(Left to right) Axiom Space Chief Astronaut Michael López-Alegría trains with the first Axiom Space project astronaut Emiliano Ventura. Image: Axiom Space
Axiom Space is gearing up to launch the first module of its commercial space station as soon as next year, but it is also refining how it will train future crews to head into low Earth orbit.
SpaceX is targeting Oct. 13 for the 11th test flight of Starship, which will be the final launch of the megarocket's current "Version 2" iteration.
What type of lander could touch down on Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io? This is what a recent paper presented at the AIAA 2025 Regional Student Conference hopes to address as a team of student engineers from Spartan Space Systems at San Jose State University investigated a novel concept for landing a spacecraft in Io, which is the most volcanically active planetary body in the solar system. This study has the potential to help scientists and engineers develop new mission concepts from all levels of academia and industry.
Launched in 2009, the Kepler Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy by discovering thousands of exoplanets in over 150,000 star systems. Kepler was specifically designed to detect Earth-sized planets by monitoring stars for periodic dips in brightness, which may result from planets passing in front of their star relative to the observer. Known as the Transit Method (or Transit Photometry), this technique has allowed astronomers to identify the majority of the more than 6,000 exoplanets in the current census. However, the method is not perfect and produces some false positives (initially as high as 5%–10%), which can sometimes be caused by other celestial objects.
Most people are familiar with the fact that the Earth spins on its axis once every day. The spin however, isn’t as steady as you might think. Like a spinning top slowing down, Earth’s axis wobbles, scribing out a circle on the night sky that currently points very close to the Pole Star in the northern hemisphere. The wobble occurs because Earth isn't a perfect sphere but bulges slightly at the equator. When the Sun and Moon pull on this bulge with their gravity, they create a force that tries to tilt Earth's axis. However, because Earth is already spinning, this tilting force doesn't simply tip the planet over. Instead, it causes the axis to trace out a slow circular wobble in the sky, much like a spinning top wobbles as it slows down. This wobble takes approximately 26,000 years to complete one full cycle.
Planets and moons are inseparable companions and while astronomers are unravelling the complexity of planet formation, moon formation remains mysterious. Our Solar System is fully formed, so to observe exoplanet and exomoon formation, we have to look to other stars. But while we're getting better at detecting exoplanets, detecting exomoons is much more challenging. Their small sizes relative to the exoplanets they orbit renders them practically invisible.
The KM3NeT Collaboration, a network of neutrino detectors based in the Mediterranean, announced in February that they had found the highest-energy neutrino detected to date. In a recent study, researchers from MIT proposed that this "ghost particle" could be the product of energetic Hawking Radiation emitted by a Primordial Black Holes (PBH) after it decayed outside our Solar System. If true, these findings could be the first evidence of the theoretical radiation Hawking proposed in 1974 by combining quantum field theory and General Relativity.
How will NASA’s upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) mission differentiate Earth-sized exoplanets from other exoplanets, specifically Earth-sized exoplanets within the habitable zone, also called exoEarths? This is what a recent study accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the potential future capabilities of HWO and what shortcomings need to be addressed for it to conduct groundbreaking science, specifically with discovering exoEarths.
An explosion captured by security camera footage shows the results of an anomaly seen during acceptance testing of Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket booster designated for the Flight 7 mission. Image: Harold’s Auto Parts
Firefly Aerospace suffered a setback on its road to resuming launches with its Alpha rocket.
The algorithm has already been tested on images from the Subaru telescope and will now be used on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory once science results begin to flood in.
At a major space congress in Sydney, leaders from NASA, ESA, ISRO, CNSA, and more shared visions for humanity's return to the moon, journeys to Mars and the tech shaping the future of space.
Firefly Aerospace's seventh Alpha rocket exploded on Monday (Sept. 29) during preflight testing. The vehicle was destroyed, and Firefly is assessing the damage to its test stand.
International Space Station astronauts can breathe easy — other NASA missions not so much.
'Foundation' actress Cherry Jones discusses her character's tempestuous relationship with Brother Dusk.
From twinkling constellations to stellar life cycles, this starry skywatching quiz will test your cosmic knowledge.
Death to the Chig! We take a look back at this pioneering TV show on its 30th birthday.
The cores of planets in our solar system exhibit a fascinating diversity, reflecting their formation, size, and composition. Understanding these internal structures provides crucial insights into planetary evolution and the forces that shape celestial bodies.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 lit up the evening sky Sept. 28, when the expanding 'jellyfish' plume from the rocket's ascent could be seen for hundreds of miles.
Despite being just outside Tucson, Arizona, Biosphere 2 looks almost like a colony on another planet.
Ancient iron-metabolizing microbes may have turned toxic oxygen into an energy source.
Targeted at content creators, the Canon EOS R50 V may not be the obvious choice for budding astrophotographers. But do the features and brand name make it an affordable option for capturing the night sky?
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