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News•Feb 21, 2026
A Low-Cost Microscope to Study Living Cells in Zero Gravity
Researchers at Newcastle University have unveiled FlightScope, a low‑cost, rugged microscope capable of real‑time cell imaging in zero‑gravity environments. Built on an open‑source Stanford design, the instrument costs under $5,000 and includes vibration damping and microfluidic handling for parabolic flights. In a recent ESA parabolic flight, it captured yeast cells taking up fluorescent glucose, revealing slower uptake compared to Earth gravity. The team plans to adapt FlightScope for sounding rockets and lunar‑analog mines, democratizing microgravity cell biology.
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 20, 2026
NASA Moves Forward with Artemis II Tanking Test that Could Set up Moonshot Mission
NASA will begin a 700,000‑gallon cryogenic propellant load on the Space Launch System at Kennedy Space Center as part of a second wet‑dress rehearsal for Artemis II. The test follows a February 2 leak of liquid hydrogen that forced a pause in...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 20, 2026
SpaceX Launch to Feature Rare Booster Landing in Bahamas
SpaceX will launch the Falcon 9 Starlink 10‑36 mission from Cape Canaveral on Thursday night, targeting a 95% favorable weather window. The first‑stage booster, on its 26th flight, will attempt a downrange landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed off...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 19, 2026
AI Tool Observes Solar Active Regions to Advance Warnings of Space Weather
Southwest Research Institute and NSF‑NCAR have unveiled PINNBARDS, a physics‑informed neural network that translates surface magnetograms of solar active regions into deep‑layer magnetic states. By reconstructing tachocline dynamics from SDO/HMI data, the tool can forecast the emergence of large, flare‑producing...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 18, 2026
NASA Hopes Fuel Leaks Are Fixed as It Launches Another Countdown Test for the Artemis II Moonshot
NASA resumed a practice launch countdown for Artemis II on Tuesday, marking the first full‑duration rehearsal since fixing a hazardous fuel leak in the Space Launch System’s core stage. The leak, discovered during pre‑launch checks, forced a delay that pushed the...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 17, 2026
JWST Spots Most Distant Jellyfish Galaxy to Date
Astrophysicists at the University of Waterloo used the James Webb Space Telescope to identify the most distant jellyfish galaxy ever observed, at a redshift of z = 1.156, which corresponds to a look‑back time of about 8.5 billion years. Jellyfish galaxies display long,...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 17, 2026
Scientists Discover Recent Tectonic Activity on the Moon
Scientists at the National Air and Space Museum have produced the first global map of small mare ridges (SMRs) on the Moon, revealing these features are geologically young and abundant across the lunar maria. The study, published in The Planetary...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 17, 2026
UAE Extends Mars Probe Mission Until 2028
The United Arab Emirates announced that its Emirates Mars Mission, known as the Hope probe, will be extended by three years, pushing its operational timeline to 2028. Launched in 2020, the spacecraft is now in its fifth year of orbiting...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 16, 2026
New Tool Could Reduce Collision Risk for Earth-Observation Satellites
University of Manchester researchers have unveiled a modeling framework that integrates collision risk directly into Earth‑observation satellite mission design. The tool links image‑resolution requirements, satellite size and constellation density with debris probability, revealing that 0.5 m resolution satellites face the highest...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 16, 2026
If Alien Signals Have Already Reached Earth, Why Haven't We Seen Them?
A new EPFL study uses Bayesian statistics to ask how many alien technosignatures must have crossed Earth since 1960 for today’s instruments to have a realistic chance of detection. The analysis shows that achieving a high detection probability within a...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 16, 2026
Early Mars Was Warm and Wet Not Icy, Suggests Latest Research
A new study reveals that early Mars, billions of years ago, experienced a warm, wet climate rather than the previously favored cold, icy conditions. Researchers base this conclusion on mineralogical and isotopic evidence indicating persistent liquid water and a thicker...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 16, 2026
A New Concept for Catching up with 3I/ATLAS
The article outlines a new mission concept to intercept 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object ever recorded. It highlights the scientific payoff of a close‑up study and the steep engineering hurdles such a rendezvous entails. Central to the discussion is the...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 16, 2026
Southern California Sky Is Lit up by Valentine's Day SpaceX Launch
On Valentine’s Day, SpaceX lifted off a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, deploying 24 Starlink broadband satellites into low‑Earth orbit. The launch marked the fourth Falcon 9 mission from the California site this month, with three additional flights slated for...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 16, 2026
NASA to Let Private Company Vast Visit Space Station for Private Mission in 2027
NASA announced that private company Vast will be permitted to conduct a private mission to the International Space Station in 2027. This follows Axiom Space’s four scheduled ISS visits and a fifth approved for 2026. The decision expands NASA’s commercial...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 16, 2026
The Balloon Mission Raising the Bar for Exoplanet Science
Exoplanet atmospheric characterization has been dominated by the James Webb Space Telescope, but its high demand limits observation time. Researchers have introduced EXCITE, a balloon‑borne infrared telescope designed specifically for exoplanet climate studies. By flying on a high‑altitude gondola, EXCITE...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 15, 2026
Study Outlines How JWST and Ariel Could Team up on Exoplanet Atmospheres
A new pre‑print from the Ariel‑JWST Synergy Working Group details how the James Webb Space Telescope and ESA’s upcoming Ariel mission can coordinate to study exoplanet atmospheres. The paper proposes joint target selection, simultaneous infrared spectroscopy, and shared data‑fusion pipelines...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 15, 2026
How a Certain Form of Dark Matter May Lead to the Generation of Cosmological Magnetic Fields
Researchers at McGill University and ETH Zurich propose a new origin for the universe’s pervasive, weak magnetic fields. Their Physical Review Letters paper links the generation of cosmological magnetism to a pseudo‑scalar quantum field that could constitute ultralight dark matter....
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 14, 2026
Astronomers Trace a Star's Three-Year Infrared Glow to Black Hole Birth
In 2014 a NASA infrared telescope recorded a massive star in the Andromeda galaxy steadily brightening over three years before its light vanished, leaving a dusty shell. The gradual rise and abrupt fade were only recognized years later as a...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 14, 2026
Living in Space Can Change Where Your Brain Sits in Your Skull: New Research
A new study shows that microgravity causes the brain to shift upward and backward, deforming within the skull after spaceflight. MRI scans of astronauts taken before and after missions revealed measurable displacement and shape changes. The research links these shifts...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 14, 2026
Decoding China's New Space Philosophy
China’s fifteenth five‑year plan (2026‑2030) places space at the heart of its national agenda, as highlighted by a China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) press release. The plan outlines ambitious targets, including a lunar research station, a Mars sample‑return...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 13, 2026
Sophie Adenot, the Second French Woman to Fly to Space
Sophie Adenot, a French Air Force test pilot, has become the second French woman to travel to space, joining the Axiom-2 private mission to the International Space Station in early 2024. Her lifelong fascination with rockets, sparked by Cape Canaveral posters,...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 13, 2026
NASA Moon Mission Spacesuit Nears Milestone
NASA’s Artemis III program has cleared a critical hurdle as the next‑generation spacesuit, built by commercial partner Axiom Space, passed a contractor‑led technical review. The review confirms the suit meets stringent performance, safety, and durability standards required for lunar surface operations....
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 10, 2026
Chang'e-6 Samples Constrain Lunar Impact Flux and Illuminate Early Impact History
Scientists using Chang'e-6 far‑side samples have revised the lunar crater chronology, demonstrating that impact fluxes on the Moon’s near and far sides are statistically indistinguishable. Radiometric ages of 2.8 billion‑year basalts and 4.247 billion‑year norites from the South Pole–Aitken basin provide an independent...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 10, 2026
Discovery of a Possible Pulsar in the Milky Way's Center Could Enable Unprecedented Tests of General Relativity
Researchers from Columbia University and the Breakthrough Listen program have identified an 8.19‑millisecond pulsar candidate orbiting close to the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A*. The discovery emerged from the deepest radio survey ever conducted of the Galactic Center, published...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 10, 2026
A Possible First-Ever Einstein Probe Observation of a Black Hole Tearing Apart a White Dwarf
On July 2 2025 the China‑led Einstein Probe detected a transient X‑ray source, EP250702a, whose brightness surged to ~3 × 10⁴⁹ erg s⁻¹ and displayed a rapid hard‑to‑soft spectral shift. Coordinated follow‑up across the globe confirmed the event’s location in a galaxy’s outskirts and revealed a...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 10, 2026
Non-Biologic Processes Don't Fully Explain Mars Organics Collected by Curiosity, Researchers Say
Researchers published a new study in Astrobiology showing that non‑biological sources cannot fully account for the organic compounds Curiosity collected on Mars. The analysis compared volcanic, meteoritic and atmospheric inputs to the rover’s measurements and found a persistent shortfall. This...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 10, 2026
Fermi Data Help Refine Orbital Parameters of a Gamma-Ray Binary
Using 16 years of Fermi LAT data, Chinese astronomers precisely measured the orbit of the gamma‑ray binary PSR J2032+4127. The orbital period is 19,111.5 days (≈52.3 years) with an extreme eccentricity of 0.98 and a separation of about 25.3 AU. Two small spin‑glitches were identified,...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 9, 2026
A Road Map to Truly Sustainable Water Systems in Space
Sustaining human life in space hinges on efficient water reclamation, a challenge highlighted in a new review by David Olawade and colleagues. The International Space Station’s Environmental Control and Life Support System demonstrates closed‑loop capability but remains energy‑intensive and costly...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 9, 2026
Building Blocks of Life Discovered in Bennu Asteroid Rewrite Origin Story
NASA's OSIRIS‑REx mission returned Bennu samples in 2023, confirming the presence of a suite of amino acids—the molecular building blocks of life. While their existence was known, the formation pathway remained unclear. New research led by Penn State scientists proposes...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 9, 2026
Why only a Small Number of Planets Are Suitable for Life
Researchers at ETH Zurich have identified a narrow oxygen range during planetary core formation that preserves phosphorus and nitrogen on the surface, a prerequisite for life. Their models show Earth uniquely fell within this chemical Goldilocks zone, while Mars and...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 9, 2026
In Antarctica, Balloon Lands After 23-Day Search for Particles From Outer Space
University of Chicago’s PUEO payload lifted off on a NASA balloon on Dec. 20, 2025, and spent 23 days circling Antarctica at 120,000 feet. The instrument, equipped with 96 ultra‑sensitive radio antennas, scanned the ice for ultra‑high‑energy neutrinos—particles far more energetic than...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 9, 2026
Launch to ISS Pushed to Thursday over Weather: NASA
NASA delayed the Crew‑8 launch by one day, moving the liftoff from Wednesday to Thursday due to adverse weather at Kennedy Space Center. The mission will carry four astronauts—two from NASA, one from ESA and one from JAXA—aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 9, 2026
A Long-Lost Soviet Spacecraft: AI Could Finally Solve the Mystery of Luna 9's Landing Site
Researchers from the UK and Japan used a machine‑learning model, YOLO‑ETA, to pinpoint possible landing locations for the Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft, the first soft‑lander on the Moon. The algorithm, trained on Apollo site imagery, successfully identified known Soviet landers and...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 9, 2026
Third Exoplanet Detected in the Planetary System HD 176986
Astronomers using the HARPS and HARPS‑N spectrographs have identified a third planet orbiting the nearby K‑type star HD 176986. The new world, HD 176986 d, circles the star every 61.38 days at 0.28 AU and has a minimum mass of about 6.8 Earth masses. The discovery...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 8, 2026
The 'Little Red Dots' Observed by Webb Were Direct-Collapse Black Holes
The James Webb Space Telescope uncovered a population of bright, red point sources in the early universe that were initially labeled "Little Red Dots." Follow‑up spectroscopy and modeling now identify these objects as direct‑collapse black holes, a hypothesized pathway for...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 7, 2026
A Giant Star Is Changing Before Our Eyes and Astronomers Are Watching in Real Time
Astronomers monitoring the Large Magellanic Cloud’s red supergiant WOH G64 have recorded a rapid decline in visual brightness, a modest temperature rise, and an unprecedented surge in dust ejection over the past decade. High‑resolution imaging in 2024 revealed a fresh dust...
By Phys.org - Space News
News•Feb 7, 2026
Pulsar Timing Hints at a Nearby Dark Matter 'Sub-Halo'
A team led by Sukanya Chakrabarti reported in Physical Review Letters that timing measurements of a nearby pulsar binary and solitary pulsars show a subtle acceleration inconsistent with known masses. The distortion implies an invisible object of roughly tens of...
By Phys.org - Space News