diff --git "a/raw_rss_feeds/https___www_space_com_feeds_all.xml" "b/raw_rss_feeds/https___www_space_com_feeds_all.xml" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/raw_rss_feeds/https___www_space_com_feeds_all.xml" @@ -0,0 +1,915 @@ + + + + + <![CDATA[ Latest from Space.com ]]> + https://www.space.com + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 21:00:00 +0000 + en + + <![CDATA[ Interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is still full of surprises — an unexpected brightening has scientists baffled ]]> + The interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is continuing to surprise scientists, this time by brightening at an unexpectedly rapid pace as it made its closest approach to the sun. Experts studying the object don't yet know why that happened.

3I/ATLAS is only the third object known to have entered our solar system from another planetary system — after the cigar-shaped space-rock 'Oumuamua, discovered passing through the solar system in Oct. 2017, and the first interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, spotted in our stellar backyard in August 2019. The brief presence of these bodies in the solar system offers a unique glimpse into the chemical makeup around other stars.

Scientists had expected 3I/ATLAS to brighten as it made its closest approach to the sun, or reached perihelion, on Wednesday (Oct. 29). After all, this is a phenomenon common to comets originating from the shell of icy bodies at the edge of the solar system called the Oort Cloud. It happens because radiation from the sun causes solid ice to transform straight into gas, a process called sublimation. This gas then erupts from the shell of the comet, casting off solid dust and growing the halo around a comet, the coma, and its characteristic cometary tail. The dust reflects light, thus boosting the brightness of the comet. 3I/ATLAS, however, brightened way faster than anticipated.

"The reason for 3I’s rapid brightening, which far exceeds the brightening rate of most Oort cloud comets at similar r [radial distance], remains unclear," the scientists behind the research, Qicheng Zhang of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Karl Battams, an astrophysicist at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington DC, write in a paper discussing the observation published on the research repository site arXiv.

The rapid brightening of 3I/ATLAS was observed by STEREO-A and STEREO-B, the twin spacecraft that make up Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), by the sun observing Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the weather satellite GOES-19. The space-based observations were necessary because ground-based instruments won't be able to observe the interstellar comet again until it passes out from the other side of the sun into its "postperihelion" phase, escaping the glare of starlight in mid- to late-November 2025.

The team proposes a few different mechanisms that could account for the unexpectedly rapid brightening of this comet from beyond the solar system. It could be the result of the speed at which 3I/ATLAS is approaching the sun; alternatively, it could tell scientists something about the comet itself. That is exciting because if the internal composition of 3I/ATLAS is different from that of the nuclei of Oort cloud comets, it could mean that the planetary system from which it originates also has a different chemical makeup.

"Oddities in nucleus properties like composition, shape, or structure — which might have been acquired from its host system or over its long interstellar journey — may likewise contribute [to the rapid brightening]," Zhan and Battams continued. "Without an established physical explanation, the outlook for 3I's postperihelion behavior remains uncertain, and a plateau in brightness — or even a brief continuation of its preperihelion brightening — appears as plausible as rapid fading past perihelion."

The authors also suggest that sublimation could be occurring differently than expected for 3I/ATLAS because the interstellar comet was still dominated by the sublimation of carbon dioxide at an unusually close distance from the sun, around three times the distance between Earth and our star. This may have resulted in cooling that had until now suppressed the sublimation of water ice to steam.

Clearly, 3I/ATLAS continues to baffle and intrigue scientists in equal measure, and it is a fairly certain bet that once it escapes the glare of the sun, we will discover even more curiosities surrounding this interstellar intruder.

"Continued observations may help provide a more definitive explanation for the comet's behavior," the duo of scientists concluded.

A paper about these results can be viewed on the pre-print repository arxiv.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/comets/interstellar-invader-comet-3i-atlas-is-still-full-of-surprises-an-unexpected-brightening-has-scientists-baffled + + + + rq3wtqtb2bM565py7ntZRi + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 21:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Satellite images show 'mesovortices' forming around the eye of deadly Hurricane Melissa ]]> + Hurricane Melissa's deadly spin is visible from space.

Satellite footage caught the hurricane in rotation on Tuesday (Oct. 28) as it wreaked destruction across the Caribbean. Imagery from the GOES-19 satellite shows "mesovortices" surrounding the hole, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Metavortices refer to "small-scale rotational features" around the eye of the storm; they form in circumstances of "extreme differences in wind speed and direction," Weather.com states.

Emergency authorities told the Associated Press that Melissa is one of the most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricanes ever recorded. Human-driven climate change has caused an overall intensification of extreme weather, including hurricanes.

Melissa hit Jamaica on Oct. 28 as a Category 5 storm (the strongest type of storm) with winds of 185 miles per hour (295 kilometers per hour).

Desmond McKenzie, deputy chair of Jamaica's disaster risk management council, declined to share how many people have died, although authorities separately told AP at least four deaths occurred in southwest Jamaica. Roughly 72% of the island has no power and 65% of mobile phone sites are down.

In Haiti, AP added, at least 25 people were killed and 18 others missing following flooding. Cuba had no reported deaths after Melissa hit as a Category 3 on Wednesday (Oct. 29), but "many communities were still without electricity, Internet and telephone service because of downed transformers and power lines," AP stated.

As of Thursday (Oct. 30) morning, Melissa was classified as a Category 2 storm with top sustained winds nearing 105 mph (169 kph) and is situated roughly 515 miles (830 kilometers) southwest of Bermuda, which remains under hurricane warning at the time of AP's report.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/satellite-images-show-mesovortices-forming-around-the-eye-of-deadly-hurricane-melissa + + + + 45PNvD8tTugsZpGmSaQcJF + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 20:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Astronomers capture vast cosmic bat spreading its wings in time for Halloween (photo) ]]> +

The outline of a nebula bat formed from glowing interstellar clouds (Image credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2)

Astronomers have captured the glowing "wings" of a vast nebula shaped like a bat, unfurling in deep space about 10,000 light-years from Earth in the constellations Circinus and Norma, just in time for Halloween!

The nebula's haunting outline t is carved from swirling clouds of gas and dust inside a vast stellar nursery. These clouds glow as hydrogen atoms within them are energized by intense radiation pouring from the energetic population of young stars embedded within.

Dark filaments of interstellar dust thread through the nebula scene, can be seen blocking the light of the nebula clouds beyond. These twisting giants are rich with star-forming material from which a new generation of stellar behemoths will be born. Our brain's natural propensity for creating order out of chaos causes some to interpret the scene as a colossal bat hunting the scrap of shining nebula visible at the top of the image.

The striking deep space collage — spanning the equivalent of four full moons in the night sky — was captured using the 268-megapixel Omegacam instrument mounted on the 2.6-meter VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal site in Chile's Atacama Desert.

A widefield view of the nebula bat hunting the southern skies. (Image credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2)
Celestron NexStar 8SE

Celestron NexStar 8SE

(Image credit: Amazon)

We reckon the Celestron NexStar 8SE is the best motorized telescope out there as it's great for astrophotography, deep-space observing and it offers stunning detailed imagery. It is a little pricey but for what you get, it's good value. For a more detailed look, you can check out our Celestron NexStar 8SE review.

Astronomers used a range of specialized filters to capture the ancient nebula's light during a survey of the Milky Way's galactic plane, which was then combined with infrared observations to highlight the region's hidden structure.

If you're hoping to capture your own views of the night sky, check out our guides to the best cameras and lenses available in 2025. Wanting to upgrade your gear? Our roundups of the best telescopes and binoculars for stargazing can help point you in the right direction.

The ESO released the new photo of the bat nebula on Oct. 31.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your own deep space astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

]]> + https://www.space.com/stargazing/astrophotography/astronomers-capture-vast-cosmic-bat-spreading-its-wings-for-halloween-photo-oct-31-2025 + + + + hMBUwnfJfuVCSps6JkWroP + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 19:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Best sci-fi horror books: Top sci-fi horror reads to haunt your Halloween ]]> + Science fiction has a bit of something for everyone, from cutting-edge futuristic technology to doomed romances and strange aliens. The genre also crosses over very nicely into horror, because once humans start poking the unknown, it's only a matter of time before the unknown pokes back.

This Halloween, step into stories where science meets terror, where contagions kill, landscapes devour explorers, and technology crushes the human soul. All of these books fit nicely into the sci-fi horror mold, and while some of them never make it into the depths of space, they're all well worth your time.

Our list of sci-fi horror novels spans from 20th-century classics to modern masterpieces, all testing how far humanity goes before reason falters and horror takes over. Whether you're looking for a quick read or a deep dive, this roundup has a little something for everyone. Let's dig into our spooky roundup of the best sci-fi horror books.

Author: Michael Crichton
Publication date: January 24, 2017
Publisher: Vintage

Relying on his expertise from Harvard Medical School, Crichton's thriller 'The Andromeda Strain' remains a masterclass in scientific dread.

When a U.S. satellite returns to Earth carrying a lethal microorganism from space, a small team of scientists must isolate and neutralize it before it wipes out humanity. Crichton's fast-paced and suspenseful writing is sure to keep any reader on the edge of their seat. View Deal

Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Publication date:  July 30, 2024
Publisher: Picador

Jeff VanderMeer is known for his strange and scary environmental creations, and 'Annihilation' is no exception.

A scientific expedition enters the uncharted 'Area X,' where the natural world has become sentient...and deadly. What follows is an unraveling of memory, identity, and biology itself. This book even has a movie adaptation, so if the monsters you imagine aren't scary enough, you can watch them on your TV. View Deal

Author: Caitlin Starling
Publication date: April 2, 2019
Publisher: Harper Voyager

If you're looking for more science fiction and less dystopian society, 'The Luminous Dead' is a perfect choice.

Deep beneath an alien planet, a solitary caver relies on a disembodied voice to survive. But is her handler helping her...or manipulating her? Readers have mentioned that this book has given them claustrophobia, among other nightmares. View Deal

Author: M.R. Carey
Publication date: April 28, 2015
Publisher: Orbit

Fungal infections are all the rage (thanks 'The Last of Us'), and in this world where humans are turned to flesh-eating husks, one young girl holds the key to survival, and possibly the extinction of the human race.

"The Girl with All the Gifts" combines visceral zombie horror (perfect for Halloween) with philosophical questions. View Deal

Author: George Orwell
Publication date: January 1, 1961
Publisher: Signet Classic

Some of the best horror doesn't rely on monsters or aliens, but our own fear of losing control. In Orwell's '1984', the terror comes from the systematic dismantling of truth, memory, and self.

Big Brother's omniscient gaze and the Party's power to rewrite reality make this dystopian classic as terrifying as any haunted spaceship, especially when looking at the parallels of society today. View Deal

Bonus Entry!

Author: Ray Bradbury
Publication date: October 24, 2017
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

While Bradbury's spookiest novel, 'Something Wicked This Way Comes,' isn't science fiction per se, it brings classic Halloween vibes that are perfect for anyone wanting to get into the spooky spirit.

When a sinister carnival drifts into a small Midwestern town, two boys find themselves pitted against temptation and mortality. It's less science fiction and more dark fantasy, but its dread of human frailty and loss of control earns it a place here. View Deal

]]> + https://www.space.com/entertainment/space-books/best-sci-fi-horror-books + + + + UYVZMS4uwwAsSpm2g5Doe3 + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 17:30:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Trick or treat: Here's where to find comets Lemmon, SWAN and 3I/ATLAS in the Halloween sky ]]> + Halloween is upon us and the 2025 spooky season is abuzz with talk of three cosmic visitors — Comet Lemmon, Comet SWAN and the interstellar traveler 3I ATLAS — said to be haunting the night sky. But when it comes to stargazing, one of these ghostly wanderers is more trick than treat!

Comets are composed of primordial matter left over from the creation of our solar system — and others — which become active as they approach the sun, as the increase in heat radiation causes icy materials to transform into a gaseous shell around the nucleus. That shell is then blown away by the solar wind — the relentless stream of charged particles issuing forth from our star — creating a tail that reflects sunlight..

Read on to discover how to find Comet Lemmon, SWAN and the interstellar visitor 3I ATLAS in the Halloween night sky. If you're mew to stargazing check out our guide to the best smartphone astronomy apps to help you find your way amongst the sea of stars.

A Cometary trick, or a stargazing treat?

Comet Lemmon — A Halloween treat

Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon has brightened dramatically over the past month. It currently boasts a magnitude — or apparent brightness — of around +4.2, according to the Comet Observation Database, which would render it visible as a hazy patch of light from a dark sky location.

Comet Lemmon captured during a 40-minute exposure by Chris Schur on Oct. 24. (Image credit: Chris Schur)

Whilst it's possible to view Comet Lemmon with the naked eye, a pair of 10X50 binoculars or even a modest backyard telescope will help reveal the sunlight reflecting from the icy wanderer's central coma and magnificent, elongated tail.

Comet Lemmon will be positioned low on the western horizon, embedded among the stars of the constellation Ophiuchus in the hours following sunset on Oct. 31. After locating the constellation, use your smartphone astronomy app to pinpoint the stars Kappa Ophiuchi and Epsilon Ophiuchi. Comet Lemmon will shine roughly halfway between these two stellar giants, near the magnitude +3.8 star Marfik.

A finder chart for Comet Lemmon in the Oct. 31 Halloween evening sky. (Image credit: Made by Anthony Wood in Canva)

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS — a skywatching trick

Comet 3I/ATLAS has been haunting the news cycle ever since its discovery in July 2025, when it was swiftly confirmed to be the third interstellar visitor ever to visit our solar system after being created in the orbit of a distant star. Its surprise appearance garnered significant attention from the public, conspiracy theorists and the scientific community alike, the latter of which is actively observing the object with a host of ground-based observatories and spacecraft to gather as much data as possible before it races out of view.

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was spotted by the Gemini South Observatory (Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the ScientistImage Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab))

3I/ATLAS made its closest approach to the sun — an event known as perihelion — on Oct. 30 and has a current approximate magnitude of just +11, placing it well below the light detection threshold of the unaided human eye. Sadly, the interstellar visitor is still very close to the sun and so won't make for a good telescopic target on Oct. 31.

A finder chart for interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS for the predawn hours of Nov. 1. (Image credit: Created by Anthony Wood in Canva)

On Halloween night, 3I/ATLAS will be positioned close to the rocky planet Venus in the constellation Virgo, which will rise highest in the hour preceding dawn on Nov. 1, bathed in the glow of the rising sun. The cosmic interloper is expected to emerge from behind the glare of our parent star by early December, according to NASA, though its apparent brightness will likely have dipped significantly by then, as it passes ever further from the sun's radiation, on an escape trajectory from our solar system.

Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) — A telescopic challenge

Comet SWAN was discovered on Sept. 10 by Ukrainian amateur astronomer Vladimir Bezguly and quickly became a popular target for the astrophotography community, who succeeded in capturing incredible detail in the icy wanderer's majestic tail.

Comet SWAN captured on the night of Oct. 19. (Image credit: Chris Schur)

SWAN's brightness is currently on the decline following its close brush with Earth on Oct. 21. Its estimated magnitude of 7.2 renders it too dim to be spotted with the naked eye, though a pair of 10X50 binoculars or a small backyard telescope will help reveal the hazy reflected light centered around its icy nucleus shining against the blackness of space. However, the light of the 76%-lit moon will present an added challenge to spotting the comet on the night of Oct. 31

Look to the southern horizon in the hours following sunset on Halloween to find the moon glowing among the stars of the constellation Aquarius. Next, locate the bright magnitude 3 stars Sadalmelik and Sadalsuud, which form the shoulders of the "water bearer" depicted in the stellar formation. Comet SWAN can be found in the patch of sky two-thirds of the way from Sadalsuud to Sadalmelik.

A finder chart for Comet SWAN in the Oct. 31 Halloween evening sky. (Image credit: Made by Anthony Wood in Canva, NASA Scientific Visualization Studio)

Comet SWAN is now rushing headlong away from the sun on a highly eccentric orbit that takes it well beyond the orbit of icy Neptune, and it isn't expected to return for another 1,400 years after it disappears from Earth's skies, so catch it while you can!

Stargazers interested in creating a lasting view of the transient visitors to Earth's sky should check out our guide to observing and photographing comets, along with our roundups of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography in 2025.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your cometary astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, name and the location of your shoot to spacephotos@space.com.

]]> + https://www.space.com/stargazing/find-comet-lemmon-swan-interstellar-object-3iatlas-in-the-halloween-sky-oct-31-2025 + + + + rAA7LgC3kZjTF4keTnr289 + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:46:57 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ 'Ghost particles' can zoom through you without a trace. Scientists are getting to the bottom of this cosmic mystery ]]> + Imagine a particle so ghostly that over 100 trillion of them could pass through you every single second without you noticing anything at all. Spooky, right? Well, believe it or not, these particles, called "neutrinos," not only exist, but they are so abundant that they are the second most common particle in the universe (after photons, the particles that make up light).

So, you might not get visited by a phantom this Halloween, but you'll definitely encounter plenty of cosmic ghost neutrinos, yet you won't notice a single thing. In fact, you're encountering them right now.

The ethereal nature of neutrinos, understandably nicknamed "ghost particles," means that despite how common they are, and the fact we are being constantly pelted with trillions of them, scientists haven't been able to get a good handle on many of their characteristics. For instance, their masses are shrouded in mystery. That is troubling because the sheer abundance of neutrinos in the observable universe — , about 10 to the power 87 (or 10 followed by 86 zeroes) — means they must have played a key role in the development of the cosmos even though they rarely interact with other particles of matter.

For example, scientists theorize that neutrinos were vitally important in the process that led to matter vastly outweighing antimatter in the universe. Antimatter and matter should have been created in equal amounts by the Big Bang — shouldn't they be perfectly symmetrical because they're made of the same particle components, just with opposite charges? — it is perplexing how one came to rule over the other. And, because when matter and antimatter counterparts meet, they annihilate each other; if it weren't for the process that gave matter the upper hand, the universe may have been devoid of matter altogether.

Like the Scooby-Doo-gang approaching another haunted mansion or abandoned funfair, scientists are determined to get to the bottom of this cosmic ghost story. As you might imagine, even though neutrinos are created by a wealth of cosmic events like stars and supernovas and even nuclear reactors here on Earth, the fact that they are virtually massless, chargeless and traverse the cosmos at near the speed of light means detecting them is much harder than nabbing Mr. Carswell the corrupt bank manager or dastardly museum curator Mr. Wickles.

However, just like Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby always come together to remove another rubber fright mask and expose a spooky crook, selected scientists have gathered via 2025's Science Policy & Advocacy for Research Competition (SPARC) to solve the mystery of these cosmic phantoms. Lasting 10 weeks, the SPARC seminar series aims to equip scientists with essential skills in science policy and communication, helping them translate complex research into clear messages for nontechnical audiences.

And neutrinos really fit the bill.

"I've always been fascinated by how we extract information from reality — even when we can’t fully define what reality is," Karim Hassinin, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Houston and SPARC participant, said in a statement. "Theory, at its core, is a kind of storytelling, and every model is just one way of seeing the world. Through this program, I hope to learn how to translate those complex layers of scientific reasoning into stories that anyone can understand — so people can see not just the data, but the wonder behind discovery."

Hassinin is behind a new way to think about neutrinos, developed as a result of teaching an undergraduate physics class and seeing that his students had different perspectives on these cosmic phantoms. He is bringing that new approach to SPARC and, through it, to a wider general audience.

"The technical details will always be there, but it’s essential to show people the purpose of science and how it shapes our world," Hassinin said. "Our daily lives depend on technology, and technology depends on science. Through SPARC, I’ve gained a new perspective on how vital it is to bridge the gap between complex research and public understanding — because science communication truly matters everywhere."

In terms of his research, Hassinin uses computer simulations to investigate how neutrinos work their ghostly magic as they pass through different types of materials.

"We tell the generator how many neutrinos we want to use, what type of neutrino, and what material we want the neutrino to interact with," Hassinin explained. "Without neutrino interactions, we don't know anything about neutrinos. We have to understand something deeply before we can understand how to apply it."

Meghna Bhattacharya, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), is another scientist hot on the trail of neutrinos, focusing on algorithms that could identify neutrinos ejected into the universe when massive stars reach the end of their lives and go supernova.

Bhattacharya's work is set to play a key role in helping to develop the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), two neutrino detectors placed in an intense beam of trillions of neutrinos currently under development near Fermilab, Illinois, and a far detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), South Dakota.

"These tools are designed to be integrated into DUNE, contributing to major questions about the universe’s evolution while also advancing computational techniques in physics," Bhattacharya said. "The tools being developed to answer fundamental science questions often lead to broader real-world applications. For example, technologies like proton beams, originally used in particle physics, are now being used for cancer treatment."

For Bhattacharya, the appeal of SPARC is the opportunity to share the story of her research with a wider audience and to make this audience aware of its wider impact on society.

"Looking forward, I hope to grow as a communicator and advocate for science more effectively, not only to learn how to distill complex research into accessible narratives but also to pass down the excitement of my research," she concluded.

]]> + https://www.space.com/science/particle-physics/ghost-particles-can-zoom-through-you-without-a-trace-scientists-are-getting-to-the-bottom-of-this-cosmic-mystery + + + + SjuGy4owsWRuTRZs7yrYAD + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:03:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ China launches Shenzhou 21 astronauts to Tiangong space station for a 6-month stay (video) ]]> +

China's latest crewed mission made it to the Tiangong space station after a Friday (Oct. 31) launch from the Gobi Desert.

A Long March 2F rocket topped with the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China Friday at 11:44 a.m. EDT (1544 GMT, or 11:44 p.m. Beijing time).

The spacecraft docked with the front port of the Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station on schedule around 3.5 hours after liftoff, adopting a fast automated rendezvous and docking mode that shaves around three hours off the time for the Shenzhou 20 mission.

a white rocket launches into a dark night sky

A Long March 2F rocket launches China's Shenzhou 21 astronaut mission toward the Tiangong space station on Oct. 31, 2025. (Image credit: CCTV)

Shenzhou 21 is carrying commander Zhang Lu, 48, a veteran of the 2022 Shenzhou 15 mission, and two rookie astronauts, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang, who were chosen from China's third batch of astronauts, selected in 2020.

"After two years, being able to once again represent my country and carry out the Shenzhou 21 mission fills me with excitement and anticipation;” Zhang Lu told reporters at a press conference at Jiuquan on Thursday (Oct. 30).

a white rocket launches into a dark night sky

Another look at the Shenzhou 21 launch. (Image credit: CCTV)

At 32 years old, Wu is the youngest member of China's astronaut corps, and was an engineer at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). Zhang, 39, is a payload specialist and a researcher at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Zhang Lu and his crewmates were greeted aboard the three-module Tiangong space station by Chen Dong, commander of the Shenzhou 20 mission, and his two crewmates, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie.

Chen Dong recently became the first Chinese astronaut to accumulate 400 days in orbit, but he and his crew will soon depart Tiangong; they're scheduled to touch down back on Earth on Nov. 3. Shenzhou 20 launched on April 24.

Shenzhou 21 is also carrying six types of experimental samples and four black mice for experiments related to reproduction in low Earth orbit. The robotic Tianzhou 10 cargo spacecraft is also scheduled to arrive at Tiangong during the six-month-long Shenzhou 21 mission.

The Shenzhou spacecraft is similar to, but also slightly larger than, Russia's Soyuz crew spacecraft. China is also developing the Mengzhou crew spacecraft, which will not only be partially reusable and serve Tiangong but also be capable of sending astronauts to the moon.

China has now launched 16 crewed missions. Shenzhou 21 is the 10th astronaut flight to Tiangong and the seventh since the completion of the three-module orbital outpost in late 2022.

The country aims to keep Tiangong, which is about 20% as massive as the International Space Station, permanently inhabited for at least a decade. China is also planning to expand the space station with new modules and considering opening the outpost to commercial activities.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 7:05 p.m. ET on Oct. 31 with news of Shenzhou 21's successful docking with the Tiangong space station.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/china-launches-shenzhou-21-astronauts-to-tiangong-space-station-for-a-6-month-stay-video + + + + bDjsFs8rywmftezY4TPPJP + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 15:59:39 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Become the scary alien this Halloween with these 5 reverse space horror games ]]> + Over the years, we’ve fought off dozens of alien invasions and even survived against cosmic horrors in space horror games. Now it's time to flip the script and actually play as the monsters; we're the ones who knock this year as we dive into the best games that let us play as the scary aliens, instead of running from them.

You won't find the traditional horror experience here, but there's definitely something cathartic about this role reversal. It makes sense after all, we're usually cheering for the monster in most horror movies, to some extent. Alien: Earth wouldn't have been much fun if no one got chomped, would it?

In the mood for sci-fi horror that you can just sit down and enjoy? Now’s the perfect time to grab a blanket and go through the best space horror movies. Or perhaps you'd prefer to play through a more traditional horror experience? We've built a spooktacular list of the best space horror games, too.

5. Evolve

  • Release date: February 10, 2015
  • Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
  • Developer: Turtle Rock Studios

We're pushing our luck right from the off here, saying you can play as the monster in a game that has been delisted. But you can still play Evolve if you already have the game downloaded (there are other ways to grab the necessary files if you know where to look).

Enter Evolve, 2015’s ill-fated sci-fi 4v1 online game from the makers of Left 4 Dead. In Evolve, one player-controlled monster had to evade and outsmart a group of hunters while also trying to ‘evolve’ and eventually destroy the humans. Each hunter and monster was fun to use and uniquely designed, and it’s a shame its premium price tag and following bad reputation meant it eventually went the way of the dodo.

On PC, however, Evolve got a second chance via Stage 2: a deep overhaul and a fresh free-to-play model. Sadly, it failed to attract enough players to remain active, and the game was later delisted from Steam. As we said, though, you can still play Evolve through shenanigans. Look around and you’ll find the answers you seek. And you should, because despite all its failings, if you want a new niche asymmetrical obsession, Evolve’s alien monsters are among the best we’ve ever come across.

4. Predator: Hunting Grounds

  • Release date: April 24, 2020
  • Platforms: PC, PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S
  • Developer: IllFonic

If it bleeds, you can kill it, and you better believe Predator is here to make a bunch of squishy human soldiers bleed. At its core, Predator: Hunting Grounds recreates the basic Predator movie structure – a team of badasses facing against the galaxy’s greatest hunter – from both points of view. For the more traditional co-op FPS experience, choose to be part of a human fireteam, but the game shines brighter when you become the Predator.

It's not a perfect game by any means — the AI for the offline mode sucks, and even with human players, it can occasionally be more frustrating than fun — but with the right group of players, it’s a fun asymmetrical shooter that convincingly taps into what makes the franchise so enduring. There are plenty of weapons, perks, tools, and cosmetics to unlock, so if you really fall in love with the loop, it’ll keep you busy for tens (if not hundreds) of hours.

3. Natural Selection 2

  • Release date: October 31, 2012
  • Platforms: PC
  • Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Natural Selection was another asymmetrical first-person shooter developed around the time the AvP games took off. While the original was an ambitious modification of Half-Life, by 2012, it had become a standalone game with the release of Natural Selection 2 on PC. By mixing FPS and real-time strategy elements, this multiplayer-only clash of humans (Frontiersmen) and aliens (Kharaa) also nurtured a dedicated community that continues to live on.

Through its real-time strategy DNA, Natural Selection 2 expands beyond the limitations of typical competitive multiplayer modes in first-person shooters: Both teams seek to destroy the other’s enemy base, but aside from dominating their enemies, they can also build small fortifications and generators.

In the case of the Kharaa, they’re able to expand their goopy infestation through similar mechanics, with the main difference being they don’t have access to firepower and instead bite and claw their way through the humans. Much like the AvP games when played online, it’s a near-perfect mix of action and genuine horror.

2. Carrion

  • Release date: July 23, 2020
  • Platforms: PC, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android, PS4/5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
  • Developer: Phobia Game Studio

Now we're talking. No humanoid aliens or recognisable faces here. Just a big ferocious ball of meat, claws, and teeth. At its heart, Carrion is a puzzle game where the puzzles you're solving are usually "how do I get to these delicious humans to devour them". It has a wonderful pixel art style and doesn't outstay its welcome, so it's an easy recommendation for horror fans who appreciate a short, curated experience.

Carrion is also especially surprising in how it approaches a dialogue-free narrative that makes you root for the amorphous monster hellbent on consuming the human species by the time the credits roll. As a 2D adventure, the storytelling may not reach its full potential, but as the rare sort of power fantasy that also forces players to think carefully about their actions, it’s one of the most unique and confident indie games released in recent years.

1. Aliens vs. Predator (series)

  • Release date: May 13, 1999 / October 22, 2001 / February 16, 2010
  • Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
  • Developer: Rebellion, Monolith Productions

Our first-place entry is a no-brainer. The Alien and Predator franchises have both had some excellent video games, but it was the crossover that let us slip into the role of Xenomorphs and Yautja hunters for the first time. Both species feature inventive and fun mechanics that feel nothing like playing as a boring old Colonial Marine, as you crawl through the vents or hide in the treetops, stalking your prey.

The greatest horror of the Alien vs. Predator series might be what it did to our poor filing systems, though. Across consoles, mobile, PC, and arcades, there have been seven different games called Alien vs. Predator. It's the Rebellion and Monolith-developed ones we're here for, though; specifically the 1999 original, the 2001 sequel, and the 2010 reboot. Each game has its own flavour and they're all worth your time, with each offering separate campaigns for the Colonial Marine (boooooo), the Alien, and the Predator.

Though Monolith Productions only developed Aliens vs. Predator 2 (2001), most fans consider it to be the series’ very best due to its amazing atmosphere, well-defined movement options, hefty roster of weapons/abilities, and intricate single-player campaigns. The multiplayer was also so good that there’s still a big community of diehards keeping it alive to this day.

]]> + https://www.space.com/entertainment/space-games/become-the-scary-alien-with-these-reverse-space-horror-games + + + + mD4MCp9Vxcw42rSKZSTNFP + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 15:30:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Explore the Milky Way like never before in this stunning new color map (image) ]]> + Astronomers have unveiled the largest low-frequency radio color image of the Milky Way ever created, offering a sprawling cosmic panorama that reveals supernova remnants, stellar nurseries, pulsars and the intricate glow of gas and dust weaving through our galaxy’s heart.

Built from data collected by the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in Western Australia, the image combines observations from two massive surveys — known as GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA (GLEAM) and GLEAM-X (GLEAM eXtended) — to produce a portrait that is twice as sharp, 10 times more sensitive and twice as wide as its predecessor released in 2019, according to a statement from the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).

"This vibrant image delivers an unparalleled perspective of our galaxy at low radio frequencies," Silvia Mantovanini, a PhD student from ICRAR’s Curtin University team and lead author of the study, said in the statement. "It provides valuable insights into the evolution of stars, including their formation in various regions of the galaxy, how they interact with other celestial objects and ultimately their demise."

A red-brown field stretches to a horizon of low trees beneath a blue cloudy sky. White, spider like contraptions stand in groups on grey mats around the field.

Part of the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia. (Image credit: ICRAR/UWA)

Over 18 months, the team used about one million computing hours at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Australia to process and merge data from the two surveys into the final image, cataloging nearly 100,000 radio sources.

The map — a full, zoomable version of which you can find here — captures a wide range of radio wavelengths, or "colors" of radio light across the Southern Galactic Plane, offering an unprecedented look at the Milky Way's hidden structure. By observing the galaxy in low-frequency radio light, astronomers can peer through the dense clouds of dust and gas that block visible wavelengths, exposing supernova remnants — the immense, expanding shells of gas and radiation that mark the explosive death of a star — and regions of ionized gas where new ones are being born.

"You can clearly identify remnants of exploded stars, represented by large red circles," Mantovanini said in the statement. "The smaller blue regions indicate stellar nurseries where new stars are actively forming."

This expansive view of the Milky Way may also shed new light on pulsars — rapidly spinning neutron stars whose powerful radio pulses and unpredictable behavior remain a mystery, the researchers said.

The newly released image is fully interactive. Viewers can pan across the bright horizontal band charting the star-packed Southern Galactic Plane and zoom in on the Milky Way’s turbulent stellar activity, glowing nebulae, compact pulsars and even distant background galaxies beyond our own.

"This low-frequency image allows us to unveil large astrophysical structures in our galaxy that are difficult to image at higher frequencies," Natasha Hurley-Walker, associate professor at Curtin University and co-author of the study, said in the statement. "No low-frequency radio image of the entire Southern Galactic Plane has been published before, making this an exciting milestone in astronomy."

This map sets the stage for the Square Kilometre Array Observatory’s SKA‑Low telescope — the world’s largest low-frequency radio array — which, after it's completed within the next decade, will probe the Milky Way and beyond with unprecedented sensitivity and detail.

Their findings were published Oct. 28 in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/explore-the-milky-way-like-never-before-in-this-stunning-new-color-map-image + + + + BGE98WoijVDbQUezFenLtb + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 14:01:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Halloween colors come to Kitt Peak Observatory | Space photo of the day for Oct. 31, 2025 ]]> + Behold the golden-orange horizon over Kitt Peak National Observatory, a fiery twilight moment where day bows out and the stars prepare their grand entrance. Captured by NOIRLab, this sunset reveals the pristine conditions that make Kitt Peak such a favorable astronomical site.

What is it?

Founded in 1964, the Kitt Peak site was chosen by the National Science Foundation to house a national observatory capable of delivering clear, dark-skied views of the cosmos. There, more than two dozen optical and radio telescopes now share the peak with ancient desert winds and perhaps, in the spirit of Halloween, a few ghost stories yet untold.

Over the decades, the observatories on Kitt Peak have helped map dark matter, chart distant galaxies and train generations of astronomers.

Where is it?

Kitt Peak is in the Baboquivari Mountains of southern Arizona, 56 miles (90 kilometers) southwest of Tucson on land owned by the Tohono O'odham Nation. The telescope complex sits at an elevation of about 7,000 feet (2,100 meters).

The sunset seen at Kitt Peak National Observatory. (Image credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/AURA/NSF)

Why is it amazing?

The vivid orange sky at Kitt Peak National Observatory is more than just a Halloween color; it shows the dry air and lack of light pollution at the site, two things needed for pristine astronomy. As even the tiniest speck of dust, or nearby city lights can break equipment or make noise in readings, remote areas like Kitt Peak offer sanctuary to astronomers peering deep into space.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about ground-based telescopes and observatories.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/halloween-colors-come-to-kitt-peak-observatory-space-photo-of-the-day-for-oct-31-2025 + + + + HPLWprXvzXrBe5Lx8FvmUG + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:53:03 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Halloween stargazing 2025: The moon and Saturn light the night sky for trick-or-treaters ]]> + Based on the latest national forecast, skies will be mainly clear on Halloween night across about three-quarters of the contiguous (48) United States, as costumed kids arrive at the door looking for candy or some other Halloween treat. Temperatures will be mostly in the chilly 40's across the northern tier states, 50's for the central states and balmy 60's across the south. Unfortunately, exceptions for fair skies appear to be across New England, New York State, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, parts of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes and western Washington State and Oregon, where mainly cloudy conditions — and even some rain or spotty showers may fall, accompanied by a gusty breeze.

The rest of the country, however, will be in fine shape with mid-autumn stars and constellations plus a waxing gibbous moon and a bright planet shining prominently in the early evening sky. If you plan to accompany children around your neighborhood, you might want to enlighten them by pointing out some of those objects that will be visible in the sky.

Better yet, if you have a telescope, give your visitors a treat of a different kind: Give them a close-up view of some of those celestial sights, starting with the moon and that bright planet.

At the top of the viewing list: The moon

On Halloween evening, as the shades of night are falling, you'll see Earth's nearest neighbor, our moon, hanging about one-third of the way up in the southeast sky. It will be in its waxing gibbous phase, 82% illuminated by the sun.

With a telescope at low power, you can point out to your young viewers the two most prominent of the myriads of craters that cover the lunar surface. Situated to the upper left of the center of the lunar disk, is the crater that has been dubbed "The Monarch of the Moon": Copernicus. Fifty-eight miles wide, 12,600 feet deep, surrounded by walls 14 miles thick.

The other lunar feature that truly "stands out," is evident over the lower limb of the moon, known as "The Metropolitan Crater": Tycho. It is among the brightest and youngest lunar impact craters, estimated to be 108 million years old, 53 miles wide and 15,400 feet deep. It is surrounded by a system of brilliant rays extending outward in all directions for many hundreds of miles. In several days, when the moon turns full, Tycho will give the moon the appearance of a peeled orange, with Tycho marking the point where the sections meet.

The Lord of the Rings

While the magnified views of the moon will certainly awe those who gaze at it through your eyepiece, take a moment and tell your young audience to make a clenched fist with their hands and then hold them out at arm's length. Now, tell them to go "two fists" to the left of the moon and they will see a bright star, shining with a yellow-white hue. Now, direct your telescope toward that "star" and when they gaze through the eyepiece, they will not be looking at a star at all, but a planet: Saturn.

This sixth planet out from the sun, just might be the most beautiful of all. Its rings are still readily evident, although currently they appear nearly edge-on with the south face tilted only about one-half degree to our line of sight. A telescope magnifying 30-power will bring them out; they appear as a bright line bisecting the ball of the planet. While this is far from their appearance compared to other years, the view should still look impressive to those who have never seen the ringed planet for themselves.

And watch out for fireballs!

Because they are active over Halloween, the Taurid meteor shower is sometimes called the "Halloween Fireballs." The bits of debris that make up the Taurids are a little larger than average, so they can result in brighter meteors and even fireballs, or exploding meteors (called bolides), that streak across the sky and leave incandescent trains in their wake.

While they are most active during the second week of November, a few forerunners can show up on Halloween night, darting from out of the east-northeast part of the sky. So, if you or your young visitors see something resembling a flare from a Roman candle sweeping majestically across the evening sky, it may very well be a Taurid meteor.

Related: How to photograph meteors and meteor showers

Helpful hints for young telescope viewers

In the September 2019 issue of The Astronomical League Magazine "Reflector," author Richard W. Schmude Jr., offered some tips for those who plan to do a public outreach for astronomy on Halloween:

"Firstly, children sometimes grab or touch the eyepiece, so use an inexpensive one. I gently warn children not to touch the telescope. In my area, parents have learned to tell their children not to touch the telescope. In some cases, a child will grab the eyepiece, causing the telescope to shift. For this reason, a Dobsonian telescope with a good finderscope is a good choice for Halloween outreach. A small stool or booster ladder may help very small viewers. Sometimes, parents hold their children up to look through the eyepiece. One may also place a monitor-connected video camera in the telescope and people can easily see the object on a screen." "Finally," adds Mr. Schmude, "I have my bag of goodies next to my telescope so that the children get two treats!"

Whatever your weather, Happy Halloween from all of us at Space.com!

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope and other publications.

]]> + https://www.space.com/stargazing/halloween-stargazing-2025-the-moon-and-saturn-light-the-night-sky-for-trick-or-treaters + + + + Bv4SfWBPZgPnZY2kdqCrKH + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Watch China launch 3 astronauts toward its Tiangong space station today ]]> +

China will launch three astronauts toward its Tiangong space station today (Oct. 31), and you can watch the action live.

A Long March 2F rocket is scheduled to launch the Shenzhou 21 mission from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert today at 11:44 a.m. EDT (1544 GMT; 11:44 p.m. Beijing Time).

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of CCTV, or directly via the network.

Shenzhou 21 will send three astronauts — Zhang Lu, Zhang Hongzhang and Wu Fei — to China's Tiangong space station in low Earth orbit.

Zhang Lu, 48, will command the mission. He's an off-Earth veteran, having also flown to Tiangong on the Shenzhou 15 mission in November 2022. Zhang Hongzhang, 39, and Wu, 32, will be making their spaceflight debuts.

Wu will make history today, becoming the youngest Chinese astronaut ever to reach space.

"As the youngest member of China's Astronaut Corps, I feel extremely fortunate to embark on my spaceflight mission," Wu said during a press conference at Jiuquan on Thursday (Oct. 30). "I owe my good fortune to the era we live in, which is seeing leapfrog development in China's aerospace industry."

The three astronauts will spend about six months aboard Tiangong — the usual stint for visitors to China's orbiting outpost.

They'll conduct a variety of scientific experiments during that stretch, including research with mice. That will be a first for China, which has never sent rodents to Tiangong before. The trio will also perform spacewalks and conduct public outreach activities, among other tasks.

Shenzhou 21 will be the 10th crewed flight to Tiangong, a three-module station that China finished building in October 2022. The mission will take over for Shenzhou 20, whose three astronauts are scheduled to come back to Earth on Nov. 3.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/human-spaceflight/china-shenzhou-21-astronaut-launch-webcast + + + + ztmhAc5AhimGN3m8JZX78S + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 11:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown — and may be breaking the law in the process, critics say ]]> + NASA's flagship center for space science is under attack from within, and some of the biggest losses appear to be happening behind the curtain of the government shutdown.

Throughout the summer of 2025, Space.com interviewed nearly a dozen current and former NASA workers and reviewed several internal agency communications in an investigation into allegations of unlawful activity by NASA leadership — allegations supported in a recent report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The conclusion: NASA has been prematurely and illegally implementing the President's 2026 budget request before Congress finalizes funding. Space agency officials vehemently dispute this claim.

The workforce at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, say this has put groundbreaking missions at risk, and is degrading roadblocks designed to safeguard human lives. Now, under the cloak of a closed U.S. government, nearly half the GSFC campus — the hub of NASA science — is marked for abandonment.

Shifting policies on diversity, science and education that began at the start of Trump's second term have hit Goddard especially hard. Priorities outlined in the White House's fiscal year 2026 (FY26) budget request in May, which has yet to be approved by Congress, were embraced as if it were already law by GSFC leadership, who have been preemptively reorganizing center staff and facilities since its release.

Goddard has a target on its back

Goddard has worked on some of NASA's most iconic space science missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, which continue to provide groundbreaking astronomical discoveries, and OSIRIS-REx, NASA's first asteroid sample-return mission. It's also where NASA is tackling ambitious new missions like the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to detect gravitational waves and measure ripples in space-time, and the Venus atmospheric probe DAVINCI.

GSFC hosts the largest single concentration of researchers in the NASA workforce, encompassing the agency's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and Engineering and Technology Directorate (ETD). Nearly 10,000 scientists and engineers work at Goddard in total, around 7,000 of whom are employed through NASA contractors. Center staff said they felt what they perceived as the new administration's vitriol for science early on.

"The atmosphere, from my perspective, at least, has been incredibly dark and depressing," Goddard astrophysicist Casey McGrath told Space.com, clarifying that he was not speaking on behalf of NASA or his agency contract employer. "I feel like the people I work with, myself included, have just been demoralized, exhausted, terrified, frustrated and angry, for months and months on end with no pause whatsoever."

The internal cultures of NASA centers across the country have evolved to align, at least in part, with the political leanings of their respective locales. With Goddard based in a Democratic state under a Republican administration, many there feel as though the space center is being singled out.

Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the space science and exploration advocacy nonprofit The Planetary Society, explained the divide during a Sept. 18 livestream about NASA's ongoing budget saga.

"There's been a really notable divergence and concentration within NASA, almost purely by a historical accident of its major internal directorates and responsibilities, where human spaceflight NASA centers have become very solidly Republican represented, at least at the state level, and NASA science centers have become very Democratic represented at the state level," Dreier said.

"My title is Research Physical Scientist ... even though I'm actually a climate scientist. Apparently the c-word just sets some people off."

— Claire

It's a perception shared by many Goddard employees. "Claire," who asked that her real name remain anonymous for fear of retribution, is a climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) — a branch of the Maryland campus that, until earlier this year, occupied a building on the Columbia University campus in New York City. While her primary focus is on climate science, Claire's official title is Research Physical Scientist. She referred to "climate" as the "c-word," and a term she and her colleagues constantly felt the need to talk around, rather than say outright.

"It does feel like there is an overlap between the political party in charge of your NASA center and how your NASA center is faring right now," Claire said. "Goddard is a science-based center with a lot of engineers, and a lot of their missions are canceled out (in the President's budget request). It's taking a huge hit to the civil service workforce. It does feel like Goddard is now being singled out."

In response to this article, NASA officials denied this claim, insisting the agency remains apolitical when considering things like resource allocations across different centers.

In January 2025, former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stepped down from the position ahead of Trump's inauguration, making way for the appointment of Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro as the agency's acting administrator. Petro was tasked with steering NASA's early transition period.

At Goddard, Segrid Harris was appointed ETD director in January and began enforcing rigid expectations that many staff saw as a cultural break from NASA norms.

After that, "the mood started changing almost immediately," Rose Ferreira, a former Goddard spaceflight analyst who was abruptly laid off during SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's early DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) sweep through the federal workforce, told Space.com. "The language that was being used in some of our internal emails was so aggressive. I've never seen anything like this from NASA," Ferreira said at the time.

"I think they know that what they're doing shouldn't be put in writing."

— Wendy

"[Harris] was brought in from the Air Force, and she is very strict on the chain of command, and basically is implementing what center management is telling her to do," said "Wendy," a Goddard spacecraft engineer who also spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, in an interview.

"When we had DOGE coming on site, we had some supervisors saying that if DOGE asks you for access to your laptop, you should give it to them. Basically, just hand over the keys," Wendy said. "That direction was implied to come from Engineering management, but not put in writing."

"It's really hard for us to get anything in writing from Engineering management, because I think they know that what they're doing shouldn't be put in writing," she added.

Another GSFC civil servant who asked to remain anonymous, "Peter," said that's by design. "Goddard management is very good at obfuscating its intentions directly, either through refusal to put any directives in writing or by working through chain of command, such that decisions don't necessarily reflect back on the individual who ultimately made them." Peter spoke with Space.com about ongoing building closures taking place at Goddard's Greenbelt campus, but months before, GISS was identified as the first in a chain of dominos to be knocked down.

GISS: The first to fall

By March, NASA was implementing workforce reductions and closing offices (such as the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Office of Technology, Policy & Strategy). Internal speculation about NASA's future painted a bleak picture for Goddard and its programs. Meanwhile, the vulnerability of NASA's climate science programs was being underscored nationally, as former agency leadership raised the alarm.

"The first person that was fired at NASA … was the Chief Scientist and Chief Climate Officer," Nelson said during an event in Washington, D.C. in April. "I think we need to be concerned about that."

That concern, it seems, was warranted. Later that month, GISS employees were ordered to vacate their Columbia University building (which many may recognize as the one with the corner diner in the show Seinfeld). Since then, they've been forced to work remotely — at a time when the government was doling out return-to-office mandates — preventing access to labs and crippling the center's mission of embedding NASA climate scientists within international academia. Though the closure came as a shock, the reasoning behind it seemed obvious to those on the ground.

A building in NYC

The NASA GISS building in New York City. (Image credit: NASA)

"We have one of the original models for climate simulation," Claire explained. GISS develops and maintains research on atmospheric composition and long-term climate change, and manages NASA's global surface temperature record — one of the world's key climate datasets.

"We have the ignoble distinction now of being the second NASA center ever closed down," Claire said. NASA's Electronics Research Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the first, shuttered in 1970 due to budget cuts during the restructuring of the Apollo program.

Jim Green, a former NASA Chief Scientist who retired in 2022 after 42 years at the agency, told Space.com that stewardship of that climate research requires a significant undertaking.

"The huge Earth science workforce at Goddard analyzes an enormous amount of Earth science data that comes in … That requires quite a cadre of very knowledgeable people," Green said. "Not only the project scientists and the scientists analyzing the data coming from those missions, but also the scientists that are managing multi-mission analysis. That's particularly true in Earth science."

Green said climate and Earth science have a big footprint at NASA. "Earth science in particular has a huge, huge infrastructure analyzing our Earth satellites. So I think they, of course, have been hit disproportionately because of the approach the administration is taking," he said.

The move out of the GISS building was chaotic. Equipment for one NASA mission, PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) — a satellite launched in February 2024 that measures the health of Earth's oceans — had to be hurriedly moved between agency sites to avoid program setbacks.

"There was about, I don't know, a million dollars worth of [PACE] equipment," Claire estimated. "They told us to get out of the building … So the PI (principal investigator) rented a car, and he put all of the stuff in the car and drove through the night to put it on another NASA facility so that it'd be safe."

stacks of white boxes on a cart sit inside the doorway of a building

Stacks of boxes containing files from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies being moved into storage. (Image credit: Joanna Thompson/Future)

GISS's position on a university campus allowed for a unique relationship between the facility and academia. Only about a third of the people who work at GISS are federal employees or federal contractors. The other two-thirds work for Columbia and other universities. "They are those soft-money scientists who are totally supported by those federal research grants," Claire said.

"They didn't fire us, but they didn't have to fire us," Claire said. "All they have to do is stop putting money into federal research grants, and it will have the same impact without any of the stop measures that you have for the federal civil service. Those do not exist in the academic community for the federal research grants."

While they still have work to do, their ability to do it is being siloed. "When it comes to doing cutting-edge science, having a little bit of face time goes a really long way," Claire explained. "The cross talk, the back-and-forth that you cannot have during Zoom meetings — during face-to-face meetings, you can. You actually make a lot of progress," she said. "That's all gone. And so this piece of our mission, which was to be integrated into the academic community — we've been cut off at our knees."

Claire used Climate Week NYC, an event celebrated at the end of September, as an example of opportunities missed as a result of the new constraints. "There are people coming to New York City from across the world," she said at the time. "If we still had our facility and that was happening, we would have dozens of meetings leveraging our conference centers on site, so that we could be true to our mission … Now, we're scrambling just to find a space."

Closing GISS may have also violated NASA's agreement with Claire's employee union. Claire is a member of GESTA, the Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association. GESTA operates under the umbrella of IFPTE, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, and advocates for NASA employees' rights, working conditions and policies.

"As a civil servant, I had a collective bargaining agreement that said certain things had to happen before there could be a change in working conditions," Claire said. "My collective bargaining agreement was totally ignored when they kicked us out of our building with just a month's notice."

Today, the GISS building presumably still sits empty, with NASA apparently continuing to foot the bill.

"The super has told us the building is not rented out," Claire said. "He thinks it's still being paid for. They're not showing it off to anyone else."

In retrospect, Claire wondered if GISS was a test case for closures at Goddard that came months later, and are happening now.

"They are closing down a significant part of the Goddard campus, and so I think that we [at GISS] were singled out to be the first one to get poked," she said. "In general, Goddard is not a favorite amongst the NASA centers."

NASA's budget eviscerated

Days after GISS employees were given notice to vacate their building, the White House released the FY26 Presidential Budget Request (PBR). It proposed a historic 24% cut to overall NASA funding and slashed the money for space agency science programs by 47%.

Experts called the cuts catastrophic, saying they waste billions in federal investments and gut groundbreaking missions.

"Three words that we've been using to describe this: unprecedented, unstrategic and wasteful — wasteful of the taxpayers' investment," Jack Kiraly, director of government relations at the Planetary Society, said during the Sept. 18 livestream. The Planetary Society has lobbied to restore NASA's budget in Congress's appropriations bill since the budget request's publication, which cancels 41 planned or already active science missions, including functioning spacecraft operating in Earth orbit and beyond.

Dreier called it an "extinction-level event."

"This isn't just poor policy — it's fundamentally wasteful and inefficient, exactly what this Administration is saying it does not want," Dreier told Space.com in June. "When you abruptly terminate projects that are already in development, or well-functioning projects operating for pennies on the proverbial dollar, you're essentially throwing away all the previous investment while gaining nothing in return."

"The operating missions cancellations alone represent over $12 billion of invested taxpayer value. And once they're gone, they're gone. It would take years and many millions more to replace them," he added.

Another casualty of the FY26 budget request was NASA's Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM), which was completely eliminated from the space agency's portfolio. OSTEM was responsible for NASA's educational outreach and student involvement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.

"That not only has an effect on what we do at NASA in terms of workforce development, but also kids across the entire country," said Julie, an agency employee who did not wish to give her last name, told Space.com during a worker-organized demonstration to protest agency science cuts in July. She was not authorized to speak on behalf of NASA.

Julie listed programs like grad school scholarships and teacher training initiatives that will be lost in OSTEM's absence. "If that's something that goes away completely, it's going to impact the entire next generation of students," she said.

Demonstrators across from the Air and Space Smithsonian protest cuts to NASA science missions, July 20, 2025. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

"We're not talking about delays in scientific exploration. We're talking about the end of it."

— Bill Nye, Planetary Society CEO

Since the FY26 budget request's release, pushback has been sharp. Employees at Goddard under the banner NASA Needs Help organized three public protests over the summer, and have joined organizations like the Planetary Society and lawmakers to call on Congress to restore NASA's funding.

At an Oct. 5 day of action on Capitol Hill hosted by the Planetary Society, CEO Bill Nye outlined the stakes. "Fully functioning spacecraft summarily turned off, development work on virtually every future science mission summarily halted. We're not talking about delays in scientific exploration. We're talking about the end of it," he said.

A large group of people stand on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in bright sunlight.

Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye addresses press and supporters on Capitol Hill on Oct. 5, 2025. (Image credit: Planetary Society)

To his relief and others, Congress is pushing back on the proposed cuts.

The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a measure to fund NASA at a level comparable to fiscal year 2025, and there is bipartisan support for maintaining the space agency's science programs. But many who protested over the summer worry that irreparable damage has already occurred, and is being accelerated by the government shutdown.

Part of that fear is due to the perception that whatever Congress signs into law won't matter. Employees assume the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will illegally impound funds anyway. Some think it's already happening. "People expect that to continue," said Wendy, the Goddard engineer. "So they don't trust that Congress's budget will actually be implemented even after it's passed."

Lawmakers, too, have voiced skepticism about OMB's actions. In an op-ed published Aug. 5, Republican Representative Brian Babin, of Texas's 36th district, wrote, "Although Congress is working to ensure NASA has what it needs, the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed budget doesn't align with Mr. Trump's directives. To be blunt: OMB needs to start rowing in the same direction. We don't have time for budget games."

Kiraly, with the Planetary Society, thinks there's a deeper motivation behind OMB fighting the tide: OMB Director Russell Vought.

"This is not the President's budget. This is not Congress's budget. This isn't even secretary Sean Duffy's, who's serving as the acting Administrator of NASA (since replacing Petro in July). This is Russ Vought's budget," Kiraly said during the Planetary Society livestream.

Vought, Kiraly said, has it out for NASA. "He is somebody that historically has not seen a lot of value in space science … who does not believe that the government should be investing in space exploration or space science," he said. "And we know that because just a couple years ago, he very much wrote this exact thing. He wants to propose a 50% reduction to NASA Science."

Dreier agreed. "The problem with the OMB," he said, "is not just that they can control the flow of money. They control the rate of spending in addition to preparing these budget requests. So even if you provide them the money, they can throw in a decent number of internal bureaucratic hurdles or slow-walk the pace at which this goes out."

Early enforcement

NASA officials are adamant that there has been no implementation of the President's budget request, but the debate over the budget and implementation legalities is still taking place months later. Very quickly after the FY26 budget request's release, however, NASA leadership started sending messages to staff about reshaping the agency in that image. They announced organization restructurings, impending reductions in force (RIFs) and encouraged space agency employees to take advantage of Deferred Resignation Programs (DRPs).

In a June 9 email obtained by Space.com, Petro instructed staff to start implementing changes to reflect "the Administration's priorities."

"While it is moving through the legislative process, the proposed funding requires action now," the email states. In bold, Petro listed three different programs available to employees who wanted to do their part in thinning NASA's workforce: the agency's DRP, Voluntary Early Retirement (VERA) and a Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP).

Emails from June 9 and 12 show an insistence by NASA leadership to adhere to President Trump's 2026 budget request. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

"We're already seeing the agency is moving to put in motion things that are laid out in the President's budget request, even though Congress hasn't weighed in yet, because they think it's clear that that is the direction we're ultimately going to be heading in," McGrath said in July.

That observation was shared by others at Goddard. "The reason a lot of management says that we have to plan for the President's budget request, as opposed to Congress's budget, is because they believe that the President will impound the funds even if Congress passes a budget," Wendy said.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said what's happening at NASA is illegal. A Democratic staff report released by Cantwell and the Committee on Sept. 29, titled "The Destruction of NASA's Mission," says NASA's preemptive compliance with the PBR is an "unconstitutional plot to gut the agency" and circumvents Congress's authority.

"The President's proposed budget … carries no force of law, cannot override existing spending laws, and has no legal impact on funding appropriated by Congress," the report says.

"Losing hundreds of NASA scientists and experts with irreplaceable experience — especially at Goddard — as well as permanently shuttering labs, one-of-a-kind equipment and entire buildings, causes irreversible disruptions to core scientific research that will last far into the future and undermine the United States’ global leadership position," Cantwell told Space.com in a statement.

"We will not win the space race in the long run without fully funding NASA's science mission," she added.

Duffy named Amit Kshatriya as NASA associate administrator Sept. 3. After the report's release, Kshatriya unequivocally denied its claims.

SAVE NASA hangs in front of a torn up photo as black and white protesters hold signs in the bottom foreground.

(Image credit: Space.com / Marilyn Perkins, with contributions from Josh Dinner)

"This report is false," Kshatriya said in a statement to Space.com. "NASA has communicated openly and transparently with Congress that we continue to execute our available appropriated funding in accordance with established fiscal policies which respect congressional authorities."

"NASA will never compromise on safety. The President’s budget request stands with Congress at this point, and NASA will enact the budget appropriated to us," Kshatriya added.

NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said that the publication of the Senate report was strategic, and politically motivated.

"The intentionally timed release of this inflammatory, false report is nothing more than a distraction tactic from Senate Democrats. As Democrats push to shut our government down, they’re attempting to divert attention," she told Space.com in a statement.

The Senate's report supports Space.com's findings, stating, "as early as June 2025, NASA began 'implementing immediately' certain 'institutional changes' to align with the President's proposed budget," and asserts that NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes is conspiring with OMB to "actively implement the President's FY26 budget request."

In an internal NASA email obtained for the report, space agency leadership was told, "PBR is the direction. Discretionary funds can be impounded per the Impoundment Act of 1974. If there is a CR (continuing resolution), impoundment is likely going to get on the table as a mechanism to get to the PBR."

One of the report's key findings concluded that "OMB Director Russell Vought's budgetary end game is to use impoundment to illegally implement the President's proposed budget at NASA, while ignoring congressional funding levels."

Over the past several months at Goddard, this has been an open secret. "There is just a general acknowledgement that a lot of what is happening is illegal," Wendy said, "but people have been told to do it, and so they feel like they have to do it. That's especially true for management, because they're getting directives from people above them, and if they don't comply, they will lose their jobs."

Reduction in force

Through June and July, leadership continued to push DRPs and signaled looming RIFs. Morale at Goddard sank as losses mounted, and the future of different missions hung in limbo.

"We are seeing more and more people taking [the DRP] now while the window is still open. I think that's kind of because we don't know what will happen after that window closes, and it might be a worse scenario than the current one," McGrath said earlier this summer.

Employees in programs that lost their funding in the budget request are preparing to shut off functioning spacecraft. Some of those active missions marked for termination include the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which studies high-energy X-ray sources like black holes, the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) orbiter studying the Martian atmosphere, the Juno probe orbiting Jupiter, which has at least another three years of life in it, and New Horizons, which became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto in 2015 and is now exploring the Kuiper Belt beyond.

"Mission leads are being told to plan for their missions to be shut down if they were zeroed out in the President's budget request, and this includes missions that are already in space and sending back data and have very minimal upkeep. They just want to turn them off," Wendy said. Meanwhile, NASA leadership tightened their embrace of the budget request.

"The President's FY 2026 Budget Request for NASA is NASA's budget request," Petro wrote in a June 27 email to employees obtained by Space.com. She acknowledges an ultimate budget has yet to be finalized by Congress, but that NASA needs "to begin preparing to align our workforce and resources now to meet the mission priorities [the budget request] outlines."

Emails from June 27 and July 9 show a continued push by NASA leadership to align the agency with the President's budget request and encouragement to sign up for the government's deferred resignation program. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

The directive was again echoed down the chain of command in a July 9 email to Goddard engineers obtained by Space.com, which says ETD reorganization plans in development prior to Trump's second term would be shifted to fit "the vision put forward within the President's Budget Request for NASA."

McGrath's work in astrophysics supports one of the missions zeroed out in the FY26 budget request. After its release, his contract employer wrote to inform him they were unable to guarantee his job past the end of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

"I received an email from my direct employer just acknowledging that elephant in the room," McGrath said earlier this year. "My NASA sponsor told them I am in a high-risk position right now, and they can't guarantee anything beyond September 30."

Before that date passed, McGrath's contractor was able to extend his position through the end of 2025. Now, the government shutdown has put him and thousands of other contract employees in the awkward position of having to sign on remotely for work, but without many of their coworkers and resources needed to do their jobs.

"I can't really communicate with my civil servant colleagues and bosses since they are all furloughed," McGrath said in October. "My weekly meetings are canceled or underattended." It has continued this way for McGrath and many other contract employees since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.

As some contract employers attempted to be as transparent as possible, NASA's communication efforts with its own workforce shrank over the course of the year.

A July 17 email obtained by Space.com, sent from one lab chief in a "First Line Supervisor" position, explained that division town halls would be canceled indefinitely and to expect department-wide group chat channels to be disabled. The lab chief said that these changes were made in an effort to funnel information to employees through First Line Supervisors, but was unable to say definitively since official reasoning had not been communicated to that level of management, according to the email.

"In normal times, all agency GSFC [department] town halls were officially recorded, but that was discontinued some months ago, and later most such meetings were stopped entirely," Marshall Finch, a contract systems administrator at Goddard, told Space.com. He was not authorized to speak on behalf of NASA or his direct employer.

At the same time, word about the uneasiness within the United States' scientific community had spread worldwide, and many Goddard scientists and engineers began receiving recruitment emails from European research institutions.

Before GSFC town halls ended in the spring, Lystrup mentioned the notion of scientists being recruited for positions overseas to employees on at least one occasion. "With grants drying up, there is going to be less soft money for people to survive on as well," she said in a June 16 town hall, adding, suggestively, according to Wendy, "I know that there are a number of countries that are actively recruiting US scientists and putting money behind recruiting US scientists to go abroad."

Speculation circulated that the reason town halls stopped had to do with something Lystrup said that NASA higher-ups didn't like. Lystrup ended up resigning as GSFC director on July 22.

One group was told they were not allowed to talk to HR or any higher levels of management without first contacting their supervisor. Another email obtained by Space.com reads, in part, "We must do this because: 1) management is directing us to communicate this way."

An email from July 28 instructs some employees not to directly contact Human Resources. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

Finch said the changes in communication have been "chilling."

"I have spoken to people afraid to put comments and directives in writing. I know people afraid to dissent, or afraid to do so in writing," Finch said. "Some people feel more vulnerable than others, so we lose their voices as they silence themselves. The result is lost safety and lost productivity."

As the window to volunteer for a deferred resignation neared its end, NASA employees were forced to make hard decisions about their future. "Because our management is telling us that we have to align to the President's budget request, people are using it to predict whether or not they will have a job in the next year, and deciding to leave based on that," Wendy said.

The deadline for NASA employees to opt into the agency's DRP was July 25. By that time, more than 4,000 people at the space agency had signed up to leave, reducing NASA's employee pool by over 20%. At Goddard, GESTA reported that 447 people chose the DRP route, equating to roughly one in six GSFC civil servants — about 17% of the center’s workforce, totaling more than 11% of NASA's voluntary departures across its 10 major facilities nationwide — the largest of any agency center.

During a Goddard Retirees & Alumni Association (GRAA) event with Lystrup in August, the former center director told attendees that GSFC's total losses through DRPs and other reorganizations were closer to one thousand, which would total about 32% of Goddard's federal employees.

No one Wendy spoke with who took the DRP actually wanted to leave NASA. "Prior to this year, they really enjoyed their jobs," she said.

Loss of science and safety

Unpredictable losses from voluntary departures left many Goddard programs with holes in their expertise, growing safety concerns and, in some cases, fractured mission teams that may lack the resources to continue regardless of what final budget is passed.

"Because of our own management reassigning people to other projects, we won't have enough people on the projects to keep them going, regardless of the funding," Wendy said.

Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts joined the space agency in 2000. He has flown to space twice, served as commander of the International Space Station and spent a cumulative 213 days in orbit. He retired in 2016 but still maintains a residence in Houston, near NASA's Johnson Space Center, where he keeps in close contact with his past NASA community. Virts is currently running as a Democrat for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas.

"Once the hardware is canceled, once the scientists are gone, you can't just start [those missions] up again," Virts told Space.com in an interview. "Solar system probes require engineers to understand very technical things to work for years on a program. Once you let someone go, you're not just going to get them back."

"Anytime you're doing something as complicated as launching rockets and operating spacecraft in space, you don't want turmoil and angst and people quitting on the ground," Virts said. "The things that are happening are safety issues for NASA, but they're also safety issues for the other 330 million Americans."

Virts said that implementing these kinds of cuts to science at NASA and other federal agencies has "absolutely" already cost human lives. He pointed to the July 4 Hill Country floods in Texas, when more than 130 people died from the catastrophically rapid rise of the Guadalupe River, which overtook entire communities.

"The one person who was supposed to warn everybody was gone, thanks to this administration's disastrous cuts," Virts asserted. Some reports have speculated that the National Weather Service office in Austin lacked a warning coordination meteorologist due to an early retirement tied to federal cuts, and that the person in that position could have potentially activated an earlier alert system for affected residents.

On June 24, just before the Hill Country floods became the latest example of the effects of climate change and natural disasters, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado received word they would no longer have access to data provided by satellites that form the US Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The NSIDC has long used this critical information to measure sea ice in real time to inform the sea-ice index, which monitors the amount of ice coverage around Earth's poles.

The Department of Defense uses those measurements for planning things like ship deployment, but it has long been integrated into NASA's own Earth science programs, with algorithms developed at Goddard forming the backbone of the sea-ice concentration datasets. GSFC scientists routinely processed the data to monitor polar climate trends. When access to those feeds was suspended, it didn't just cut off NSIDC, it also cut off Goddard's ability to update the global datasets it maintains for NASA's climate missions, effectively blinding parts of the agency’s environmental monitoring network.

By then, workers at NASA saw the writing on the wall and began to organize. "A lot of people are starting to realize that the risk to the whole agency is getting greater and greater," McGrath said in June. "Time is running out. If we don't say something now, then there's not going to be much opportunity left going forward."

NASA workers and supporters across from the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum protest preemptive cuts to Goddard's programs on July 20, 2025. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

In addition to the NASA Needs Help demonstrations over the summer, nearly 300 current and former NASA employees signed the "Voyager Declaration," which they published on July 21. Its signatories included astronauts, scientists and engineers protesting the preemptive funding cuts and employee losses, which, they said, "threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission."

The letter invoked "Technical Authority," an established process put in place following investigations into the Columbia and Challenger space shuttle accidents, which establishes employee protections if they speak out against something they view as unsafe.

"I can see another Challenger, another Columbia happening down the road as a result of this..."

— Julie

Goddard's arm of NASA's Office of Safety and Mission Assurance was hit particularly hard by position losses, according to employees. The department is responsible for ensuring safety protocols are followed through every stage of spacecraft development and testing, and when scientists and engineers interface with potential hazards like high-pressure procedures, vacuum chambers, radioactive materials and heavyweight hardware.

Julie, who attended a July 20 NASA Needs Help "Moon Day" demonstration, worried about the effects on NASA's Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer. "That was set up after Columbia and Challenger to make sure that we were passing any lessons learned on to the entire community," she said. "I can see another Challenger, another Columbia happening down the road as a result of this, and it will ultimately be blamed back on us."

"We build very specific things," George, a NASA employee who did not wish to provide his last name, told Space.com at the protest. He feared the deterioration of critical expertise and the consequences that could come with it. "If we lose that, we lose that, it's gone. Where are we going to learn how to do that again? Are we going to have to have another Challenger moment to learn how to do that again? Maybe."

Employees fear that long-standing safety guardrails are being eroded. "It feels like a lot of the leadership at NASA is undoing a lot of good progress that we've made over the past years and decades," McGrath said. "We're getting real close, I think, to that moment where it might be too late to undo some of the changes that could happen."

Duffy briefly touched on these concerns during a Sept. 4 all-agency town hall livestream. He acknowledged employee feedback about insufficient personnel, but downplayed fears over science losses and safety. "We have Congressionally mandated science, which we're going to do," he said, "but we also have a lot of science that is going to drive human exploration, that's going to drive our mission to the moon. We are going to lean into that science as well."

"Do we have the human resources available? … As of right now, I think we do," he said, adding that he was open to reevaluating if an assessment was needed.

"We are safety driven, and we should be safety driven," Duffy said. "But sometimes we can't let safety be the enemy of making progress. We have to be able to take some leaps. We have to be able to jump forward in our innovation and drive this mission. And there's always a balance to that."

For all the cuts in the FY26 budget request, the Trump administration is doing all it can to bolster human spaceflight programs like Artemis, NASA's effort to return astronauts to the moon. But without a robust scientific portfolio, some at NASA wonder how astronauts will occupy their time during such missions.

"It turns us away from those quests that give our astronauts something to do when they're doing the exploration, and keeps them safe while they're doing it. Science enables exploration," Barbara Cohen, a NASA planetary scientist, said to attendees of a Sept. 15 protest outside the agency's Washington, D.C. headquarters. "We need science to drive the innovation."

NASA seems to be driving in the opposite direction.

Campus closures begin

Over the last few months, notices have trickled down through supervisors to inform employees at Goddard of several facility closures. A July 1 email to managers, obtained by Space.com, announced the impending closures of the staff fitness facility on the main GSFC campus — marked for Nov. 30 — and the health facilities at both the Greenbelt campus and at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, which operates under Goddard's umbrella.

Goddard's health services are in place to address injuries specific to the types of hazards NASA scientists and engineers may face, like exposure to radiation or hypergolic fuels. They also provide physicals and medical assessments required by people's jobs at the center. "Anticipated budget reductions in Fiscal Year 2026," was the reason given for the closures in the email. Both health units were scheduled to close Oct. 31.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Image credit: NASA Goddard/Bill Hrybyk)

On Aug. 4, in another internal email obtained by Space.com, managers were notified of more closures — a list that includes buildings, services and employee socialization hubs across Goddard and Wallops. Effective Oct. 1, both centers were set to close their employee cafeteria and motor pool services, as well as vending services and the recreation center at the Greenbelt campus.

Like the face-to-face collaboration benefits lost at GISS, employees fear shutting down Goddard's cafeteria will be stifling. "Being able to meet with colleagues and build relationships over lunch has a big impact," Wendy said. "That will be a hit to our ability to do our jobs."

NASA officials say maintaining the cafeteria has been a strain on the center's budget. To compensate, Goddard administration arranged for food trucks on campus as an alternative option for employees.

Most alarming on the email's list were both facilities' visitor centers. Closing the visitor centers at Goddard and Wallops would cut off the only public-facing arms of NASA in their areas and eliminate the communities' primary way of interacting with the space agency.

Union fights back

Amid the turmoil over facilities closures, the union representing Goddard workers took action. A GESTA press release on Aug. 15 opposed the decisions, and speculated that the closures might be targeted.

"There is growing concern that the closure may be more than a budgetary decision … GESTA has yet to receive any indications of other NASA Centers closing their Visitor Centers," the release said, adding that the decisions were being "perceived by some employees as purposefully punitive, seemingly designed to inflict maximum institutional pain on remaining employees who chose not to voluntarily separate or resign during recent agency downsizing and restructuring."

"It does feel to me, and to a lot of people that I've talked to, that this is all part of making life miserable so that people leave," Wendy said at the time.

Goddard leadership declined Space.com's request for an interview. In an email sent Sept. 16 in response to that request, Goddard News Chief Rob Garner said the GSFC officials were "reviewing functions and capabilities as the center works to close out Fiscal Year 2025 and look ahead." He added that Goddard officials were "exploring a number of actions, including some that may involve closure of facilities," and that "no decisions have been made."

Beyond the view of the public, more closures were taking place. Employees received instructions to relocate from several buildings on Goddard's campus over the summer. They were moved from workspaces, like labs with specialized spacecraft testing equipment and infrastructure, to "windowless cubicle farms," Wendy said. One group was moved into a new building that lacked adequate lab space, another into a lab that lacked a functional climate control system. GESTA quickly stepped into negotiations about the change in working conditions.

The union filed bargaining proposals over the office and lab relocations, citing Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) precedent, and several moves were paused. In an email to union members, GESTA identified ETD Deputy Director for Planning and Business Management Matt Ritsko as the one who orchestrated the reassignments, "in concert with [top level] Management" to create a cost-savings option for center leadership. This was "driven," the email said, by "anticipated reductions in the upcoming fiscal year."

Ritsko serves just under Harris at the top of the Engineering department, which reports directly to Goddard's Office of the Director and, since Lystrup's resignation, acting Goddard Director Cynthia Simmons.

Unions eliminated

As negotiations between GESTA and Goddard management continued, the union had the proverbial rug pulled out from under it. In late August, an executive order by Trump reclassified NASA as one of the federal agencies excluded from the requirement to offer employees the right to collective bargaining under Chapter 71 of Title 5 of the FLRA Management Relations Statute, banning unions at the space agency on the grounds of “national security.”

"...the immediate harm suffered could be insurmountable for many of the employees."

— Mark Gaston Pearce

A man stands outside holding a microphone in front of a NASA sign.

IFPTE President Matthew Biggs addresses protesters during a Sept. 15 demonstration outside NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Image credit: NASA Needs Help)

"That's supposed to make us work more efficiently? That's just going to make all of us less safe," Monica Gorman, a GESTA area VP, said to protesters outside NASA's D.C. headquarters on Sept. 15. "It's going to put NASA's missions at risk, and it's going to put NASA's people at risk."

At that same demonstration, representatives from GESTA's parent body came to show their support. IFPTE President Matthew Biggs told those gathered that the union was already in the process of challenging the order in court. "It's a lot easier to do RIFs if there's no labor unions there to challenge them," he said. "So we are going to challenge it in the courts, and we're challenging it on Capitol Hill, and we're going nowhere."

Even if the unions have a case, the system is built against them, said Mark Gaston Pearce, who served as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in the Obama administration from 2011 to 2017, and is the former executive director of, and currently a senior advisor at, Georgetown University's Workers' Rights Institute.

"There will probably be causes of actions that can be pursued, but the practical nature of these circumstances is such that these employees will need to continue to keep working," Pearce said. "Funding these lawsuits are not a simple matter, and even if that is achievable, the time that would be taken for all of this to take place will be so, so long in the future that the immediate harm suffered could be insurmountable for many of the employees."

Negotiations end, cuts accelerate

"The Engineering and Technology Directorate in particular, seemed like it was ignoring that guidance..."

— Peter

Trump's executive order freed Goddard leadership of their obligation to debate with GESTA about facility closures and anything else. The union was given 48 hours' notice to clear their resources from the conference room previously dedicated for their use, and employees were barred from congregating there during off hours.

Negotiations with GESTA stopped, and center leadership kicked their reorganization efforts into overdrive.

Despite media reports indicating that Acting Administrator Duffy directed NASA to begin working toward the budget outlined in the House Appropriations Committee’s bill for the coming fiscal year, which restored much of the science programs initially cut in the PBR, that direction was not one communicated through Goddard's management levels to employees.

"There was certainly no widespread communication broadly disseminated to the workforce informing them that we would now be following the House budget request instead of the President's budget request at Goddard," said Peter, the GSFC civil servant. "That is unlike activities that I have seen through other centers."

NASA officials maintain they provided appropriate guidance to agency centers and mission directorates, instructing each to spend according to anticipated budget appropriations in alignment with presidential priorities, and that the agency remains in full compliance with Section 505 Appropriations reporting requirements. Duffy and other agency leadership have repeatedly assured critics they intend to follow the law, and adhere to whatever Congress ultimately passes. He even said as much directly to lawmakers at the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s hearing on July 17, promising to "follow the will of Congress."

"The Engineering and Technology Directorate, in particular, seemed like it was ignoring that guidance from headquarters and instead continuing to plan to the Presidential budget request," Peter said. This would stand in direct contradiction to guidance passed down from NASA's top leadership, Space.com has learned.

The "cost savings" closures initiated by Ritsko to align with Trump's budget proposal expanded to include Goddard's 20-year Master Plan, a vision for the center that began in 2017 and outlines upgrades, renovations and other changes to GSFC's 1,270-acre (514-hectare) campus, including the demolition of older facilities and the construction of new buildings through 2037. It includes reducing the campus's footprint by nearly 50%.

On Sept. 22, as worries over a looming government shutdown mounted in the face of deadlocked negotiations in Washington, Goddard Associate Center Director Raymond Rubilotta announced a rapid acceleration of the Master Plan from 20 years to six months.

"Beginning Wednesday, Sept. 24, we will initiate a series of moves at both campuses that will reduce our footprint into fewer buildings," Rubilotta said in an email to Goddard employees, obtained by Space.com. "All planned moves will take place over the next several months and will be completed by March of 2026."

An email on Sept. 22 announces the acceleration of Goddard's 20-year Master Plan. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

Over the week that followed, employees described hectic disorganization. "People are being told to relocate offices on short notice, often chaotically with little planning. They are being told to highly prioritize the moves," Wendy said.

There were instances of employees being assigned workspaces already occupied by others and unable to return to their original offices, buildings being emptied of personnel with no current plan to recover or relocate potentially millions of dollars of equipment left behind, employees told Space.com. "It's crazy," said Finch, the systems admin.

The long-term plans for Goddard's main campus included the construction of nine new facilities, the renovation of 10 facilities and "divestment or partial divestment of 12 facilities, and the demolition of 61 facilities." In this case, "facilities" encompasses everything from land, utilities, buildings and really any structure on NASA's property.

While there is no current work underway to begin construction on any of the new facilities shown in the plans, almost half of the largest buildings marked for future divestment or demolition have been listed for abandonment by the March deadline — nearly everything west of Goddard Road (the red line), on this map provided to Space.com.

The slides below highlight which of the buildings planned for demolition by 2037 have been accelerated to the March 2026 timeline, and where planned constructions overlap.

Image 1 of 3

a map with highlighted buildings and a red line down the left-center.

Buildings marked for divestment or demolition in Goddard's 20-year Master plan. According to employees, nearly everything west (left) of Goddard Road (the red line) is on an expedited track to be closed by March 2026. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

Expedited closures

A map of planned closures taking place at Goddard through March 2026.

Image 2 of 3

a map with highlighted buildings and a red line down the left-center.

This map from Goddard's 20-year Master plan shows planned demolitions to take place by 2037, many of which have been accelerated to just a few months. (Image credit: NASA)

Planned demolitions

A map from Goddard's 20-year Master plan showing planned demolitions to take place by 2037.

Image 3 of 3

a map with highlighted buildings and a red line down the left-center.

This map from Goddard's 20-year Master plan shows planned constructions to take place by 2037, none of which have been completed or broken ground on during the accelerated closure of many buildings on the GSFC campus. (Image credit: NASA)

Planned construction

A map from Goddard's 20-year Master plan showing planned constructions to take place by 2037.

For NASA, the staffing decrease as result of the DRP was one of the motivations behind ramping up building consolidations, which the agency assured are being methodically carried out in order to preserve the science and resources needed across projects. The buildings being vacated were apparently already 40% unoccupied, and a burdensome cost on center resources.

According to Wendy, if GSFC leadership is using the smaller workforce to justify the downsizing, the numbers don't add up. "They basically want to move everybody out of half of the buildings on campus. Half of the physical footprint of Goddard. But we only lost about a third of our employees to DRP and attrition," she said.

More than just a logistical challenge of physical space, the moves themselves seem to ignore the impact of what's being left behind. "They're being implemented in inept ways that do not properly account for how unique the technical work that has been done at Goddard truly is," Peter said. "It seems that there is a lack of understanding in Goddard management in general as to what technical capabilities we have, and what's actually important to retain them."

a map transitions to show building demolition plans.

Maps show Goddard's 20-year Master Plan, with nearly half of the Greenbelt campus now marked for abandonment — a visual "hollowing out" of NASA’s flagship science hub. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

Government shutdown

Days after Rubilotta’s Master Plan notice, OMB issued a memo, first reported by Politico, directing agencies to consider reduction in force notices during a shutdown for programs not aligned with the "President's priorities."

On Sept. 29, NASA updated the agency's shutdown guidance to add a similar "presidential priorities" phrase, heightening employee fears that the administration would use the government shutdown as an excuse for further layoffs and project cuts.

Goddard's leadership did not provide employees any center-specific shutdown instructions, according to employees. "They didn’t hold a single town hall — other [NASA] centers did — and didn't send any guidance on what to do during a shutdown," Wendy said. What they did send was "a big new re-organization email," which came at 5 p.m. on the evening before the shutdown began.

"We are shutting down center capabilities with no plan to replace them..."

— Peter

Some groups received instructions to pack their work and equipment — in some cases, massive testing hardware — and were told to stand by for a notice with a 48-hour window to relocate.

"Active research and mission development has been greatly disrupted as some labs have been told to leave their buildings immediately," McGrath said. "A very hard task to do when you have extremely sensitive equipment that isn't just meant to be moved on a whim. So we are shutting down center capabilities with no plan to replace them in other lab facilities."

While the government was closing its doors for business, Goddard's management laid the groundwork to make sure theirs were deadbolted. "Raymond Rubilotta (Associate Center Director) and Segrid Harris (Director for the Engineering and Technology Directorate) are continuing to push the disassembly of Goddard Center at a rapid pace, even while the government is shut down," McGrath said.

On Oct. 1, the first day of the shutdown, some staff were still being told to come pack their offices as part of their "orderly shutdown procedure," according to an email sent that morning, obtained by Space.com, and that movers would relocate the contents if and when new workspaces were assigned. "Normally, the orderly shutdown activities are limited to things like getting your work into a safe state, setting automatic replies on your emails, and clearing out your fridge," Wendy said.

An email from Oct. 1 instructs employees to pack up their offices and lab space during the government shutdown. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

"It's being done essentially in secret, on compressed timelines, and it seems to be that the justification for doing so is under false pretenses."

— Peter

As the shutdown continued into multiple weeks, Goddard leadership began designating select employees with part-time excepted status, deeming the consolidation of "technical work and employees" as a priority, and reinstating their furlough once their offices are packed.

For federal workers during the government shutdown, an “exemption” differs from an “exception.” Contracted movers paid from pre-obligated funds, for example, could be considered exempt, but federal civil servants would not. An exception, by contrast, allows employees to continue certain unfunded activities because they are necessary to protect life or property.

Only two exceptions have been approved for facility relocations during the shutdown so far at Goddard, Space.com has learned, and no office spaces were submitted as part of those requests. In fact, over 100 office space moves were put on hold specifically because of the government shutdown. However, employees needing to relocate their workspaces as a result of their laboratory spaces being moved did fall into the excepted category.

"It's unclear what activity is really taking place under any officially approved status from headquarters at this point," Peter said.

"It's being done essentially in secret, on compressed timelines," he added, "and it seems to be that the justification for doing so is under false pretenses, and the activities themselves may also be illegal due to Anti Deficiency Act violations of recalling civil servants from furlough."

Emails from Oct. 14 and 16 instructing employees to pack their offices during the government shutdown. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

"The expectation will be to report onsite no later than Thursday October 16th to conduct packing of your office materials and any lab preparations," Ritsko wrote in an Oct. 14 email to employees, obtained by Space.com. Employees in Building 19 were given three business days to do so, according to the email, and informed that, once packed, their offices' contents would be moved to "offices and labs as they are ready."

"I think one of the intents of the master plan was to move people out of buildings that were falling apart, but we have not built new buildings to move those people into, and we don't have lab spaces available," Wendy said.

Employees on some teams were told that if they were unable to complete evaluations of their lab equipment, whatever wasn't designated give-away or keep would be thrown out. "All items not marked in labs by COB Monday 10/20 will be excessed," an Oct. 16 email, obtained by Space.com, said.

"There's equipment that is being planned to just be abandoned in place," Wendy said.

The ElectroMagnetic Anechoic Chamber housed in Building 19 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Image credit: NASA)

All that hardware adds up. Peter said losses will include "tens of millions of dollars and decades' worth of investment in these facilities that historically have been considered core to Goddard's capabilities."

Take, for instance, Building 19, which houses the Goddard Electro-Magnetic Anechoic Chamber for testing antennas and other microwave devices used on spacecraft, communications laboratories, hardware assembly rooms and the avionics laboratory, among others.

Of Building 19's infrastructure, at least eight laboratories have been completely divested without replacement, with some still needed to support critical functions for ongoing or upcoming missions, according to Peter.

So far, at least four sites on Goddard's campus have already been impacted, including Buildings 20, 30 and 32, as well as Building 19, which, as of Oct. 24, was "emptied of all government and personal property and is being locked and made inaccessible," Peter said. There is speculation about which will be next, he added.

The cost of moving

Many scientists and engineers track their time and workload according to the projects that work is associated with, including missions based out of other NASA centers. This allows NASA to track costs across multiple missions, funding sources and facilities nationwide. Employee hours are tracked under a different "charge code" during a government shutdown, however.

For employees packing up and moving their offices during the shutdown, though, "they're being told to charge their projects," Wendy said. According to her, this could lead to a situation where a mission based out of Johnson Space Center, for example, is paying for part of Goddard's employee relocation efforts, making the actual cost of work being done during the shutdown harder to track.

Offices are being emptied inside buildings around Goddard, with files, equipment and personal belongings discarded in the hallways. (Image credit: obtained by Space.com)

"If there's ever a cost-benefit analysis of how much money we're saving, versus how much money we're spending and losing by throwing stuff out, that won't be tracked accurately," Wendy said.

Marking those hours under certain mission costs like this will hit some harder than others.

"Some of these are independent research projects that people have worked really hard to propose funding for," Wendy said. "It's a very limited pot of money that they have … and they're being asked to spend that money on moving their lab."

An uncertain future

The feeling that Goddard is being targeted has been hard to shake for those working within its walls. "Seems like Goddard is giving up on its future, whether that is being forced by headquarters, OMB and the White House, versus management not doing a good job protecting it. Some people are speculating that NASA is using Goddard as a sacrifice to preserve the rest of the agency," Wendy said.

Green, who worked at NASA through several administrations before becoming Chief Scientist, says the space agency has weathered turbulent times before. "NASA has gone through, in my 42 years as a civil servant, huge changes. We've had many buyouts. We've had huge hiring freezes. We have had RIFs," Green said, and offered advice to the NASA employees currently riding out the storm:

"Stay the course. Keep doing what you're doing. Don't anticipate you won't be doing it tomorrow, until you're told you won't be doing it tomorrow, but then also be flexible … If you're not taking that knowledge and connecting it to something else that you can go to, that's a problem."

That course may now be much more difficult to navigate as employees steer the murky waters of a management hierarchy they feel doesn't support them. And, whatever Congress ultimately passes may indeed no longer matter. The damage at Goddard is already being felt in lost expertise, dismantled facilities and the quiet unraveling of the center's safety infrastructure.

The welcome sign outside NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

With projects bracing for termination, mission teams broken apart and safety protocols weakened, the guardrails that once kept NASA from repeating its worst tragedies are being stripped away in real time. Labs are being shuttered faster than they can be reestablished, institutional knowledge is walking out the door faster than it can be replaced and the foundation that once made Goddard the center of NASA’s scientific excellence may never regain the depth of comprehension and capability it once held.

As Goddard is hollowed from within, center scientists and engineers like Wendy and Peter can't help but feel deflated.

"Regardless of how priorities may shift at Goddard in terms of what kinds of work we support, what is an absolute certainty at this point is that we as a center will be incapable of supporting as many types of work as we have historically," Peter said.

Wendy sees implications beyond just Goddard and NASA.

"I think it just kind of speaks to the atmosphere of the agency and the nation," she said, "where people are like, 'Well, laws don't matter for the people at the top anymore.'"

Editor's note: This story was updated at 1:00 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) on Oct. 31 to clarify the stance of top NASA officials, who contend that "the destruction of NASA" is false and that there has been no implementation of the President's FY 2026 budget request to date.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/nasa-is-sinking-its-flagship-science-center-during-the-government-shutdown-and-may-be-breaking-the-law-in-the-process + + + + qcTZXJkCbGoh86xTaHRTNX + + Fri, 31 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Capture constellations easily with over $1000 off the Sony A7R V at Walmart ]]> + We picked the Sony A7R V as our best camera for autofocus in our best cameras guide because of its advanced AI subject recognition and huge 693 phase-detection points. Its a great camera for those looking to level-up their gear for either everyday shooting or astrophotography. It is now over $1000 off in this huge pre-Black Friday deal from Walmart. With the big day approaching on Nov. 28, make sure to do your research now for models you might want to purchase and get a lowdown of all the best deals across skywatching, cameras and technology on our Black Friday deals hub.

The Sony A7R V is on sale for $3190 at Walmart.

Capturing the constellations can be tricky and can often require manual focus to get the stars pinpoint sharp but autofocus can help. Thanks to the Sony A7R V's huge number of phase-detection points, it will be able to focus on bright stars in the night sky and help with the composition of your photo. The best time to shoot constellations is during a new moon because of the dark skies that allow fainter stars to shine in the night sky. The autofocus on the Sony A7R V will also assist in getting crystal clear shots of lunar detail on the surface of the moon during its other phases like the full moon on Nov. 5.

We gave the Sony A7R V four and a half stars in our full Sony A7R V review, where we praised the AI-powered autofocus system, versatile LCD screen and notable upgrades from the Sony A7R IV. The A7R V has a huge 61MP sensor and performed well during our photography testing apart from a bit of noise when using a higher ISO.

Save $1010 on the best camera for autofocus. It has a 61MP sensor, AI-powered autofocus, eight stops of in-body image stabilization and 8K video capability. The 693 phase-detection points will aid in quickly focusing on stars in night sky constellations.

We gave it four and a half stars in our full Sony A7R V review and it features in four of our expert guides, including our best cameras guide.View Deal

Image 1 of 5

Image of the Sony A7R V camera body

The Sony A7R V has a 61MP sensor and can capture high-resolution stills. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Image 2 of 5

Image of the Sony A7R V being held

The Sony A7R V is a high-powered camera with AI-powered autofocus recognition and eight stops of in-body image stabilization. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Image 3 of 5

Image of the top of the Sony A7R V camera body

the Sony A7R V features the classic design features of Sony cameras with a mode dial and dials for controlling exposure. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Image 4 of 5

Image of the fully articulating screen on the Sony A7R V

The fully articulating screen on the A7R V is a great addition to the model and allows versatile shooting angles. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Image 5 of 5

Three images showing details on the Sony A7R V camera body

The Sony A7R V features a range of ports for external hardware and also supports CFexpress memory cards as well as an SD card. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)

In our full Sony A7R V review, we were impressed with the upgrades it had over its predecessor, the Sony A7R IV, which included a 63% higher resolution on both the electronic viewfinder (EVF) and LCD screen. This boost in resolution doubles up with the new autofocus system unit that is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and means that you will be able to see what the autofocus is capturing in better detail.

A powerful camera like this is good for any kind of photography, with its huge 61MP resolution and eight stops of in-body image stabilization (IBIS) for handheld shooting. The 693 phase-detection points in the autofocus system helped to capture sharp stars during our astrophotography testing and the added resolution on the EVF helped deliver a bright view of the dark night sky scene. We also think it would be a superb camera for capturing the moon during many of its different phases. With the full moon coming up on Nov. 5, you will have to wait a bit longer for fully dark skies which are the best time to shoot constellations like Cygnus, Draco and Pegasus.

This deal from Walmart is huge and gets you $1010 off the retail price for the A7R V, bringing the price from $4200 down to $3190. If you have been looking to upgrade your photography set-up, this would be a great model to get as it hosts a range of pro-level features that suit a range of different needs, such as 8K video capability and dual memory card slots. If this doesn't take your fancy, there will be tons of deals coming on Black Friday on Nov. 28, so make sure to do your research now and think about which models you would want to look out for.

Key features: 61MP full-frame sensor, dual BIONZ XR processor, AI tracking, 693-point autofocus, 8-stop in-body image stabilization, multi-angle LCD Monitor, 8K video capability, dual memory card slots (1xCFexpress, 1xSD), wireless and Bluetooth connectivity.

Product launched: December 2022

Price history: The Sony A7R V typically retails around $4200 on Amazon but this Walmart deal brings the price to $3190, with $1010 off the Amazon listed retail price.

Price comparison: Walmart: $3190 | Amazon: $3298 | BHPhotoVideo: $3298

Reviews consensus: In our full Sony A7R V review we highlight its incredible 61MP resolution, advanced AI autofocus and versatile LCD screen, making it a top choice for professional photographers and astrophotographers.

Space.com: ★★★★½ | TechRadar: ★★★★½ | LiveScience: ★★★★½

Featured in guides: best cameras, best mirrorless cameras, best Sony cameras, best cameras for low light

✅ Buy it if: You're a serious photographer looking for a powerful camera capable of high-res images with powerful autofocus.

❌ Don't buy it if: You only shoot deep space astrophotography, as there are other models that perform better at the higher ISOs needed for dim objects. Take a look at the best cameras for astrophotography.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

]]> + https://www.space.com/stargazing/skywatching-kit/capture-constellations-easily-with-over-usd1000-off-the-sony-a7r-v-at-walmart + + + + 2Cakfby4xxhj54ZJWJZQTQ + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 21:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ New laser drill could help scientists explore ice-covered worlds like Jupiter's ocean moon Europa ]]> + A new laser concept could revolutionize how we explore the frozen worlds of our solar system.

When scientists dream of exploring the hidden oceans beneath the icy crusts of moons like Jupiter's Europa or Saturn's Enceladus — or other icy regions, such as permanently shadowed lunar craters or ice-bearing soils near the Martian poles — one major problem stands in the way: drilling through the ice.

Traditional drills and melting probes are heavy, complex and consume vast amounts of power. Now, researchers at the Institute of Aerospace Engineering at Technische Universität Dresden in Germany have developed a promising new solution — a laser-based ice drill that can bore deep, narrow channels into ice while keeping both mass and energy requirements low.

"We've created a laser drill that enables deep, narrow and energy-efficient access to ice without increasing instrument mass — something mechanical drills and melting probes cannot achieve," Martin Koßagk, lead author of the study, told Space.com in an email.

Mechanical drills become heavier with depth as they extend rods downward, and melting probes rely on long, power-hungry cables. The laser drill sidesteps both problems by keeping all instruments at the surface. This tech sends a concentrated beam into the ice, vaporizing it rather than melting it — a process known as sublimation.

The resulting vapor escapes upward through a narrow borehole just wide enough for gas and dust samples to be collected. Instruments on the surface can then analyze these samples for chemical composition and density, providing valuable clues about the thermal properties and formation history of the cosmic body being explored.

While lasers aren't the most energy-efficient tools, the beam vaporizes a mere pinhole of ice, meaning the drill uses far less total power than electric heaters. It also works faster in dust-rich layers that slow traditional melting probes, allowing it to bore much deeper without added mass or energy.

Therefore, a laser-based instrument "makes subsurface exploration of icy moons more realistic, allowing high-resolution analysis of ice composition and density, improving models of heat transport and ocean depth on bodies like Europa and Enceladus, and supporting studies of crust formation," Koßagk said. "On the moon or Mars, the laser drill can also extract subsurface material such as dust from ice-bearing craters or soils, enabling geological reconstruction beyond the surface layers."

The team's laser drill concept operates at roughly 150 watts (W), with a projected mass of about 9 pounds (4 kilograms), remaining constant regardless of depth — whether 33 feet (10 meters) or 6 miles (10 kilometers). However, Koßagk noted that a mass spectrometer for analyzing the gas and instruments for dust separation and analysis would increase the power requirement and mass.

Early tests show promise. The prototype drilled through ice samples about 8 inches (20 centimeters) long under vacuum and cryogenic conditions during laboratory experiments, and at greater depths in field tests in the Alps and Arctic, reaching depths of more than a meter in snow. In tests with 20 watts of laser power, the system reached drilling speeds near 1 meter per hour, and up to 3 meters per hour in loose or dusty ice.

A laser-based concept is not without limitations. In stone or layers of dust in which there is no ice that could be vaporized, the drilling process would be stopped. And, in those cases, a new borehole would need to be drilled from the surface that bypasses the obstacle.

"It is therefore important to operate the laser drill in conjunction with other measuring instruments," Koßagk told Space.com. "Radar instruments could look into the ice and locate larger obstacles, which the laser drill could then drill past."

Water-filled crevasses would also pose a challenge. When one is drilled into, the laser drill would have to pump out water as it flows in before it could continue to drill deeper. However, drilling into these areas could help to identify the chemistry of potential habitats for past or present microbial life. If bacteria ever existed, their remains might be detectable in the samples collected from a laser-drilled borehole.

To make this type of laser drill possible, next steps would be miniaturizing the system, developing a dust-separation unit and completing space-qualification tests. A compact payload version could one day ride aboard a lander to an icy moon, bringing scientists closer to decoding the secrets frozen beneath alien surfaces, Koßagk said.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the same tool could even help predict avalanches. Field tests in cooperation with the Austrian Research Centre for Forests and Department of Natural Hazards in the Alps and the Arctic showed that the laser drill can measure snow density without digging a pit — and, mounted on a drone, it could collect data from dangerous slopes where humans can't safely go, Koßagk said.

Whether on Earth or in deep space, the goal is the same: to look beneath the surface and understand what's hidden in the ice.

The team's initial findings were published Sept. 8 in the journal Acta Astronautica.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/new-laser-drill-could-help-scientists-explore-ice-covered-worlds-like-jupiters-ocean-moon-europa + + + + zfQjiVVSeUf9ngyTMLJ9zd + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 21:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ 'Anti-social' cosmic explosion could change the way we think about dying stars and supernovas ]]> + An investigation of a cosmic explosion that marked the violent death of a massive star has called into question our understanding of the connection between ejected debris violently striking surrounding matter and the energy output of these events.

The supernova at the heart of this research, designated SN 2024bch, erupted around 65 million light-years away from Earth and was first observed in February 2024. It is an example of a Type II supernova, an explosion that occurs when nuclear fusion ceases in the solid iron core of a massive star, causing it to collapse, sending shockwaves into the star's outer layers, leading to them being ejected.

Scientists have always assumed that when this stellar ejecta violently slams into dense gas surrounding the dying star, known as the circumstellar medium, this generates narrow emission lines in the light or spectra seen from Type II supernovas. However, SN 2024bch seems to be "anti-social", in that its ejected matter seems to not interact violently with a surrounding gas shell. However, these narrow lines are still apparent in its spectra.

The team behind this research, hailing from the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), studied this supernova for 140 days, using a range of ground-based telescopes and the Swift spacecraft, discovering the narrow emission lines in its spectra. This feature has previously been considered a test for discovering if a dying star is interacting with its environment.

However, in the case of SN 2024bch, the released energy doesn't seem to be the result of ejected matter mixing with a dense gas shell. Instead, the INAF researchers suggest a different mechanism to account for the energy, termed Bowen fluorescence.

"We applied a non-traditional and unprejudiced perspective," Leonardo Tartaglia, team leader and INAF researcher, said in a translated statement." For the first time in this type of transient, we demonstrate that the primary mechanism is Bowen fluorescence, a phenomenon known since the first half of the 20th century that had never been considered in the study of similar objects. Our scenario describes all the evolutionary phases of the supernova with great precision."

Bowen fluorescence is akin to an echo but of high-energy light rather than sound. In this case, intense ultraviolet light from the supernova excites surrounding helium atoms, and these atoms then transfer energy to other elements like oxygen and nitrogen also present around the dying star. It is this transfer of energy that generates the narrow spectral lines seen by the team.

This revelation means scientists might have to rethink Type II supernova models, which would result in some of these cosmic explosions being ruled out as a source of neutrinos, virtually massless, chargeless "ghost particles" that stream through space at near light-speed.

This could have ramifications for a powerful method of investigating the cosmos called multimessenger astronomy, which involves studying events and objects in electromagnetic radiation along with gravitational waves or neutrinos.

"Our study highlights that, for at least a fraction of these transients, interaction is not the primary driver of emissions, and this has important implications for multi-messenger astronomy," Tartaglia said. "Showing no evidence of interaction, supernova SN 2024bch lacks the physical conditions necessary for the emission of high-energy neutrinos."

The team's research has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/anti-social-cosmic-explosion-could-change-the-way-we-think-about-dying-stars-and-supernovas + + + + r5kj3gzaewnhrjmw4EJWpB + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 20:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ SpaceX looking into 'simplified' Starship Artemis 3 mission to get astronauts to the moon faster ]]> + SpaceX may be rethinking its moon-landing plans.

The company holds a contract to put NASA astronauts down near the lunar south pole on the Artemis 3 mission, which is expected to launch in 2028, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX will use a modified upper stage of its Starship megarocket — the biggest and most powerful launcher ever built — for this very high-profile job.

Or will it? Last week, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said the agency will reopen the Artemis 3 landing contract to competition, citing concerns with the pace of Starship's development. The rocket has flown 11 uncrewed test flights to date, the last two of them completely successful, but has yet to reach Earth orbit or demonstrate key moon-critical milestones such as in-space propellant transfer. (Each Starship vehicle will need to be refueled multiple times in Earth orbit before it can reach the moon.)

"I love SpaceX; it's an amazing company. The problem is, they're behind. They've pushed their timelines out, and we're in a race against China," Duffy said on Oct. 20 during an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box." (China plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 and has been making steady progress toward this goal.)

This announcement did not sit well with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. He attacked Duffy via social media repeatedly over the following few days, calling the acting NASA chief "Sean Dummy" and claiming that he "is trying to kill NASA."

Now, more than a week later, SpaceX has formulated a more substantive response. On Thursday (Oct. 30), the company posted an update called "To the Moon and Beyond," which summarizes the progress that SpaceX has made with Starship to date and lays out the vehicle's potential to make NASA's lunar ambitions a reality.

"Starship provides unmatched capability to explore the moon, thanks to its large size and ability to refill propellant in space," the blog post reads. "One single Starship has a pressurized habitable volume of more than 600 cubic meters, which is roughly two-thirds the pressurized volume of the entire International Space Station, and is complete with a cabin that can be scaled for large numbers of explorers and dual airlocks for surface exploration."

SpaceX stressed in the update that it's working in parallel along two Starship paths, developing the "core" megarocket (which will help humanity colonize Mars, among other tasks) as well as the Artemis-specific moon-lander upper stage. SpaceX is self-funding the core path, and its contract for the Artemis lander is of the fixed-price variety, "ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs," the company wrote.

According to Thursday's update, SpaceX has already completed 49 such milestones for the Artemis lander, including testing of micrometeoroid and space debris shielding and demonstrations of "lunar environmental control and life support and thermal control" systems. And the company plans to make even more progress soon, sending a Starship upper stage to Earth orbit and completing an in-space fueling test with the vehicle in 2026, if all goes to plan.

SpaceX affirmed in the blog post that it shares NASA's goal to return astronauts to the moon "as expeditiously as possible" and wants to be "a core enabler" of the Artemis program's overriding ambition — to establish a permanent and sustained human presence on the moon, rather than mount a flags-and-footprints retread of Apollo. And the company said it's willing to be flexible to help make all of this happen.

illustration of the cylindrical interior of a spacecraft, showing four astronauts seated near monitors at the right of the screen

Artist's rendering of the cabin of SpaceX's Starship vehicle during an Artemis moon mission for NASA. (Image credit: SpaceX)

"Since the contract was awarded, we have been consistently responsive to NASA as requirements for Artemis 3 have changed and have shared ideas on how to simplify the mission to align with national priorities," reads the update, which also features a new render of the interior of a crewed Starship moon lander. "In response to the latest calls, we’ve shared and are formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the moon while simultaneously improving crew safety."

The current Artemis 3 plan calls for its four astronauts to lift off atop a NASA Space Launch System rocket, then ride an Orion capsule to lunar orbit, where they'll meet up with the Starship upper stage. The astronauts will move into Starship, which will take them to and from the lunar surface.

SpaceX's new blog post doesn't provide any details about the possible "simplified" Artemis 3 architecture. But Musk may have given us a clue on Oct. 20, in one of his many Duffy reaction posts. "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry," the billionaire wrote. "Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole moon mission. Mark my words."

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/spacex-looking-into-simplified-starship-artemis-3-mission-to-get-astronauts-to-the-moon-faster + + + + VgXHowBYDxMQPMwVbPofem + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 19:07:53 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ These top-rated binoculars deliver 'a sky-watching experience that will move your soul' — they've just hit the best price we've ever seen in this early Black Friday deal ]]> + The Celestron SkyMaster 25x100mm binoculars are our optical experts' choice as the best binoculars for magnification in our binoculars buying guide. For anyone looking for binoculars to deliver incredible details of the night sky, then these top-rated optics have just hit the cheapest price since 2024.

In the lead up to Black Friday, Amazon has dropped the Celestron SkyMaster 25x100mm binoculars by a massive 22% off, taking them down to $403.69, and a saving of $116.23 on the usual Amazon MSRP of $519.95.

However, to sweeten this binocular deal further, there is an additional $40 discount coupon, which you apply before adding to your Amazon cart, and that takes them down to an incredible $363.69.

Save $156.26 on the Celestron SkyMaster 25x100mm binoculars — were $519.95, now $363.69 (with coupon) at Amazon.

In our review, binoculars expert David Sky Brody scored them with an impressive four out of five stars, saying: "They delivered an optically accurate sky-watching experience that can move your soul." High praise indeed, but they aren't without their negatives, and Brody marked them down for their suspect waterproof capabilities.

With such a big discount, now's the time to buy these recommended binoculars from one of the leading brands. Black Friday weekend is just around the corner, running from Nov. 28 to Cyber Monday on Dec. 1, but these are unlikely to go any cheaper, considering Walmart is still selling this popular model for $474.99.

The Celestron SkyMaster 25x100mm binoculars feature in our best binoculars guide as the best choice for magnification. It's safe to say that with a powerful 25x magnification, it makes stargazing or picking out details from a distance an incredible experience, providing stunning detail. However, they are incredibly heavy, and you will need to invest in one of the best tripods to get the maximum, shake-free details. Be sure to apply the $40 coupon before adding to your cart to trigger the full discounted price.

Read our full Celestron SkyMaster 25x100mm Binoculars Review.
View Deal

The SkyMaster 25x100s use two 100mm (4-inch) refractor telescopes set up side-by-side, with image-erecting prisms and eyepieces that focus independently for pin-point clarity — unlike the combined central adjustment on standard binoculars. Glasses wearers will also appreciate the 15mm of eye relief, which means you can comfortably use these binos while wearing specs.

One of the best things about the Celestron SkyMaster 25x100s is its superb magnification (which, of course, allows you to see objects 25 times closer). In testing, we were able to marvel at galaxy clusters such as the Leo Triplets, the atmospheric belts of Jupiter, and Sagittarius' star cloud.

However, with hefty magnification, it means they are very large and heavy binoculars (the SkyMaster 25x100s weigh 8.75lbs / 3.97kg), so even those with arms of steel will need a tripod to hold them steady. Our best tripods guide has plenty of buying advice there, and our choice as the most affordable tripod — the Manfrotto Element MII is worth a look.

Image 1 of 3

Celestron Skymaster 25x100 binoculars being handled on a tripod

You will need a tripod for the SkyMaster 25x100 binoculars to get the best shake-free viewing. (Image credit: Jeremy Lips & Dave Brody)
Image 2 of 3

Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 binoculars side on

The SkyMaster 25x100 binoculars are huge, but will provide incredible close-up viewing (Image credit: Future)
Image 3 of 3

Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 binoculars

The Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 binoculars eyepieces can be independently adjusted. (Image credit: Future)

Key features: 25x magnification, 100mm objective diameter, 3-degree field of view, BaK-4 prisms, water resistant.

Product launched: June 2006.

Price history: Before this current deal, the typical Amazon price was $474.95. They have been as low as $389, back in December, but this current deal with the additional $40 coupon sees them hit the lowest price we've ever seen.

Price comparison: Amazon: $363.69 | B&H Photo Video: $403.69 | Walmart: $474.99

Reviews consensus: There is no doubt that the Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 are a fantastic pair of binoculars, and are our favorite large astronomy binoculars. They deliver astonishing detail of the night sky, and we scored them a 4 out of 5-star review. We marked them down for their waterproofing and weight. So you will need a tripod to get the best shake-free viewing, but with the money saved, you can easily pick one up.

Space: ★★★★ | Live Science: ★★★★

✅ Buy it if: You want highly adjustable, powerful 25x binoculars for viewing the night sky or long-distance use.

❌ Don't buy it if: You want a handheld set of binoculars. The Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 is too heavy for that. Consider the Nikon 10x50 Acuon A211 binoculars, which are much more portable and can be handheld.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

]]> + https://www.space.com/stargazing/skywatching-kit/these-top-rated-binoculars-deliver-a-sky-watching-experience-that-will-move-your-soul-theyve-just-hit-the-best-price-weve-ever-seen-in-this-early-black-friday-deal + + + + 8WVyp7mEVx8VLuJqVSsrLo + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 18:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Colorado sues Trump administration over plans to relocate US Space Command to Alabama's 'Rocket City' ]]> + Colorado's attorney general is suing the Trump administration over the White House's plans to move the headquarters of U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

The White House announced its plan to move Space Command headquarters to Alabama at a press event in September 2025. During the event, Trump stated that Colorado's mail-in ballot policy played into his decision to relocate Space Command to Alabama. "The problem I had with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting, they went to all mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections," Trump said. Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Kamala Harris won Colorado by 11% in the 2024 presidential election.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced his decision to sue the administration on Wednesday (Oct. 29), citing Trump's justification. "This decision was not based on any formal criteria. It didn't follow the statutorily required evaluation process, didn't have any studies, reviews, or notice. It didn't offer validation or justification," Weiser said, according to Colorado Public Radio. "The Constitution does not permit the Executive Branch to punish or retaliate against states for lawfully exercising powers reserved for them, such as the power to regulate elections," Weiser added, according to Reuters.

U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM) is responsible for overseeing and distributing space-based capabilities throughout the entire U.S. military.

The U.S. Space Force is its own branch of the U.S. Armed Forces that trains and equips personnel to "secure our national interests in, from, and to space," and some Space Force personnel are assigned to serve in Space Command alongside members of other branches of the U.S. military serving in space-facing units.

Space Command has been headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base (formerly Peterson Air Force Base) in Colorado Springs since its creation in 1982. Colorado Springs is also home to Schriever Space Force Base and the U.S. Air Force Academy, which serves as the officer training corps for the Space Force.

The U.S. Air Force selected Huntsville as the permanent home for U.S. Space Command in 2021 during Trump's first term, which drew criticism from Colorado lawmakers as being a political move.

Former President Joe Biden reversed that decision in 2023, citing the head of Space Command at the time, Gen. James Dickinson, who told Biden the move would "jeopardize military readiness," according to the Associated Press. That decision, too, was cited as being politically motivated. Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Biden's reversal "looks like blatant patronage politics."

And it looks like the relocation of U.S. Space Command continues to be a political tug-of-war. During the September press conference announcing the move, Trump also insinuated that the relocation was influenced by 2024's election results.

"I am thrilled to report that the U.S. Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as 'Rocket City,'" Trump said during the announcement on Sept. 2. "We love Alabama. I only won it by about 47 points. I don't think that influenced my decision, right?"

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/colorado-sues-trump-administration-over-plans-to-relocate-us-space-command-to-alabamas-rocket-city + + + + mHFSWzhwL6toBE5JmKF3FB + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 17:19:50 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Europe is working to develop reusable rockets by the early 2030s ]]> + Europe's ArianeGroup is set to fly a series of demonstrators in a bid to develop sovereign reusable launch capabilities.

"Callisto, Themis and Skyhopper are different demonstration programs contributing to the development of a European reusable launch vehicle," Franck Koebel of France-based ArianeGroup said during a technical presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, Australia, on Oct. 1.

The effort is built around Prometheus, described as a reusable, high-thrust, low-cost methane-liquid oxygen rocket engine that will power the demonstrators. Testing has already begun with early systems trials in France, while current and upcoming campaigns are being run in Kiruna, Sweden, near the Arctic Circle.

The first Themis vehicle module — named T1H (Themis-1 engine-Hop), a 98.4-foot-tall (30 meters), 11.5-foot-wide (3.5 m) demonstrator — has already been transported to Esrange Spaceport in Kiruna. The vehicle has had landing legs installed, part of the preparations for a launch and landing test expected to take place in the near future.

Themis aims to demonstrate a vertical landing in a low-altitude test, demonstrating stable descent, a soft touchdown and controlled fuel use.

Koebel outlined a roadmap that will see Themis be followed by the later Callisto and Skyhopper efforts, which introduce multi-engine configurations and foldable landing legs. "It's a progressive increase in complexity. First non-foldable landing legs, then foldable ones, and later multi-engine configurations," Koebel said.

The flight campaign will be organized through the SALTO (reuSable strAtegic space Launcher Technology and Operations initiative) project as part of the European Union's Horizon Europe programme.

"The challenge is not particularly the science or the physics behind it, but rather: How in Europe are we able to master the needed technologies?" Koebel said.

The white cylindrical body of a rocket is hoisted horizontally onto the flat bed of a truck.

The THEMIS T1H being moved. (Image credit: Swedish Space Corporation/ArianeGroup–Mattias Forsberg)

The pathway aims at a full-stage recovery demonstration around 2027-2028, with potential operational capability to follow in the early 2030s, depending on results and funding continuity from the European Space Agency and elsewhere. The program, according to ArianeGroup, aims to boost European autonomous access to space.

]]> + https://www.space.com/technology/europe-is-working-to-develop-reusable-rockets-by-the-early-2030s + + + + hAjJJSiExmtePcBt5boyJT + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ China reveals crew for Shenzhou 21 mission to Tiangong Space Station, including nation's youngest astronaut (video) ]]> +

China has named the three astronauts set to fly to the Tiangong space station at a pre-launch press conference one day ahead of the Oct. 31 flight of the Shenzhou 21 mission.

Astronauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang will be aboard the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, currently scheduled to launch on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 11:44 a.m. EDT Friday (1544 GMT, or 11:44 p.m. Beijing Time).

The mission will be commanded by Zhang Lu, 48, who was a crew member of the Shenzhou 15 mission which launched in November 2022 and returned to Earth in June 2023. "After two years, being able to once again represent my country and carry out the Shenzhou-21 mission fills me with excitement and anticipation;” Zhang told reporters at Jiuquan on Oct. 30.

Three men wearing uniforms stand behind three podiums with a Chinese flag behind them

Astronauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang are named on the Shenzhou 21 mission. (Image credit: HECTOR RETAMAL / Getty Images)

Zhang Hongzhang and Wu Fei are from China's third batch of astronauts, selected in 2020, and will be making their first trips to space.

Zhang, 39, is a payload specialist and a researcher at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), while Wu is an engineer at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), a major state-owned institute that built the modules for the Tiangong space station. At 32 years old, Wu is the youngest member of China's astronaut corps.

"As the youngest member of China's Astronaut Corps, I feel extremely fortunate to embark on my spaceflight mission. I owe my good fortune to the era we live in, which is seeing leapfrog development in China's aerospace industry," Wu said.

A large rocket stands next to a couple of tall buildings with the red Chinese flags in the front

The Long March-2F carrier rocket will carrying the three astronauts to Tiangong Space Station. (Image credit: VCG / Getty Images)

China made a fourth selection of astronauts in 2024, but these 10 candidates have yet to complete training required before they can be eligible for selection for missions.

Zhang, Lu and his crewmates will spend around six months aboard Tiangong. During this time they will conduct experiments, embark on extravehicular activities (EVAs), or spacewalks, carry out public outreach and education activities, and oversee the arrival and departure of cargo from the space station.

The crew will also be joined by small mammals for the first time. Four black mice — two females and two males — are set to fly to Tiangong along with the astronauts and will be used in experiments focusing on reproduction in low Earth orbit.

Friday's mission will be the 10th crewed flight to Tiangong and the seventh visit since the completion of the three-module orbital outpost in October 2022. The space station is currently inhabited by the three Shenzhou 20 astronauts, Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie. The trio will hand over control of Tiangong to the incoming Shenzhou 21 crew and return to Earth on Nov. 3, landing near Jiuquan spaceport.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/human-spaceflight/china-reveals-crew-for-shenzhou-21-mission-to-tiangong-space-station-including-nations-youngest-astronaut-video + + + + CnA6vtjSfVZwSzmrH2UBmM + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Powerful solar storms may help life get going on alien planets. Here's how ]]> + A coronal mass ejection on another star has been witnessed in its entirety for the first time, revealing that when these violent outbursts take place on young stars, they pack enough energy to potentially kickstart the chemistry of life on any orbiting planets.

Young stars can be much more tumultuous than older stars. Stellar physics predicts that in our sun's formative years it was throwing off flares of radiation and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) far more powerful and more frequent than what the sun can manage today.

Yet no one had actually seen a young sun-like star being so energetic — until now.

A coronal mass ejection and its accompanying flare occur when taut magnetic field lines on the sun or another star snap, releasing a huge burst of energy before the field lines reconnect. This energy manifests as a brightening on the surface of the sun or star, while it can lift a huge plume of plasma straight from the corona, which is the ultra-hot outer layer of a star's atmosphere.

We're familiar with observing CMEs on our sun, but extraterrestrial CMEs are more difficult to spot. Nevertheless, ground-based telescopes observing at the hydrogen-alpha wavelength have detected cool, lower-energy plasma being burped off young stars during CMEs. The next step was to search for the higher-energy release of energy that stellar physicists believe characterizes the frequent CMEs from young stars.

To that end, a multi-national team of astronomers led by Kosuke Namekata of Kyoto University in Japan have made a breakthrough by targeting the young sun-like star EK Draconis, which is 112 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Draco, the Dragon. The star is thought to be 50 million to 125 million years old, which is considered very young for a star that will exist for billions of years, and has a mass (0.95 solar masses), radius (0.94 solar radii) and surface temperature (5,560 to 5,700 kelvin) that are very close to the values for our sun.

"What inspired us most was the long-standing mystery of how the young sun's violent activity influenced the nascent Earth," said Namekata in a statement. "By combining space- and ground-based facilities across Japan, Korea and the United States, we were able to reconstruct what may have happened billions of years ago in our own solar system."

Namekata's team performed simultaneous observations of EK Draconis with the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and three ground-based telescopes in Japan and Korea. The Hubble observations were in ultraviolet light, which enabled the detection of the higher-energy components of a CME, while the ground-based telescopes tracked the cooler plasma via its hydrogen-alpha emission and TESS watched for brightening caused by the accompanying flare.

Together, Hubble and the ground-based telescopes detected the spectral lines from the emission of a CME on EK Draconis. Hubble's ultraviolet vision detected a cloud of hot plasma with a temperature of 100,000 kelvin (180,000 degrees Fahrenheit). The amount of Doppler shifting in the ultraviolet spectral lines from the star indicated that the hot plasma had been ejected at a velocity of 300 to 550 kilometers per second (670,000 to 1.2 million mph). Ten minutes later, a plume of cooler gas at 10,000 kelvin (18,000 degrees Fahrenheit) appeared, moving more slowly at 70 kilometers per second (157,000 mph). Together, the hot and fast component and cool and slow component were both two sides of the same CME.

The hot component of the CME carried much more energy than the cooler plasma. This much energy released on a regular basis, researchers said, would be significant enough to drive chemical reactions in a planetary atmosphere, producing greenhouse gases that could keep a planet warm, as well as breaking atmospheric molecules apart so they can reform as complex organic molecules that could potentially act as the building blocks of life. (No exoplanets have been detected orbiting EK Draconis yet, but it does have a probable red dwarf companion star.)

The observations therefore are a rare insight into the role that stars can play in the origin of life, a role that our sun may have played 4.5 billion years ago and which other stars may be doing today.

The findings were published on Oct. 27 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/powerful-solar-storms-may-help-life-get-going-on-alien-planets-heres-how + + + + kWa4FvvrMkeD8CGug3UNv8 + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 14:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ James Webb Space Telescope spots the haunting Red Spider Nebula with 3-light-year-long legs ]]> + Out in the cosmic landscape, planetary nebulas would offer the perfect Halloween doors to knock on.

They're spooky tricksters in their names, as they have nothing to do with planets at all and are rather the gory scenes of stars dying. The term "planetary nebula" actually comes from an accident. Long ago, astronomers using early-iteration telescopes thought these objects looked like planets because of how rounded they appeared. We now know this to be untrue, of course, but the planetary nebulas continue to be disguised by their own titles.

But once you've moved on from this trick, the ruse is softened by the absolute treat it is to view one of these enchanting bundles of gas and dust. Indeed, the planetary nebula seen above, known as the Red Spider Nebula and imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is a terrific example of the rich scientific detail and aesthetic beauty these objects can offer.

To be clear, this image isn't exactly accurate in its color, because the JWST doesn't capture images like a normal camera. Rather, it collects infrared light emitted by different parts of objects (light that's invisible to us), then sends that information back to scientists. Astronomers can put together a picture using that data, then color it artificially to make various sections stand out.

What you're looking at here is the aftermath of a sun-like star that eventually reached the end of its life and poofed out into a cool red giant star. This will happen to our sun one day as well: It will bubble out to over 200 times its regular size and destroy everything in its path, including (perhaps) Earth.

Eventually, the outer layers of such a red giant begin to shed off until the raw core of the star is revealed. As a result, you get something like what we see in the image here.

A large planetary nebula. The nebula’s central star is hidden by a blotchy pinkish cloud of dust. A strong red light radiates from this area, illuminating the nearby dust. Two large loops extend diagonally away from the centre, formed of thin ridges of molecular gas, here coloured blue. They stretch out to the corners of the view. A huge number of bright, whitish stars cover the background, also easily visible through the thin dust layers.

The Red Spider Nebula glows in the darkness of space. (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. H. Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology))

To break the Red Spider Nebula down a little bit, at the very center is a single star that you can see, but the European Space Agency explains in a statement that there is likely also a second companion star that we just can't make out in this particular view. The reasoning there is that the specific shape of this nebula, aka its hourglass look, indicates a possible double star situation. The JWST's infrared capabilities also show a "shroud of hot dust" surrounding the visible star, ESA explains.

The lobes of the Red Spider Nebula are three light-years long each, inflated by gas from the central star shooting outward for thousands of years. The S-shape you can make out if you go from the northeast to the southwest part of the reddish area within the nebula comes from light emitted by ionized iron atoms, which refers to iron that has either gained or lost a quantity of its electrons. In fact, on that note, the blue lobes we see are representative of H2 molecules (involving two hydrogen atoms) emitting light.

Yet one of the most striking aspects of this scene comes not from the nebula itself but rather from the spectacular backdrop of stars behind it. Back when the JWST's first images were released, scientists were overjoyed to see how much detail the observatory picks up when peering into the universe, whether or not it was requested to collect that detail. That quirk of the JWST never faded, as the telescope naturally cocoons its targets in only the most deserving frames.

The twinkliest of the stars in this frame also have eight points if you look closely (two of the points are horizontal through the center and shorter than the other six), characteristic of a JWST image due to the way the telescope's hexagonal mirror works.

An iconic signature like that may make it difficult for the JWST to give us a trick like the planetary nebula crew, but at least it nails the treats.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/james-webb-space-telescope-spots-the-haunting-red-spider-nebula-with-3-light-year-long-legs + + + + jrx7qWFQuuPBWhVyXzf8cQ + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 13:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Peering into the eye of Hurricane Melissa | Space photo of the day for Oct. 30, 2025 ]]> + High above Earth, satellites like the European Union's Copernicus Sentinel-2 watch and track storms such as Hurricane Melissa, a category 5 maelstrom. These satellites help keep continuous eyes on the tempest and provide valuable data about how these natural disasters form and how they can impact communities in a changing world.

What is it?

The Copernicus program is an initiative by the European Union to monitor Earth. It comprises several families of "Sentinel" satellites, each operated by the European Space Agency and tasked with different sensing capabilities: land, ocean and atmosphere.

Because the data is freely available to researchers under the Copernicus program, scientists can support disaster management, build better early warning systems, and have better insights into how global warming and climate change are affecting hurricanes.

Where is it?

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28, 2025.

Hurricane Melissa was a record-breaking storm for Jamaica. (Image credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel Imagery)

Why is it amazing?

Hurricane Melissa underwent a period of rapid intensification, becoming one of the most powerful storms in the Atlantic in 2025. When it made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28, 2025, it was the most powerful storm in the country's history. Monitoring how storms change is crucial because intensification rates are hard to predict, and stronger storms mean higher risk of catastrophic damage.

Understanding and analyzing the processes behind hurricane intensification, via the use of satellites like Sentinel-2, can help to improve hurricane forecasting and, in the process, save lives.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about Earth-monitoring satellites and the European Space Agency.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/peering-into-the-eye-of-hurricane-melissa-space-photo-of-the-day-for-oct-30-2025 + + + + YFgXjB3qXtnXFqFsvfw3yF + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 12:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ SpaceX launches 100th Starlink mission of 2025 ]]> + SpaceX launched its 100th Starlink mission of the year today (Oct. 31).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 of SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base today at 4:41 p.m. EDT (2041 GMT; 1:41 p.m. local California time).

Starlink, SpaceX's internet-beaming network in low Earth orbit (LEO), is by far the largest satellite constellation ever assembled. The company has lofted more than 10,000 Starlink spacecraft to date, and nearly 8,800 of them are active today.

Most of SpaceX's launches these days go toward building out Starlink even further: The company has flown 138 Falcon 9 missions so far in 2025, and 99 have been Starlink efforts.

Previous Booster 1063 missions

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich | DART | Transporter-7 | Iridium OneWeb | SDA-0B | NROL-113 | NROL-167 | NROL-149 | NAOS | 19 Starlink missions

The Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after launch, touching down in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You."

It was the 29th flight for this particular booster, which is designated 1063. That's close to the Falcon 9 reuse record, which currently stands at 31 flights.

Meanwhile, the Falcon 9's upper stage will continue hauling the 29 Starlink satellites to LEO, where they'll be deployed about an hour after liftoff.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-100th-starlink-satellite-launch-2025 + + + + XTDcXyxFBqzYXwdA7Hipog + + Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Venus loses its last active spacecraft, as Japan declares Akatsuki orbiter dead ]]> + Humanity's last active mission at Venus is no more.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) declared its Akatsuki spacecraft dead on Tuesday (Oct. 28), more than a year after the Venus climate probe failed to respond to calls from mission control.

"This was a mission that changed our view of our Earth-sized neighbor, and laid the path for new discoveries about what it takes to become heaven or hell," JAXA officials stated of the mission, referring to the notoriously high-pressure and high-temperature surface of Venus in comparison to Earth.

JAXA noted that the Akatsuki mission produced 178 journal papers and counting, and that it tripled its 4.5-year design lifetime — even though the probe missed its first shot at orbiting Venus.

The $300 million spacecraft, also known as the Venus Climate Orbiter, launched in 2010 and experienced a failure of its main engine along the way, missing the chance for a crucial burn to enter orbit. Incredibly, however, the mission survived long enough for a second try at orbital insertion in 2015, when Akatsuki drew close to Venus after five years of orbiting the sun.

"With the main rocket engine damaged, the team were forced to get creative," JAXA wrote in the statement. "The spacecraft would have to attempt capture using the less powerful thrusters that were designed for the tasks of attitude control and fine adjustments. Orbit insertion had never previously been achieved with such a method, but exploration has always been about redefining the impossible."

Akatsuki not only made it but persisted in its exploration of Venus for nearly a decade. JAXA announced it had lost contact with the spacecraft on May 29, 2024 after about a month of communication issues.

Akatsuki aimed to learn more about the climate of Venus, which has surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, alongside crushing pressure that has destroyed past landing missions in minutes. As an orbiter, Akatsuki focused on the cloud bank of Venus that is about 30 to 43 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) above the surface.

An image of Venus in space with this brown and blue streaks of clouds showing in its atmosphere

Dayside of Venus captured by the Akatsuki ultraviolet imager (UVI). Venus is shown in false color, based on the UV 283 nm and 365 nm wavelength data (Image credit: PLANET-C Project Team)

"In this region, winds whip at speeds that approach the Shinkansen bullet trains, 60 times faster than the planet rotation — a phenomenon that is known as 'super rotation,'" JAXA wrote. While Venusian clouds whip around the planet in about four Earth days on average, Venus' extremely slow rotation means a single Venusian day lasts the equivalent of 243 days on our planet.

Akatsuki made progress in learning about super rotation. "As Akatsuki gazed steadily at the Venusian surface, researchers mapped the clouds between hundreds of images, measuring their speed as they slid around the globe," JAXA stated. "This analysis revealed that the acceleration of the clouds depended on the local solar time, suggesting that the incredible rotation speeds were being maintained by solar heating."

The finding has implications for life beyond Earth, the agency added. Venus orbits the sun in just 225 days, a shorter duration than its rotation. This means the planet is nearly tidally locked, which would be the case if its surface perpetually had one hemisphere facing the sun (just like Earth's moon, whose near side constantly faces our planet.)

"Many of the extrasolar planets discovered may be in tidal lock, and there is an ongoing debate as to whether this impedes their chances of habitability," JAXA wrote. "Without a mechanism to redistribute heat, air on the nightside of a tidally locked world would freeze and cause global atmospheric collapse. However, if Venus's rapid atmosphere rotation is driven by thermal input from the star, then this could be a common mechanism that would redistribute the heat fast enough on tidally locked worlds to save their air."

Akatsuki initially launched with six instruments, all of which were still working when it entered the orbit of Venus in 2015. Two infrared cameras stopped working about a year after orbital insertion, but the last four instruments were believed to still be healthy when Akatsuki stopped communicating in 2024.

The mission made some other discoveries as well, JAXA said. Scientists spotted a bow-like feature in the atmosphere that lasted for at least four Earth days, which researchers suggested was due to mountains on Venus allowing lower-atmosphere gas to move higher as a "gravity wave" to a greater extent than observed on Earth. But learning more will require new Venus missions, JAXA said.

And there are some in the planning stages. For example, NASA is working on a mission called DAVINCI, which is designed to penetrate the atmosphere, and another one called VERITAS, which will orbit the planet in search of information about its surface and interior. And the European Space Agency is developing EnVision, an orbiter that will study the atmosphere, interior and surface of Venus.

Both DAVINCI and VERITAS, however, are at threat of losing funding in President Donald Trump's 2026 NASA budget request, which slashes agency funding by 24% and cancels dozens of science missions. What happens next is still being debated by politicians during the ongoing U.S. government shutdown that started on Oct. 1, when funding was not agreed to for the new fiscal year.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/venus-loses-its-last-active-spacecraft-as-japan-declares-akatsuki-orbiter-dead + + + + Qyxfy6VtjLshRbr4guDoZU + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 21:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Could these mysterious flashes of light in 1950s photos be UFOs? Some researchers think so ]]> + In the 1950s, mysterious flashes of light were captured on photographic plates taken at the Palomar Observatory in California. Two new studies claim that these flashes were caused by reflective objects in high-Earth orbit connected to sightings of alleged unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), a new catch-all term for UFOs not only in the sky, but also in space or even that travel through water.

For the past few years, astronomers including Beatriz Villarroel, of Nordita, Stockholm University, have been scrutinizing photographic plates exposed in the years before the Space Age began, as part of the Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project. The aim of VASCO is to use archival data, now digitized, to search for new astrophysical transients, which are objects that brighten or fade, sometimes dramatically. These objects can appear as a spot of light in one image of the sky or space, only to vanish in the next.

Villarroel and study co-author Stephen Bruehl, a professor of anesthesiology from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, say their data show a statistical correlation between these flashes of light and reported sightings of unidentified objects. “We speculate that some transients could potentially be UAP in Earth orbit that, if descending into the atmosphere, might provide the stimulus for some UAP sightings,” they write in one of the new studies.

When VASCO launched, it had the stated aim of looking for stars that had vanished, which could for example signal a massive star collapsing into black hole without exploding as a supernova. VASCO could potentially also reveal new types of variable stars, active galactic nuclei, stellar flares or even brand new phenomena.

Sometimes the transients VASCO studies are unexplained, which has previously led Villarroel to a startling conclusion: that some of the objects detected on the plates are metallic objects in high Earth-orbit, before the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957.

“Today we know that short flashes of light are often solar reflections from flat, highly reflective objects in orbit around the Earth, such as satellites and space debris, but the photographic plates analyzed in VASCO were taken before humans had satellites in space,” Villarroel said in a statement.

images of stars on a black background, with what appear to be other stars among them circled by dotted lines

Transients studied by the VASCO project, which attempts to pin down the sources for these mysterious flashes of light seen in archival sky survey photographs. (Image credit: Beatriz Villarroel et al 2025/CC BY 4.0 (DOI 10.1088/1538-3873/ae0afe))

VASCO researchers analyzed 106,000 transients that look like stars that appeared and swiftly disappeared in a single exposure between the years 1951 and 1957. In particular, the appearance of the unidentified transients were 68% more likely to occur the day after a nuclear weapons test in Earth’s atmosphere than on other day, Bruehl added in the statement.

“The magnitude of the association between these flashes of light and nuclear tests was surprising, as was the very specific time at which they most often occurred – namely, the day after a test,” said Bruehl. “What they might represent is a very fascinating question that needs further investigation.”

In their study, Villarroel and Bruehl also found that the transients captured by the photographic plates increased by an average of 8.5% for each UAP sighting that was reported.

In a second study, which also included researchers from Algeria, India, Nigeria, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United States, they found that one anomalous transient coincided with a cluster of flying saucer sightings over Washington, D.C., on 27 July 1952. This particular transient, along with several others, was an instance where multiple flashes of light were seen along a narrow band. This, says Villarroel, suggests flat, reflective objects in motion high above Earth that were reflecting sunlight – a hypothesis supported by the fact that the number of mystery transients drops off in parts of the sky in Earth’s shadow, where sunlight can’t reach.

“You don’t get those kinds of solar reflections from round objects like asteroids or dust grains in space, which leave streaks during a 50-minute exposure, but only if something is very flat and very reflective and reflects the sunlight with a short flash,” said Villarroel.

images of stars on a black background, with what appear to be other stars among them circled by dotted lines

Transients studied by the VASCO project, which attempts to pin down the sources for these mysterious flashes of light seen in archival sky survey photographs. (Image credit: Beatriz Villarroel et al 2025/CC BY 4.0 (DOI 10.1088/1538-3873/ae0afe))

Villarroel and Bruehl propose another possible explanation, however: that nuclear weapons tests triggered some unknown atmospheric phenomenon that went unnoticed at the time. But Villarroel and Bruehl are skeptical that such a phenomenon would stand still in the atmosphere for 24 hours between the weapons test and when the plate was exposed at Palomar in California. The transients do not seem to be particles of nuclear fallout that have drifted down onto the photographic plate either, since such particles would produce foggy, diffuse spots, not pinpoint, star-like objects.

The explanation Villarroel and Bruehl focus on most in their papers is that these transients are UAP of some kind. Their study connects the nuclear tests to sightings, which have been reported in the vicinity of nuclear sites for decades. "Significantly more UAP sightings were reported within nuclear weapons testing windows (test date + /- 1 day) than outside of testing windows," they report in their study.

There are, of course, many caveats. Critics have claimed that the transients could be photographic defects, or contamination, especially as the plates are quite old and were stored away for many decades before being digitized.

Villarroel and Bruehl perhaps also give too much credit to reports of UFO sightings. Their reported correlation of 8.5% between the appearance of the transients and flying saucer sightings is only relevant if it can be assumed those UAP sightings are credible in the first place. There may also be an observation bias – the 1950s were the heyday of UFO sightings, so it is perhaps not too surprising that there were sightings coinciding with the appearance of transients, since UAP sightings were reported on many different days.

Ultimately, correlation does not necessarily mean causation, and Villarroel and Bruehl do acknowledge this in their study.

In SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, researchers tend to assume that any unexplained phenomena isn’t aliens, and to exhaust every possible natural explanation before invoking an extraterrestrial one. This approach would be helpful here, although what those alternative explanations might be are not yet certain.

Because of the nuclear test-ban treaty there is, quite rightly, no way to test the hypothesis that the transients are related to atmospheric phenomena caused by nuclear explosions, of which there were at least 124 above the ground between 1951 and 1957.

For now, the discovery of the transients remains an intriguing puzzle. One possible way forward that has been suggested is to try and repeat the observations on the modern day sky. If geosynchronous satellites that we know about produce similar patterns of transients on photographic plates, then that would strengthen the hypothesis that the transients on the Palomar plates could depict metallic objects reflecting sunlight in high orbit.

The two studies are published in Scientific Reports and Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/were-unexplained-flashes-of-light-in-70-year-old-sky-surveys-caused-by-ufos-or-nuclear-testing-why-not-both-researchers-say + + + + gGSHPc3sf7ADSFfnLWLkDK + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Scientists use James Webb Space Telescope to make 1st 3D map of exoplanet — and it's so hot, it rips apart water ]]> + Astronomers have produced the first-ever three-dimensional map of a planet outside our solar system — WASP-18b — marking a major leap forward in exoplanet research.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers applied a new technique called 3D eclipse mapping, or spectroscopic eclipse mapping, to track subtle changes in various light wavelengths as WASP-18b moved behind its star. These variations allowed scientists to reconstruct temperature across latitudes, longitudes and altitudes, revealing distinct temperature zones throughout the planet's atmosphere.

"If you build a map at a wavelength that water absorbs, you'll see the water deck in the atmosphere, whereas a wavelength that water does not absorb will probe deeper," Ryan Challener, a postdoctoral associate in Cornell’s Department of Astronomy and lead author of a study published on the research, said in a statement. "If you put those together, you can get a 3D map of the temperatures in this atmosphere."

WASP-18b is located about 400 light-years from Earth; it has roughly 10 times Jupiter's mass and completes an orbit of its host star in just 23 hours. Because it's so close to its star, temperatures in the planet's atmosphere reach nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Those scorching conditions made it an ideal candidate for testing the new method of 3D temperature mapping.

The map revealed a bright central hotspot surrounded by a cooler ring on the planet's dayside — it has a tidally locked orbit, meaning that one side of the planet is always facing its star — demonstrating that the exoplanet's winds fail to distribute heat evenly across the atmosphere.

Remarkably, the hotspot showed lower water vapor levels than WASP-18b's atmospheric average. "We think that's evidence that the planet is so hot in this region that it's starting to break down the water," Challener said. "That had been predicted by theory, but it’s really exciting to actually see this with real observations."

This new 3D eclipse mapping technique will open many doors in exoplanet observations, as it "allows us to image exoplanets that we can't see directly, because their host stars are too bright," said Challener. As 3D eclipse mapping is applied to other exoplanets observed by Webb, "[w]e can start to understand exoplanets in 3D as a population, which is very exciting," he added.

The team's research was published in the journal Nature Astronomy on October 28, 2025.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/scientists-use-james-webb-space-telescope-to-make-1st-3d-map-of-exoplanet-and-its-so-hot-it-rips-apart-water + + + + JjBP8uGWjwT5bTGQ57JKYh + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Every 'Star Wars: Visions Volume 3' episode, ranked from worst to best ]]> + As Disney and Lucasfilm work towards establishing a coherent and regular theatrical schedule for Star Wars once again, the Disney Plus side of things continues to evolve the galaxy far, far away. Among the franchise's biggest animated hits, we find the Star Wars: Visions anthology series. Volume 3 is finally here, and here's our ranking of all the shorts from Japanese studios included in this new batch.

While 2023's Volume 2 widened Visions' lens to include animation studios from all over the world, this new season returns to Japan's anime tradition, with some shorts serving as follow-ups to past hits and others exploring the Star Wars galaxy in totally different (and often shocking) ways. Needless to say, none of these shorts are canon to the Star Wars timeline, though we and many fans would be more than happy to admit some of them as part of the continuity.

Overall, Volume 3 strikes a comfortable balance between old and new, with only a few of the bunch feeling like missed shots that don't make the most of the golden opportunity to play inside the Star Wars sandbox. We're also willing to bet some fans might love a handful of characters introduced here so much that their shorts could become new pilot episodes for regular series, which is what's happening with The Ninth Jedi after lots of online acclaim.

Light spoilers ahead for all episodes of Star Wars: Visions Volume 3 and some previous Volume 1 shorts.

9. 'The Bird of Paradise' (Polygon Pictures)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

It's no secret Polygon Pictures' 3DCG approach to anime isn't celebrated by many animation enthusiasts, and while their stab at crafting a compelling Star Wars short makes bigger efforts than past projects to have a distinct look, the result remains odd and video game-like in a negative way. Whereas critically acclaimed movies like the Spider-Verse films have proven there's more than enough room to wow with a mix of 3D, traditional, and experimental animation, The Bird of Paradise never manages to move past the '3D anime' uncanny valley that plagues many animated shows and flicks.

Even if you can get past the jarring presentation, there's not much to the story being told here. With most shorts running under 20 minutes, a brisk pacing and very clear structure are important to say something and leave a mark. Instead, The Bird of Paradise feels like the late-act-two dramatic beat of an actual tale, which is why it's hard to connect with its lead Jedi Padawan's struggle or the tired philosophy it relentlessly throws at the viewer in hopes of making an emotional impact.

8. 'The Song of Four Wings' (Project Studio Q)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

The good news about The Song of Four Wings is that Project Studio Q understood the assignment of going in, doing something that's at least visually striking, and going out with style. The not-so-great news is that it spends far too long establishing a character background we've seen a hundred times before and introducing a little side creature we likely won't be seeing again.

That said, the good outweighs the baffling. The princess-turned-Rebel (not Leia) at the center of the short has a couple of neat tricks; her robot companion is cute; and the little alien she comes across is even cuter. While it takes too long to get to the action and the setting is the Reign of the Empire yet again, director Hiroyasu Kobayashi and his team found some genuine fun in the frozen wastes of the Hoth-like planet we visit. Just try to ignore how bad those stormtroopers' aim is, even by Imperial standards.

7. 'Yuko's Treasure' (Kinema Citrus)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

After managing to get their first short, The Village Bridge, all the way to the Oscars, it came as no surprise Kinema Citrus got the opportunity to work on two different shorts for Volume 3. Their non-sequel tale is Yuko's Treasure, an endearing and fun adventure set on Tatooine (we can't escape that dust ball), where a sheltered orphan and her bear-like droid caregiver are found and attacked by a group of pirates looking for treasure.

Structurally, this is one of the cleanest episodes in Volume 3, and the animation style is a traditional treat. It also ends on a hopeful and sincere note that could spawn a fun little Star Wars anime show. Not as impressive is its thin and timid use of Star Wars' unique setting. We revisit Tatooine and the Mos Eisley cantina; there's no big swing taken with the technology and governing aesthetic; and the villainous pirates, Twi'lek aside, could belong to any random sci-fi anime. It's hard not to enjoy this one, but its limitations are frustrating.

6. 'The Duel: Payback' (Kamikaze Douga & ANIMA)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

The Duel was one of Volume 1's biggest wins, mostly due to its striking art style and the decision to reimagine the Jedi vs. Sith conflict in a universe heavily influenced by Japanese lore and samurai stories. That success led to a novel and two prequel one-shot comic books. In Volume 3, Kamikaze Douga and ANIMA are back with a vengeance... literally.

In this sequel short, the ex-Sith Ronin character finds some unexpected allies while facing off against another former Sith (he's on a mission to hunt the remaining evil Force users down), but the bigger conflict comes from the return of a Jedi he once fought and seemingly defeated. In Payback, we get a closer look at this universe's version of the Jedi 'Crusaders' and learn more about the state of the galaxy through relentless action and plenty of neat little character moments. This one's delightfully balanced (like the Force should be) and packs a punch while looking unlike anything else in the franchise. Full series when?

5. 'The Lost Ones' (Kinema Citrus)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

The Lost Ones is a direct sequel to 2021's The Village Bride, which should instantly make it one of the most anticipated shorts in this season for those who have closely followed the development of new Visions volumes. Fortunately, F's (the main Jedi protagonist) return doesn't disappoint thanks to clearly defined plot and character beats and lovely, colorful animation that's all about making traditional 2D techniques pop. It also continues to be one of those stories that could fit with little to no tinkering within the established canon.

In this new tale, F comes across refugees trying to escape a natural disaster that's made their planet uninhabitable. While the first section of the sort seems a tad too quiet, the team led by director Hitoshi Haga managed to cram a lot of story and character work into the tight runtime, complete with stylish action sequences and some stunning and inventive vistas. We wouldn't mind a series that follows F as she navigates the galaxy trying to help those in need and becoming a better Jedi.

4. 'The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope' (Production I.G)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

After the surprise announcement The Ninth Jedi would be turned into a full anime series (set to arrive in 2026), the second anime short from Production I.G quickly became the most anticipated one in Volume 3, and we're happy to report it doesn't disappoint. It's a direct sequel to the first one and a perfect setup for what's coming next as Kara and her Jedi allies try to escape a group of hunters while learning more about the girl's abilities.

Unlike the first short, Child of Hope also takes a swing outside of the usual Star Wars aesthetic — it's part of why The Ninth Jedi was celebrated as a possible 'far future' in the canon — to come up with a handful of striking locations with a distinct look and fun new characters. The Naoyoshi Shiotani-directed (and written) short also behaves more like a traditional anime episode now that a series is planned to come next. While it may be less action-packed than many fans expected, the character beats and key moments are so well executed we're instantly ready for the next chapter in Kara's journey.

3. 'The Bounty Hunters' (Wit Studio)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

Wit Studio (of Attack on Titan fame) is another great addition to the roster of Japanese studios in Volume 3. While the story setup feels like nothing special at first, The Bounty Hunters quickly gets into a confident groove that's neither too dark nor weightless, also managing to evade the Jedi vs. Sith conflict so many creatives like to riff on. This is one of the cleanest one-shots in Visions' entire three-season run so far, and it's told with lots of composure.

This one's also among the animated Star Wars tales that could've happened elsewhere and away from the canon stories we've been told. It's a fairly low-stakes affair, but it tells an important story and Junichi Yamamoto knew how to do so in style. A rogue bounty hunter who travels the galaxy alongside a medical droid with a dark side was solid as a pitch, but it's the execution that makes The Bounty Hunters shine. There's also space for well-timed comedy in this one, but it's the small moments of quiet and fun character interactions that elevate it.

2. 'The Smuggler' (Trigger)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

Trigger's The Smuggler also starts off familiar, with a royal figure that must escape the Empire, but the veteran Visions studio (one of the most celebrated in the anime space) quickly puts its stamp on both the narrative's tone and the animation. While traditional in its approach to world-building, it also makes efforts to stand apart from the other Star Wars stories, canon or not.

A young woman looking for quick money takes on a dangerous job, and the following adventure also has that "pilot episode" feeling that isn't surprising now that Lucasfilm has become more open about its intentions of expanding into the anime space. Though the ending feels safer and too main-Star-Wars-adjacent for our taste, the entire ride is an old-fashioned blast full of charming moments, satisfying action, and characters we wish we could spend more time with.

1. 'Black' (David Production)

Still from the animated TV anthology series

(Image credit: Disney)

David Production's Black is by far the most shocking and inspiring short Lucasfilm has released so far under the Visions banner. Directed by renowned animator, director, and character designer Shinya Ohira, it explores the psyche of an Imperial stormtrooper as everything crumbles around him. It's not often Star Wars focuses on Imperial grunts, much less in such haunting fashion. This one's so experimental and disturbing that it feels like the one short which slipped through the cracks; easily the boldest official bit of Star Wars we've ever seen.

The short is split into nine scenes that seamlessly blend together, with one animator taking over each scene. It's heavy on the use of different brushes, Ohira's signature shifting linework, and dynamic movement which adds to the overall entrancing look. On top of everything, Sakura Fujirawa's music establishes a fluid rhythm, all while dialogue is completely absent. 'Star Wars but make it psychedelic' is something we've just learned we need more of.

]]> + https://www.space.com/entertainment/space-movies-shows/every-star-wars-visions-volume-3-episode-ranked-from-worst-to-best + + + + Q3mST7P2dsTSNhwaYcsG4G + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 18:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ 'Supergirl' at 10: The Arrowverse TV show laid the blueprint for James Gunn's DC Universe ]]> + James Gunn's "Superman" promotes kindness as the new punk rock. It's a hopeful message, encouraging people to treat each other better rather than fall into the cynical trappings of modern society. It isn't a new concept by any means, since another TV show about the Man of Steel's famous cousin laid the foundation for this bright, buoyant world where superheroes wear their emotions on their sleeves (and capes).

Premiering on Oct. 26, 2015, the "Supergirl" TV series marked the third entry into the burgeoning Arrowverse – an interconnected television universe featuring different DC series. Funnily enough, it was meant to be separate at first, but once the show moved from CBS to The CW in its second season, it integrated into the wider storyline. It was a strange time for the DC brand, though, mostly due to its cinematic endeavours attempting to build a darker alternative to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), while the Arrowverse proved to be a smorgasbord of tone. "Arrow" brooded and "The Flash" brought levity, but "Supergirl" became the heart of it all.

Inspired by the comic book stories that came before it, "Supergirl" follows the adult Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist), also known as Kara Zor-El, who becomes Supergirl. Years prior, Kara was sent from Krypton to Earth to protect her younger cousin, Kal-El. However, her ship was thrown off course and she spent 24 years trapped in the Phantom Zone. Eventually, Kara arrived on Earth, where she discovered that Kal-El was already established as Superman and no longer needed her protection. Her cousin placed her under the care of foster parents, Eliza (Helen Slater) and Jeremiah Danvers (Dean Cain), and their daughter, Alex (Chyler Leigh), so that Kara experienced an ordinary upbringing, despite her extraordinary origin.

Split image showing three covers for Supergirl comics

Split image showing three covers for Supergirl comics. (Image credit: DC Comics)

Kara's journey isn't only about her deciding to use her superpowers to help the world as Supergirl, but it's also about reconciling her Kryptonian heritage with the life she builds on Earth. She experiences a crisis of identity in this regard: Is she Kara Danvers, Kara Zor-El, or Supergirl? It's no different from what her cousin experiences in "Superman." When they come to appreciate that they're the masters of their own destinies and not defined by their identities, labels, or powers, that's when they unlock the full potential of their greatest quality: humanity.

To paraphrase the Man of Steel's monologue in "Superman," they're as human as anyone. They love. They get scared. They wake up every morning, and despite not knowing what to do, they put one foot in front of the other, and try to make the best choices that they can. They screw up all the time, but that is being human, and that's their greatest strength.

Benoist understood this about the character from the get-go. "I love her humanity," Benoist told KryptonSite months before "Supergirl" debuted. "She is an alien, [but] I love that she really has a lot of discovering to do, and growth, and makes mistakes. I think she's so relatable, and I just want to stay true to that."

This enables Kara to walk between both worlds and maintain compassion and respect for every living being on Earth and elsewhere. A storyline in the fourth season sees Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) pulling puppet strings in the formation of the Children of Liberty, an anti-alien group. (Oddly similar to Nicholas Hoult's Luthor's plans in "Superman" too, isn't it?) Kara opposes this hate group, fighting the calculated acts of disinformation, intolerance, and bigotry.

Still from the Supergirl TV show. Supergirl teams up with The Flash.

Still from the Supergirl TV show. (Image credit: Warner Bros. Television)

It's in these moments that Kara does something even more powerful than any superhuman feat: She inspires those around her to be everyday selfless heroes and stand up for what's right. Throughout "Supergirl," Kara demonstrates how she can't solve the universe's problems alone. All the power in the world means nothing, because it's people who matter. Resultantly, Kara motivates and rallies other superpowered and non-superpowered individuals to share in the hope of a better tomorrow. No matter the odds, the circumstances, or the apathy of others, Kara proves that only through kindness can people be the positive change they want to see in the world. A certain James Gunn must have heeded this message, while doodling the Mighty Crabjoys logo in his notebook.

Rotten Tomatoes ranked "Supergirl" as the ninth-best superhero TV show of all time, ahead of critically acclaimed series like "Daredevil," "Smallville," and "Legion." While a controversial decision for sure, one cannot argue that "Supergirl" differentiates itself through its unapologetic positivity and feelgood factor. It's also remarkable how the series never set out with the intention to merge with or create a wide-spanning universe with cameos, crossovers, and canon fodder, but it happened organically. Even so, it never came at the cost of everything else, as Kara remained the beating heart of the show and Arrowverse. Much how it should be, especially when many comic book shows and films are guilty of putting franchise-building over good storytelling.

Of course, there would be no Supergirl without Superman, and the show eventually introduced its own Man of Steel, played by Tyler Hoechlin (who went on to have his own spinoff, "Superman & Lois"). Despite David Corenswet sharing an uncanny resemblance to Henry Cavill, he's certainly more akin to Hoechlin's Supes – goofy, charming, good, and hopeful – lending more credence to the belief that Gunn looked to the Arrowverse for inspiration rather than Zack Snyder's DC Extended Universe.

Still from the Supergirl TV series. Supergirl and Superman smiling at each other.

Still from the Supergirl TV show. (Image credit: Warner Bros. Television)

Gunn's DC Universe (DCU) is now in full force, taking further shape and expanding its breadth with each new chapter. Unquestionably, "Superman" showcased the same elements of charm, heart, and humor found in "Supergirl," yet it remains to be seen how Kara Zor-El herself is set to be portrayed in the DCU. Milly Alcock's brief cameo in "Superman" marks a stark difference to Benoist's version of the character, but this could change with the release of 2026's "Supergirl" movie – or maybe it won't.

Regardless, the "Supergirl" TV show left its imprint tattooed on the fabric of the DCU, and even other modern comic book adaptations. In a time in which human kindness has become seen as some kind of weakness or point of ridicule, this series encourages everyone to do the opposite. By becoming the light in a darkened world, everyone becomes a firefly that helps to illuminate the way back home to each other. Now, that's punk rock.

"Supergirl" is available to watch on Amazon, Apple TV, and other streaming services in the US and UK.

]]> + https://www.space.com/entertainment/space-movies-shows/supergirl-at-10-the-arrowverse-tv-show-laid-the-blueprint-for-james-gunns-dc-universe + + + + TY39KrbjL7KFWGqfQFuT9A + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:35:03 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Is Earth 'on the brink'? 2024 was likely our planet’s hottest year in 125,000 years ]]> + 2024 may have been Earth's hottest year in at least 125,000 years, according to a grim climate report published Wednesday (Oct. 29) that describes our world as "on the brink" and warns its "vital signs are flashing red," with nearly two-thirds showing record highs.

Last year had already been declared the hottest on record (those records dating back to the late 1800s), following 2023 — which used to be considered the warmest year in human history. The year 2024 also capped a decade of record-breaking heat fueled by human-caused climate change, continuing a trend that began in 2015. Now, the new report, led by researchers at Oregon State University, suggests the year was also likely hotter than the peak of the last interglacial period, roughly 125,000 years ago, when natural shifts in Earth's orbit and tilt made the planet warmer and sea levels several meters higher. That result is based on previously published climate studies.

The study concludes that 22 of 34 measurable indicators of Earth's health, including greenhouse gas levels, ocean heat, sea ice and deforestation, have reached record extremes. The authors warn that these trends suggest humanity is in a "state of ecological overshoot," consuming the planet's resources faster than they can be replenished.

"The message is simple in that the climate crisis has entered an emergency phase and every tenth of a degree of avoided warming matters," William Ripple, a professor of ecology at Oregon State University who co-led the new report, told Space.com. "We need courage, cooperation and speed."

Published in the journal BioScience, the report shows that planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide and methane reached record levels again in 2025, with carbon-dioxide concentrations at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory surpassing 430 parts per million in May — a level likely unseen in millions of years.

This map shows where on Earth the average temperature in 2024 was higher or lower than the 20th-century baseline. Red indicates higher-than-average temperatures, while blue indicates lower-than-average temperatures.

This map shows where on Earth the average temperature in 2024 was higher or lower than the 20th-century baseline. Red indicates higher-than-average temperatures, while blue indicates lower-than-average temperatures. (Image credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio)

According to the researchers, the ongoing warming stems from a combination of a few things.

For one, there are fewer sunlight-reflecting aerosols in the atmosphere, such as sulfates from industrial pollution, allowing heat to build up. These aerosols also influence how clouds form and reflect light; as temperatures rise, clouds are becoming thinner and less reflective, trapping more heat. Our planet is darkening too, as Earth's reflectivity, or albedo, is dropping to near-record lows due to melting ice and reduced snow cover that expose darker surfaces that absorb even more heat. Recent research has shown the Northern Hemisphere is darkening faster than the South, creating an imbalance that scientists say is rising faster than models predicted, and could intensify warming in the northern hemisphere and disrupt global weather patterns.

The effects of these trends are visible across the planet, including in all-time high ocean heat, which fueled the largest coral-bleaching event ever recorded, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Greenland and Antarctic ice masses are now at record lows, with loss rates quadrupling since the 1990s — evidence, the report notes, that both regions may have already crossed critical tipping points that could lock in several meters of future sea-level rise.

Forests, too, are under stress. Studying satellite data, Ripple's team found that global tree-cover loss reached 29.6 million hectares in 2024, the second-highest total on record and nearly 5% higher than what was seen in 2023. Fire-related losses surged 370% over the course of 2023, fueled by hotter, drier conditions driven by human-induced climate change and El Niño, the researchers found.

These trends illustrate that nature's built-in safety nets against climate change, such as forests, soils and other ecosystems that capture and store carbon, regulate nutrients, and buffer against environmental extremes are "starting to falter," Ripple said.

By August 2025, the European Union had endured its most extensive wildfire season on record — the fires burned more than 1 million hectares — and Canada faced its second-largest fire season. As fires burn, they release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, heating the planet and increasing the risk of even more fires — a dangerous, self-reinforcing cycle of warming, the study warns.

A high resolution view shows wildfires raging across the Pacific Northwest

A high resolution view shows wildfires raging across the Pacific Northwest (Image credit: CSU/CIRA & NOAA)

"It's difficult to pinpoint thresholds where climate tipping points are crossed and changes may become irreversible," Ripple said, "but it's increasingly clear that even current levels of warming could destabilize the Earth system."

Brazil's Amazon — which holds about 60% of the world's largest tropical forest — is one of the few bright spots in the report. Deforestation there fell by about 30% in 2024, reaching its lowest level in nine years, thanks to "strengthened environmental enforcement under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration, which has prioritized conservation efforts," , the authors note.

The team's findings align with another major climate assessment released earlier this month. That report, authored by 160 scientists from 87 institutions in 23 countries, warns that warm-water coral reefs that support nearly a billion people and a quarter of all marine life are crossing their tipping point, as evidenced by mass die-offs already under way. The report also flags looming tipping points for the Amazon rainforest, polar ice sheets, and key ocean currents that help regulate Earth's climate.

"The findings of this report are incredibly alarming," Mike Barrett, a chief scientific advisor at the World Wildlife Fund in the U.K. who co-authored the report, said in a statement. "That warm-water coral reefs are passing their thermal tipping point is a tragedy for nature and the people that rely on them for food and income."

The twin reports arrive just weeks before the United Nations climate summit in Brazil, where scientists hope their findings will push world leaders to take stronger action against these cascading threats.

"As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it's vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation and the extent of what we all stand to lose if the climate and nature crises are not addressed," Barrett said in the statement. "The solutions are within our reach — countries must show the political bravery and leadership to work together and achieve them."

Both reports stress that solutions exist, and there is still time to act. Rapidly scaling renewable energy, especially solar and wind, "is likely the single most powerful lever," Ripple said.

When asked what gives him hope that humanity can still avoid the worst outcomes described in the report, "hope comes from nature's resilience and human ingenuity," he said. "Earth systems can recover if given the chance."

]]> + https://www.space.com/science/climate-change/is-earth-on-the-brink-2024-was-likely-our-planets-hottest-year-in-125-000-years + + + + 6eLpDQGwwBYKYZ8xvbD3G3 + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida ]]> + SpaceX launched 29 more of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit today (Oct. 29), sending them up from Florida's Space Coast.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today at 12:35 a.m. EDT (1635 GMT).

The Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth as planned about 8.5 minutes later, pulling off a pinpoint touchdown in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "Just Read the Instructions."

Previous Booster 1082 missions

Crew-8 | Polaris Dawn | CRS-31 | Astranis: From One to Many | IM-2 | Commercial GTO-1 | 8 Starlink missions

It was the 15th flight for this particular booster, which carries the designation 1082, and some of its previous missions were pretty high-profile. For example, this same first stage also launched the Crew-8 astronaut mission to the International Space Station for NASA and Polaris Dawn, a crewed flight to Earth orbit that featured the first-ever private spacewalk.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued carrying the 29 Starlink satellites toward low Earth orbit today. They'll be deployed there about 64 minutes after launch, if all goes according to plan.

Today's liftoff was the 138th orbital launch of the year for SpaceX, extending the company's cadence record. The previous mark was 134, set in 2024.

Ninety-nine of this year's missions have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of more than 8,700 active satellites.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-starlink-10-37-b1082-ccsfs-jrti + + + + t8xFACvLrsyDfYojUbgZaQ + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 16:45:21 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ You won't see interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS zoom closest to the sun on Oct. 30 — but these spacecraft will ]]> + The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is just a day away from perihelion, which is its closest point to the sun and the time around which it is expected to be most active. Although 3I/ATLAS is currently hidden from view from Earth, flying behind the sun, spacecraft elsewhere in the solar system still have the comet in their sights.

Perihelion for 3I/ATLAS takes place on Oct. 30, when the interstellar interloper will be 1.35 astronomical units (125 million miles, or 202 million kilometers) from the sun. (One astronomical unit is the average Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km.)

Perihelion is the point in an object's orbit where it is closest to the sun. For comets on highly eccentric orbits, as opposed to planets on near-circular orbits, the effect of perihelion can be dramatic. As a comet nears the sun, the growing warmth causes ices on its surface to sublimate and it begins outgassing, growing a cloud called a coma around its nucleus. Comets voyaging near the sun also commonly sprout two tails — a dust tail and an ion tail made of charged particles stripped away from the comet by the solar wind. This activity makes the comet brighter and hence more noticeable, and at perihelion this outgassing, in theory, is at its most active.

As an interstellar object that is just passing through our solar system, 3I/ATLAS is not orbiting the sun. Nevertheless, its trajectory brings it closer to the sun and then farther away again, meaning it also has a perihelion approach.

Unfortunately, 3I/ATLAS moved into solar conjunction at the end of September. When this happened, it became lost in the sun's glare as it moved around the back of the sun, out of sight from Earth. It will not reappear in Earth's morning sky until later in November or the beginning of December, meaning that telescopes on Earth and in Earth orbit or at the L2 Lagrange point — a gravitationally stable spot on the other side of our planet from the sun — will miss out on seeing 3I/ATLAS at perihelion.

All is not lost, however, as we have a flotilla of spacecraft exploring the solar system that will have much better viewing angles than we get here on Earth. The small armada of spacecraft at Mars, for example, have a view of the hemisphere of the sun that 3I/ATLAS is currently rounding. In fact, our Mars missions had a ringside seat to 3I/ATLAS' closest approach to the Red Planet on Oct. 3, when it was 0.19 AU (17.6 million miles, or 28.4 million km) distant.

Other spacecraft that will be able to watch 3I/ATLAS at perihelion include NASA's Psyche mission to the asteroid of the same name and the Lucy mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) probe, which recently conducted a flyby of Venus on its elongated journey to the Jovian system, will be closest as it heads in the general direction toward 3I/ATLAS. Unfortunately, because JUICE is currently using its primary antenna as a sun-shield to protect its instruments, it won't be able to transmit the data from its observations of 3I/ATLAS back to Earth until next February.

three concentric rings with a dotted line passing through the center of them

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will make its closest pass to the sun on Oct. 30, 2025. (Image credit: ESA)

Scientists are most interested in studying the chemistry of the comet at perihelion, because the gases and dust that come off the comet reveal its composition. Astronomers have already found that 3I/ATLAS contains more carbon dioxide than ordinary comets in the solar system, and a higher abundance of nickel. These differences reveal the chemistry of the molecular cloud of gas that spawned the comet and its home star system over seven billion years ago, allowing astronomers to make direct comparisons between the chemistry of the solar system and of the original home of 3I/ATLAS. At perihelion, more molecules could be revealed: So far, there has been a dearth of iron, but will iron emission from the comet pick up at perihelion?

When 3I/ATLAS does re-emerge from the sun at the back end of November, it could still be quite active — comets are unpredictable at the best of times — but, given its distance from Earth, it is expected to be quite faint, at a predicted magnitude 12. Astro-imagers and users of smart telescopes will be able to capture it, and it will of course be easy prey for the likes of the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/comets/you-wont-see-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-zoom-closest-to-the-sun-on-oct-30-but-these-spacecraft-will + + + + EN9hUE7L8trBneaZo9PtKm + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Enormous black hole unexpectedly found in tiny galaxy ]]> + An unexpected monster black hole was found hiding inside one of the Milky Way's tiniest neighbors, rewriting what scientists thought they knew about how small galaxies hold themselves together.

Segue 1 is an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy located about 75,000 light-years from Earth, making it a very close neighbor of the Milky Way. Advanced modeling technologies revealed that the galaxy appears to be dominated not by dark matter as long believed, but rather by a central black hole roughly 450,000 times the mass of the sun, according to a statement from the University of Texas McDonald Observatory.

"Our work may revolutionize the modeling of dwarf galaxies or star clusters to include supermassive black holes instead of just dark matter halos," Nathaniel Lujan, a graduate student at the University of Texas at San Antonio and lead author of the study, said in the statement.

Segue 1 is one of the Milky Way’s faintest companions, containing only a few hundred to a few thousand stars — far too few to generate enough gravity to stay intact. Astronomers have long assumed massive dark matter halos provide the gravity needed to keep such small galaxies intact.

However, when researchers modeled the motions of stars within Segue 1, the only simulations that matched observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory were those featuring a heavyweight black hole at the galaxy’s core. The models showed that the stars located near the center were traveling in quick, tight circles, which is a tell-tale sign of an immense gravitational pull generated by a black hole.

"The black hole in Segue 1 is significantly larger than what is expected,” Karl Gebhardt, a professor of astrophysicists at the University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the study, said in the statement. “If this large mass ratio is common among dwarf galaxies, we will have to rewrite how these systems evolve."

The newly discovered black hole outweighs all the galaxy's stars combined by about a factor of ten, which is uncommon among most galaxies in the universe, according to the statement.

Given Segue 1's proximity to the Milky Way, the researchers suggest that the dwarf galaxy may have once been larger, but lost most of its stars over time to the Milky Way’s tidal forces.

Segue 1 could also be a nearby counterpart to a newly discovered class of galaxies called "little red dots" — compact, early galaxies that formed with massive black holes and only a sprinkling of stars. While those distant systems are almost impossible to study directly, Segue 1 offers astronomers a rare chance to examine similar processes unfolding much closer to home.

Either way, the discovery challenges long-standing ideas about how small galaxies form and evolve — and reveals that even the faintest corners of the cosmos can harbor big surprises.

Their findings were published Oct. 14 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/enormous-black-hole-unexpectedly-found-in-tiny-galaxy + + + + bQWHfUqBXS74y6cBzDYjcC + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 15:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Mercury shines farthest from the sun in the evening sky on Oct. 29 ]]> + Mercury will reach its greatest eastern elongation on Oct. 29, marking one of the best evenings to see the planet this fall as it appears farthest from the sun's glare in the twilight sky.

As the solar system's innermost planet, Mercury travels an extremely tight orbit around our parent star, with an average separation of under 36 million miles (58 million kilometers). As a result, it never appears far from the sun in Earth's sky and is only ever visible near the horizon in the hours following sunset or preceding dawn, depending on the time of year.

Mercury will reach its most distant point from the sun in its current evening appearance at 4:28 p.m. EDT (2028 GMT) on Oct. 29, when it will be separated by roughly 24 degrees from our parent star, according to the practical astronomy website in-the-sky.org. Remember, the width of your clenched fist held at arms length accounts for 10 degrees of sky.

That evening, the rocky world will appear as a bright "evening star" above the southwestern horizon at sunset for viewers in the U.S, with the stars of the constellation Scorpius to its left and Libra on its right, though they will initially be lost in the glow of the setting sun.

Mercury is at its greatest eastern elongation the evening of Oct. 29. (Image credit: Starry Night/ Chris Vaughan)
Celestron NexStar 4SE

Celestron NexStar 4SE Computerized Telescope

(Image credit: Amazon)

The Celestron NexStar 4SE is ideal for beginners wanting quality, reliable and quick views of the night sky. It's sturdily built, quick to set up and automatically locates night sky targets and provides crisp, clear views of them. For a more in-depth look at our Celestron NexStar 4SE review

Mercury will have an altitude of just 7 degrees at sunset on Oct. 29, so it's best to find a viewing location with a clear line of sight to the southwestern horizon to ensure that you get a good glimpse at fleet-footed World. The planet will remain visible for less than an hour after sunset, so timing is key. Atmospheric turbulence brought about by Mercury's low position on the horizon may cause it to shimmer like a star as its light makes a prolonged journey through Earth's dense atmosphere.

Observing the planet through a telescope with an aperture of 4 inches or more under dark sky conditions will reveal the moon-like phases of the distant world, though utmost care must be taken to ensure that the sun is safely below the horizon before pointing telescopic equipment in its direction. Mercury currently has the appearance of a waxing gibbous moon, with its right side lit by direct sunlight and its left bathed in shadow.

Stargazers hoping to get a closer look at Mercury should check out our roundups of the best telescopes and binoculars for observing the planets. Those new to exploring the night sky should also read our guide to the top smartphone astronomy apps, which can help pinpoint the locations of stars, galaxies and a treasure trove of other deep sky and solar system objects using augmented reality technology.

]]> + https://www.space.com/stargazing/mercury-shines-farthest-from-the-sun-in-the-evening-sky-oct-29-2025 + + + + AVZkTFwCuHFmc72DRVuwm4 + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 14:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Sun's far side erupts in satellite image | Space photo of the day for Oct. 29, 2025 ]]> + Late on Oct. 21, 2025, a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from the far side of the sun, an area currently dominated by the powerful and persistent Active Region 4246. The eruption occurred just after the active region had rotated beyond the sun's western limb, out of direct view from Earth and the weather satellites that monitor solar activity.

What is it?

CMEs are among the most awe-inspiring explosions in the solar system. These vast eruptions hurl immense clouds of magnetized plasma from the sun's corona into interplanetary space, sometimes at millions of miles per hour.

Yet many of these powerful outbursts occur where we can't see them directly, on the far side of the sun, hidden from Earth's telescopes. These events still shape the solar wind environment that later sweeps past our planet or impacts other worlds, such as Venus and Mars.

That's where the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-1) instrument aboard NOAA's GOES-19 weather satellite comes in. CCOR-1 blocks the sun's bright disk to capture faint white-light structures in the outer corona, tracking CMEs as they expand into space.

Where is it?

The CCOR-1 on NOAA's GOES-19 satellite orbits around 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth's equator.

The explosive CME from the sun's far side was captured in this satellite image. (Image credit: NOAA)

Why is it amazing?

When aimed toward Earth, these sorts of eruptions can set off brilliant auroras, disrupt satellites and disturb power systems. Although no direct effects were felt on Earth with this particular CME, the event showed how powerful our sun can truly be.

CCOR-1's imagery offered a glimpse of "the storm we missed," one that, if rotated just a few days earlier, could have driven a major geomagnetic disturbance.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about the solar cycle and weather satellites.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/sun/suns-far-side-erupts-in-satellite-image-space-photo-of-the-day-for-oct-29-2025 + + + + Sf4V5dLhiSk7KBuLfENicg + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 13:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Can we find water ice on the moon? Only if we know where to look, scientists say ]]> + Earth's moon is a treasure trove of resources. Space agencies around the world are planning missions to access and use lunar volatiles, which include hydrogen, water, helium, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, in order to produce fuel sources, breathable air, and even drinking water  —  all with the goal of establishing long-term presences on the moon.

But much is unknown about the availability of water ice on the moon, or even what data is missing that could help fine-tune lunar exploration by both robotic probes and human explorers. That's why an upcoming meeting of international experts will meet to discuss today's state of knowledge regarding volatiles in the lunar polar regions.

The goal of the gathering in Honolulu, Hawaii is to help prepare for an onslaught of upcoming robotic and crewed expeditions by multiple nations to explore for, investigate and ultimately utilize lunar polar volatiles. This seminal meeting, the 2nd Lunar Polar Volatiles Conference, will take place Nov. 12-14 and invite attendees from throughout U.S. academia, and will also include presentations from China, Canada, and a number of private space companies.

What's missing?

"I think there are at least three aspects regarding lunar polar volatiles that we are missing," said conference organizer, Shuai Li of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

First is the need for a comprehensive survey of major volatiles possibly present in the lunar permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs. That survey is critical and missing, Li told Space.com.

Nine candidate landing regions for NASA's Artemis III mission The background image of the lunar South Pole terrain within the nine regions in yellow squares is a mosaic of LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) WAC (Wide Angle Camera) images.

Nine candidate landing regions for NASA's Artemis III mission The background image of the lunar South Pole terrain within the nine regions is a mosaic of LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) WAC (Wide Angle Camera) images. (Image credit: NASA)

"For instance, water ice could be the most abundant volatile but we still have no robust mapping of it, particularly at many regions that may only harbor a few weight percent, or even less water ice," said Li. Other notable volatile species such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide could be much lower abundance than water ice.

"We do not have direct observations of such volatile species," Li said.

Secondly, there is a lack of knowledge on how volatiles distribute vertically, including water ice.

And thirdly, said Li, is the need for sampling of those volatiles to understand their origins and how they formed and sequestered on the moon.

Just getting started

Norbert Schörghofer, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and resident in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a co-organizer of the upcoming gathering.

"In my view, the field of 'lunar polar volatiles' is just getting started," said Schörghofer. Many missions, such as the recently reinstated Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, have been delayed, "and we don't have nearly enough data to assess the abundance and distribution of water ice on the moon," he told Space.com.

Most importantly we need definitive proof of ice on the moon, Schörghofer said.

Wanted: definitive and reproducible evidence

Back in October 2009, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), was purposely put on a "slam dunk" trajectory to confirm the presence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the lunar south pole.

"LCROSS measured six percent, but that's not a lot of ice and it was a single-shot experiment," said Schörghofer. "And the spectroscopic detections of ice exposed on the surface from lunar orbiters are hopelessly incoherent. We need definitive and reproducible evidence," he told Space.com.

Schörghofer observed that there has been major progress regarding water inside of rocks, based on the return samples from China's Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-6 near side and far side missions.

An image of a Chinese flag next to the surface of the moon

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

"However, there has been shockingly little progress about ice, due to the lack of landed missions to the polar regions. Scientists are trying to tease out information about ice from data that were collected for other reasons, from instruments that were never designed to detect lunar volatiles, so we ended up with a lot of 'maybe' observations," said Schörghofer.

International collaboration

In terms of new research by multiple nations, how is international cooperation evolving? Is there a need for more collaboration between countries?

"Very slow in progress, but we can see the growth," responded Li.

A great step in collaboration has been between the US and South Korea's Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) called Danuri that carries ShadowCam, an ultrasensitive camera provided by NASA/Arizona State University/Malin Space Science Systems to look inside PSRs on the moon.

An image of a satellite with two solar panels over the surface of the moon

The Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, KPLO, is outfitted with ShadowCam instrument to look inside permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs. (Image credit: Korean Aerospace Research Institute)

Over the next decades, lunar exploration will be largely driven by the US and China, said Schörghofer.

"International collaboration is nice to have and broadens the scientific interest in the moon. The degree of cooperation will undoubtedly increase, but ultimately we are looking at a competition between two superpowers," Schörghofer said.

Share findings

There remains a lot of uncertainty about how much ice there is on the moon, and where exactly it is.

"Reserves, in the sense of known and readily recoverable resources, are hence arguably quite small at this point of time," Schörghofer said. "What we need is definitive measurements of the ice content," he emphasized.

"There is definitely a need for more collaboration internationally," Li added. "For instance, there will be many missions to the lunar south pole in the coming years. It will be super beneficial to all countries if they can share their findings about lunar volatiles, not only for science but also for in-situ resource utilization purposes," he concluded.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/can-we-find-water-ice-on-the-moon-only-if-we-know-where-to-look-scientists-say + + + + 69FrrGTFfkT8rjsWAc7gCL + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 12:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Japan's 1st HTV-X cargo craft arrives at the International Space Station ]]> +

Japan's new HTV-X cargo spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station for the first time ever today (Oct. 28), delivering thousands of pounds of payloads and supplies to astronauts aboard.

The robotic HTV-X was captured by the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm — operated by NASA astronaut Zena Cardman and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) — today at 11:58 p.m. EDT (1558 GMT), as the station flew 260 miles ( kilometers) over the south Atlantic Ocean.

The HTV-X is the successor to Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), which flew nine missions — all of them successful — to the International Space Station (ISS) between September 2009 and May 2020.

Japan's HTV-X cargo spacecraft in Earth orbit.

Artist's illustration of Japan's HTV-X cargo spacecraft in Earth orbit. (Image credit: NASA)

Like its predecessor, the HTV-X can carry about 13,200 pounds (6,000 kilograms) of payload to low Earth orbit. It's hauling about 9,000 pounds (4,080 kg) of food and supplies on this mission, which began with a launch atop an H3 rocket on Saturday (Oct. 25).

Upon its rendezvous with the ISS, HTV-X carried out a series of test maneuvers, including a retreat-from-station procedure and systems checks ahead of spacecraft capture.

The new freighter is expendable, just like the HTV (which was also known as Kounotori, Japanese for "White Stork"). But the HTV-X can stay up for considerably longer stretches.

"HTV-X enhances transportation capabilities and adds the capability to provide various users with on-orbit demonstration opportunities for up to 1.5 years after leaving ISS until reentry," Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which builds the HTV-X for JAXA, wrote in a description of the vehicle.

HTV-X joins three other vehicles in the stable of robotic ISS cargo craft. The other freighters that currently service the station are Russia's Progress vehicle as well as Cygnus and Dragon, which are built by the American companies Northrop Grumman and SpaceX, respectively.

All are expendable except Dragon, which splashes down in the ocean for recovery and reuse. Dragon can therefore also haul scientific experiments and other materials down to Earth from the station.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/international-space-station/japan-htv-x-cargo-spacecraft-first-arrival-international-space-station + + + + rCwdSvXb368FRPBYHBMyub + + Wed, 29 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Spacewalking Russian cosmonauts install experiments on the International Space Station ]]> + Two Russian cosmonauts completed their second spacewalk together, installing experiments and performing maintenance on the exterior of the International Space Station.

Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineer Alexey Zubritsky, both of the federal space corporation Roscosmos, were back in the vacuum of space on Tuesday (Oct. 28) to continue and expand on the work they began during an extravehicular activity (EVA) on Oct. 16. During this most recent outing, they spent 6 hours and 54 minutes mounting, relocating and cleaning hardware on the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module (MLM).

This EVA, like the one two weeks ago, began with Ryzhikov and Zubritsky opening the hatch on the Poisk Mini-Research Module-2, this time at 10:18 a.m. EDT (1418 GMT). After gathering their tools, the cosmonauts used a telescoping crane, called the Strela boom, to trasverse to their first worksite on the Nauka MLM.

A spacesuited cosmonaut is seen from the perspective of another spacewalker's helmet-mounted camera outside a space station

Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov is seen during the Oct. 28, 2025 spacewalk outside the International Space Station from the perspective of Sergey Ryzhikov's helmet-mounted camera. (Image credit: NASA)

There they tackled their first major task of the day, attaching a two-part apparatus to support a pulse plasma (Impuls) experiment and research into the effect that spacecraft have on Earth's ionosphere (IPI-500, by the NPO IT company in Moscow). The Impuls study will test the potential for jet engines to work in space.

Between running connectors and moving on to the next installation, Ryzhikov also cleaned a window on the Nauka module. Shutters that protect the pane when it's not in use were opened to allow the cleaning. When done, the shutters were closed again.

Ryzhikov and Zubritsky then returned to an experiment they installed during the earlier spacewalk two weeks ago. Ekran-M, or the Molecular Beam Epitaxy experiment, is designed to produce very thin materials for use in semiconductors. After discovering a loose gasket in the device's chamber, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky were instructed by mission control to carefully extract it using tweezers.

The spacewalkers then inserted a replacement cassette into the Ekran-M and, despite having to use wire ties to hold it in place, mission control reported getting good data. The older cassette will be returned to Earth for analysis.

Ryzhikov and Zubritsky wrapped up their time outside by relocating an exterior control panel for the European Robotic Arm (ERA), a manipulator that is used to access and service different areas of the Russian segment of the space station.

a look at a segment of a space station set against a backdrop of Earth and the blackness of space

Russian cosmonaut Alexey Zubritsky (at left) works outside the Nauka module during a spacewalk at the International Space Station on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (Image credit: NASA)

Russian EVAs often save for their final task the jettison of no-longer-needed equipment that has been gathered during the cosmonauts' work. With the pending arrival, however, of Japan's new robotic cargo vehicle, the HTV-X, on Wednesday morning (Oct. 29), it was decided to avoid any risk from the debris.

The spacewalk ended at 5:12 p.m. EDT (2112 GMT) with Ryzhikov and Zubritsky safely back inside the Poisk airlock.

Tuesday's EVA was the third for Expedition 73 and the 277th in support of the International Space Station's assembly and maintenance since 1998. It was Zubritsky's second spacewalk, bringing his total time outside to 13 hours and 3 minutes, and the third for Ryzhikov, who now has logged a total of 19 hours and 51 minutes in the vacuum of space.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/international-space-station/spacewalking-russian-cosmonauts-install-experiments-on-the-international-space-station + + + + AAB4kCCeU5Eme8MovkT2D6 + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 23:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch of private Griffin moon lander delayed to 2026 ]]> + SpaceX's next mission to the moon, and the next launch of its triple-booster Falcon Heavy rocket, has slipped to no earlier than July 2026.

Astrobotic's Griffin-1 lunar lander, carrying NASA and commercial payloads that include rovers from Astrobotic and Astrolab, will wait just a little longer before its planned excursion to the moon. The mission had previously targeted a launch at the end of 2025, but will apparently miss that deadline, according to an Astrobotic update posted on Oct. 24.

The mission will mark Astrobotic’s second attempt at a lunar landing after its Peregrine Mission One in January 2024 failed to reach the moon after experiencing a propellant leak shortly after launch. Griffin is undergoing payload integration and software testing at the Pennsylvania company's facility, where propulsion testing and avionics validations are currently underway.

Like Peregrine, Griffin is being developed under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which funds private missions to the moon to deliver payloads in support of the Artemis program — NASA push to return astronauts to the lunar surface.

NASA originally planned to fly its Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) aboard Griffin, but that mission was canceled in 2024, leading Astrobotic to repurpose its payload spot for a commercial rover: Astrolab's FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) rover. (VIPER was recently un-canceled, and added to the manifest of a Blue Origin lunar mission targeted for 2027.)

In addition to FLIP, Griffin will carry Astrobotic's own CubeRover, and several smaller payloads including the Nippon Travel Agency plaque sending messages collected from children in Japan to the moon, the Galactic Library to Preserve Humanity from Nanofiche and the MoonBox capsule that will deliver "items from around the world" to the lunar surface, according to Astrobotic's update.

The company said it has nearly completed assembly of Griffin's core structure, with critical components like thrusters, pressure tanks, solar panels and payload ramps already successfully fitted to the vehicle. The lander awaits the installation of four propellant tanks, which Astrobotic will ready the vehicle for environmental acceptance testing to simulate various stages of the mission, like launch, spaceflight and exploring the surface of the moon. Simultaneously, Astrobotic said it is also performing engine qualification testing ahead of final integration.

NASA's CLPS program aims to stimulate the commercial lunar economy while giving the agency access to low-cost delivery services to the moon. Setbacks and early failures in the program, like Peregrine's mishap or Intuitive Machines' landers both toppling over and ending their mission early, have drawn scrutiny, and Astrobotic's ability to recover with Griffin will be a critical test for both the company as well as the CLPS program.

With integration milestones converging and major payloads on track for delivery and testing, Astrobotic said it is targeting the next viable launch window, which opens next July. The launch will be the 12th for SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch vehicle, which utilizes three modified Falcon 9 boosters through liftoff and the first stage of flight. Previous flights have successfully returned Falcon Heavy's side boosters to SpaceX's landing zones on Florida's Space Coast, but none have yet successfully landed the rocket's core stage.

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/spacex-falcon-heavy-launch-of-private-griffin-moon-lander-now-targeting-mid-2026 + + + + EsaAudvmrWN3Jb2Yw82PJA + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 22:04:45 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ NASA spots a spooky face glowing on the sun just in time for Halloween (photo) ]]> +

A haunting grin appeared on the sun as bright active regions and dark coronal holes combined to create a jack-o'-lantern face just in time for Halloween. The image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on Oct. 28 at the 193-angstrom wavelength. (Image credit: NASA/SDO)

The sun is getting into the Halloween spirit once again. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured a hauntingly festive view of our star on Oct. 28, looking like a cosmic jack-o'-lantern grinning down at Earth.

In the image, captured by SDO's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), dark coronal holes and bright active regions combine to form what appears to be glowing eyes, a nose and a mischievous smile carved across the solar surface.

That "mouth" however, is more than just a decoration. It's actually a vast coronal hole, an area on the sun's surface where the magnetic field opens up, allowing charged particles (solar wind) to stream freely into space. This particular hole is currently spewing a high-speed solar wind stream toward Earth, which could spark minor (G1) to moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm conditions from Oct. 28 through Oct. 29, according to space weather forecasters.

If geomagnetic storm conditions intensify, auroras can spread beyond their usual polar locations, into mid-latitudes. 22 years ago this week, the infamous Halloween storms of 2003 saw a barrage of powerful solar eruptions trigger spectacular auroras and disrupt satellites and power systems worldwide.

SDO has been watching the sun since 2010, providing continuous, high-resolution views that help scientists understand how the sun's magnetic energy drives space weather, which in turn affects our lives here on Earth.

This isn't the first time the observatory has spotted a spooky face on the sun. Back in 2014, it captured this eerie jack-o'-lantern-like grin.

Solar jack-o'-lantern captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on Oct. 8, 2014. (Image credit: NASA/SDO )
]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/sun/nasa-spots-a-spooky-face-glowing-on-the-sun-just-in-time-for-halloween-photo + + + + HaYBS5GdfLn2DeMJnf4HGc + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 19:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ NASA's X-59 'quiet' supersonic jet makes historic 1st flight (photos) ]]> + NASA's X-59 has finally taken flight.

The X-59 is NASA's experimental new jet built to break the sound barrier without generating the thunderous sonic booms typically associated with supersonic flight.

After taxiing out of the U.S. Air Force's (USAF) Plant 42 facility, the X-59 took off from the Palmdale Regional Airport in California today (Oct. 28) at 10:13 a.m. EDT (1413 GMT), according to aircraft tracker Flightradar24. The airport and USAF facility share a runway.

Videos and photos were posted to social media by aircraft spotters and photographers, showing the radically elongated X-59 taking off before flying north out of Palmdale. Photographer Jarod Hamilton caught the X-59 as it left the ground, making a steep climb into the air above the Mojave Desert.

NASA's X-59 supersonic jet takes off on its first flight on Oct. 29, 2025 from Palmdale Regional Airport in California. (Image credit: Jarod Hamilton)

NASA did not announce the flight publicly ahead of time. Following the flight, acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy praised the test flight in a Lockheed Martin statement. The X-59 was designed by NASA and built by Lockheed Martin at the company's storied Skunk Works facility in Palmdale.

"X-59 is a symbol of American ingenuity. The American spirit knows no bounds. It's part of our DNA – the desire to go farther, faster, and even quieter than anyone has ever gone before," Duffy said. "This work sustains America's place as the leader in aviation and has the potential to change the way the public flies."

Lockheed Martin's statement adds that the X-59 "performed exactly as planned" during its first flight.

NASA's X-59 supersonic jet takes off on its first flight on Oct. 29, 2025 from Palmdale Regional Airport in California as seen in a Lockheed Martin photo. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin)

Based on the X-59's track, it appears the X-plane flew oval-shaped "racetrack" patterns over the U.S. Air Force's Edwards Air Force Base for just over an hour before landing at the facility.

NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center is located at the base. After this first flight, the X-59 will now reside at Armstrong, where it will undergo a testing campaign that will involve flying the jet over microphones placed throughout the desert and trailing other aircraft equipped with special air sensors through its shockwaves .

a map of a desert area with a green oval-shaped track overlaid on it

A track of the X-59's first flight, according to aircraft tracking site Flightradar24. (Image credit: Flightradar24)

The X-59 was designed from the wheels up to be able to fly faster than the speed of sound without producing loud sonic booms, which can be disruptive to people on the ground below. Because of those booms, supersonic flight has been prohibited above land within a certain distance of the U.S. since 1973.

NASA's X-59 supersonic jet takes off on its first flight on Oct. 29, 2025 from Palmdale Regional Airport in California. (Image credit: Jarod Hamilton)

But NASA hopes to change that. If the X-59 can prove that "quiet" supersonic flight is possible, the restrictions on breaking the sound barrier above the populated U.S. could someday be lifted, allowing commercial supersonic flight. The high speeds of supersonic travel could also be a huge boon for disaster relief, medical transport and other industries.

To that end, President Trump issued an Executive Order earlier this year instructing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to begin taking steps to repeal the prohibition on supersonic flight over the United States.

Several U.S. companies are also innovating aircraft aimed at ushering in a new era of supersonic travel. In January 2025, Colorado-based Boom Supersonic's XB-1 jet broke the sound barrier for the first time, marking the first time an independently-developed commercial aircraft achieved supersonic flight over the continental United States.

Editor's note: This story was updated on Oct. 29 to include comment from acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy and Lockheed Martin.

]]> + https://www.space.com/technology/aerospace/nasas-x-59-quiet-supersonic-jet-makes-historic-1st-flight-photos + + + + 5BCMuHFJ8s9MdCeauWghFY + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 18:56:39 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ 12-year-old discovers 2 possible new asteroids ]]> + An Ontario preteen may be one of the youngest Canadians to ever find an asteroid.

Siddharth Patel, a 12-year-old who lives in London, Ontario (west of Toronto), spotted two possible asteroids in September as part of a citizen science program that partners with NASA, according to the Toronto Star.

The two suspected space rocks are called 2024 RX69 and 2024 RH39 and are cataloged in the Minor Planet Center, which is a branch of the International Astronomical Union that reports and tracks asteroids and other small, naturally occurring space objects.

Siddharth told the Star he pursues his love of astronomy — he's been using a telescope since age five, supported by parents with no space background — after finishing school activities.

"Space was not really taught in schools," he said. "I really started doing things about space after I came back from school, because school is the academic time. And after that is the time when I pursue my interests and dreams."

While confirming the asteroids' orbits may take as long as a decade, Patel has another big project on his mind: becoming an astronaut. He recently joined the youth-focused Royal Canadian Air Cadets to learn how to fly a plane, the Star reported. This is following the pathway of notable Canadian Space Agency astronauts such as Jeremy Hansen (who will fly around the moon as part of NASA's Artemis 2 mission next year) and Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the International Space Station.

Siddharth found the asteroids through the International Astronomical Search Collaboration, which uses images from the Hawaiian Pan-STARRS facility and the Arizona-based Catalina Sky Survey for asteroid searches. While Siddharth's two space rocks reside in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the collaboration can also find near-Earth asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects (which orbit the sun beyond Neptune), according to NASA.

The provisional asteroid discoveries aren't Siddharth's only space accolades. His image of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) alongside the Milky Way received the People's Choice Award in DarkSky International's 2025 Capture the Dark photography contest.

"I love taking photos through my telescopes," Siddharth told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "When I go to somewhere dark, or someplace that has lots of stars, it really ignites my sense of wonder. I've learned how mysterious space really is."

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/asteroids/12-year-old-discovers-2-possible-new-asteroids + + + + MnKotc9R8zENVwi9gJLN6M + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 18:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ How AI and sand dunes on Mars can reveal the planet's history, one grain at a time ]]> + An innovative technique for measuring the force acting on individual grains of sand could help scientists uncover how winds have shaped the surface of Mars.

The method, developed by researchers at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, uses images of dune surfaces to estimate the force acting on each grain of sand. By combining laboratory experiments, computer simulations and artificial intelligence (AI), the team generated detailed force maps that reveal the physics of dune formation.

Dunes, particularly crescent-shaped "barchan" dunes, form wherever wind or water flows over loose sand — from deserts and seabeds on Earth to the dusty plains of Mars. Scientists can track their movement to infer prevailing winds and environmental conditions, but measuring the forces driving each grain’s motion has, until now, been impossible, according to a statement from the university.

"To measure the force acting on each grain, you'd need to place a tiny accelerometer on each one, which simply doesn't exist," the researchers said in the statement.

To overcome this challenge, the team recreated miniature underwater dunes in a laboratory setting and ran detailed 3D simulations to calculate the exact forces acting on each grain. They then trained a convolutional neural network — a form of AI used for image recognition — to link dune images with corresponding "force maps" from the simulations. Once trained, the AI could infer the distribution of forces directly from visual data. When tested on new images, it accurately predicted the forces at play, even for dune shapes it hadn't seen before.

"Any granular system that can be seen in an image — whether ice, salt or synthetic particles — can be analyzed as long as there’s a simulation capable of accurately reproducing the behavior of the material," Renato Miotto, a postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study, said in the statement.

The ability to extract such detailed physical information from images alone could have wide-ranging applications. On Earth, it may help engineers better predict coastal erosion, river sediment transport or the behavior of granular materials in industrial systems. This can also be applied to other planets imaged from orbit, like Mars, whose dunes evolve under the same basic physics as those on Earth.

"In the case of Mars, it’s possible to infer, from widely available images, the intensity of winds in the past and the evolution of dunes in the future," Erick Franklin, professor and co-author of the study, said in the statement.

This method therefore offers a new window into studying the Red Planet's atmospheric history and surface evolution. Their findings were published Aug. 1 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/how-ai-and-sand-dunes-on-mars-can-reveal-the-planets-history-one-grain-at-a-time + + + + mmBLL62qkiPyA2Y2sJmxvM + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Scientists hear 2 newborn black holes 'crying' through ripples in spacetime — and one had a birth unlike anything seen before ]]> + Scientists have "heard" the symphony of two newborn black holes — each created when its respective parent black holes crashed together and merged. One of those collision events, in fact, was the first of its kind.

The detection of the baby black holes and information about the four parent black holes that forged them came courtesy of ripples in spacetime, or gravitational waves, caused by the violent cosmic events that gave birth to them. Those waves were registered by the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), Virgo, and KAGRA (Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector) gravitational wave detectors.

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration detected the first merger, designated GW241011, on Oct. 11, 2024. It was the result of a black hole with around 17 times the mass of the sun crashing into its partner black hole with a mass around seven times that of our star. The event was calculated to have happened around 700 million light-years from Earth. Decoding the resultant gravitational wave signal revealed a couple of things: The masses of the black holes involved as well as the fact that the larger of the pair is one of the most rapidly spinning black holes ever observed.

Less than one month after this groundbreaking detection, on Nov. 11, 2024, the gravitational wave instruments "heard" another newborn black hole screaming after the violent collision of its progenitors. This signal, GW241110, originated from a collision between black holes with 16 and eight times the mass of the sun and occurred about 2.4 billion light-years away. This signal revealed that one of the black holes involved was spinning in the opposite direction of its orbit around the other black hole, the first time such a characteristic has been seen for merging binary black holes.

Two black holes illustrated merging together in space.

A visualization of two black holes merging in space. (Image credit: Carl Knox, OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology)

"Each new detection provides important insights about the universe, reminding us that each observed merger is both an astrophysical discovery but also an invaluable laboratory for probing the fundamental laws of physics," Carl-Johan Haster, an assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), said in a statement. "Binaries like these had been predicted given earlier observations, but this is the first direct evidence for their existence."

Both events indicate the existence of so-called second-generation black holes.

"GW241011 and GW241110 are among the most novel events among the several hundred that the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network has observed," Stephen Fairhurst, LIGO Collaboration spokesperson and a Cardiff University professor, said in the statement. "With both events having one black hole that is both significantly more massive than the other and rapidly spinning, they provide tantalizing evidence that these black holes were formed from previous black hole mergers."

Black holes: the second generation

The idea that the detected black holes are second-generation comes from the difference in size between the larger black holes and their smaller companions in the two mergers. The more diminutive black holes appear to have been almost half the mass of their companions. The orbit-opposing orientation of the larger black hole's spin in the merger that produced the signal GW241110 is also evidence of a prior merger having produced that dominant black hole.

The process of black hole growth by collision after collision is known as "hierarchical merger." This is believed to occur in densely populated regions like star clusters, where black holes are more likely to meet and coalesce over and over again, resulting in subsequently larger black holes.

A graphic showing the intricacies of the two black hole mergers discussed.

A graphic explaining the properties of the black hole mergers that created the signals GW241110 and GW241011. (Image credit: Shanika Galaudage / Northwestern University / Adler Planetarium)

GW241011 offers scientists the opportunity to probe the limits of Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of gravity, general relativity, from which the concept black holes and gravitational waves both emerged.

For instance, the rapid rotation of the black hole involved in this particular merger deforms the object, and that leaves a unique impression in the gravitational waves it emits. This means that this event can be compared to general relativity and the predictions physicist Roy Kerr made using Einstein's theory concerning rotating black holes. The black holes of GW241011 conformed to Kerr's solution to general relativity, the study team explains, helping verify it as well as Einstein's magnum opus theory itself in extreme circumstances. This includes confirming for the third time within a gravitational wave signal (GW241011) the "hum" of a higher harmonic, akin to the overtones of musical instruments.

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration also thinks these gravitational wave signals could be key to unlocking something predicted but never before seen — something outside the limits of general relativity.

Plus, the two black hole mergers behind these signals have the potential to reveal more about an unrelated scientific field: particle physics.

Scientists can use rapidly rotating black holes to test the hypothesized existence of ultralight bosons, or particles that exist beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Should they exist, ultralight bosons should draw the rotational energy from spinning black holes. How much energy these particles extract and how much they slow black holes down is dependent on their mass.

The revelation that the progenitor black hole of the merger behind GW241011 is still rotating at a rapid rate after millions (or even billions) of years since the merger that created it seems to rule out a range of ultralight boson masses.

A farther out illustration of two black holes in space. one is larger than the other.

Two black holes illustrated — could this be like one of the events detected by scientists recently? (Image credit: Carl Knox, OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology)

"The detection and inspection of these two events demonstrate how important it is to operate our detectors in synergy and to strive to improve their sensitivities," Francesco Pannarale, co-chair of the Observational Science Division of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaborations and professor at Sapienza University of Rome, said. "The LIGO and Virgo instruments taught us yet some more about how black hole binaries can form in our universe, as well as about the fundamental physics that regulates them at the very essence.

"By upgrading our instruments, we will be able to dive deeper into these and other aspects with the increased precision of our measurements."

The team's research was published on Tuesday (Oct. 28) in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/scientists-hear-2-newborn-black-holes-crying-through-ripples-in-spacetime-and-one-had-a-birth-unlike-anything-seen-before + + + + CbQK6Tr99j4pkd9J3YWnKG + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:35:42 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ 1st samples ever collected from the moon's far side could help reveal where Earth got its water ]]> + Fragments of a rare type of meteorite have been found in the sample of material brought back from the lunar far side by China's Chang'e 6 mission, and they could help shed light on the origin of Earth's water.

The meteoritic debris found among the 1,935.3 grams (68.3 ounces) of lunar regolith sampled by Chang'e 6 belongs to a class of carbon- and water-rich meteorites known as CI (carbonaceous-Ivuna) chondrites. On Earth, these meteorites account for less than 1% of all collected space rocks; their most notable example is the Ivuna meteorite that fell in Tanzania in 1938. Out in space, however, it's a different story, with the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu, visited recently by Japan's Hayabusa2 mission and NASA's OSIRIS-REx, respectively, both displaying similarities to CI chondrites.

And these meteorites may also be relatively abundant on the moon.

"Based on the limited exogenous materials identified on the moon, CI chondrites seem to be more common there than on Earth," Mang Lin, a professor of isotope chemistry at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Space.com. "However, the current dataset is too small to draw any firm conclusions, and we'll need more measurements in the future to test this."

Chang'e 6 landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the moon in June 2024 to bring back the first ever sample from the lunar far side. CI chondrites are fine-grained and highly porous, so they break apart easily and react with oxygen and water, which explains why they are so rare on Earth: because they break down or are chemically altered quickly. On the bone-dry moon, however, conditions are suited to preserving the chondrites.

Lin was part of a team led by Jintuan Wang and Zhiming Chen, both of whom also work at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, who identified unusual olivine-bearing fragments in Chang'e 6's sample. Through mass spectrometry, they found that the fragments contain levels of iron, manganese and zinc that imply that they are not native to the moon; a measurement of oxygen isotopes in the fragments subsequently confirmed that they are CI chondrites.

CI chondrite meteorites typically carry a wealth of volatiles, which are substances such as water and carbon dioxide that can exist as ice in the outer solar system and which have low boiling points. As such, they and other types of carbonaceous chondrites in general are considered as a possible source of water on Earth and the moon.

Yet their apparent presence in such significant quantities on the moon has come as a surprise to lunar scientists, and it suggests that there may have been more impacts of carbonaceous chondrite asteroids in the Earth-moon system in the distant past than had been thought. It's evidence that material formed in the cold of the outer solar system frequently found its way in-system to deliver water and other volatile gases to the inner planets.

"CI chondrites are certainly an important [water] carrier to consider because of their high volatile content," said Lin. "That said, there were probably multiple sources of water for both Earth and the moon, and we'll need more data in the future to really quantify how much each source contributed."

The findings were published on Oct. 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/1st-samples-ever-collected-from-the-moons-far-side-could-help-reveal-where-earth-got-its-water + + + + EWJPzSRjPfQ66nHgfdhzkT + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ Satellites watch Category 5 Hurricane Melissa ahead of record-breaking landfall in Jamaica ]]> + Update 10/28: Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday (Oct. 28) afternoon.

Satellites around Earth watched as a powerful Hurricane Melissa traveled toward Jamaica.

On Oct. 21, scientists began monitoring Hurricane Melissa — the 13th named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane season this year — develop. Just four days after its formation, the storm quickly became a large and dangerous major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, churning into a monster storm early on Monday (Oct. 27) as sustained winds reached 175 miles per hour (280 kilometers per hour).

Currently classified as a Category 5 storm, Melissa is moving at a snail's pace, making the storm even more destructive. It made landfall in Jamaica as the strongest hurricane in the nation's recorded history. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there have been only three hurricanes since 1950 to make landfall on the island with two as Category 3 hurricanes: Hurricane Charlie in 1951 followed by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

Thanks to satellites in space, scientists and forecasters are able to follow the storm along its path, watching it grow in size and strength throughout its lifespan. NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellites have kept a close watch over Hurricane Melissa since it formed, painting a high-definition picture of the storm.

An image of a time lapse showing the progress of Hurricane Melissa, as this white hurricane crosses the dark blue ocean.

A still from NOAA's timelapse of Hurricane Melissa (Image credit: NOAA)

Using a combination of instruments on GOES-19, experts can learn a variety of things about the storm, such as the location of lightning within the eye, the moment the storm began to rapidly grow and strengthen, and the location of the hurricane's outer bands and where they extend to.

The satellites also reveal how the storm became more symmetric over time as it grew more powerful in the open waters of the Caribbean, as well as where it hit the brakes and began its slow trek toward Jamaica.

It is expected to bring life-threatening flash flooding, landslides and the potential for devastating winds to the island through Tuesday (Oct. 28) and through the middle of the week as it moves through the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

To stay up-to-date with the latest on Melissa, you can find more details from NOAA's National Hurricane Center.

]]> + https://www.space.com/technology/satellites-watch-category-5-hurricane-melissa-ahead-of-potentially-record-breaking-landfall-in-jamaica + + + + QXB2U4QugSp5G9zwi2iy28 + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:17:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ The search for life: A space science quiz ]]> + The search for life beyond Earth is one of the most profound quests in human history. It began not in laboratories, but in the minds of ancient stargazers who imagined other worlds teeming with beings like — or unlike — us.

Over centuries, this curiosity evolved into a scientific pursuit, blending astronomy, biology, chemistry, and philosophy into a single, thrilling endeavor: to find life elsewhere in the cosmos.

From Galileo's telescope to the James Webb Space Telescope, each technological leap has brought us closer to answering that age-old question. We've sent probes to Mars, listened for alien signals through SETI, and discovered thousands of exoplanets orbiting distant stars. Along the way, we've refined our understanding of what life is, how it might arise, and where it could thrive — even in the most extreme environments.

This quiz explores the milestones, theories, and missions that have defined the search for extraterrestrial life.

Whether you're a space science enthusiast or just curious about the universe's biggest mystery, this challenge will stretch your mind across time and space.

Try it out below and see how well you score!

]]> + https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/the-search-for-life-a-space-science-quiz + + + + ejVBZWoyVgEJegjjcZ4ktQ + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ 1st cosmic view from 4MOST looks pure sci-fi | Space photo of the day for Oct. 28, 2025 ]]> + On October 18, 2025, the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 4MOST (4-meter Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope) instrument observed the sky with its full array of 2,400 optical fibers for the first time, successfully capturing and analyzing the light from a vast range of cosmic objects.

What is it?

Mounted on ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), 4MOST is designed to provide spectra for thousands of celestial sources at once, enabling astronomers to study the composition, temperature and motion of stars and galaxies across huge areas of the night sky.

Unlike traditional telescopes that observe one or a few objects at a time, 4MOST's engineering allows it to conduct massive, simultaneous surveys, seeing more things at one time. The instrument's wide hexagonal field of view covers a large portion of the sky in each observation, making it ideal for studying cosmic evolution and dark energy.

Where is it?

4MOST and the VISTA telescope are located at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

4MOST's optical fibers help break cosmic objects into their color spectra. (Image credit: AIP/Background: Harshwardhan Pathak/Telescope Live)

Why is it amazing?

During its first observations, 4MOST turned its hexagonal gaze toward a region in the southern sky that includes two popular celestial targets: the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) and the global cluster NGC 288. Each of the colored dots in the image represents a distinct object whose light was captured and analyzed by one of 4MOST's 2,400 fibers.

From each target, the instrument collected a spectrum, a detailed fingerprint of light that reveals key physical properties such as chemical composition, temperature, radial velocity and more.

Over the next decade, 4MOST will deliver millions of spectra, helping scientists tackle some of astronomy's biggest questions.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about the European Southern Observatory's recent research, as well as other telescopes in Chile.

]]> + https://www.space.com/astronomy/1st-cosmic-view-from-4most-looks-pure-sci-fi-space-photo-of-the-day-for-oct-28-2025 + + + + CFwqcXH4Z83y8vHe3ZnTnE + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 13:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + <![CDATA[ See a colossal 'X' and 'V' appear on the moon after sunset tonight ]]> + A trick of the light will cause a vast letter "X" and "V" to appear on the lunar surface tonight, mere hours before the moon hits its first quarter phase, which will see its right half lit by direct sunlight and its left veiled in darkness.

The moon's position relative to the sun changes constantly throughout its 27-day orbit of Earth, throwing countless craters, mountain ranges and myriad other geographical features into focus as the line separating night from day known as the "terminator" sweeps across its surface.

On Oct. 28, this play of light and shadow will give the appearance of an enormous "V" and "X" is emblazoned on the lunar surface, as direct sunlight catches the uppermost sections of mountainous terrain and crater rims, while leaving much of the surrounding moonscape in shadow.

Both the lunar "X" and "V" will be at their most visible around 7 p.m. EDT (23:00 GMT) as dusk gives way to night on Oct. 28, when the moon will shine a little over 20 degrees above the southern horizon. Remember, the width of your clenched fist held at arm's length accounts for roughly 10 degrees in the night sky.

A close up of the moon in space with several features labeled in yellow as well as a white box out to the left showing a close up of the lunar X.

The lunar "X" and "V" will appear on Oct. 28 as the moon approaches its half-lit first quarter phase. (Image credit: Starry Night/Chris Vaughan)
Celestron NexStar 4SE

Celestron NexStar 4SE Computerized Telescope

(Image credit: Amazon)

The Celestron NexStar 4SE is ideal for beginners wanting quality, reliable and quick views of the night sky. It's sturdily built, quick to set up and automatically locates night sky targets and provides crisp, clear views of them. For a more in-depth look at our Celestron NexStar 4SE review

The lunar "X" can be found approximately 25 degrees south of the lunar equator and appears when sunlight kisses the broken ramparts of the Bianchini, Purbach and La Caille Craters. The Lunar "V", meanwhile, is located 10 degrees above the equator, to the left of Mare Tranquillitatis (Latin for the Sea of Tranquility).

A telescope with an aperture of 6-inches or more will provide a clear view of the lunar "X" and "V", along with the sweeping expanses of the dark lunar seas and prominent impact craters thrown into relief along the shadowed line of the terminator.

Stargazers seeking a closer look at Earth's natural satellite should check out our picks of the top telescopes and binoculars available in 2025, while astrophotographers may want to brush up on how to photograph the moon using our handy expert's guide.

Editor's Note: If you would take a picture of the lunar "X" and "V" and want to share it with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

]]> + https://www.space.com/stargazing/see-a-colossal-x-and-v-appear-on-the-moon-after-sunset-tonight + + + + MwSPxvdYt3EJHuTX78K3dX + + Tue, 28 Oct 2025 12:00:00 +0000 + + + + + + + + + \ No newline at end of file