Space News & Blog Articles

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory was built with an ambitious purpose in mind. As part of its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), the Rubin Observatory will gather about 30 petabytes of data. This will include creating an inventory of the Solar System, transient objects (such as supernovae and variable stars), and mapping the Milky Way. Using preliminary data gathered by the Observatory, scientists have already discovered 11,000 new asteroids in the Solar System. These results were confirmed by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center (IAU-MPC).

(This is the final part of a series on Cherenkov radiation — the "light boom." Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 first.)

Between the Artemis Program, the ESA's Moon Village, and the Sino-Russian International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), the next step in space exploration is clear: We're going back to the Moon, and this time, to stay! This plan requires significant investment, research, development, and strategies adapted to lunar conditions. In particular, mission planners are concerned about the hazard posed by lunar regolith (aka. "Moon dust"). In addition to being electrostatically charged, causing it to stick to literally any surface, it is incredibly fine and easily kicked up by rovers and spacecraft as they land and take off.

(This is Part 3 of a series on Cherenkov radiation — the "light boom." Read Part 1 and Part 2 first.)

In 2014, a strange cloudy object called G2 made a close approach to Sagittarius A*, (Sag A*) the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers were pretty excited, partly because they thought it might get torn apart by Sag A*'s intense gravitational pull. That didn't happen, and the event turned out to be a cosmic fizzle. G2 skipped around the black hole, survived the flyby, and continued on a shortened orbit. Various observations showed that it wasn't just a gas cloud. It was likely a dusty protostellar object encased in a dusty cloud. Or perhaps several merged stars.

Understanding the beginning of the solar system requires us to look at some very strange places. One such place is at the so-called “Trojan” asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit in front of and behind it. But for a long time, these cosmic time capsules have held a mystery for astronomers: why are they color-coded? The populations of larger asteroids are very clear split into two distinct groups - the “reds” and the “less reds”, because apparently they’re all red to some extent. A new paper from researchers in Japan tried to solve this mystery by taking a close look at even smaller asteroids, and their findings, published in a recent edition of The Astronomical Journal, actually brings up a completely different question - why don’t smaller Trojan asteroids have the same color-coding?

Two factors dominate our search for life and habitability elsewhere in the galaxy. The first is liquid water, which, as far as we know, is necessary for life. When we find exoplanets, scientists try to determine if they're in their stars' habitable zones. Under the right atmospheric conditions, liquid water could persist there.

Comet R3 Pan-STARRS is about to put on its climatic perihelion act.

Mars is well known as a static, frozen desert. We tend to think of the only thing changing on the surface of the Red Planet is due to the occasional dust storm. But if you look closely - and are willing to wait decades - you’ll see the planet is very much alive - at least in the environmental sense. The European Space Agency just released some spectacular new images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on its Mars Express Orbiter, one of which shows a surprisingly “fast” geological change happening in Utopia Planitia. A dark, ominous-looking blanket of volcanic ash is actively creeping across the bright red sands - and it's moving (relatively) fast.

(This is Part 2 of a series on Cherenkov radiation — the "light boom." Read Part 1 first.)

Based on the most widely accepted models of how the Universe began - Big Bang cosmology and the LCDM model - scientists theorize that massive clouds of neutral hydrogen permeated the Universe. From this material, the first stars and galaxies formed rapidly over the next several hundred eons, an event that astronomers and cosmologists refer to as "Cosmic Dawn." For some time, it was further theorized that these early galaxies were surrounded by gigantic hydrogen gas halos, called "Lyman-alpha nebulae."

Engineers love a good practical challenge, especially when it comes to spaceflight. But there’s one particular challenge facing the crewed missions of the near future that scares mission planners above almost all others - fire. For decades, we’ve relied on a NASA test known as NASA-STD-6001B to screen material flammability for flight. But space is much more complicated than an Earth-bound test provides for. A new paper from researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center and Johnson Space Center and Case Western Reserve University details a planned mission to test the flammability of materials on the Moon’s surface - where they expect flame to act much differently than it does here on Earth.

To say NASA has been undergoing some massive administrative changes lately is a huge understatement. One of the more concerning ones, according to a new paper at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference by Ari Koeppel and Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society, is the trend towards the Silicon Valley mindset of “move fast and break things” - which they argue doesn’t work very well when it comes to producing valuable science.

Some of the most scientifically important astronomical objects are the ones that push the boundaries of definitions. These objects can exist in the grey areas between competing definitions. They motivate astronomers to develop a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of Nature. One of these important dividing lines places planets on one side and stars on the other.

A pair of dwarf galaxies in the giant Virgo Cluster show what can happen when these stellar cities interact. Scientists at the University of Michigan focused the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) onto the galaxies NGC 4486B and UCD736 and found each of them sporting "overmassive" black holes at or near their hearts. Those supermassive black holes comprise a large fraction of each galaxy's mass.

On Friday, April 10, 2026 at 5:07 p.m. PDT (02:07 p.m. EDT), the first astronauts to travel to the Moon in more than fifty years made it back to Earth when their Orion capsule (Integrity) splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. In addition to being a historic accomplishment and a major step towards returning astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era, the Artemis II flight set a new record for distance traveled by a crewed spacecraft.

Mars rovers have spearheaded the exploration of the planet over the last 20 years. MSL Curiosity and Perseverance are awe-inspiring machines, and Spirit and Opportunity were similarly impressive. Collectively, they've greatly improved our understanding of Mars and its ancient climate and shed light on its potential ancient habitability.

Keep an eye out this coming week for the venerable Lyrid meteor shower.

Living long-term on the Moon means surviving the devastating toll that deep space takes on a human body. Astronauts in low gravity environments suffer muscle and bone loss, vision-altering fluid shifts, and heavy radiation exposure - all of which are incredibly hazardous to our biology. So, to help future lunar explorers survive, a new crew just arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). That might not sound surprising, except this crew is composed of worms.

I want you to imagine a scene. It's the red carpet. It's the night of the Oscars, or the Emmys, or the participation trophy ceremony for your kid's soccer team. That's not the essential part of the metaphor. What matters is who is there: Brad Bradington's adoring fans, curious onlookers, and of course the paparazzi, ready to take their shot.

Venus is often called Earth's twin, but spend any time with it and the comparison falls apart quickly. Its surface is hot enough to melt lead, its atmosphere is a crushing blanket of carbon dioxide, and its clouds are made of concentrated sulphuric acid. Somewhere beneath those acid clouds, between the surface and the main cloud deck at around 47 kilometres up, a thin mysterious haze has drifted for billions of years, stubbornly resisting every attempt at explanation. Until now.