Astronomy News

November 9, 2026

Top Headlines

Caltech Robot Makes History by Building a Structure in Space

Nov. 9, 2026 For the first time, a robot has autonomously built part of a structure in space, demonstrating a breakthrough that could fundamentally change space exploration. The technology could one day allow scientists to construct enormous telescopes, ...

NASA Reveals Bold New Plan to Return Astronauts to the Moon in 2028

Nov. 9, 2026 NASA has revealed an accelerated plan to land astronauts on the Moon in 2028, with SpaceX and Blue Origin developing competing lunar landers and a crucial orbital test scheduled for 2027. Faster rocket preparations, new lightweight spacesuits, and ...

NASA’s Swift Telescope Falls to Earth After Nearly 22 Years in Space

Nov. 6, 2026 After nearly 22 years of exploring the universe’s most violent explosions, NASA’s Swift Observatory has re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over Indonesia. Originally designed to last just two years, the pioneering space telescope transformed our ...

NASA Is Racing Against Time to Save the Hubble Space Telescope

Nov. 4, 2026 NASA is exploring a daring plan to save the legendary Hubble Space Telescope from its eventual fiery plunge into Earth's atmosphere. After more than 35 years of groundbreaking discoveries, Hubble is slowly losing altitude, and without intervention, ...

NASA Smashed Into an Asteroid. Now Hera Is Closing in to See What Happened

Nov. 3, 2026 Europe’s Hera spacecraft has captured its first clear view of two asteroids involved in NASA’s historic 2022 experiment to redirect a potentially dangerous space rock. Now approaching the pair, Hera will investigate the mysterious aftermath of ...

NASA’s Voyager 1 Is About to Reach a Historic One-light-day Milestone

Nov. 3, 2026 NASA’s Voyager 1 is approaching an extraordinary milestone nearly 50 years after its launch, even as engineers battle dwindling power and mysterious technical problems. A clever energy-saving maneuver has extended the spacecraft’s scientific ...

IceCube Detects Ghost Particles with 10 Billion Times the Energy of Solar Neutrinos

Nov. 2, 2026 Mysterious particles called neutrinos constantly stream through our bodies, and scientists are now detecting incredibly powerful versions arriving from distant cosmic sources using a massive ...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Breaks Historic Record After Traveling 28 Miles

Nov. 2, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover has set a historic record by traveling 28.10 miles across Mars, farther than any vehicle has ever driven on another world. Armed with groundbreaking autonomous navigation ...

NASA’s Artemis I Mission Reveals Surprising Radiation Levels Near the Moon

Oct. 28, 2026 NASA’s Artemis I mission has revealed that cosmic radiation near the Moon is higher than in Earth orbit, but not by as much as scientists might expect. Tiny experimental detectors also uncovered ...

A Train Was Delayed by a Solar Storm. but Something Didn't Add Up.

Oct. 21, 2026 Scientists have cracked a 178-year-old mystery surrounding a train delayed by a solar storm, revealing that the famous incident happened in 1848 rather than 1841. The discovery rewrites the early history of space weather and highlights a threat that ...

Astronauts’ Hearts Just Passed a Surprising Test for Mars

Oct. 21, 2026 A new study tracking 13 astronauts suggests that the human heart may be surprisingly well equipped for a journey to Mars, especially with regular exercise during spaceflight. Researchers found that astronauts' hearts adapted to months of ...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Just Shattered the All-time Off-world Driving Record

Oct. 21, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover has shattered a historic space exploration record, traveling farther across another world than any vehicle before it. Its advanced self-driving system helped it surpass ...

Latest Headlines

updated 7:46am EST

Einstein's Equations Reveal How Gravity Could Break, Reconnect, and Release Energy

Nov. 8, 2026 More than a century after Einstein revolutionized our understanding of gravity, scientists have uncovered a surprising new phenomenon hidden within ...

Mysterious Gas Leaks Suggest Mars May Still Be Volcanically Alive

Nov. 7, 2026 Mysterious gas emissions and fresh volcanic fissures suggest that Mars may not be geologically dead after all, with hot magma potentially still active deep underground. The discovery could point to ...

Rubin Observatory Discovers Two Hidden Companions of the Milky Way. Hundreds More May Be Waiting

Nov. 7, 2026 The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has already uncovered two previously unknown companions of the Milky Way using preliminary observations covering just ...

A Dead Star's Mysterious Rings Reveal What Could Happen When Our Sun Dies

Nov. 6, 2026 Astronomers have discovered a strange double ring of planetary wreckage around a dead star, revealing a possible preview of our Solar System's distant future. The two rings are separated by a ...

Don't Miss: Meteor Showers, Fireballs, and a Supermoon Light Up November's Night Sky

Nov. 6, 2026 November's night sky is packed with celestial wonders, from bright meteor fireballs and a close pairing of Mars and Jupiter to a spectacular ...

Dead Stars Could Break One of Physics' Most Famous Limits

Nov. 5, 2026 A surprising new discovery suggests that some dead stars can grow far more massive than scientists once thought possible. Computer simulations show that powerful magnetic fields could allow white ...

A Hidden Star Is Plowing Through Betelgeuse’s Atmosphere, New Evidence Suggests

Nov. 3, 2026 Something mysterious is disturbing Betelgeuse, and astronomers believe they have identified the culprit: a hidden companion star called Siwarha. New ...

All 5 Genetic “letters” of DNA and RNA Discovered in a 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Asteroid

Nov. 3, 2026 Scientists have discovered all five essential nucleobases used in DNA and RNA in pristine samples from asteroid Ryugu, revealing that key ingredients ...

Scientists Just Found a Loophole That Could Let Black Holes Split in Two

Nov. 2, 2026 Scientists have discovered a possible loophole in the laws that normally prevent black holes from splitting apart, suggesting that extremely fast-spinning black holes might divide into two. The ...

NASA's Hubble and Webb Discover Ancient Worlds That Remember Their Past

Nov. 1, 2026 NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes have uncovered surprising clues about the solar system’s origins by studying 27 tiny, distant objects beyond Neptune. Scientists discovered that ...

Astronauts Just Gave the International Space Station a Powerful Upgrade

Oct. 30, 2026 Two astronauts completed a 7-hour, 11-minute spacewalk to install a new solar array on the International Space Station, bringing NASA one step closer to a major power upgrade. Once the final array is ...

James Webb Discovers a Scorching Lava Planet With a “giant Sunscreen”

Oct. 27, 2026 A scorching lava planet 280 light-years away has surprised astronomers by apparently maintaining a thick atmosphere despite conditions that should have stripped it away billions of years ago. James ...

Smithsonian Scientists Just Recreated the First 2 Billion Years of the Universe

Oct. 27, 2026 Scientists have created one of the largest and most detailed simulations of the early universe ever made, offering an extraordinary new glimpse into the cosmos shortly after the Big Bang. Called ...

Hubble Reveals a Stunning Twist in How the Universe Emerged from Darkness

Oct. 30, 2026 A surprising discovery by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope is challenging a leading explanation for how the early universe emerged from a dense fog of hydrogen roughly 13 billion years ...

Scientists Smash Oxygen Nuclei to Recreate Matter from the Big Bang

Oct. 30, 2026 Scientists have recreated a primordial state of matter from the dawn of the universe by colliding oxygen nuclei at nearly the speed of light. The surprising results show that this exotic substance ...

Scientists Say a Forgotten Particle May Explain Why the Universe Exists

Nov. 1, 2026 A mysterious particle overlooked for decades may hold the key to why matter survived the Big Bang, allowing stars, planets, and life to exist. Scientists believe this forgotten neutrino reshaped the ...

SpaceX Just Delivered Some Very Strange Cargo to the International Space Station

Oct. 16, 2026 SpaceX just delivered some surprisingly strange cargo to the International Space Station, including tiny brain models, 3D heart tissue, and technology for making artificial retinas in space. ...

Astronomers Discover a Ghostly Green Star Unlike Any Known Before

Oct. 19, 2026 Astronomers have uncovered a surprising rainbow of dead stars, including the first known star that would appear genuinely green to human eyes. Researchers found that white dwarfs can glow in ...

NASA’s SpaceX Launch Lights Up the Sky With a Giant Glowing Jellyfish

Oct. 17, 2026 A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket created a dazzling, jellyfish-shaped glow across the eastern United States as sunlight illuminated its exhaust during an early morning launch. The mission delivered equipment ...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Exceeds Expectations by Nearly 30%

Oct. 17, 2026 NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has exceeded expectations after engineers made incredibly tiny adjustments to sharpen its view of the universe. By moving a mirror just one-sixteenth the ...

James Webb Reveals a Strange Bulge in an Alien Planet's Atmosphere

Oct. 16, 2026 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered that a distant alien planet's atmosphere is surprisingly lopsided. Located 1,300 light-years away, the scorching gas giant ...

Europe's New Sentinel-3C Satellite Just Sent Back Spectacular Images of Earth

Oct. 12, 2026 Europe's Sentinel-3C satellite has returned breathtaking images of Earth just two weeks after launch, revealing the snowy Alps, frozen Arctic islands, and brilliant turquoise Caribbean waters. ...

NASA Astronauts Splash Down After 100 Million Miles in Space

Oct. 8, 2026 NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 astronauts have returned to Earth after 237 days in space, traveling more than 100 million miles and completing over 3,792 orbits while conducting research to prepare for ...

NASA Spots a Giant Patch of Moon-Like Rock on Earth

Oct. 11, 2026 An astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed a remarkable formation in Madagascar that looks surprisingly similar to the Moon’s bright highlands. Made of anorthosite, a rock ...

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Reveals a Spectacular New View of Mars With a Mystery on the Horizon

Oct. 22, 2026 NASA’s Curiosity rover has revealed a spectacular new view of mysterious, wind-carved cliffs on Mars that may hold evidence of ancient volcanic activity. With the rover approaching these unusual ...

October’s Night Sky Is Full of Cosmic Tricks and Treats

Oct. 8, 2026 October’s skies are packed with celestial surprises, from Jupiter disappearing behind the Moon to two meteor showers lighting up the darkness. NASA highlights four must-see events, including ...

MIT Astronomers Catch a Star in a Feast That Could Last Billions of Years

Oct. 10, 2026 Astronomers have discovered a bizarre star system about 300 light-years from Earth where a small star is slowly devouring a nearby brown dwarf, an object too massive to be a planet but too small to ...

Hubble Space Telescope May Have Found a Planet Born After Its Star Died

Oct. 9, 2026 A strange chemical signature in old Hubble observations may point to a planet that formed after its star had already died. Astronomers found unusually high levels of niobium around the white dwarf HS ...

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, ...

NASA’s Webb Finds Signs of Mars-Sized Worlds Smashing Together

Oct. 7, 2026 NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving astronomers a glimpse of the kinds of violent collisions that may have shaped our own solar system, including the giant impact thought to have created ...