Rumours across social media platforms that a huge comet is on a collision course with Earth have been circulating, with some users describing it as a major threat to humanity. Others are debating how the comet – known as 3I/ATLAS and detected by NASA’s ATLAS telescope on July 1 – might be diverted from the Earth. Some have even gone …
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Photo credit: Matteo Strassera, left, Ani Shastry, right. The 2025 Astrophotography Prize has revealed its field of winners, a competition dedicated to the “education and the continual improvement of astrophotography.” Entries were scored out of 100 by three specialist astrophotographers across four categories: Deep Space, Solar System, Remote Imaging, and Astro Landscape. The top 25 in each category were then …
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The James Webb Space Telescope has, for the first time, measured the carbon-rich concoction that forms a moon-forming disk of gas and dust around a newly formed planetary body. It is hoped the instrument’s findings will help us understand how moons in our solar system, particularly those of the giant planets, came to be. With the medium-resolution spectrograph on its …
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An unknown bacterium, never before seen on our planet, has been discovered in the Chinese space station Tiangong. This discovery, worthy of science-fiction scenarios, raises new questions about life in orbit and microbiological risks. A different kind of space bacterium In May 2023, during a routine mission by the Shenzhou-15 crew, samples taken from a habitation module on the Chinese …
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In case you hadn’t noticed, we live in a dangerous world. While our soft, fleshy selves are remarkably good at absorbing kinetic energy and healing the damage that results, there are very definite limits to what we humans can deal with, beyond which we’ll need some help. Car crashes, falls from height, or even penetrating trauma such as gunshot wounds …
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QUICK FACTS Where is it? Grand Erg Oriental, Sahara [30.13306820, 9.306920931] What’s in the photo? The stark contrast where a field of “star dunes” meets rocky hills Which satellite took the photo? EarthKAM camera, on board the International Space Station When was it taken? Oct. 31, 2017 This striking satellite image shows the stark difference between a giant field of …
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NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) demonstration has completed its final pass, although there is a chance the system might be reactivated in the second half of 2026. Carried aboard NASA’s Psyche mission, DSOC demonstrated how data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded. On September 2, the final communications pass was made from a distance of …
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Space horror is a part of our popular culture. An episode of “Doctor Who” called “Listen,” featuring Peter Capaldi in the titular role, saw the Doctor investigate a supposed creature that can never been seen. His journey takes him to the end of the universe, where he meets a stranded traveler on a spaceship. Though nothing is supposed to be …
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China’s Tiangong space station just got some more protection against debris strikes. Two astronauts from the three-person Shenzhou 20 mission installed additional shielding on Tiangong during a six-hour spacewalk on Friday (Sept. 26), according to the state-run broadcaster CCTV. It was the fourth spacewalk of the Shenzhou 20 mission, which arrived at Tiangong on April 24. You may like A …
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NASA announced its newest class of astronaut candidates on Sept. 22, 2025, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. After the welcome ceremony, the 10 highly qualified individuals rolled up their sleeves and prepared for the next step in their journey to the stars: nearly two years of training to become flight-eligible for missions to low Earth orbit, the …
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