space exploration

New telescope captures dying star recycling its material into space

Astronomers have discovered 22 bow-shaped shock waves in the outer reaches of the Helix Nebula, capturing for the first time the process by which a dying star's debris is broken apart and absorbed back into the galaxy. The findings, published…

China’s Long March 7A rocket explodes after liftoff

China's Long March 7A rocket suffered a catastrophic failure shortly after liftoff from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Monday evening, destroying the ChinaSat-4B communications satellite it was carrying and ending a years-long streak of successful missions for the newer-generation…

NASA’s ‘Big Bang’ fix extends Voyager 2’s mission by at least a year

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have successfully implemented a power-saving maneuver on Voyager 2 that will keep the 49-year-old probe's three remaining science instruments operating for at least another year, the agency announced on August 4.

South Korea’s Danuri orbiter captures first images of SpaceX rocket’s moon crash site

South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter has captured the first images of a fresh crater on the moon, created when a defunct SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage slammed into the lunar surface on August 5. The Korea Aerospace Administration released the…

Musk envisions sending robots to Moon to build factories

Elon Musk used SpaceX's first-ever public earnings call to lay out a vision for deploying humanoid robots on the Moon to build factories and industrial infrastructure, describing a future that he acknowledged sounds "totally nuts" but insisted is inevitable.

Astronomers capture a dying star’s first flash of light in a rare supernova detection

An international team of astronomers has captured one of the rarest events in the cosmos — the first flash of light from a dying star — in only the second confirmed detection of its kind in two decades. Separately, new…

Satellite images show tugboats towing SpaceX Starship through Indian Ocean

Satellite images captured over the weekend reveal a fleet of recovery vessels working to tow SpaceX's Starship prototype through the Indian Ocean, more than a week after the 52-meter spacecraft splashed down following the company's 13th integrated test flight on…

Astronomers detect first wandering black hole devouring a star

Astronomers have confirmed the first detection of a "wandering" supermassive black hole at the far edge of a galaxy, revealed only when it tore apart an unfortunate star that strayed too close. The discovery, published Sunday in The Astrophysical Journal…

SpaceX targets Starship Flight 13 launch today after July abort

SpaceX is preparing to launch the 13th test flight of its Starship rocket today, Thursday, July 23, with a 90-minute window opening at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase, Texas. The attempt comes after a July 16 abort when engines on…

NASA prices nuclear Mars mission at $2.1 billion

NASA has submitted a preliminary cost estimate of approximately $2.1 billion to Congress for Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the agency's first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft, according to documents outlining spending plans across fiscal years 2026 through 2029. The mission, championed by Administrator…

Astronomers discover faintest exoplanet ever imaged from Earth

After more than a decade of hiding in plain sight, a third planet has been confirmed orbiting the young star Beta Pictoris — and it is the faintest exoplanet ever directly imaged from Earth.

SpaceX’s Starship to carry satellites for first time on Thursday’s Flight 13

SpaceX is set to launch its 13th Starship test flight on Thursday, July 16, carrying operational payloads for the first time, while a newly announced deal with Japanese lunar company ispace signals growing commercial demand for the rocket's Moon-landing capabilities.

China recovers rocket booster at sea using net system

China on Friday successfully launched its Long March 10B carrier rocket on its debut flight, recovering the first stage using a net attached to a sea platform — a method the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) called the…

Blue Origin raising $10B in first outside funding round

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is raising $10 billion in its first-ever outside funding round, valuing the rocket company at $130 billion pre-money, according to a report by the New York Times DealBook on Tuesday. The deal marks a watershed moment…

China, Japan release first close-up images from two asteroid flybys

In a striking coincidence of timing, space agencies from China and Japan have each released new closeup images from flybys of two different asteroids, offering fresh views of these rocky worlds within days of each other.

JAXA reveals asteroid Torifune is a rare contact binary after Hayabusa2 flyby

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft completed a high-speed flyby of asteroid Torifune on July 5, passing within roughly 800 meters of the space rock at 5 kilometers per second — about 18,000 km/h — and capturing images that revealed the asteroid to…

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is twice as old as the Sun, study finds

Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile have measured the chemical fingerprints of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, finding that it likely formed in the outer regions around an ancient, chemically poor star — making it potentially more…

China’s Tianwen-2 probe reaches asteroid after 1B km journey

China's Tianwen-2 space probe has arrived within 20 kilometers of near-Earth asteroid Kamo'oalewa after traveling approximately one billion kilometers over roughly 400 days, the China National Space Administration announced on Monday.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 completes high-speed flyby of asteroid Torifune

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft flew past the asteroid Torifune on Sunday evening, passing within close range of the roughly 450-meter-wide space rock at a relative speed of about 5 kilometers per second — approximately 18,000 kilometers per hour — in a…

Milky Way’s outer arms are farther away than thought, NASA finds

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton have found that two of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms lie up to 10% farther from Earth than astronomers previously believed, a discovery that may prompt revisions to models of our galaxy's…

Webb telescope detects atmosphere on planet orbiting a dead star

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the first atmospheric characterization of a planet orbiting a dead star, solving the mystery of how a Jupiter-sized world ended up in an impossibly tight orbit around a white dwarf remnant — and…

Rubin Observatory launches decade-long survey of the universe

The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has officially launched its Legacy Survey of Space and Time, beginning a decade-long campaign to create what its operators call "the greatest cosmic movie ever made." The announcement on June 30, 2026, marks the…

Perseverance finds most robust organic carbon yet in Mars crater

NASA's Perseverance rover has detected macromolecular carbon within mudstones at Mars' Jezero crater, a finding researchers describe as the most robust organic detection in the area to date and the first identification of such complex carbon on an unprepared natural…

ESA’s Euclid telescope captures 60 million stars in record Milky Way image

The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope has produced the largest and most detailed visible-light photograph ever taken of the Milky Way's galactic center, revealing more than 60 million stars in a six-gigapixel mosaic released on Wednesday, June 24.

NASA’s Lucy mission finds ancient water on asteroid Donaldjohanson

NASA's Lucy spacecraft has revealed that asteroid Donaldjohanson once harbored liquid water, according to findings published in the journal Science on June 18, 2026. The results, drawn from data collected during Lucy's flyby of the asteroid on April 20, 2025,…

Bezos says colonizing the Moon is key to saving Earth

Jeff Bezos took the stage at VivaTech in Paris on Wednesday to argue that colonizing the Moon is not a detour from saving Earth but the only way to accomplish it, framing Blue Origin's lunar ambitions as both environmentally necessary…

Prada and Axiom Space unveil cooling layer for moon suit

Axiom Space and Italian luxury house Prada on Sunday revealed the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment, a specialized inner layer for the next-generation lunar spacesuit that will be worn by astronauts when humans return to the moon's surface for the…

NASA orders ISS crew to shelter amid worsening air leak

NASA directed astronauts aboard the International Space Station to take shelter in their docked spacecraft and prepare for possible evacuation on Friday after a persistent air leak in the Russian segment worsened, multiple outlets reported.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket explodes during test at Cape Canaveral

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded during an engine-firing test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday evening, sending a fireball into the night sky and rattling homes across the surrounding area. No injuries were reported.