All articles
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NASA & Agencies
A Dead Soviet Satellite Breaks Apart Again as ESA Warns Low Earth Orbit Is Heading for Runaway Growth
ESA's 2026 Space Environment Report warns of runaway collision growth and adds a new reentry casualty-risk metric, and weeks later LeoLabs spotted tens of fragments from the long-dead Soviet satellite Meteor 2-7 near 855 km.
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Astronomy
Pearls on a String: Gemini North Finds the Filaments of Supernova 1181's Remnant Are Chains of Knots
Deep Gemini North images of Pa 30, the likely remnant of the supernova recorded in 1181, show its filaments are chains of knots rather than smooth streaks, with about ten times more [S II] filaments detected than before.
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Science & Discovery
Neutrino Flavor Change May Decide Which Massive Stars Collapse Into Black Holes
Simulations of 195 massive stars show that even a small amount of neutrino flavor conversion can decide whether a dying star explodes as a supernova or collapses into a black hole. Stars of 16 to 30 solar masses are the most sensitive.
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Stargazing
Quiet Aurora Forecast, a Monster Sunspot, and Orionids Under a Waxing Moon: The Week Ahead
Giant sunspot AR4551 fired an M-class flare on Oct 16 while Earth's magnetic field stays quiet, and the Orionid meteor shower peaks Oct 21-22 under a 74%-lit moon that sets a few hours after midnight, leaving the pre-dawn hours for meteor watching.
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Commercial
Blue Origin Plans More Florida Pads and a Much Faster New Glenn Cadence as the FAA Weighs a 50-Launch Cap
Months after a static-test explosion at LC-36A, Blue Origin is announcing new Florida pads, two landing vessels and a $330 million upper-stage factory expansion, while the FAA weighs raising New Glenn's annual cap at the pad from 12 launches to 50.
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NASA & Agencies
NASA Brings Back a Marshall Legend: Stephen Cash Named Center Director
NASA has pulled 34-year Marshall veteran Stephen Cash out of retirement to run the Huntsville center behind SLS, the Human Landing System and nuclear propulsion work, effective Oct. 19, with acting director Rae Ann Meyer returning to the deputy role.
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Science & Discovery
NASA Satellites Watch a Historic El Niño Build as NOAA Weighs the Strongest Event Since 1950
Sentinel-6 altimetry shows a Pacific ocean swollen by up to 1.3 feet in places, NOAA puts the odds of an El Niño stronger than any since 1950 at 83% for Oct–Dec, and the winter outlook points to a wetter US South.
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Stargazing
Venus Slips Between Earth and the Sun on Oct. 24, Trading the Evening Sky for the Dawn
Venus reaches inferior conjunction at 04:00 UTC on Oct. 24 (11 p.m. CDT Oct. 23), passing 6.6 degrees south of the Sun. It leaves the evening sky and should reappear low in the east before dawn in early to mid-November.
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Astronomy
Webb Maps the Lopsided, Egg-Shaped Atmosphere of 'Marshmallow' Planet WASP-17b
A new 'transmission strings' method applied to JWST data shows WASP-17b's atmosphere is lopsided: its evening side runs about 650 K hotter than its morning side and bulges where winds carry heat from the dayside toward the night.
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Missions
Artemis II Heat Shield Analysis: Nine Spots of Char Loss Versus 103 on Artemis I
NASA's Oct. 15 post-flight analysis finds Orion's Artemis II heat shield lost char in just nine spots versus 103 on Artemis I, a tenfold drop that supports the gas-pressure explanation and the switch to a more permeable Avcoat for Artemis III.
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Science & Discovery
First Detection of Fully Deuterated Methanol Around a Baby Star Defies Chemical Models
ALMA's COMPASS survey has made the first interstellar detection of fully deuterated methanol around the protostar IRAS4A2 in Perseus. The molecule is about 100 times more abundant than chemical models predict.
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NASA & Agencies
NASA's SPEARS Solid-State Battery Cells Hold Up in Moon-Grade Cold, With Limits
NASA's SPEARS prototype solid-state cells ran from 80 C down to -60 C, kept going at reduced performance to -80 C, and came through exposure from 100 C to -170 C undamaged. Lunar south pole nights reach -200 C, though, and these are still small lab cells that have never flown.
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