Superdense neutron star caught feeding on a blue hypergiant's stellar wind
Using data from the Japan–led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) observatory, astronomers have directly observed a giant star's outflow, called a stellar wind, being c…
A 'rebellious' exoplanet orbits in the opposite direction of its star
A star and its planets form when a cloud of gas and dust collapses in on itself somewhere in space. The cloud then forms a disk around the nascent star, within which the planets w…
The Red Planet has a purple side
Oxidized iron dominates the Martian color palette. The dusty reds, ochers, browns and tans give the planet its nickname: the Red Planet. But new images of Mars' south polar region…
Researchers measure the environment where the first supermassive black holes formed
When the James Webb Space Telescope pointed its powerful instruments toward the early universe, scientists were surprised by what it found. At high-redshift (z) values, correspond…
Widely Attended Gatherings (WAGs) Determinations
2026 NAHF Enshrinement Ceremony 9.24.26.pdf An Evening with the Stars EWTS 9.16.26.pdf Maryland Space Business Roundtable 9.9.26 Virginia Aerospace Business Association (VASBA) Ga…
Johnson Space Center Sparks Curiosity at Houston’s 33rd Annual Japan Festival
On Sept. 12-13, NASA’s Johnson Space Center employees brought the excitement and wonder of space exploration to Houston’s Japan Festival at Hermann Park. For more than 30 years, …
APOD: 2026 September 21 – Cocoon Nebula Wide Field
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 21 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the co…
Arctic Melt Season Length Levels Off
While the sea ice melt season has lengthened dramatically in most of the satellite era, the trend unexpectedly stabilized around 2010.
Venus ate its moon: How Earth's 'twin' could have swallowed a rocky satellite
Scientists have long speculated why Venus, with a size, mass and structure similar to Earth's, doesn't have a moon. New UC Riverside research shows that our hungry twin likely swa…
To understand the solar cycle, notice how the sun sleeps
The sun is such a constant in our lives that it can be difficult to imagine our star ever changing. But the sun can be quite variable. There are times when its magnetic field is t…
APOD: 2026 September 20 – Analemma over the Callanish Stones
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 20 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the co…
Scientists simulate cosmic crashes to test whether icy moons gain or lose their ability to sustain life
Many of the moons orbiting Saturn, Uranus and Neptune likely conceal oceans of liquid water beneath miles of icy shell. Because life as we know it needs water, these buried oceans…
APOD: 2026 September 19 – A Zodiacal Night
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 19 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the co…
NASA Invites Media to Albania Artemis Accords Signing Ceremony
The Republic of Albania will sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony at 12 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 21, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, becoming the 73rd country signatory…
NASA-JAXA XRISM Mission Sees Pulsar Gathering Companion’s ‘Wind’
Using data from the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) observatory, astronomers have directly observed a giant star’s outflow, called a stellar wind, being c…
Hubble spots an out-of-sync galaxy
Though the spiral galaxy in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope seems serene, it hides a chaotic secret. This galaxy is NGC 4698, and it lies about 55 million …
NASA Awards SpaceX Three Crew Flights to Space Station
To continue regular crew transportation to the International Space Station, NASA has awarded SpaceX three additional missions through a contract modification.
COSI Telescope Comes Together
UC Berkeley engineers and managers watch as the COSI (Compton Spectrometer and Imager) detector assembly is slowly raised from a table in this July 8, 2026, image. The four pieces…
From the start, the solar system chose fire over ice to build its first bodies
When the solar system first took up the task of building solid bodies—such as planets, moons and protoplanets—it basically had a choice between two ingredients: heat-forged chondr…
Time is running out to catch a giant planet's strange orbit
A team of researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, spotted a rare kind of planet that's unusually hot and eccentric. TOI-1355 b orbits its star, TOI-1355, which …
Closing the space gap: A more precise way to measure distance between quasar pairs
A new way to accurately measure the distance between quasar pairs—the blazing, black-hole-powered centers of distant galaxies that appear side by side in space—is showing promise …
NASA’s Hubble Spots an Out-of-Sync Galaxy
Though the spiral galaxy in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope seems serene, it hides a chaotic secret. This galaxy is NGC 4698, and it lies about 55 million …
Astronomy's decades-long quest to understand cosmic topology
If some aspects of cosmic topology turn out to be true, the idea that starships might voyage across the cosmos for hundreds of thousands of light-years without ever returning to t…
APOD: 2026 September 18 – Messier 33: The Triangulum Galaxy
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 18 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the co…