Telescopes, space missions and discoveries about planets, stars and galaxies.
The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has produced its first dwarf planet candidate, a large, bright trans-Neptunian object designated 2026 ED138 that orbits beyond Pluto and may rank among the largest such candidates ever found.
NASA's Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out a restructured Artemis timeline on October 23, with a 2027 low-Earth-orbit test and a 2028 crewed lunar landing. The one decision deliberately left open is which company's lander actually touches the surface.
FRB 20240304B, the most distant fast radio burst ever detected, was identified by the James Webb Space Telescope as originating in a young, low-metallicity galaxy 3 billion years after the Big Bang — more than double the previous distance record.
A re-analysis of 1999 Hubble data on white dwarf HS 0209+0832 reveals niobium signatures pointing to the first suspected second-generation planet — a Jupiter-sized world formed from the cast-off material of a dying star.
ESA's dark-universe observatory spotted comet C/2026 S1 arching high over the Solar System between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has successfully completed its comprehensive observatory checkout and is now entering the final phase of science commissioning.
The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission has launched, beginning a multi-year effort to study Phobos and bring the first samples back to Earth.
James Webb Space Telescope observations provide the first direct evidence that water clouds outside our solar system change thickness as a brown dwarf rotates.
A red dwarf called ZTF J0440+2325 is slowly pulling material from a brown dwarf companion, in a binary system so compact the smaller object orbits the larger every 87 minutes.
On 6 October 2026, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to Francis Halzen for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.
The Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station marks the first time a NASA astronaut has flown twice on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
A sub-Neptune planet 73 light-years away orbits in the opposite direction of its small host star, challenging standard models of planetary system formation.
A Jupiter-size planet still gathering material from its natal disk challenges formation models with its rapid growth at 55 times Earth's orbital distance.
A German startup recovered from a 30-second launch failure to put Europe's first commercial orbital payload on its own vehicle from Western European soil.
After an eight-year voyage, the BepiColombo mission has entered its arrival phase at Mercury.
Hubble and James Webb teamed up for the first time to discover 27 small Trans-Neptunian Objects, revealing fewer tiny icy bodies than models predicted and surfaces as pristine as those of larger worlds.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has detected a new class of compact binary systems that emit unusually low-energy X-rays and intense ultraviolet radiation, potentially resolving two long-standing astrophysical puzzles.
A single anomalous event in the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter detector has reached 2.6 sigma, a tentative signal that falls well short of discovery and now awaits confirmation from other experiments.
The new instrument can collect spectra from nearly 1,000 stars or galaxies at once, including targets hidden behind dust near the centre of the Milky Way.
After eight years and 9.9 billion kilometres of travel, BepiColombo has separated its Mercury Transfer Module and is now on final approach for orbital insertion around Mercury on November 21, 2026.
Hubble images and a new Science Advances paper confirm a giant 10-sided atmospheric wave circling the planet — the first large, regular-sided jet pattern ever seen in Saturn's southern hemisphere.
University of Washington simulations of roughly 15,000 stellar streams show the Milky Way's own gravitational structure produces kinks, gaps, and bends that look identical to dark matter subhalo signatures — complicating one of the field's leading indirect detection methods.