Space News & Blog Articles

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Propstore auctions rare screen-used 'Red Leader' X-wing model from 'Star Wars: A New Hope' (exclusive)

Propstore is auctioning off a screen-matched 'Red Leader' X-wing model from 1977’s "Star Wars."

China plans to return Mars samples to Earth in 2031: report

China plans to haul pristine Mars samples to Earth in 2031, two years earlier than NASA and the European Space Agency plan to do so, according to media reports.

SpaceX and OneWeb tell FCC their broadband megaconstellations can coexist

SpaceX and OneWeb have written a joint letter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission declaring harmony in orbit for spectrum coordination between their satellite-internet constellations.

The moon will swing by Mars early Wednesday morning as it continues its planetary tour

The moon approaches Mars in the predawn sky on Wednesday (June 22). The pair will be visible in the same field of view using a pair of binoculars.

Arianespace preps for first Ariane 5 launch of the year

An Ariane 5 rocket on its launch pad Tuesday evening at the Guiana Space Center. Credit: Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/P. Piron

Two geostationary communications satellites for India’s space agency and a Malaysian company will rocket into orbit from the jungle of South America on Wednesday on a European-built Ariane 5 launcher.

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World's largest liquid mirror telescope ready to observe

The 4-meter-wide International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) at Devasthal Observatory in the central Himalayas comes online.

Nikon 10x50 Aculon A211 binoculars review

The Nikon 10x50 Aculon A211 binoculars are sleek, well made and offer great value optics in a wide field of view.

This Bizarre Terrain on Mars is Caused by Water Ice and Carbon Dioxide

From orbit, this landscape on Mars looks like a lacy honeycomb or a spider web. But the unusual polygon-shaped features aren’t created by Martian bees or spiders; they are actually formed from a ongoing process of seasonal change from created from water ice and carbon dioxide.

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Kitt Peak telescopes remain standing after Arizona wildfire claims at least 4 buildings on site

While astronomical facilities and instrumentation may still be intact, it's too unsafe to verify in person right now.

The James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready to do science — and it's seeing the universe more clearly than even its own engineers hoped for

The James Webb Space Telescope is ready to start probing the cosmos. An astronomer on the team explains what it takes to get to this stage.

The Moon Could Have Gathered Some of its Water from the Earth’s Atmosphere

Our Moon is a fascinating world that has captivated us since time immemorial. Long before the first telescope was invented, ancient humans used the Moon as a calendar in the sky, with evidence that lunar timekeeping was around as early as 25,000, 30,000, and even 35,000 years before the present. Long before humanity had written language, lived in organized cities, and worshipped structured religions, the Moon was one of humanity’s first timepieces. It wasn’t until the telescope was invented that our Moon became an object of scientific curiosity, with the sketches by Galileo Galilei giving us a new perspective on our nearest celestial neighbor. As science advanced, so did our understanding of the Moon. While the Apollo missions were successful in teaching us about the geology of the Moon, it wasn’t until 2009 when the LCROSS impact probe onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter deliberately crashed into a dark crater on the Moon’s south pole and detected 155 kilograms of water as it flew through the ejecta plume before ultimately crashing into the lunar surface.

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ESA boosts the satellite-enabled 5G media market

Film fans, gamers and future metaverse users will be able to experience high-quality videos, games and extended reality environments live and uninterrupted from anywhere, as satellites link up with terrestrial-based next-generation 5G and 6G connectivity.

easyJet signs up for space-enabled digital skies

Passengers on board commercial airline easyJet will speed to their destinations faster and greener, thanks to an ESA-backed initiative to digitalise the skies.

NASA’s Artemis moon rocket fully fueled for first time in practice countdown

NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket stands fully fueled on pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center soon after the conclusion of a wet dress rehearsal Monday evening. Credit: NASA

NASA loaded more than three-quarters of a million gallons of super-cold propellant into the first Space Launch System moon rocket Monday in Florida, achieving key milestones in a practice countdown but falling short of all the test objectives after discovering a new hydrogen leak.

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Want to Own a Meteorite from Geoff Notkin’s Personal Collection?

For nearly 30 years Geoff Notkin has traveled the world in search of meteorites, those ancient relics from outer space that have fallen to Earth. He shared his adventures on the Science Channel series “Meteorite Men,” and through lectures and appearances across almost every continent, he has sparked interest in space science and exploration. He has been a devoted meteorite hunter and collector, amassing a large collection. But now, after much deliberation, Notkin has decided to auction off some of his personal meteorite collection, as well as other personal items.

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Samples of Asteroid Ryugu Contain More Than 20 Amino Acids

In 2014, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) dispatched its Hayabusa2 spacecraft to rendezvous with 162173 Ryugu, a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) that periodically passes close to Earth. In 2018, this sample-return mission reached Ryugu and spent the next year and a half studying its surface and obtaining samples from its surface and subsurface. By 2020, these samples made it back to Earth, where scientists began analyzing them in the hopes of learning more about the early history of the Solar System and answering key questions about the origins of life.

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Astronomers Watched a “Near-Sun” Comet Disintegrate as it Flew too Close to the Sun

Comets that venture close to the Sun can transform into something beautiful, but sometimes they encounter incineration if they get too close. Of the various types of comets that orbit close to the Sun, astronomers had never seen the destruction of the type classified as “near-Sun” comets. But thanks to a variety of telescopes on summit of Mauna Kea in Hawai?i, scientists have now captured images of a periodic rocky near-Sun comet breaking apart. They say the disintegration of this comet could help explain the scarcity of such periodic near-Sun comets.

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Solar System Gets its Ducks in a Row

We'll have not one but many opportunities to enjoy a rare lineup of the bright planets over the next few weeks. Amazingly, they'll be aligned in order of their distance from the Sun.

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Live coverage: NASA runs another countdown rehearsal for SLS moon rocket

Live coverage of the wet dress rehearsal for the Space Launch System on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

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