Astronomy News

October 5, 2026

Top Headlines

This Mysterious Hole on the Moon May Open Into a Giant Cave

Oct. 5, 2026 NASA has selected the GIMLI project to investigate whether the Marius Hill Pit opens into a vast underground cave or lava tube. Using radar, seismic sensors, gravity measurements, and cameras, researchers will search beneath the lunar surface and ...

A Meteor Hit Oklahoma 100 Million Years Later Than Scientists Thought

Oct. 4, 2026 A meteor crater buried beneath Oklahoma has turned out to be nearly 100 million years younger than scientists thought. Zircon crystals show the Ames impact occurred about 370 million years ago, meaning it was not part of the mysterious Ordovician ...

Powerful Simulations Reveal How the First Stars Changed the Universe

Oct. 3, 2026 Ultra-detailed simulations are showing how the first stars lit up the dark Universe and seeded space with elements such as carbon, oxygen, and iron. The MEGATRON project could bridge JWST observations of the earliest galaxies with chemical clues ...

NASA’s Roman Telescope Just Opened Its Planet-hunting Eye

Oct. 2, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has demonstrated remarkable pointing stability and given its powerful planet-imaging coronagraph its first look at the cosmos. The telescope can already stay locked on a target with precision comparable to aiming a ...

This Suitcase-sized Spacecraft Could Hear the Universe Before Stars Existed

Sep. 28, 2026 CosmoCube will use the far side of the Moon as a shield from Earth’s radio noise to search for a faint signal from the universe before the first stars existed. The suitcase-sized satellite could reveal how the cosmic dark ages ended and how dark ...

Blood Tests Reveal Why Astronauts Get Constipated in Space

Sep. 28, 2026 Spaceflight may dramatically change the gut within weeks, causing bacteria to break down more protein as food moves more slowly through the intestines. The shift could help explain astronaut constipation and may have wider effects on health, making ...

The Secret to Growing Food on Mars Could Be Fungi

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists think beneficial fungi could help transform nutrient-poor lunar and Martian regolith into a material capable of supporting crops. By helping plants access nutrients and withstand harsh conditions, these microbes could someday make ...

A Strange Circle on Satellite Maps Turned Out to Be a 390-million-year-old Impact Crater

Sep. 22, 2026 An amateur astronomer searching satellite maps for a Quebec camping spot accidentally discovered a massive ancient impact crater. Scientists later found shatter cones that confirmed the ...

NASA Just Powered Up Roman’s Massive 300-megapixel Camera

Sep. 21, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has successfully activated its 300-megapixel infrared camera, which will capture enormous stretches of the cosmos with Hubble-like sharpness. Its planet-hunting coronagraph is also working as expected, putting Roman ...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Could Last More Than Twice as Long as Planned

Sep. 18, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope may now have enough fuel for at least 22 years of science, more than double its original 10 year design life. An extremely precise course correction, extra fuel at ...

A $100 Detector Can See Invisible Particles Raining Down from Space

Sep. 17, 2026 A pocket-sized, roughly $100 detector can reveal the invisible stream of cosmic particles constantly passing through Earth and even through our bodies. What began as a student physics project is now being used in major experiments, balloon missions, ...

NASA-backed Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Edible Cookies

Sep. 13, 2026 Scientists have engineered yeast to turn PET plastic and agricultural waste into ingredients for protein-rich, 3D-printed cookies called µBites. Developed partly for NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge, the system can produce proteins, fats, ...

Latest Headlines

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Don't Miss: Watch Saturn Shine and Halley’s Comet Debris Streak Across the Sky

Oct. 5, 2026 October skywatchers can see Saturn at opposition, catch meteors from Halley’s Comet during the Orionid peak, and watch the Moon sweep past the ...

Scientists Find a Surprising Clue to Why the Universe’s Expansion Doesn’t Add Up

Oct. 4, 2026 Tiny magnetic fields created shortly after the Big Bang may help explain the long-running disagreement over how fast the universe is expanding. ...

ESA’s Juice Just Used Earth as a Slingshot to Jupiter

Oct. 3, 2026 ESA’s Juice spacecraft raced past Earth on September 28, using our planet’s gravity to dramatically reshape its path toward Jupiter without burning much fuel. The flyby changed its direction by ...

Chang’e-6 Lunar Soil Contains a Surprising Magnetic Time Capsule

Oct. 3, 2026 Scientists studying Chang’e-6 lunar soil have discovered a previously unknown magnetic mineral in natural Moon samples: a form of metallic iron called γ-Fe. Found inside tiny impact-glass ...

The Early Universe Wasn’t Nearly as Pristine as Scientists Thought

Oct. 2, 2026 JWST has revealed that galaxies were spreading carbon, oxygen, and other heavy elements through space just 500 million years after the Big Bang. The surprising discovery suggests the young universe ...

A Record-Breaking X-Ray Flash May Reveal the Birth of a Magnetar

Sep. 30, 2026 Astronomers have found strong evidence that some mysterious, minutes-long X-ray flashes are produced when two neutron stars collide and create a magnetar. One record-setting event glowed in X-rays ...

NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Finds Groundwater, Lakes, and Hot Fluids in One Place

Sep. 30, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered a surprisingly complicated history of water in Jezero Crater. Scientists expected the crater’s Margin ...

Black Hole Jets May Decide the Fate of Entire Galaxies

Sep. 30, 2026 Powerful jets from supermassive black holes can disturb star-forming gas far beyond a galaxy’s visible edge, leaving a glowing trail hundreds of thousands of light-years long. By keeping this gas ...

Watch Live: NASA’s Crew-13 Could Make the Fastest U.S. Trip to the ISS Ever

Sep. 30, 2026 NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission is scheduled to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station on October 1. The Dragon could reach the ...

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Just Hit 5,000 Days on Mars and Sent Back This Stunning View

Sep. 30, 2026 NASA’s Curiosity rover marked 5,000 Martian days by capturing morning and afternoon views that were blended into a striking Mars “postcard.” ...

The Ice Blasting from Saturn's Moon Enceladus Is Stranger Than Scientists Realized

Sep. 29, 2026 Enceladus may naturally separate and concentrate chemicals from its hidden ocean as droplets slowly freeze and shatter on their way into space. The process could explain Cassini’s puzzling ...

NASA’s Crew-13 Could Go from Florida to the ISS in Under 9 Hours

Sep. 29, 2026 NASA and SpaceX could launch four astronauts to the International Space Station on October 1, with the Dragon spacecraft reaching orbiting outpost less than nine hours after liftoff. Crew-13 will ...

These Massive Stars Could Explain Webb’s Strangest Galaxies

Sep. 24, 2026 Hubble observations of massive stars in metal-poor dwarf galaxies are revealing clues to why the early universe looks so unusual. Researchers found that stellar winds weaken sharply at extremely low ...

The Solar System Chose Fire Over Ice from the Very Beginning

Sep. 22, 2026 Ancient iron meteorites reveal that some of the Solar System’s first solid bodies were built mostly from tiny heat-forged rock beads called chondrules, while water-rich dust was largely excluded. ...

The LHC Just Ruled out Another Hiding Place for Quantum Black Holes

Sep. 22, 2026 Physicists searching through Large Hadron Collider data found no evidence that the machine has been producing microscopic quantum black holes, but the result sharply narrows where such exotic physics ...

Black Holes of Every Size Follow the Same Surprising Rule

Sep. 21, 2026 Scientists have found evidence that black holes of vastly different sizes may launch powerful jets according to the same universal rule. Supermassive black holes can produce jets soon after tearing ...

NASA’s Moon Orbiter Finds a 728-Foot Crater That Wasn’t There Before

Sep. 18, 2026 NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed a 728-foot-wide crater that formed on the Moon in 2024, making it the largest newly formed crater ever identified in the solar system. The impact ...

Astronomers Just Found the Youngest Known Planet Ever

Sep. 17, 2026 Astronomers have confirmed a Jupiter-size planet less than a million years old, making Elias 2-24 b the youngest known planet and giving scientists a rare look at a world still being born. Its ...

JWST’s Mysterious Little Red Dots May Be Black Holes Growing at Incredible Speeds

Sep. 17, 2026 New supercomputer simulations suggest JWST’s puzzling Little Red Dots are rapidly growing black holes from the early Universe. Extreme radiation may have helped create unusually massive black hole ...

Venus May Have Swallowed Its Own Moon

Sep. 16, 2026 Venus may have once had a moon, but new research suggests the planet’s incredibly slow rotation could have doomed it. Computer simulations showed that instead of gradually drifting away like ...

Two Astronauts Who Flew Farther Than Anyone Before Are Taking New NASA Roles

Sep. 26, 2026 Artemis II astronauts Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman are transitioning to emeritus status at NASA after their historic journey around the Moon earlier this year. The pair will continue advising and ...

James Webb Reveals Chariklo’s Mysterious Rings Are Changing Faster Than Expected

Sep. 15, 2026 The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed surprising changes in the rings around Chariklo, a small object orbiting between Saturn and Uranus. Over just a few years, its inner ring became more ...

The Moon May Have Formed Intact Just Hours After a Giant Collision

Sep. 9, 2026 Scientists have discovered that the Moon-forming collision may have depended heavily on how hot and physically strong early Earth and Theia were. New simulations found that some impacts create the ...

NASA Scientists Discover a Giant 10-Sided Pattern on Saturn

Sep. 3, 2026 A huge 10-sided atmospheric pattern has appeared around Saturn’s south pole, giving the planet a surprising counterpart to its famous northern hexagon. Hubble data suggest the strange decagon only ...

Astronomers Detect Ancient Hydrogen Signal That Could Help Map the Universe

Sep. 8, 2026 Astronomers have detected an exceptionally faint hydrogen radio signal from billions of light-years away using South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope. Instead of finding galaxies one at a time, the ...

September Brings a Dazzling Venus and a Glowing Harvest Moon

Sep. 3, 2026 September’s sky features brilliant Venus, the Milky Way’s hazy center, and the seasonal turning point of the equinox. The month ends with a glowing Harvest Moon rising near Saturn and faint ...

The Universe Has Plenty of Hydrogen. So Why Is Star Formation Collapsing?

Sep. 3, 2026 Star formation across the universe has fallen dramatically over the past 4.5 billion years, but astronomers have uncovered a surprising twist: the supply of neutral hydrogen, a key ingredient for ...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Launches to Reveal the Universe’s Darkest Secrets

Aug. 31, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has launched on a million mile journey to L2, where it will scan huge portions of the cosmos for clues about dark matter, dark energy, and distant worlds. With survey ...

NASA Delays Crew-13 Launch After Leak Found on SpaceX Dragon

Sep. 1, 2026 NASA and SpaceX have delayed Crew-13 after finding an oxidizer leak in the Dragon spacecraft’s propulsion system during prelaunch preparations. Engineers are investigating the problem before the ...

Mercury’s Surface Reveals a Surprisingly Fiery Past

Sep. 11, 2026 Scientists have discovered that Mercury’s surface contains far less silicon dioxide than previously thought, pointing to an unexpectedly hot volcanic past. The finding suggests ancient lava may ...