NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, currently journeying toward Jupiter’s orbit on its asteroid-hopping mission, captured an impressive close-up of its second target: the main belt asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson. Continue ReadingNASA’s Lucy probe captures 1st close-up images of asteroid Donaldjohanson, revealing ‘strikingly complicated geology’→

Learn about the solar system from a pair of real space museum curators in sci-fi game Elite Dangerous, as Abbie MacKinnon and Laura Joy Pieters of the London Science Museum give a guided tour of our home system. Continue ReadingWe took a guided tour of the solar system in Elite Dangerous, and now you can too (interview)→

Skywatchers, get ready! The Lyrid meteor shower is set to peak, offering a spectacular sight for anyone willing to stay up late or rise early. Continue ReadingDon’t miss the Lyrid meteor shower peak tonight: Here’s what to expect→

‘We’ve all done bad things’: Yelena, aka White Widow, bares her soul in final trailer for Marvel’s ‘Thunderbolts’ ahead of the May 2 release. Continue ReadingMarvel’s screw-ups get their chance at redemption in the final ‘Thunderbolts’ trailer (video)→

The U.S. Space Force now has an official “Space Warfighting” doctrine outlining how the service can train and prepare units for a war fought in space. Continue ReadingUS Space Force now has a framework for fighting a war in space→

The planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun along a plane extending from the solar equator. That’s typically the case for exoplanets too but just recently, a team of astronomers have found a system where a planet is in a perpendicular orbit around a binary pair! The brown dwarf system with its strange planetary companion is likely the result of three-body interactions between the stars and planet, tweaking it into the crazy orbital configuration we see today.

On any clear, moonless night, the light from the billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy can be seen arching across the sky. A large spiral galaxy, the Milky Way we see today is the result of billions of years of galactic evolution. A team of astronomers have announced the discovery of a galaxy very similar to our own but this one is less than a billion years old! Typically galaxies like the Milky Way with a developed central bulge and spiral arms are only seen in nearby galaxies suggesting it’s a process that takes time. This latest discovery challenges that theory!

SpaceX launched the third in its series of mid-inclination dedicated rideshare missions April 21, but with very few rideshare payloads on board. The post SpaceX launches third mid-inclination rideshare mission appeared first on SpaceNews.

Astronomers discovered a planet that orbits its star so closely that its surface is being scorched into magma and vaporizing into space. Continue ReadingAstronomers discover doomed planet shedding a Mount Everest’s worth of material every orbit, leaving behind a comet-like tail→

In groundbreaking photos, eclipse chasers captured the elusive solar corona during a partially eclipsed sunrise/moonrise in Quebec. It could change eclipse chasing forever. Continue ReadingAmateur astronomers capture groundbreaking photos of sun’s corona during partial solar eclipse→

The Italian Space Agency paid tribute to Pope Francis in the wake of his death early Monday morning (April 21). Continue ReadingItalian Space Agency mourns death of Pope Francis→

The Andromeda galaxy’s family of satellite galaxies point towards the Milky Way, and nobody knows why. Continue ReadingOur galactic neighbor Andromeda has a bunch of satellite galaxies — and they’re weirdly pointing at us→

A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule arrived at the International Space Station this morning (April 22), docking to the orbital lab after more than a day catching up in orbit. Continue ReadingSpaceX CRS-32 Dragon cargo capsule arrives at the ISS with 6,700 pounds of supplies (video)→

SpaceX sent a pioneering private reentry capsule to space today (April 21) on a rideshare mission called Bandwagon-3. Continue ReadingSpaceX launches European reentry capsule on ‘Bandwagon-3’ rideshare mission→