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Latest by G. Torbet

A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docked at the space station.

SpaceX Dragon to give the International Space Station an altitude boost today

Today sees a first for the International Space Station as a SpaceX Dragon performs a reboost maneuver.
This archival photo shows engineers working on NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft on March 23, 1977.

How the 47-year-old Voyager spacecraft are still exploring space

The Voyager 1 and 2 probes were launched in 1977 and they're still going. Keeping them working isn't easy, though.
NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli (from left) give a thumbs up after voting as Texas residents from the International Space Station. The duo filled out electronic absentee ballots in March 2024 and downlinked them to Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, which relayed the votes to the county clerk’s office.

How NASA astronauts vote from space

How do you vote when you're 250 miles above the nearest polling station? NASA came up with an answer for its astronauts.
The gruesome palette of these galaxies is owed to a mix of mid-infrared light from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, and visible and ultraviolet light from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The pair grazed one another millions of years ago. The smaller spiral on the left, catalogued as IC 2163, passed behind NGC 2207, the larger spiral galaxy at right. Both have increased star formation rates. Combined, they are estimated to form the equivalent of two dozen new stars that are the size of the Sun annually. Our Milky Way galaxy forms the equivalent of two or three new Sun-like stars per year. Both galaxies have hosted seven known supernovae, each of which may have cleared space in their arms, rearranging gas and dust that later cooled, and allowed many new stars to form. (Find these areas by looking for the bluest regions).

Creepy cosmic eyes stare out from space in Webb and Hubble image

In time for Halloween, the Webb and Hubble space telescopes have worked together to image a creepy pair of cosmic eyes.
Fittingly nicknamed the Dark Wolf Nebula, this cosmic cloud was captured in a 283-million-pixel image by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. Located around 5300 light-years from Earth, the cold clouds of cosmic dust create the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colourful backdrop of glowing gas clouds.

See the dramatic and spooky Dark Wolf Nebula

See a spooky cosmic wolf in this stunning space image from the European Southern Observatory.
An artist’s concept of an Artemis astronaut deploying an instrument on the lunar surface.

See the polar moon sites where NASA plans to land its astronauts

NASA has plans to send astronauts back to the moon in 2026. Now, it is sharing a short list of locations where they could land.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov approaches the International Space Station as it orbits 259 miles above Oregon.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon is doing a shuffle at the ISS — here’s how to watch

This week a SpaceX Crew Dragon will take one of the tiniest flights ever, hoping just a few meters over from one port of the ISS to another.
This artist’s concept depicts a potential volcanic moon between the exoplanet WASP-49 b, left, and its parent star. New evidence indicating that a massive sodium cloud observed near WASP-49 b is produced by neither the planet nor the star has prompted researchers to ask if its origin could be an exomoon.

Scientists find evidence of hellish, volcanic moon orbiting a distant exoplanet

Scientists have not yet found direct evidence of a moon outside our solar system -- but they just found a hint of a hellish one.
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A Boeing-built satellite appears to have exploded in orbit

A satellite designed and built by Boeing appears to have exploded in orbit, for unknown reasons.
Evolution of R Aquarii

Hubble captures image of a spectacular ‘stellar volcano’

Hubble has homed in on a nearby star called R Aquarii, which is throwing out material for billions of miles around it.
This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on 15 October 2024. The area is zoomed in 150 times compared to the large mosaic. On the left of the image, Euclid captured two galaxies (called ESO 364-G035 and G036) interacting with each other, 420 million light-years from us. On the right of the image, galaxy cluster Abell 3381 is visible, 678 million light-years away from us.

See the stunning sights of the Euclid telescope’s 208-gigapixel cosmic atlas

The huge and detailed mosaic is just a preview of the data to come from this recently launched space telescope.
NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick captured this timelapse photo of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) from the International Space Station as it orbited 272 miles above the South Pacific Ocean southeast of New Zealand just before sunrise on Sept. 28, 2024. At the time, the comet was about 44 million miles away from Earth.

Comet last seen in the Stone Age makes appearance over Earth

A comet that passes by Earth just once every 80,000 years has been spotted in the skies, but it may not survive for much longer.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

Europa Clipper blasts off to study whether Jupiter’s icy moon could host life

NASA's Europa Clipper mission aims to study whether the liquid water ocean beneath Europa's icy crust could potentially support life.
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NASA’s Crew-8 astronauts will stay in orbit a little longer

Weather conditions in Florida mean that the return of four crew members from the International Space Station has been delayed again.
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How to watch SpaceX’s fifth Starship test flight on Sunday

SpaceX is getting ready to launch its mighty Starship on its fifth test flight, scheduled for Sunday, October 13.
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter.

How to watch the Europa Clipper mission launch on Monday

The launch of NASA's Europa Clipper mission to the icy moon of Jupiter was delayed because of Hurricane Milton. Now, the launch could go ahead on Monday.
An aurora as seen from the space station.

Stunning aurorae visible around the world caused by solar storms

Beautiful aurorae were visible in locations around the world this week because of increased activity from the sun.
Hurricane Milton is pictured as a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Yucatan Peninsula from the space station on Oct. 8, 2024.

View of Hurricane Milton captured from space by ISS astronaut

As Florida prepares for the incoming Hurricane Milton, it has been captured from space by an astronaut on the International Space Station.
An artist’s conception of the “steam world” GJ 9827 d, shown in the foreground in blue.

James Webb discovers a new type of exoplanet: an exotic ‘steam world’

Researchers using James Webb have identified a new and exotic type of planet called a steam world, with an atmosphere almost entirely composed of water vapor.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is depicted receiving a laser signal from the Deep Space Optical Communications uplink ground station at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility in this artist’s concept. The DSOC experiment consists of an uplink and downlink station, plus a flight laser transceiver flying with Psyche.

NASA can now talk to its spacecraft using lasers

NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications test has completed its first phase, showing that laser communications in space are possible and faster than radio.
Engineers work on NASA’s Voyager 2 at JPL in March 1977, ahead of the spacecraft’s launch that August. The probe carries 10 science instruments, some of which have been turned off over the years to save power.

NASA turns off another of Voyager 2’s instruments to save power

The Voyager spacecraft, launched in the 1970s, has turned off its plasma science instrument to save power for exploring interstellar space.
Rosette Nebula Captured with DECam

See the stunning Rosette Nebula in all its glorious colors

The Dark Energy Camera has snapped a stunning image of a rose-like nebula located 5,000 light-years away.
Artist’s impression of a sub-Earth-mass planet orbiting Barnard’s star

There’s a tiny exoplanet orbiting our neighbor, known as Barnard’s star

At just six light-years from Earth, Barnard's star is close by and has long been of interest to researchers searching for exoplanets. Now, they've found one.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov onboard, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

SpaceX Crew-9 mission launches to ISS carrying two astronauts

A much-delayed SpaceX Crew Dragon mission launched with just two crew members due to issues with the test flight of the Boeing Starliner.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks photographed in March 2024.

How to spot the ‘comet of the century’ in October

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is passing by the sun and will soon pass by Earth, and could be a spectacularly bright object by mid-October.
The Lobster Nebula seen with ESO’s VISTA telescope.

See the wonders of the Milky Way in this new infrared map

The European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope has collected more than 500 terabytes of data on our galaxy.
The newly-discovered GS-NDG-9422 galaxy appears as a faint blur in this James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) image. It could help astronomers better understand galaxy evolution in the early Universe.

‘That’s weird’: This galaxy could help astronomers understand the earliest stars

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted a weird galaxy that originated just a billion years after the Big Bang.
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See SpaceX’s Starship rocket get stacked ahead of its fifth test flight

SpaceX has shared images of it Starship rocket, which is stacked and ready for a launch on its fifth flight test.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft atop, is vertical at the launch pad of Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 launch to the International Space Station.

SpaceX Crew-9 launch delayed again because of Tropical Storm Helene

As Florida braces for the arrival of Tropical Storm Helene, the launch of NASA's Crew-9 mission from the Kennedy Space Center has once again been delayed.
Europa Clipper.

Europa Clipper overcomes transistor issue and is ready for launch next month

This May, engineers working on NASA's Europa Clipper discovered a problem with the spacecraft and had to scramble to get it for launch.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague smiles and gives two thumbs up during the crew equipment interface test at SpaceX’s Dragon refurbishing facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Why the SpaceX Crew-9 launch has been delayed again

The SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which will see just two astronauts head to the International Space Station, has been delayed once again.
The two ‘phantoms’ of the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), which will fly to the Moon on NASA's first Artemis I mission, occupy two of passenger seats (Seat #3 and Seat #4) in the Orion capsule.

How scientists are keeping the Orion spacecraft safe from radiation

NASA's Orion spacecraft will need to protect astronauts from dangerous radiation when they visit the moon in the upcoming Artemis missions.
This composite image of Arp 107, created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) and MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument), reveals a wealth of information about the star formation taking place in these two galaxies and how they collided hundreds of million years ago. The near-infrared data, shown in white, show older stars, which shine brightly in both galaxies, as well as the tenuous gas bridge that runs between them. The vibrant background galaxies are also brightly illuminated at these wavelengths.

James Webb image shows two galaxies in the process of colliding

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope captures one of the universe's most dramatic events: the colliding of two galaxies.
Seville from Copernicus Sentinel-2C

See the first images from Europe’s Sentinel-2C satellite looking down on Earth

Earlier this month, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched its newest Earth-observation satellite, known as Copernicus Sentinel-2C.