As humanity ventures deeper into space, one critical question looms large: how do we prevent Earth's microbes from contaminating other worlds? A groundbreaking new study by Daniel J. Brener and Charles S. Cockell suggests we may need to fundamentally rethink our approach to planetary protection by borrowing concepts from a surprising source; island biogeography.
Space News & Blog Articles
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Will asteroid 2024 YR4 hit the Moon?
Asteroid 2024 YR4 made headlines earlier this year when its probability of impacting Earth in 2032 rose as high as 3%. While an Earth impact has now been ruled out, the asteroid’s story continues.
More than 1,800 National Science Foundation workers abruptly kicked out of agency headquarters
National Science Foundation employees were told they'll be removed from the agency's headquarters on Tuesday (June 24) with no direction yet for where to go.
Upcoming DC movies: Superman, Supergirl, Clayface, The Batman Part II & beyond
Superman is spearheading DC's big reboot in the realm of movies and TV, but what's coming next? And which projects are confined to elseworlds?
A New Way to Detect Primordial Black Holes Through Their Hawking Radiation
Scientists may have found a new way to detect some of the universe's most mysterious objects, primordial black holes (PBHs), using Hawking radiation. This groundbreaking approach relies upon watching for their radiation signatures as they pass through the Solar System. This technique could finally help us to solve one of cosmology's biggest puzzles: what makes up the invisible dark matter that comprises 85% of all matter in the universe.
NASA Just Launched A Mission To Calibrate Space-Based Instruments With Moonlight
Calibration is a necessary, if typically invisible, step in the successful operation of any scientific telescope. Without a known value to compare its readings against, data from telescopes could suffer from biases or transients that could completely misdirect scientists analyzing it. However, those same scientists also struggle to find good sources of data to calibrate against. Enter Arcstone - a technology demonstration mission that launched earlier this week that plans to use one particular source as a calibration dataset - moonlight.
The Galactic Center Isn't Spitting Out Stars. What Does This Mean?
We know black hole mergers occur because we can detect the resulting gravitational waves. But when trying to piece together the history of black holes mergers in the Milky Way, astronomers need another tactic. They need to perform some forensic astronomy.
A Statistical Analysis of Exoplanet Habitability Turns Up One Great Candidate - And Significant Observational Bias
The search for life beyond our planet continues, and one of the most underappreciated tools in an astrobiologists toolkit is statistics. While it might not be as glamorous as directly imaging a planet’s atmosphere or finding a system with seven planets in it, statistics is absolutely critical if we want to be sure that what we’re seeing is real and not just an artifact of the data, or of our observational techniques themselves. A new paper by Caleb Traxler and their co-authors at the Department of Information and Computer Science at UC Irvine takes on that challenge head-on by statistically analyzing a set of about 10% of the total number of exoplanets found and judging their habitability.
Growing Building on Mars with Lichen and Bacteria
For generations, scientists and science fiction writers have contemplated how humans could someday live on Mars. While the idea once seemed like a far-off possibility, the many robotic missions that have travelled to Mars and successfully landed on its surface have given new life to the idea. This presents many challenges, which include the time it takes to reach Mars (6 to 9 months using conventional propulsion) and the dangers of long-term exposure to cosmic radiation and microgravity. But building long-term habitats and facilities on the Martian surface is also challenging.
Astronomers discover baby planets taking their 1st steps in nearby stellar nursery (images)
Astronomers have discovered the first step in planet birth, finding hitherto unseen structures in 78 planetary disks in the star-forming region of Ophiuchus.
Rocket Lab launches 'Get the Hawk Outta Here' mission from New Zealand (video)
Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket from New Zealand on June 26. The rocket carried a trio of radio frequency geolocation satellites and one experimental payload into a polar orbit.
Famous Comets
Here are some of the most famous comets in history, known for their brightness, long tails, or dramatic appearances near Earth:
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3: Release date, cast & how to watch Paramount+'s summer sci-fi series
Captain Pike and the Enterprise crew are back and on the hunt for The Gorn. Here’s everything we know about 'Strange New Worlds' Season 3 after 2023’s cliffhanger finale.
Human remains lost after memorial spaceflight capsule crashes into the sea
The remains of 166 people part of a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight are presumed lost after The Exploration Company's "Mission Possible" capsule presumably crashes into Pacific Ocean.
See a vivid green fireball light up the northeastern US (video)
The fireball was visible from several states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Northern lights may be visible in these 10 US States tonight
Auroras may be visible from Alaska to Washington as a giant hole in the sun's atmosphere fuels geomagnetic storms with a high-speed solar wind.
A star exploded in the Lupus constellation. Here's how to see the nova in the night sky this month
V462 Lupi will soon vanish from the night sky, but before it does, the dark skies around the new moon present a perfect time to head away from city lights to hunt down the light from this ancient nova.
Ax-4 joins the International Space Station
Video: 00:02:36
On 26 June 2025 ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and his crewmates arrived to the International Space Station on the Axiom-4 mission (Ax-4).
The Polish project astronaut is the second of a new generation of European astronauts to fly on a commercial human spaceflight opportunity with Axiom Space.
Sponsored by the Polish government and supported by ESA, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT), and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the mission will include an ambitious technological and scientific programme with several experiments led by ESA and proposed by the Polish space industry.
Alien life could survive deadly stellar radiation, Earth's desert lichen reveal
A walk in the desert and a curious discovery could have revealed that the secrets of alien life grow in the harshest conditions on Earth in the form of lichen.
Rubin Observatory takes its 1st look at the night skies | Space photo of the day for June 26, 2025
The telescope, working with the world's largest digital camera, scans the night sky in search of dark matter.
New ESA gravity mission to detect weakening ocean conveyor
At the Living Planet Symposium, attendees have been hearing how ESA’s Next Generation Gravity Mission could provide the first opportunity to directly track a vital ocean circulation system that warms our planet – but is now weakening, risking a possible collapse with far-reaching consequences.
