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Astronomers have identified an enormous, dense filament of massive, dusty galaxies that existed just one billion years after the Big Bang. Using the NIKA2 camera on the IRAM 30‑meter telescope, the team detected millimeter emission from more than a dozen galaxies forming stars at rates up to a thousand times that of the Milky Way. These objects are completely invisible in the deepest Hubble and JWST images because dust absorbs their ultraviolet and optical light. The structure’s size and rapid star‑formation efficiency far exceed predictions of current cosmological models.
Struggling to find the right talent in the space industry? Tap into a highly engaged audience of engineers, analysts, and specialists already working at the forefront of space innovation. Get your jobs in front of the people who matter most....
Canada Rocket Company emerged from stealth last week with the announcement of a $6.2M CDN ($4.5M) seed funding round—and with plans to create sovereign light- and medium-lift launch capabilities for the Great White North. https://t.co/jNyfibjct6
Earth was struck by an S4‑level solar radiation storm on Jan. 19, the most severe event since the October 2003 Halloween storms. The storm, driven by a fast coronal mass ejection, sent high‑energy protons toward the planet, but the particles lacked the...
OSHA says SpaceX failed to properly inspect a recently repaired hydraulic crane before it collapsed at the Starbase facility in June 2025. The agency issued seven serious violations and levied the maximum fines on six of them, totaling $115,850. The...
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu announced preliminary talks with Greenko Group to develop a commercial spaceport on Hope Island near Kakinada. The site offers a more efficient launch trajectory for polar orbits, reducing fuel compared with ISRO's Sriharikota facility....
The Commercial Space Federation announced three new associate members—Max Space, Slingshot Aerospace, and Muon Space—broadening its portfolio across space habitats, traffic management, and satellite constellations. Max Space introduces expandable habitats that grow twenty‑fold after launch, fitting on a single Falcon 9....
Geophysicists at Washington State University have modeled a process by which dense, salt‑rich ice on Europa can detach and sink through the moon’s icy shell, delivering surface‑derived nutrients to the subsurface ocean. The study adapts Earth’s crustal delamination mechanism, showing...
The NASA Engineering and Safety Center released its 2025 Technical Update, an annual report detailing FY25 engineering activities. The document highlights independent testing, analysis, and assessments of NASA’s high‑risk projects, emphasizing safety and mission success. Collaboration across NASA centers enabled...
The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter captured a high‑resolution view of extensive yardangs near the Eumenides Dorsum mountains, an area roughly the size of Belgium. These wind‑blasted ridges, recorded by the High Resolution Stereo Camera, reveal that Mars is...
Buzz Aldrin was born on Jan. 20, 1930, in New Jersey and later earned a Ph.D. from MIT, becoming NASA’s first astronaut with a doctorate. After serving as a Korean War fighter pilot, he joined NASA’s third astronaut group in 1963. Aldrin...
Washington Harbour Partners has purchased New Hampshire‑based Radome Services and rebranded it as Outpost Mission Services, a ground‑segment engineering platform for space infrastructure. The acquisition adds a 45‑person field‑services team that inspects, repairs, and maintains radomes protecting satellite, radar and...
A recent Executive Order removed the requirement that U.S. space situational awareness (SSA) and traffic coordination services be provided free of charge, sparking debate over user fees. Andrew D’Uva argues that the real issue is catalog completeness, not pricing, and...
Chinese astronomers using ESA's Gaia DR3 identified four distinct substructures within the nearby open cluster NGC 752, revealing a dense central core and three progressively looser outer groups. The total stellar mass of the cluster was revised upward to about 332.5 solar...
Using JWST, Hubble and ALMA, astronomers studied 18 galaxies about 12.5 billion light‑years away, dating to less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxies exhibit surprisingly high metal content, rotating disks, and rapidly feeding supermassive black holes, indicating...
Researchers analyzing data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, ESA's Mars Express, and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter have identified a distinct ancient coastline on Mars, indicating a once‑vast ocean roughly the size of Earth's Arctic Ocean. The discovery stems from...
Comet C/2024 E1 (Wierzchos) reaches perihelion today, Jan 20, passing 52.6 million miles (84.6 million km) from the Sun. The increased solar heating should boost its brightness to about +8.1 magnitude, making it observable only with a modest telescope in the southern sky’s Microscopium...
The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe geomagnetic storm alert for 20 January, following a major solar flare on 18 January. The storm could make the aurora australis visible as far north as Victoria and New South Wales, offering rare southern‑light...
The episode reviews NASA’s landmark achievements in 2025, spanning breakthroughs in aeronautics, deep‑space exploration, and planetary science. Highlights include the successful test of the X‑57 electric aircraft, the Artemis II crewed lunar flyby, and the Perseverance rover’s new sample‑return mission milestones....
Robert Zimmerman’s latest PJ Media op‑ed condemns mainstream coverage of NASA’s Artemis II rollout as propaganda, arguing that nearly twenty outlets praised the mission without addressing critical safety concerns. He points out that only a single article mentioned Orion’s heat‑shield issues,...
Astronomers using NASA’s NICER X‑ray telescope and South Africa’s MeerKAT radio array have shown that the black‑hole binary 4U 1630‑472 alternates between relativistic jets and X‑ray winds, but never produces both at the same time. The three‑year monitoring revealed a stable...
NASA’s 70‑meter DSS‑14 Deep Space Network antenna suffered an over‑rotation incident on Sept. 16, leaving it offline until at least May 1. The dish, critical for deep‑space communications and planetary radar, will later enter a multi‑year upgrade starting Aug 2026, extending its 60‑year...
China’s Shenzhou‑20 spacecraft returned to Earth empty after a debris‑induced crack compromised its viewport. The crew was transferred to the Shenzhou‑21 capsule for a safe landing in November, leaving the damaged module docked to Tiangong. A rapid‑response window‑treatment, delivered by...
French president @EmmanuelMacron urges faster military space buildup, promises funds; @CNES confronts budget challenges; 2d flight of #BalMan high-altitude platform ends in explosion; @EuropeSpacePort prepares for arrival of mini-launchers. @defis_eu.https://t.co/wWsAqjHcpP https://t.co/xMgYrZ4ZfK
Researchers at Monash and RMIT demonstrated that bees can recognize Arabic and Roman numerals, solve basic addition and subtraction, and communicate complex information via their waggle dance. The findings suggest that mathematics may be a shared cognitive ability across vastly...
An international team has confirmed that chorus emissions—electromagnetic waves previously studied in Earth’s magnetosphere—also occur in Mercury’s weak magnetic field. Using BepiColombo’s Mio plasma‑wave instrument, six flybys between 2021 and 2025 captured audible‑frequency waves that match the instantaneous frequency chirps...
Researchers led by Miki Nakajima have shown that deep basal magma oceans (BMOs) in super‑Earths can become highly electrically conductive, enabling them to generate magnetic dynamos. Laboratory laser‑driven shock experiments on iron‑rich ferropericlase and numerical simulations demonstrate that planets with...
In this episode, retired Air Force Colonel and Clemson professor Keith Balts discusses his journey from ROTC commissioning to leading space operations, highlighting the evolution of space missions from a support role to a strategic warfighter capability. He shares vivid...
The European Space Agency’s Proba‑3 mission captured a rare sequence of three solar prominence eruptions within a five‑hour window on 21 September 2025. Using its ASPIICS coronagraph, the twin‑satellite formation created an artificial eclipse that revealed the sun’s inner corona in unprecedented...
The National Space Society’s Space Forum on Jan. 22 will feature James Draper, director of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum, who will trace the site’s evolution from post‑World War II missile tests to the launchpad of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions....
Astronomers have moved from relying on chance to systematically hunting fleeting cosmic explosions by deploying dedicated time‑domain surveys. The Palomar Transient Factory (2009‑2012) pioneered a coordinated “conveyor‑belt” approach, triggering follow‑up observations across multiple telescopes. Its successors, the Zwicky Transient Facility...
China’s 2‑meter Chinese Space Station Telescope, dubbed Xuntian, is slated for launch as early as 2027 and will operate in low‑Earth orbit alongside the Tiangong station. The observatory carries a 2.5‑billion‑pixel camera with a field of view roughly 300 times...
China successfully placed the 19th group of Guowang (SatNet) satellites into orbit using a Long March 12 launch from the Wencheng coastal spaceport. The launch brings the constellation to roughly 150 satellites, positioning it as a direct competitor to SpaceX’s...
In early January 2026 NASA performed the first medical evacuation from the International Space Station in 25 years, returning the Crew‑11 astronauts aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. The incident, though details remain confidential, underscores the rarity of serious health events in...
Japan’s government awarded lunar‑exploration startup Ispace a $125 million contract under the second phase of the Space Strategy Fund to develop a high‑precision lander aimed at a 2029 launch to the Moon’s polar regions. The agreement also funds a lunar orbiter...
China successfully recovered the Shenzhou-20 crew capsule unmanned after a reported window breach, touching down in Inner Mongolia. State media released only distant photos, showing a damaged window but no clear view of the alleged debris impact. The limited visual...
The UK Space Agency has launched a new Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) landing page that centralises information on the nation’s navigation initiatives. The site aligns with the UK’s broader PNT framework and the recently published Framework for Greater PNT...
On Jan 18 2026, the Sun emitted an X1.9‑class flare from active region AR4341, accompanied by a full‑halo coronal mass ejection directed toward Earth. The CME, traveling over 1,000 km s⁻¹, is forecast to strike late Jan 19 or early Jan 20, with geomagnetic activity potentially...
The episode examines the abrupt termination of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, focusing on ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) and the implications of Daniel Neuenschwander’s declaration that the mission will not continue. It delves into the historical context of...
X‑ray observations by the Einstein Probe’s Follow‑up X‑ray Telescope have uncovered hidden disturbances in the massive galaxy cluster Abell 3571, part of the Shapley Supercluster. Although the cluster previously appeared morphologically relaxed, residual and thermodynamic maps reveal surface‑brightness excesses and a...
The Gemini program served as NASA’s bridge between Mercury and Apollo, focusing on long‑duration spaceflight and rendezvous capabilities. After the uncrewed Gemini 1 proved the Titan II could reach orbit, Gemini 2 launched on Jan 19 1965 to test heat shields, retrorockets, and parachutes. The...
NASA rolled the Artemis II Orion spacecraft to its launch pad, marking a critical milestone for the agency’s first crewed deep‑space mission since Apollo. The rollout follows extensive integration of the Space Launch System core stage and the European Service Module....
The Living Worlds Working Group’s white paper outlines the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) as a next‑generation exoplanet telescope that will directly image planets using a coronagraph. To meet Decadal Survey goals, HWO must achieve extremely high signal‑to‑noise and cover a...
The U.S. Space Force has terminated the Resilient GPS (R‑GPS) program, an exploratory effort launched in 2024 to develop smaller, lower‑cost navigation satellites. The initiative funded Astranis, L3Harris Technologies and Sierra Space to produce design concepts, but Phase 1 funding was...
Researchers at Guangxi University unveiled micro‑nano reconfigurable robots (MNRM) that capture and release carbon dioxide using sunlight as an energy source. In laboratory tests the robots sequestered 6.19 mmol CO₂ per gram of sorbent and regenerated at just 55 °C, maintaining over...
European launch startups are receiving a surge of public funding after the ESA’s European Launcher Challenge allocated over €900 million to five companies, aiming to restore sovereign access to orbit. Isar Aerospace is preparing its second Spectrum flight, carrying five cubesats...
SpaceX will lower roughly 4,400 Starlink satellites from about 550 km to 480 km by 2026. The move leverages the upcoming solar minimum, which will contract the upper atmosphere and increase drag at higher altitudes, helping clear debris faster. A tighter orbital...
On Jan 12, ISRO's PSLV‑C62/EOS‑N1 mission failed to reach orbit after an anomaly in the third stage, losing the primary EOS‑N1 hyperspectral satellite and 14 other payloads. The launch also carried the Kestrel Initial Demonstrator, which managed to transmit limited...
Russia has accelerated its counter‑space programme, fielding both co‑orbital and direct‑ascent anti‑satellite systems across low‑Earth and geostationary orbits. The Nivelir series of co‑orbital satellites have demonstrated repeated proximity operations, coming within tens of kilometres of U.S. reconnaissance and communications satellites,...
The blog reviews the newly released photo‑books — Apollo 1, 7 and 8 in Photographs — which compile hundreds of previously unseen images from NASA’s early lunar missions. The author argues that the visual material reshapes readers’ perception of the Apollo program, revealing details of hardware assembly,...
