Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space

Space

Previous
1...3456789
Next
VSS Unity during a test flight to the edge of space.

Watch highlights of Virgin Galactic’s first commercial trip to edge of space

Virgin Galactic has shared a video showing highlights from its first commercial flight to the edge of space on Thursday.
Trevor Mogg
This spectacular picture of the Sh2-284 nebula has been captured in great detail by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. Sh2-284 is a star formation region, and at its centre there is a cluster of young stars, dubbed Dolidze 25. The radiation from this cluster is powerful enough to ionise the hydrogen gas in the nebula’s cloud. It is this ionisation that produces its bright orange and red colours.

Stunning nebula 15,000 light-years away imaged by VLT Survey Telescope

A gorgeous new image of a distant nebula has been captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s VLT Survey Telescope.
Georgina Torbet
This artist impression shows Euclid leaving Earth and on its way to Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. This equilibrium point of the Sun-Earth system is located 1.5 million kilometres from Earth in the opposite direction of the Sun. L2 revolves around the Sun along with Earth. During Euclid’s orbit at L2, Euclid’s sunshield always blocks the light from the Sun, Earth and Moon while pointing its telescope towards deep space, ensuring a high level of stability for its instruments.

How to watch the Euclid dark matter telescope launch this Saturday

Astronomers are getting a new instrument to probe the mysteries of dark matter with the launch of the Euclid telescope this Saturday. Here's how to watch.
Georgina Torbet
virgin galactic sets date for final test of rocket plane vss unity flight

Virgin Galactic video shows what’s in store for first commercial passengers

Virgin Galactic is set to launch its first commercial rocket-powered ride on Thursday. This video shows what the passengers can expect.
Trevor Mogg
SpaceX's Starship spacecraft during a test in June 2023.

Check out these stunning images of SpaceX’s recent Starship test

As part of preparations for the second test flight of its Super Heavy rocket, SpaceX this week performed a static fire test of the upper stage Starship.
Trevor Mogg
An illustration of an asteroid hurtling past Earth.

Asteroid the size of Statue of Liberty about to zip by Earth

An asteroid the size of the Statue of Liberty will zip by Earth at a speed of 26,000 mph in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Trevor Mogg
This image is NIRCam’s view of the Orion Bar region studied by the team of astronomers. Bathed in harsh ultraviolet light from the stars of the Trapezium Cluster, it is an area of intense activity, with star formation and active astrochemistry. This made it a perfect place to study the exact impact that ultraviolet radiation has on the molecular makeup of the discs of gas and dust that surround new stars. The radiation erodes the nebula’s gas and dust in a process known as photoevaporation; this creates the rich tapestry of cavities and filaments that fill the view. The radiation also ionises the molecules, causing them to emit light — not only does this create a beautiful vista, it also allows astronomers to study the molecules using the spectrum of their emitted light obtained with Webb’s MIRI and NIRSpec instruments.

James Webb detects important molecule in the stunning Orion nebula

The molecule, called methyl cation, is important for the development of the complex carbon-based molecules on which life depends.
Georgina Torbet
VSS Unity during a test flight to the edge of space.

How to watch Virgin Galactic’s first commercial rocket flight on Thursday

After years of testing its rocket-powered plane, Virgin Galactic is finally ready to launch its first commercial flight. Here's how to watch.
Trevor Mogg
The International Space Station pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly-around of the orbiting lab.

NASA improves process for turning astronaut pee into drinking water

Human space travel may well be exciting, but anyone that does it has to accept that consuming water from recycled urine will be part of the mission.
Trevor Mogg
nasa reveals mars habitat for volunteers year long stay life

Watch 4 volunteers enter a simulated Mars habitat for a very long stay

As part of preparations for a human mission to Mars, four volunteers have just entered a simulated Mars habitat where they’ll live and work for the next year.
Trevor Mogg
Bands of high-altitude haze forming above cyclones in an area of Jupiter known at Jet N7.

Gorgeous images of Jupiter’s cloud tops snapped by Juno spacecraft

The Juno spacecraft made its 49th close flyby of Jupiter earlier this year, and NASA has shared stunning images taken as it whizzed by the planet's cloud tops.
Georgina Torbet
Rendering of a a spacecraft slowing down in the Venus atmosphere.

The art and science of aerobraking: The key to exploring Venus

Slowing a spacecraft down takes tons of fuel, so scientists are eager to try something different on Venus: slowing down with the help of the planet's atmosphere
Georgina Torbet
A new visualization explores the galaxy group Stephan's Quintet by using observations in visible, infrared, and X-ray light. The sequence contrasts images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, Webb Space Telescope, and Chandra X-ray Observatory to provide insights across the electromagnetic spectrum.

See and hear Stephan’s Quintet in a whole new way with NASA visualizations

Data from the James Webb Space Telescope has been combined with data from other telescopes to create a new way to see and hear a famous galaxy group.
Georgina Torbet
mars maven ultraviolet seasons orbit16863 apo ladfit localff png

See seasonal changes on Mars in two stunning images from MAVEN

Two images from the MAVEN spacecraft, taken six months apart, show how the environment of Mars changes with both season and the planet's orbit.
Georgina Torbet
nasa reveals mars habitat for volunteers year long stay life

NASA volunteers will live in a simulated Mars habitat for a whole year

Volunteers are about to enter a simulated Mars habitat where they’ll spend the next year as part of research for the first crewed mission to the faraway planet.
Trevor Mogg
Artist impression of BepiColombo flying by Mercury. The spacecraft makes nine gravity assist manoeuvres (one of Earth, two of Venus and six of Mercury) before entering orbit around the innermost planet of the Solar System in 2025.

European BepiColombo spacecraft makes its third Mercury flyby today

BepiColombo is set to enter the orbit of Mercury in 2025, but in the meantime, it will be making several flybys of the planet, including a close approach today.
Georgina Torbet
This artist' concept shows what the hot rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c could look like based on this work. TRAPPIST-1 c, the second of seven known planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, orbits its star at a distance of 0.016 AU (about 1.5 million miles), completing one circuit in just 2.42 Earth-days. TRAPPIST-1 c is slightly larger than Earth, but has around the same density, which indicates that it must have a rocky composition. Webb’s measurement of 15-micron mid-infrared light emitted by TRAPPIST-1 c suggests that the planet has either a bare rocky surface or a very thin carbon dioxide atmosphere.

James Webb telescope searches for habitability in the famous TRAPPIST-1 system

James Webb peered into the atmosphere of what was thought to be a Venus-like planet, and saw something unexpected.
Georgina Torbet
SpaceX launches a Falcon 9 rocket on June 18, 2023.

Watch this SpaceX Falcon 9 booster takes its 12th ride to space

SpaceX successfully launched an Indonesian communications satellite to orbit on Sunday using a Falcon 9 booster on its 12th flight.
Trevor Mogg
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) making observations in the night sky on the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

This one instrument has surveyed 2 million objects to understand dark energy

An early release of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument contains nearly 2 million astronomical objects.
Georgina Torbet
This artist impression illustrates how astronomers using the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have made multiple detections of rock-forming elements in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized exoplanet, WASP-76b. The so-called “hot Jupiter” is perilously close to its host star, which is heating the planet’s atmosphere to astounding temperatures and vaporized rock-forming elements such as magnesium, calcium and iron, providing insight into how our own Solar System formed.

This exoplanet is over 2,000-degrees Celsiu, has vaporized metal in its atmosphere

The puffy, scorching-hot planet has elements in its atmosphere that would normally form rocks, but are so hot that they have vaporized.
Georgina Torbet
A new rollout solar array on the ISS.

Watch NASA’s new solar array unfurl on the space station

Two NASA astronauts completed a successful spacewalk at the ISS on Thursday, installing a solar array as part of work to upgrade the facility's power supply.
Trevor Mogg
VSS Unity during a test flight to the edge of space.

Virgin Galactic reveals date for its first commercial spaceflight

Virgin Galactic's first commercial flight is a scientific research mission, while the second one will carry passengers who each paid up to $450,000.
Trevor Mogg
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its black-and-white navigation cameras to capture panoramas of “Marker Band Valley” at two times of day on April 8. Color was added to a combination of both panoramas for an artistic interpretation of the scene.

See a postcard from Mars taken by the Curiosity rover

The image combines two different views of the same area and is colorized to show off the undulating martian landscape in a region called the Marker Band Valley.
Georgina Torbet
During a 2005 flyby, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took high-resolution images of Enceladus that were combined into this mosaic, which shows the long fissures at the moon’s south pole that allow water from the subsurface ocean to escape into space.

The search for habitable moons in the solar system is heating up

Recent research has found phosphorus, one of the building blocks for life, at Saturn's icy moon Enceladus.
Georgina Torbet
An artist's illustration shows that the stars in the TOI 1338 system make an eclipsing binary — they circle each other in our plane of view.

Tatooine-like exoplanet orbits two stars in rare astronomical discovery

Astronomers recently discovered a planet which orbits two stars, meaning it would have two suns in its sky like Tatooine.
Georgina Torbet
The Mori3 robot developed by a team of researchers in Switzerland.

This remarkable shape-shifting robot could one day head to Mars

A team of researchers has developed an impressive shape-shifting robot that could one day find itself on a mission to Mars.
Trevor Mogg
NASA astronaut and Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Steve Bowen is pictured outside the International Space Station during his eighth career spacewalk, during which he routed cables and installed insulation to ready the orbital outpost for its next set of roll-out solar arrays.

How to watch ISS astronauts install a new solar array tomorrow

Tomorrow two astronauts will head out of the International Space Station to install a new solar array. Here are the details on how to watch the spacewalk.
Georgina Torbet
A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster landing in June 2023.

SpaceX marks 200th rocket landing with perfect touchdown

SpaceX achieved its 200th Falcon 9 landing on Monday, confirming yet again the viability of its reusable spaceflight system.
Trevor Mogg
nasa europa clipper mission confirmed

Send your name to space as part of Europa Clipper mission

Traveling to space may be the stuff of dreams for most folks, but sending your name instead is a distinct possibility.
Trevor Mogg
a woman peering into a telescope

NASA’s latest method for hunting exoplanets? Enlisting amateurs

NASA has a new program that gathers data from millions of amateur astronomers, and it could be a game-changer for astronomy.
Georgina Torbet
The jellyfish galaxy JO206 trails across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, showcasing a colorful star-forming disk surrounded by a pale, luminous cloud of dust. A handful of foreground bright stars with crisscross diffraction spikes stands out against an inky black backdrop at the bottom of the image. JO206 lies over 700 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius.

Hubble image of the week shows an unusual jellyfish galaxy

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows an unusual type of galaxy named for its aquatic look-alike: a jellyfish.
Georgina Torbet
Astronaut Woody Hoburg watches as a new roll-out solar array deploys after he and fellow NASA spacewalker Stephen Bowen (out of frame) successfully installed it on the space station.

Astronauts install a fifth new solar array at the International Space Station

Two astronauts performed a spacewalk yesterday, heading outside the International Space Station (ISS) to install a new solar array.
Georgina Torbet
Artist's impression of Cheops, ESA's Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, in orbit above Earth.

CHEOPS planet-hunter detects four rarely seen mini-Neptunes

Though they are thought to be the most common planet type in our galaxy, mini-Neptunes are rarely spotted because they are hard to detect.
Georgina Torbet
This image captures the streak of an Earth-orbiting artificial satellite crossing Hubble's field of view during an observation of "The Mice" interacting galaxies (NGC 4676). A typical satellite trail is very thin and will affect less than 0.5% of a single Hubble exposure. Though in this case the satellite overlaps a portion of the target galaxy, the observation quality is not affected. That's because multiple exposures are taken of the same target. And the satellite trail is not in other frames. Developers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, have software that identifies the bad pixels from the satellite photobombing, the extent to which they affect the image, and then flags them. When flagged, scientists can recover the full field of view. Even as the number of satellites increases over the decade, these tools for cleaning the images will still be applicable.

Hubble scientists create tool for erasing satellite trails from images

Astronomers worry about how satellites could impact scientific research. Now, researchers have created a tool to deal with satellite streaks in Hubble images.
Georgina Torbet
Previous
1...3456789
Next
All Topics