distant, Jupiter-size world "shrinking" as its host star bombards it with heavy radiation. The extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet," is named TOI 1227 b and is a cosmic baby at just 8 mi…

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