Space News & Blog Articles

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 has completed its brief lunar mission. The lander spent two weeks conducting operations on the surface of the Moon before witnessing its final sunset as the Sun dipped below the horizon. This sunset marked the end of the mission, as Blue Ghost lacks the capability to maintain warmth during the freezing cold lunar night. Despite its short operational period, the lander accomplished its objectives, successfully testing all ten NASA payloads, gathering valuable data, and transmitting the findings back to Earth.

The cosmic pinwheel that astronomers feared could one day shower Earth with lethal gamma rays may not be as dangerous as once thought.

Saturn's iconic rings will seemingly "disappear" from view this weekend as they align edge-on with Earth for the first time since 2009.

It’s ok, Darth Vader hasn’t got our humble planet in his sights! No this Death Star is a binary system where both stars are locked into an orbit which will lead to their collision, unleashing a powerful gamma-ray burst when they do. The object, WR104 is otherwise known as the ‘Pinwheel Star’ due to the presence of a spiral of dust engulfing the system. Recent observations have accurately measured the orientation of the stars and thankfully they’re not pointed at the Earth. When they do eventually collide, it’ll be someone else’s problem.

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The high-performance computing (HPC) environment will be available for scientific research and technological development activities, supporting all ESA programmes as well as the researchers and small- and medium-enterprises from Member States.

Marvel's Thunderbolts will close out phase 5, but the MCU will continue into late 2025 and beyond with these highly-anticipated movies and shows.

Week in images: 17-21 March 2025

The spacesuit worn by the first Briton in space, the Soyuz that brought the first UK astronaut back to Earth and the only Apollo capsule to be on display outside the U.S. will soon be on the move.

We are far too proud of the name of this one.

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Meet Andrea Patassa—test pilot, aviator, passionate outdoor adventurer, and Member of ESA’s Astronaut Reserve. 

The emission nebula, known as Sh2-284, is an immense region of gas and dust that fuels new star formation. It lacks elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, much like the environment of the early universe.

Image: Inner space engineering

The Mars water debate continues. A team of scientists suggests vast oceans of water may not be locked within the Red Planet's crust, despite InSight lander data.

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

Astronomers have discovered filaments of matter swirling tornado-like around the heart of the Milky Way, home to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.

It’s looking more and more as if dark energy, the mysterious factor that scientists say is behind the accelerating expansion of the universe, isn’t as constant as they once thought. The latest findings from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI, don’t quite yet come up to the level of a confirmed discovery, but they’re leading scientists to rethink their views on the evolution of the universe — and how it might end.

Somehow, we all know how a warp drive works. You're in your spaceship and you need to get to another star. So you press a button or flip a switch or pull a lever and your ship just goes fast. Like really fast. Faster than the speed of light. Fast enough that you can get to your next destination by the end of the next commercial break.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base ahead of the launch of the NROL-57 mission. Image: SpaceX

The National Reconnaissance Office launched its eighth batch of satellites to support its proliferated architecture constellation. The mission includes a number of notable milestones for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket program, including a record-fast turnaround time for its booster.

Three giants in the camera industry — but which one has the best astrophotography features for you?

A pod of bottlenose dolphins seemingly took interest in the capsule that dropped out of the sky, circling and surfacing as SpaceX team members worked to recover their spacecraft.

Welcome back to our five-part examination of Webb's Cycle 4 General Observations program. In the first and second installments, we examined how some of Webb's 8,500 hours of prime observing time this cycle will be dedicated to exoplanet characterization, the study of galaxies at "Cosmic Dawn," and the period known as "Cosmic Noon." Today, we'll look at programs that will leverage Webb's unique abilities to study stellar populations and the interstellar medium in galaxies.