Space News & Blog Articles

Over the past decade or so, astronomers have speculated about the characteristics of rogue planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. These "free-floating" worlds don't orbit stars, but instead roam the spaceways. They're hard to spot with current technology, but the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) will be a perfect instrument to find them and give insights into the history and features they may have in common with Solar System worlds.

One of the unanswered questions in astronomy is just how supermassive black holes grew so big, so quickly. A team of astronomers have tried to answer this question by searching for actively feeding supermassive black holes (aka quasars) as a way to measure how much material material they are actually accumulating. They studied nebulae near the quasars that light up with the quasar is releasing radiation and found that many of the more distant quasars have only been active for a few hundred thousand years, not long enough to grow to the size we see today.

After a pair of satellites failed to reach their desired orbit around the moon last year, China used a novel gravity "slingshot" tactic to get the satellites in the correct spot.

The Virtual Telescope Project aims to observe the anticipated reentry of the former Soviet Union's Cosmos 482 spacecraft as it plunges toward Earth during a live webcast on May 9.

NASA is no longer asking U.S. companies for proposals to get the ice-hunting VIPER rover to the moon but still hasn't given up on the mission.

Supermassive Black Holes reside at the center of large galaxies, where they dominate their surroundings and sometimes eat stars. When they gobble up a star, they emit a distinctive light flare. This makes it easier for astronomers to pinpoint their location. Astronomers have detected one of these flares offset from a galactic center. Is the black hole shifting its location?

Recent sighting of spacecraft and debris burning through the atmosphere during their plummet back to Earth offer some clues as to what the reentry of a failed Soviet Venus lander might look like.

The U.S. Space Force tested a new propulsion system designed for satellites that will keep tabs on spacecraft and other objects near the moon.

A new study has found that the 28 most populous cities in the United States — including New York, Chicago, Dallas and Denver — are sinking at rates between two and 10 millimeters (0.08 and 0.4 inches) per year.

Astronauts are helping to destigmatize a childhood experience by pointing out the similarities between what some kids wear to bed and what explorers wear into space.

Plato, the European Space Agency's terrestrial planet hunter spacecraft, is seen after having 24 of its 26 cameras installed.

Weird electromagnetic mayhem breaks out in this thrilling new preview.

The 950-foot hunk of primordial matter is classified as a "potentially hazardous asteroid," but that doesn't mean it has a chance of hitting Earth.

The European Space Agency is assessing how proposed cuts to NASA's budget could impact it as major cooperative missions face the threat of cancellation.

Earth's atmosphere pulses in sync with the sun's fiery outbursts, indicating it is more sensitive to solar activity than previously thought, according to new research.

"Shiver with antici… pation!" as those over-sexed aliens from the planet Transexual celebrate their Golden Anniversary in 2025.

India now plans to launch astronauts to Earth orbit for the first time no sooner than 2027, after completing a series of uncrewed flight tests slated to begin later this year.

The moon spent a few million years as a volcanic wasteland, covered with ongoing eruptions that spewed from mountains and even from the ground itself.

For the first time, two spacecraft in orbit were aligned in formation with millimetre precision and maintained their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground.

The activities to assemble the European Space Agency’s Plato mission are progressing well now that 24 of the spacecraft’s 26 cameras have been installed. Once in space, Plato will use its many eyes to survey a very large area of the sky and hunt for terrestrial planets. The spacecraft’s supporting element is also coming together in parallel.

Thanks largely to Copernicus Sentinel-1, scientists have discovered that a glacier in Antarctica is rapidly siphoning ice from neighbouring flows – at a pace never before seen. Until now, researchers believed that this process of ‘ice piracy’ in Antarctica took hundreds or even thousands of years, but these latest findings clearly demonstrate that this isn’t always the case.