Asteroids, Comets and Meteors News

June 27, 2026

Top Headlines

A Rare Interstellar Visitor Triggered a SETI Search for Alien Technology

June 23, 2026 SETI scientists searched the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS for radio signals that could indicate extraterrestrial technology but found nothing beyond human-made interference. Even so, the rapid-response observations helped confirm the object's ...

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab Is Creating One of the Weirdest Forms of Matter in Space

June 23, 2026 NASA’s upgraded Cold Atom Lab is turning the International Space Station into a frontier for quantum research, creating ultra-cold matter that behaves in astonishing ways. The experiments could ...

SpaceX Wants to Build AI Data Centers in Space. Will It Work?

June 18, 2026 The race to build data centers in space is gaining momentum as AI drives unprecedented demand for computing power. Orbital facilities could tap into abundant solar energy and avoid many of the environmental challenges faced on Earth. Yet space ...

Alien Messages May Have Reached Earth Without Us Realizing It

June 16, 2026 A new SETI study suggests we may be overlooking alien signals not because they aren't there, but because their own stars are scrambling them before they escape into space. Turbulent plasma and powerful stellar storms can spread an ultra-narrow radio ...

MIT’s New Spacecraft Engine Could Send Tiny Satellites to Mars

June 10, 2026 MIT researchers have shown that one fuel can power both chemical and electric spacecraft thrusters, potentially transforming what small satellites can do. The approach combines quick bursts of speed with highly efficient long-range propulsion in a ...

NASA Just Proved Spacecraft Can Switch Between Multiple Satellite Networks

June 6, 2026 NASA’s PExT terminal has shown that spacecraft can seamlessly communicate through multiple government and commercial networks, a major step beyond traditional single-network systems. The mission is now expanding to test new capabilities that could ...

NASA’s Powerful Roman Space Telescope Is About to Transform Astronomy

May 18, 2026 NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now aiming for an earlier launch in September 2026. Designed to explore dark matter, dark energy, and distant exoplanets, the telescope will capture massive, ultra-detailed surveys of the cosmos using ...

NASA’s New AI Space Chip Could Let Spacecraft Think for Themselves

May 15, 2026 NASA is testing a next-generation space computer chip that could give spacecraft the ability to operate far more independently in deep space. The radiation-hardened processor is showing performance levels hundreds of times beyond current spaceflight ...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Could Reveal Millions of Invisible Neutron Stars

May 15, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope could expose a vast hidden population of neutron stars lurking unseen across the Milky Way. By detecting subtle shifts in starlight caused by gravity, the mission may ...

NASA’s Psyche Probe Is About to Slingshot Around Mars at 12,000 Mph

May 11, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is about to pull off a dramatic close flyby of Mars, skimming just 2,800 miles above the planet to get a powerful gravitational boost on its journey to the mysterious metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The maneuver will save ...

Scientists Solve 12,800-year-old Climate Mystery Hidden in Greenland Ice

Mar. 20, 2026 A mysterious spike of platinum buried deep in Greenland’s ice has long fueled theories of a catastrophic comet or asteroid strike 12,800 years ago—possibly triggering a sudden return to icy conditions known as the Younger Dryas. But new research ...

NASA Launches Twin Spacecraft to Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Lost Atmosphere

Mar. 14, 2026 Mars didn’t always look like the barren world we see today. Over billions of years, the Sun’s solar wind stripped away much of its atmosphere, helping transform it from a warmer, wetter planet ...

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Earth May Have Been Seeding Venus With Life for Billions of Years

June 25, 2026 A new study suggests Earth may have been sending tiny hitchhikers to Venus for billions of years. Researchers found that asteroid impacts could launch microbes into space, where some might survive ...

Einstein Probe May Have Caught a Black Hole Tearing Apart a White Dwarf for the First Time

June 25, 2026 Astronomers may have witnessed one of the rarest and most dramatic cosmic events ever seen: a long-sought intermediate-mass black hole ripping apart ...

NASA’s Lucy Finds a Wobbling Peanut-Shaped Asteroid With Signs of Ancient Water

June 25, 2026 NASA’s Lucy spacecraft discovered that asteroid Donaldjohanson is a wobbling, peanut-shaped relic born from a violent collision and slowly reshaped ...

The Universe May Be Hiding Conscious Minds Stranger Than We Can Imagine

June 24, 2026 What if consciousness isn’t limited to brains like ours? Philosophers Eric Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober argue that consciousness could arise in many different forms of life, even in beings built ...

Meteorite Reveals a Lost Moon-Sized World from the Dawn of the Solar System

June 23, 2026 A rare meteorite has revealed evidence of a massive lost world that once orbited the young Sun before being destroyed in a catastrophic collision. The discovery suggests some early planets formed ...

Future Astronauts Could Walk Across Rocks from Deep Inside the Moon

June 22, 2026 A colossal ancient collision may have left some of the Moon’s deepest secrets surprisingly close to future Artemis landing sites. By recreating the impact that formed the giant South Pole-Aitken ...

Alien Planet Spins Revealed a Hidden Clue to How Worlds Form

June 13, 2026 Using the Keck Observatory, astronomers measured the spins of dozens of giant planets and brown dwarfs orbiting distant stars. They found that giant planets can spin faster than much more massive ...

NASA Reveals Artemis III Crew for One of the Most Complex Space Missions Ever

June 11, 2026 NASA has selected the Artemis III crew for a high-stakes 2027 mission designed to test the future of lunar exploration. Astronauts will launch aboard ...

James Webb Reveals Two Completely Different Twilights on an Alien World

June 11, 2026 JWST has revealed dramatic differences between the dawn and dusk regions of the scorching exoplanet WASP-121 b. Fierce winds appear to carry heat from the planet’s permanent dayside, making the ...

Planet Nine Mystery Deepens as New Discovery Challenges Hidden Planet Theory

June 8, 2026 Astronomers have spent years searching for a possible hidden giant planet far beyond Neptune. Unusual orbits among distant Kuiper Belt objects have ...

NASA's Webb Detects Methane and Strange Chemistry on Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

June 4, 2026 NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered unusual chemistry in interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, including the first direct detection of methane on a visitor from another star system. The comet ...

Venus Will Disappear Behind the Moon in a Rare June Sky Event

June 3, 2026 June's night sky delivers several must-see events, starting with a close encounter between Venus and Jupiter after sunset. Mercury joins the pair to form a rare three-planet lineup, while the ...

A Stellar “Rosetta Stone” Reveals the Source of Mysterious Cosmic Signals

June 2, 2026 Astronomers have finally cracked the mystery behind a strange class of repeating cosmic signals that has baffled scientists for years. Using Australia’s ASKAP radio telescope, researchers traced ...

Scientists Discover a Giant “planet Factory” Beyond Jupiter

May 26, 2026 Scientists believe a dust-filled ring just outside Jupiter acted like a cosmic “planetesimal factory,” producing multiple generations of early space rocks with very different compositions. The ...

NASA’s Fermi Telescope Reveals the Power Source Behind Monster Supernovae

May 27, 2026 NASA’s Fermi telescope has detected what may be the first confirmed gamma-ray signal from a superluminous supernova — one of the most extreme explosions in the universe. Scientists believe the ...

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Captures Stunning Mars Images During High-Speed Flyby

May 23, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft skimmed past Mars in a precision flyby that helped catapult it deeper into space toward its ultimate target: the bizarre metal-rich asteroid Psyche. During the encounter, ...

Ancient Asteroid Craters May Have Sparked Earth’s Oxygen-Producing Life

May 22, 2026 A hidden crater in South Korea may hold clues to one of the biggest turning points in Earth’s history: the rise of oxygen. Scientists discovered fossil-like stromatolites — layered structures ...

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Uses Mars as a Giant Slingshot Toward a Mysterious Metal World

May 26, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft just used Mars as a giant gravitational slingshot to continue its journey toward a strange metal rich asteroid. The close flyby boosted the spacecraft’s speed by about ...

Scientists Discover Hidden Chemical Signature That Could Reveal Alien Life

May 12, 2026 Scientists may have found a powerful new way to hunt for alien life — not by searching for specific molecules, but by looking for hidden patterns in how those molecules are organized. Researchers ...

Scientists Say Dante’s Inferno Described an Asteroid Impact 500 Years Before Modern Science

May 11, 2026 Dante’s Inferno may have been far more than a religious epic. New research argues that the 14th-century poet essentially imagined a catastrophic asteroid impact centuries before modern science ...

This Tiny Outer Solar System World Has an Atmosphere. It Shouldn’t

May 5, 2026 Astronomers have spotted something surprising in the far outer Solar System—a faint, short-lived atmosphere clinging to a tiny icy world that shouldn’t be able to hold one at all. The object, ...

Webb Space Telescope Reveals a Scorching “super-Earth” That Looks Like Mercury

May 5, 2026 A scorching, airless world just 48 light-years away is offering scientists a rare glimpse into the geology of distant planets. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers studied LHS 3844 b—a ...

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Contains Strange Water Never Seen in Our Solar System

May 8, 2026 A mysterious comet from beyond our solar system is giving astronomers a rare glimpse into alien worlds — and it may have formed in a place far colder and stranger than anything around our Sun. The ...

NASA Curiosity Rover Finds Mysterious Life Linked Molecules on Mars

Apr. 28, 2026 Curiosity has detected a surprising variety of organic molecules on Mars, including compounds tied to the chemistry of life. Some of these molecules may be billions of years old, preserved in ancient ...

Scientists Opened a Sealed Envelope After 10 Years and Gravity Still Didn’t Make Sense

May 17, 2026 For more than 200 years, scientists have struggled to pin down the exact strength of gravity — and one physicist spent a decade chasing the answer while keeping his own results hidden from himself. ...

Scientists Think Alien Life Might Be Hiding in Patterns

Apr. 15, 2026 A new study proposes detecting life in space by spotting patterns across many planets instead of focusing on one at a time. If life spreads and changes planetary environments, it could leave behind ...

Scientists Discover a Mysterious Asteroid Breaking Apart Near the Sun

May 13, 2026 A newly discovered meteor stream may be the smoking gun of an asteroid slowly disintegrating under the Sun’s intense heat. Scientists say these fiery streaks across the night sky could reveal ...

Meteor Impacts May Have Sparked Life on Earth, Scientists Say

Apr. 3, 2026 Asteroid impacts may have helped kick-start life on Earth by creating hot, chemical-rich environments ideal for early biology. These impact-generated hydrothermal systems could have lasted thousands ...

NASA Launches Artemis II for First Crewed Moon Flyby in 50 Years

Apr. 2, 2026 A new era of lunar exploration has begun as NASA launches four astronauts on Artemis II—the first crewed mission to fly around the Moon in over 50 years. Riding aboard the powerful SLS rocket, the ...

NASA’s Asteroid Bennu Sample Reveals a Hidden Chemical Patchwork

Mar. 31, 2026 Scientists studying Bennu samples have discovered that its chemistry is far from uniform. Organic compounds and minerals cluster into three distinct types of regions, each shaped differently by past ...