The Milky Way recycles gas from dying stars to make new ones — but new observations show pristine gas also comes in from outside our galaxy.
Space News & Blog Articles
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How long will April's total solar eclipse last?
The duration of April's total solar eclipse will depend on where you are watching it from along the path of totality. Here we explain why.
Boeing, NASA target May 1 for first crewed flight of Starliner to the space station
NASA astronauts Suni Williams (left) and Butch Wilmore (right) pose in front of a graphic of the mission patch for the Starliner Crew Flight Test. Image: Will Robinson-Smith/Spaceflight Now
NASA is five weeks away from putting astronauts aboard a new commercial crew capsule. May 1 is the target launch date for Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on the Crew Flight Test-1 (CFT-1) mission the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams on board.
What are the true colors of images from the James Webb Space Telescope?
We explore the true colors of images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to see what the cosmos really looks like.
Best geologic map for a European rover on Mars
A team of European scientists have published the most detailed geologic map of Oxia Planum – the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. This thorough look at the geography and geological history of the area will help the rover scout the once water-rich terrain, in the search for signs of past and present life.
Hubble Telescope witnesses a new star being born in a stunning cosmic light show (image)
The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a powerful jet erupting from an envelope of gas and dust that represents a newly born star announcing itself to the cosmos.
Watch India's prototype space plane ace a landing test (video)
The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully carried out a landing test with its prototype space plane last week.
Unveiling the all-new ESA Impact: Dive into our Q1 2024 edition
Unveiling the all-new ESA Impact: Dive into our Q1 2024 edition
Euclid's sight restored
A newly devised procedure to de-ice Euclid's optics has performed significantly better than hoped. Light coming in to the visible ‘VIS’ instrument from distant stars was gradually decreasing due small amounts of water ice building up on its optics. Mission teams spent months devising a procedure to heat up individual mirrors in the instrument’s complex optical system, without interfering with the finely tuned mission’s calibration or potentially causing further contamination. After the very first mirror was warmed by just 34 degrees, Euclid's sight was restored.
SMOS and Swarm team up to spot huge solar storm
The Sun erupted over the weekend, flinging electromagnetic radiation towards Earth, even illuminating skies with spectacular aurora borealis. For the first time, ESA’s unlikely space weather duo of SMOS and Swarm tracked the severe solar storm — which warped Earth’s magnetic field.
NASA’s VERITAS Mission Breathes New Life
In a win for planetary scientists, and planetary geologists in particular, it was announced at the recent 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas earlier this month that NASA’s VERITAS mission to the planet Venus has been reinstated into NASA’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget with a scheduled launch date of 2031, with the unofficial announcement coming on the first day of the conference, March 11, 2024, and being officially announced just a few days later. This comes after VERITAS experienced a “soft cancellation” in March of last year when NASA revealed its FY24 budget, providing VERITAS only $1.5 million, which was preceded by the launch of VERITAS being delayed a minimum of three years due to findings from an independent review board in November 2022.
SpaceX fires up Starship rocket ahead of 4th test flight (video)
SpaceX fired the engines on the upper stage of its next Starship vehicle, performing a key test ahead of the giant rocket's fourth test flight.
Life Might Be Difficult to Find on a Single Planet But Obvious Across Many Worlds
If we could detect a clear, unambiguous biosignature on just one of the thousands of exoplanets we know of, it would be a huge, game-changing moment for humanity. But it’s extremely difficult. We simply aren’t in a place where we can be certain that what we’re detecting means what we think or even hope it does.
Keep the lines of communication open by building your own infrared transmitter
Sponsor Content Created With United States Space Force
Chasing the Eclipse from the Air
A solar-imaging instrument will fly on a high-altitude aircraft to explore infrared emission from the Sun’s corona.
Brown Dwarf Pairs Drift Apart in Old Age
The only thing worse than drifting through space for an eternity is doing it alone. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope show that brown dwarfs that once had companions suffer that fate. Binary brown dwarfs that were once bound to each other tend to drift apart as time passes.
NASA is holding a total eclipse 2024 briefing tomorrow. Here's how to watch it live
Watch NASA's total eclipse 2024 briefing live and learn about the scientific and transportation plans for the eclipse.
Dwarf Galaxies Could be the Key to Explaining Dark Matter
If you have a view of the southern celestial sky, on a clear night you might see two clear smudges of light set off a bit from the great arch of the Milky Way. They are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and they are the most visible of the dwarf galaxies. Dwarf galaxies are small galaxies that typically cluster around larger ones. The Milky Way, for example, has nearly two dozen dwarf galaxies. Because of their small size, they can be more significantly affected by dark matter. Their formation may even have been triggered by the distribution of dark matter. So they can be an excellent way to study this mysterious unseen material.
SpaceX launching 23 Starlink satellites from Florida this evening
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to launch 23 more of the company's Starlink broadband satellites to orbit this evening (March 25).
Live coverage: SpaceX aims for 175th Falcon 9 flight from Cape Canaveral with Monday evening Starlink mission
A Falcon 9 stands ready for the Starlink 6-46 mission from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.
SpaceX is preparing to launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Monday evening with 23 Starlink satellites on board. This mission will mark the 175th launch for SpaceX from its workhorse pad to date.
