Astronomy & Space News

Early morning sunlight illuminates the western wall of this unnamed crater, leaving deep shadows on the ground and in the interior. The image was taken on August 30, 2023, by LROC (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera).

Two powerful instruments of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope joined forces to create this scenic galaxy view. This spiral galaxy is named NGC 5134, and it’s located 65 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.

In Euclid’s wide, near-infrared, and visible light view, the arcs and filaments of the nebula’s bright central region are situated within a halo of colorful fragments of gas zooming away from the star. This ring was ejected from the star at an earlier stage, before the main nebula at the center formed. Hubble captures the very core of the billowing gas with high-resolution visible-light images, adding extra detail in the center of this image. The whole nebula stands out against a backdrop teeming with distant galaxies, demonstrating how local astrophysical beauty and the farthest reaches of the cosmos can be seen together in modern astronomical surveys. Together, these missions provide a rich and complementary view of NGC 6543 — revealing the delicate interplay between stellar end-of-life processes and the vast cosmic tapestry beyond.

This impact crater, as seen by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2015, appeared relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta.

A brain-new image from Webb! What looks like a brain (complete with what appear as left and right hemispheres) is actually a dying star blowing off a shell of gas, and within that shell, a cloud of various gases.

Weekends on the International Space Station are for housecleaning and haircuts. NASA astronaut Jessica Meir trims the hair of fellow NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, both Expedition 74 flight engineers, using an electric razor attached to a vacuum that collects loose clippings to keep the station’s atmosphere clean in microgravity.

A total lunar eclipse rises over New Orleans, home of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, in the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 3. A lunar eclipse occurs when Earth passes directly between the Sun and Moon, casting a huge shadow across the Moon’s surface. The Moon appears dark red or orange as the Sun’s light filters through Earth’s atmosphere.

For the first time, a much younger version of the Sun has been caught red-handed blowing bubbles in the galaxy, by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Off the coast of California, NASA’s Artemis Landing and Recovery team and the Department of War that will work together to retrieve the Artemis II crew and Orion spacecraft following their return to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean are performing a final simulation of their activities, called a just-in-time training, at sea on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. During the training, teams use the Crew Module Test Article, a full-scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, to simulate as close as possible the conditions they can expect to encounter during splashdown of the Artemis II mission.

The sun's glint beams off a partly cloudy Atlantic Ocean just after sunrise as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above.

The Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) project aims to demonstrate the carbothermal reduction of lunar regolith to produce oxygen on the Moon's South Pole. For this test, the team integrated the solar concentrator, mirrors, and software and confirmed the production of carbon monoxide.

NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren takes a selfie with the people behind "Project Hail Mary" and the audience during a panel about the movie at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Feb. 25, 2026.

NASA astronaut and SpaceX Crew-12 Pilot Jack Hathaway enters the International Space Station after docking aboard the Dragon spacecraft to join Expedition 74 and begin a long-duration microgravity research mission.

For the first time, an international team of astronomers have mapped the vertical structure of Uranus’s upper atmosphere, uncovering how temperature and charged particles vary with height across the planet.

This high-resolution still image is part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on February 18, 2021.

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  March 15: Uranus meets 13 Tau High in the south this evening is Canis Minor the Little Dog, shining above the bright star Sirius, which lies closer to the horizon. True to its name, the Little Dog is a little constellation, beatingContinue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, March 16: Canis Minor the Little Dog"

The post The Sky Today on Monday, March 16: Canis Minor the Little Dog appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

After training in theology and becoming a deacon, Nicolas-Louis de La Caille (born March 15, 1713) turned his focus to geometry and astronomy. He studied at the Paris Observatory, and by 1739 had become professor of mathematics at Paris’ College Marzarin.  Though he constructed a rooftop observatory, published multiple textbooks, and took part in aContinue reading "March 15, 1713: The birth of Nicolas-Louis de La Caille"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  March 14: Io rounds Jupiter The distant ice giant Uranus is located in Taurus right now, not far from the famous (and easy-to-find) Pleiades star cluster, cataloged as M45. Tonight, the planet also sits a short distance due south of a 6th-magnitudeContinue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, March 15: Uranus meets 13 Tau"

The post The Sky Today on Sunday, March 15: Uranus meets 13 Tau appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was born in Germany. Early in his life, he demonstrated passion for music and science; in 1896, he began studying physics and mathematics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. When his degree was completed, he was unable to find a position as a teacher, and instead beganContinue reading "March 14, 1879: The birth of a genius"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  March 13: Look into the eyes of the Owl A transit of Io and its shadow occurs early this morning, after which Io reaches the western extent of its orbit and comes back around, passing behind Jupiter in an occultation visible lateContinue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, March 14: Io rounds Jupiter"

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Planning to run this year’s Messier marathon? March 14/15 and 21/22 are the best nights to give it a go. Your ideal order will differ with latitude, but this is a good place to start. Be sure to set up well before dark, and try to log the first few objects while there’s still someContinue reading "Running the Messier marathon? Use this target order"

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French astronomer Charles Messier did not intend to be remembered for his discoveries of galaxies, nebulae, and stars clusters when he looked to the sky in the 1750s. Dubbed the “Ferret of Comets” by French King Louis XV after Messier’s acceptance into the French Academy of Sciences in 1770, he discovered 13 comets and observedContinue reading "Get ready to run this year’s Messier marathon"

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In March of 1989, a highly active sunspot region released multiple extreme solar flares, including an X4.5 flare on March 10 and a M7.3 flare on March 12.  Solar flares are ranked as B, C, M, and X class, with B being the weakest and X the strongest. Within B, C, and M classes, flareContinue reading "March 13, 1989: Quebec goes dark"

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The phenomenon of a Full Moon arises when our planet, Earth, is precisely sandwiched between the Sun and the Moon. This alignment ensures the entire side of the Moon that faces us gleams under sunlight. Thanks to the Moon’s orbit around Earth, the angle of sunlight hitting the lunar surface and being reflected back toContinue reading "2026 Full Moon calendar: When to see the Full Moon and phases"

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Imran Badr, taken from San Jose, California Our nearest major galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), shows off its star-forming regions, glowing in hydrogen gas and tracing out its dense spiral arms. This image represents 400 hours of total exposure, including exposures in Hα, SII, and OIII filters of 215.6, 46.6, and 132.8 hours, respectively,Continue reading "Andromeda’s knotty arms"

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Just 35 light-years away, in the southern constellation Volans, the Flying Fish, is a world unlike any other. The weird, low-density planet, known as L98-59 d, appears tohave a deep […]

The post Molten Sulfurous World Blurs Exoplanet Categories appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A rare, near perfect young-Moon challenge awaits North Americans after sunset on March 19th. Jupiter rules the evening from on high in central Gemini.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, March 13 – 22 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The disk of gas that spirals onto a newborn magnetar wobbles, creating "bumps" in the brightness of the supernova that accompanied this object's birth.

The post Super-Bright Supernovae Are Magnetar Birth Cries appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Astronomers have used 40 years’ worth of data to peer inside the Sun, revealing that the solar cycle can leave a distinct fingerprint beneath the visible surface.

The post The Solar Cycle Leaves Its Fingerprint on the Sun’s Interior appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Dozens on amateur astronomers helped measure the minuscule difference in Didymos’s trajectory around the Sun, after NASA’s DART mission impacted its moon.

The post Asteroid Didymos's Heliocentric Orbit Altered by Impact on its Moon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

While small galaxies are expected to have even smaller satellite galaxies, astronomers have found a surprising number of tiny companions around one dwarf galaxy.

The post Dwarf Galaxy Has "Too Many" Satellites appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The latest JWST images, along with archival images taken before the asteroid was even discovered, combine to refine its trajectory.

The post Lunar Impact from Asteroid 2024 YR4 Ruled Out appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Bright Jupiter highlights the Gemini stick-figure twins standing on either side of it. Down below, the Winter Triangle balances on its Sirius point.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, March 6 – 15 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Vera Rubin Observatory is seeing 800,000 astronomical alerts per night — and that number will only increase.

The post Rubin Observatory Sends 800,000 Alerts to Astronomers — Per Night appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Known as ASTERIS, the AI network removes noise from images to reveal features a full magnitude fainter than before.

The post AI Reveals New Galaxies in James Webb Space Telescope Images appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Astronomers have discovered the brightest fast radio burst ever detected and traced it to a nearby galaxy using a new network of CHIME Outrigger telescopes. The flash, nicknamed RBFLOAT, lasted only a fraction of a second but briefly outshone every other radio source in its galaxy. Follow-up observations with the James Webb Space Telescope spotted a faint infrared signal at the same location. The burst’s unusual behavior—showing no signs of repeating—may challenge current ideas about what causes these mysterious cosmic flashes.

New research suggests Mars may have remained habitable much longer than scientists once thought. Ancient sand dunes in Gale Crater appear to have been soaked by underground water billions of years ago, leaving behind minerals that can preserve signs of life. Even after surface water disappeared, subsurface flows may have created protected environments for microbes. These hidden habitats could be key targets in the ongoing search for past life on Mars.

Mars didn’t always look like the barren world we see today. Over billions of years, the Sun’s solar wind stripped away much of its atmosphere, helping transform it from a warmer, wetter planet into a frozen desert. NASA’s twin-spacecraft ESCAPADE mission aims to watch this process in action by measuring how the solar wind interacts with Mars’ fragile magnetic environment. The findings could reveal how Mars lost its habitability—and help prepare humans for future missions there.

NASA’s Curiosity rover is investigating strange spiderweb-like ridges on Mars that may reveal a hidden chapter of the planet’s watery history. These “boxwork” formations likely formed when groundwater flowed through cracks in the rock, leaving minerals that hardened into ridges while surrounding material eroded away. New chemical analyses of drilled rock samples show minerals linked to water activity.

Scientists have uncovered evidence that our Sun may have traveled across the Milky Way as part of a massive migration of Sun-like stars billions of years ago. The journey may have carried the solar system away from the galaxy’s crowded center into a calmer region where life could eventually emerge.

Scientists analyzing a gravitational-wave signal have discovered that a neutron star and black hole spiraled together on an oval-shaped orbit just before merging. This unusual motion, detected in the event GW200105, contradicts the long-held expectation that such pairs settle into nearly perfect circles before collision. The eccentric orbit suggests the system likely formed in a chaotic stellar environment with strong gravitational interactions.

Scientists have grown chickpeas in simulated moon soil, offering a promising step toward farming on the lunar surface. Researchers mixed moon-like regolith with worm-produced compost and helpful fungi that protect plants from toxic metals. The combination allowed chickpeas to grow and produce a harvest in soil that normally cannot support plant life. Scientists now need to confirm the crops are safe and nutritious for astronauts.

Astronomers have caught what may be a rare cosmic catastrophe unfolding 11,000 light-years away. A seemingly ordinary sun-like star suddenly began flickering wildly, puzzling scientists until they realized the strange dimming was caused by vast clouds of hot dust and debris drifting across the star. The most likely explanation is a violent planetary collision—two worlds smashing together and scattering glowing material throughout the system.

Astronomers have discovered a strange new signal coming from an exploding star — a “chirp” that speeds up over time, similar to the signals seen when black holes collide. The unusual pattern appeared in a superluminous supernova about a billion light-years away and revealed clues about what’s happening deep inside the blast.

Scientists studying Mars may have uncovered a brand-new mineral hidden in the planet’s ancient sulfate deposits. By combining laboratory experiments with orbital data, researchers identified an unusual iron sulfate—ferric hydroxysulfate—forming in layered deposits near the massive Valles Marineris canyon system. The mineral likely formed when sulfate-rich deposits left behind by ancient water were later heated by volcanic or geothermal activity, transforming their chemistry.

Cosmic voids may seem like the emptiest places in the universe, stripped of matter, radiation, and even dark matter. But they’re far from nothing. Even in these vast empty regions, the fundamental quantum fields that fill all of space remain, carrying a small but real amount of energy known as vacuum energy, or dark energy. While this energy is overwhelmed by matter in galaxies and clusters, in the deep emptiness of cosmic voids it becomes dominant.

When NASA’s DART spacecraft deliberately crashed into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, it did more than change the asteroid’s local orbit — it slightly shifted the path of the entire asteroid pair around the Sun. The impact blasted debris into space, doubling the force of the spacecraft’s hit and nudging the system’s solar orbit by a tiny but measurable amount. It marks the first time humans have altered the trajectory of a celestial object around the Sun. The result strengthens the case for using spacecraft impacts as a future planetary defense strategy.

Physicists have long struggled to unite quantum mechanics—the theory governing tiny particles—with Einstein’s theory of gravity, which explains the behavior of stars, planets, and the structure of the universe. Researchers at TU Wien have now taken a new step toward that goal by rethinking one of relativity’s core ideas: the paths particles follow through curved spacetime, known as geodesics. By creating a quantum version of these paths—called the q-desic equation—the team showed that particles moving through a “quantum” spacetime may deviate slightly from the paths predicted by classical relativity.

Astronomers have created the largest and most detailed 3D map yet of a glowing signal from the early universe, revealing hidden galaxies and gas from 9-11 billion years ago. By analyzing faint “Lyman-alpha” light emitted by energized hydrogen, scientists used an advanced technique called line intensity mapping to capture not just the brightest galaxies but also the vast cosmic structures surrounding them.

Asteroids with tiny moons may be quietly trading material across space. Images from NASA’s DART mission revealed faint streaks on the moon Dimorphos—evidence of slow “cosmic snowballs” drifting from its parent asteroid, Didymos. The discovery provides the first direct visual proof that sunlight can spin asteroids fast enough to shed debris that lands on nearby companions. It also shows that near-Earth asteroids are much more active and constantly reshaped than scientists once believed.