Sky and Solar

SpaceX launches Starship on ambitious 22-hour Flight 15 test, but aborts booster 'chopsticks' catch (video)
13 November 2026

SpaceX's Starship megarocket reached orbit today (Nov. 13) during its 15th test flight, but the company scrapped a plan to catch the vehicle's massive booster back at the launch site.
On this day in space! Nov. 13, 1971: NASA's Mariner 9 becomes 1st spacecraft to orbit Mars, revealing close looks at the Martian surface
13 November 2026

On Nov. 13, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. Here's why it mattered.
60 years ago the Leonid meteor shower produced 144,000 meteors per hour. Could it happen again?
13 November 2026

60 years ago, the Leonid meteor shower unleashed one of the most spectacular meteor storms in recorded history. As the 2026 peak approaches, here's what skywatchers can expect.
'Arrival' at 10: Denis Villeneuve's alien visitation classic that reminded us it's good to talk
13 November 2026

How the 'Dune' director turned a little-known short story into one of the best sci-fi movies of the 21st century
Rocket Lab launching 100th space mission early on Nov. 14: Watch it live
13 November 2026

Rocket Lab will launch its 100th space mission shortly after midnight on Saturday (Nov. 14), and you can watch the milestone liftoff live.

Hera closes in on the asteroid DART impacted
09 November 2026

The European Space Agency (ESA)’s Hera spacecraft has returned its first close-up view of the Didymos asteroid system, marking the beginning of an ‘asteroid autopsy’ to discover what NASA’s DART impact really did to the asteroid moon Dimorphos in 2022.
Happy New Year, Mars! The Red Planet is turning 39
29 September 2026

On 30 September the Red Planet officially begins Mars Year 39. Which is quite an achievement for a world that is actually more than 4.5 billion years old.
3I/ATLAS was born in the deep freeze
08 September 2026

Another piece of evidence suggests that this visitor formed in the bitterly cold outer reaches of a distant planetary system.
Roman Space Telescope launches on mission to survey the Universe
30 August 2026

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has begun its journey into space, starting a mission that will survey the Universe on an unprecedented scale in search of clues to dark energy, dark matter and worlds beyond our Solar System.
JWST’s ‘impossible’ early galaxies may be even more massive than we thought
24 August 2026

Faint, low-mass stars could be hiding much of the mass in distant galaxies, making the surprisingly large galaxies discovered by JWST in the early Universe even harder to explain.
How to observe the 12 August 2026 solar eclipse
07 August 2026

On the evening of 12 August 2026, the Moon will pass between Earth and the Sun, producing a striking solar eclipse. Find out how, when and where to observe it safely.