Space News & Blog Articles

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Virgin Galactic says it will launch Richard Branson to space on July 11.

Billionaire Richard Branson is set to fly to space aboard Virgin Galactic's next flight, which could take off as soon as July 11.

Virgin Galactic says it will launch Richard Branson to space on July 11

Billionaire Richard Branson is set to fly to space aboard Virgin Galactic's next flight, which could take off as soon as July 11.

Virgin Orbit’s first operational mission deploys military CubeSats

Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket fires its kerosene-fueled main engine seconds after dropping from the company’s Boeing 747 carrier jet. Credit: Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit’s air-launched rocket aced its first operational mission Wednesday, firing into orbit from the wing of a 747 carrier jet southwest of Los Angeles to deploy small satellites for the U.S. Army, Navy, the Missile Defense Agency, the Dutch military, and the Polish company SatRevolution.

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Transgender astronomers speak out about outdated name change policies

An open letter to a scientific journal has sparked a conversation around diversity, inclusion and safety in the astronomy community.

Newly found mega comet may be the largest seen in recorded history

A giant comet found far out in the solar system may be 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet, making it potentially the largest ever found in modern times.

Supermassive black holes could host giant, swirling gas 'tsunamis'

Could gas escaping the gravitational grasp of supermassive black holes be forming "tsunamis" in space?

Chris Pratt tells of his love for sci-fi as 'The Tomorrow War' arrives on Amazon Prime Video

As Amazon Prime's newest sci-fi action blockbuster "The Tomorrow War" arrives on our screens, we spoke to stars Chris Pratt and Edwin Hodge about their love for science fiction.

Smallest, densest white dwarf ever discovered packs the sun's mass into a moon-size stellar corpse

Astronomers may have discovered the smallest and heaviest white dwarf star ever seen, a smoldering ember about the size of our moon but 450,000 times more massive than Earth, a new study finds.

OneWeb on the verge of commercial service after another successful launch

A Soyuz booster takes off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome Thursday with 36 OneWeb satellites. Credit: Roscosmos

A Russian Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage deployed 36 more OneWeb internet satellites into orbit Thursday, bringing the company’s fleet to 254 spacecraft, enough to start commercial service above 50 degrees latitude.

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NASA preparing to switch glitchy Hubble Space Telescope to backup hardware if needed

As NASA continues to diagnose a computer glitch on the Hubble Space Telescope, engineers are preparing to turn on backup hardware.

Noctilucent Cloud Show, a Mercurial Nova, and More

Summer only lasts so long. Like everything, it's transient. That will be our theme as we explore wispy noctilucent clouds, a nova that can't sit still, and a supernova in NGC 5427 in Virgo.

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The Cygnus spacecraft: Northrop Grumman's cargo ship

Information about Northrop Grumman's uncrewed Cygnus cargo vehicle.

To Take the Best Direct Images of Exoplanets With Space Telescopes, we’re Going to Want Starshades

Between 2021 and 2024, the James Webb (JWST) and Nancy Grace Roman (RST) space telescopes will be launched to space. As the successors to multiple observatories (like Hubble, Kepler, Spitzer, and others), these missions will carry out some of the most ambitious astronomical surveys ever mounted. This will range from the discovery and characterization of extrasolar planets to investigating the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

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Astronomers Detected a Black Hole-Neutron Star Merger, and Then Another Just 10 Days Later

The interior of a neutron star is perhaps the strangest state of matter in the universe. The material is squeezed so tightly that atoms collapse into a sea of nuclear material. We still aren’t sure whether nucleons maintain their integrity in this state, or whether they dissolve into quark matter. To really understand neutron star matter we need to pull it apart to see how it works and to do that takes a black hole. This is why astronomers are excited about the recent discovery of not one, but two mergers between a neutron star and a black hole.

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Canada–US heatwave

Image: The heatwave now hitting parts of western Canada and the US has been particularly devastating. This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image shows land surface temperature.

Blue Origin will fly female aviator Wally Funk, one of the Mercury 13, on 1st crewed launch

Aviator Wally Funk wanted to be an astronaut in the earliest days of spaceflight. Sixty years later, she'll finally go to space with Blue Origin on July 20.

UAE's Hope Mars orbiter spots elusive aurora on Red Planet

The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) Hope Mars mission made its first major finding just a couple months after arriving at the Red Planet when it snagged unprecedented observations of a tricky aurora.

Return of the Star Parties

As many states roll back COVID restrictions, stargazers across the continent are excited to meet up with old and new friends at their favorite observing sites.

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Webb passes key launch clearance review

The international James Webb Space Telescope has passed the final mission analysis review for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Many nearby Earth-size exoplanets could be hiding in plain sight

The universe is populated with stars that live in pairs, and these systems could mean double trouble for scientists wanting to find Earth-like planets.


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