Space News & Blog Articles

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Could Study Dying Planets

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Could Study Dying Planets

When astronomers want to understand brown dwarfs, they often turn to WISE 1049AB. It's a benchmark brown dwarf in astronomy, and the closest and brightest brown dwarf we know of. The binary pair, which is also known as Luhman 16, is about 6.5 light-years away. Brown dwarfs are a crucial bridge between planets and stars, and understanding them helps astronomers understand the dynamics of both exoplanets and stars.

A new flight plan has been filed for a NASA winged orbiter and its jumbo jet transport. The Lego Icons Shuttle Carrier Aircraft recreates the 747 and Enterprise.

The interior of asteroid Vesta has been shown not to be a protoplanet after all, meaning that new explanations for its origin are needed.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 crew member Nichole Ayers took this photo of the forward portion of the International Space Station on May 1, 2025.

The JWST continues to live up to its promise by revealing things hidden from other telescopes. One of its lesser-known observations concerns Free-Floating Planets (FFP). FFPs have no gravitational tether to any star and are difficult to detect because they emit so little light. When the JWST detected 42 of a particular type of FFP in the Orion Nebula Cluster, it gave astronomers an opportunity to study them more closely.

The first U.S. teleoperated rover to reach the moon's surface is rolling out as a Lego model this summer, together with two futuristic vehicles inspired by real-life robotic explorers.

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaked on May 5-6, and the astrophotography community were there to watch it unfold.

A new space mission is open for business. Last week, we got a look at science images from NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Re-ionization, and Ices Explorer) mission. The mission will now begin science operations, taking 3,600 unique images a day in an effort to create a 3D map of the sky.

Save 20% on this super-compact Celestron 76mm Signature Series FirstScope, ideal for kids and absolute beginners, but it's a limited time deal so you'll have to be quick!

Asteroid experts are pondering the scientific output from the NASA Lucy spacecraft after it shot by its celestial destination, the main belt asteroid named Donaldjohanson.

File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) ahead of the launch of the Starlink 12-21 mission. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

SpaceX is preparing to launch its latest batch of Starlink V2 Mini satellites to low Earth orbit on Tuesday night.

New Horizons' primary mission is complete. It's already completed its pass through the Pluto system and even stopped by 486958 Arrokoth, a Kuiper belt object on its way out of the solar system. But that doesn't mean it's done providing new scientific insights. A new paper looks at data collected by its ultraviolet spectrograph, which looked at one particular wavelength and helped provide context to a few different questions about the solar system.

NASA's next moon rocket is stacking higher at the Kennedy Space Center, as the interim cryogenic propulsion stage is added to the launch vehicle.

How do you distinguish a galaxy from a mere cluster of stars? That's easy, right? A galaxy is a large collection of millions or billion of stars, while a star cluster only has a thousand or so. Well, that kind of thinking won't get you a Ph.D. in astronomy! Seriously, though, the line between galaxy and star cluster isn't always clear. Case in point, UMa3/U1.

The idea that our Solar System is representative of other solar systems hasn't survived the age of exoplanet discovery. Kepler and TESS have shown us that our system doesn't even contain the most common type of planet: sub-Neptunes. These planets pose a mystery to planetary scientists, and the JWST is helping unravel the mystery.

2005 was a fantastic year for original Star Wars video games, but Revenge of the Sith's direct adaptation, quirks and all, shouldn't be forgotten.

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher emphasises the importance of cooperation in space activities

The solar gravitation lens (SGL) has much potential as a telescope. This point in space, located about 650 AU away from the Sun, uses fundamental properties of physics to amplify the light from extremely far-away objects, allowing us to see them at a level of detail unachievable anywhere else. However, any SGL mission would face plenty of technical and physical challenges. A new paper by independent researcher Viktor Toth is the latest in a series that discusses those challenges when imaging a far-away exoplanet, and in particular, looks at the difficulties in dealing with potential moving cloud cover. He concludes that using the SGL might not be the most effective way of capturing high-resolution images of an exoplanet, after all.

A new 12-minute U.S. Space Force documentary called "Always Above" will be featured in planetariums throughout the country beginning on Friday, May 2, 2025.