Scientists have long known that when two black holes collide, they merge to create a more massive black hole. These events are so violent that they set the very fabric of space ringing with ripples called gravitational waves.

Now, new research suggests that the opposite may happen, too: single black holes may be able to split in two. But this can only happen if that progenitor black hole is spinning at maximum possible speed. That speed prevents the black holes from immediately falling back on each other.

There are physical laws in place that would usually prevent black holes from splitting in two; the team behind this research investigated whether there are conditions in which these laws can be temporarily bypassed.

One of the key aspects of physics that prevents black holes from bifurcating comes from thermodynamics. Black holes possess a characteristic called "entropy," which is essentially a measure of disorder within a system.

Imagine a toddler's crayon box. When entropy is low, the crayons are neatly arranged by color. As entropy is increased, the crayons are scattered and no longer in order. To get the crayons back in order, it requires a parent to put energy into the system and neatly reorder the crayons. In other words, the entropy of a system can't be reduced without some intervention and energy being added from outside that system. Parenting would be a little easier if it could.

A black hole splitting in two would represent a decrease in entropy, strongly disfavored by the laws of thermodynamics, but only if the black hole is not rotating. The situation could be different for a rapidly rotating black hole.

This team of scientists found that a loophole exists for such a black hole.

"The two resulting black holes must also be able to separate rather than immediately fall back together," team member Francesco Sannino of the University of Naples Federico II in Italy said in a statement. "When we include this requirement, the window largely closes again, except possibly for black holes rotating close to their maximum possible rate."

Black hole trousers?

The team calculated just how such a black hole split could occur, finding that the division of the black hole's outer boundary, or "event horizon," proceeds in an oddly trouser-like shape, with one resulting black hole slipping down each "leg."

They termed this "pair-of-pants topologies."

The researchers also determined that a split is more likely to take place if one of the resultant black holes is considerably smaller than its newly born twin.

"We cannot yet give a single probability for a black hole to split. It depends on how gravity behaves beyond Einstein's theory, and we are working to quantify this," Sannino said. "We expect small primordial black holes to be more prone to splitting than much larger astrophysical black holes."

Sannino added that such black hole splits may be detectable in high-energy light called gamma-rays.

"We may detect a split indirectly: gamma-ray telescopes such as Fermi-LAT can search for signals from tiny black-hole fragments that might form during mergers," the researcher concluded.

The team's research was published on Oct. 22 in the journal Physical Review D.

I was breathing just fine through my life support systems, but I kept feeling an urge to double check that everything was ok with my "spacesuit" before heading out on this "spacewalk." I have worn many different types of spacesuits on Earth during my career, but for the first time in my life, I knew that I couldn’t just stop to breathe the air outside if there were an emergency. That's because I was underwater.

On this excursion, I was leading a simulated space mission underwater called SEA STAR. My "spacesuit" was actually scuba diving gear, and the simulated spacewalks, or EVAs (Extra-Vehicular Activities), included outings where we explored underwater environments. Being underwater, if we encountered a major problem with our gear, we would have had to treat it as seriously as if we were astronauts on the International Space Station. There was no immediate "out." This was serious.

Before this underwater mission, I had worked as the commander of nearly 40 analog missions that simulated crewed missions to the moon and Mars. The goal of these types of missions is to test what living and working in lunar or Martian environments might be like. We study everything from the psychology of living in extreme conditions, or in isolation, to the technology that astronauts might use to complete those missions successfully.

Testing spacesuit technology is also an important part of these analog space missions. These suits are usually a much simpler version of the ones astronauts use in space, which can weigh around 310 pounds (141 kilograms) when fully equipped with life support systems.

Analog spacesuits usually weigh a maximum of 30 pounds (14 kg). While there are many differences between suits designed for use in space and these suits designed for testing on Earth, the biggest one is that, on an analog mission, crew members can open their helmets and breathe the outside air if necessary.

Astronauts in space don’t have that advantage. But neither do aquanauts, those performing a simulated space mission underwater.

Aquanauts spend at least 24 hours underwater in a so-called state of saturation. That’s a physiological condition achieved by a person who breathes underwater long enough for the body’s tissues to absorb the maximum possible amount of inert gas (like nitrogen), for a specific depth and pressure.

Water leaking into our suits or into our underwater habitat can pose serious risks for the crew, as well as health problems related to the higher pressures underwater, amongst other challenges unique to this environment.

This is what pushed me to be extra thorough, and perhaps even a bit paranoid, when preparing for my scuba diving "spacewalks." While scuba diving, the dangers of your equipment failing or decompression sickness can be as lethal as some of the difficulties astronauts face during their spacewalks. That’s why we follow strict protocols when preparing to go on underwater EVAs and during the outings themselves.

As an experienced scuba diver, I wasn’t concerned with the scuba diving aspect of the mission itself. In many ways, it was much easier than some dives in pitch black water I performed in the open ocean or cave dives. But for these EVAs, I was more on edge because I was the Commander of the SEA STAR crew living 22 feet (7 meters) underwater in the station, called the Jules’ Undersea Lab, in Florida. Being responsible for other people’s lives made me extra cautious and also more worried than usual when diving.

Despite the many challenges of these underwater EVAs, these experiences and lessons learned can teach us a lot about what we still need to improve for future long-duration space missions.

Our aquanaut "spacesuits" were essentially the same as scuba gear, with the exception of two important accessories that aren’t always necessary for normal dives. Those were gloves and flashlights. We needed the gloves as protection from a number of factors in the environment around us, like barnacles and other sharp natural formations. They also made using cameras and vacuums for environmental cleaning underwater more challenging, which was a good approximation for how gloves limit astronauts’ dexterity during spacewalks.

The underwater environment around us had very low visibility, which is why the flashlights were a mandatory component of our EVAs. They helped us to navigate through the darkness and find each other. Even still, with just the small flash of light we could only see a couple of feet ahead of us. That is why it was also vital that we worked together and moved side-by-side.

Good communication skills were another crucial component of our underwater simulated space mission. Before each EVA, we prepared a plan, talked about backup plans and went over emergency procedures. During the EVA, we used standard scuba diving sign language to communicate, and we created some new mission-specific signals as well. This visual communication is very useful during simulated space missions on land, too, especially in situations when our communications technologies have not worked properly.

No matter how much we prepared, though, the fear of the unknown and of getting lost can still get to a crew. A common safety protocol when diving is to safely return to the surface if you get lost or separated from your team and cannot find them. However, during the SEA STAR mission, we planned on staying underwater for the full five-day duration of our mission. That meant that such an option was out of the question, except of course in emergency scenarios.

Personally, I enjoyed the challenge of the low visibility in new terrain. It allowed me to hone my orientation and navigation skills, as well as my abilities as a leader in challenging environments. Though I was more vigilant than I perhaps needed to be, once I dove out of our submerged station, I went straight into my favorite mode: exploration. Despite not being able to see very much ahead of me, and all while keeping a watchful eye on my crewmembers, I finally truly felt like an astronaut on a spacewalk. Darkness was all around me, but my determination and curiosity propelled me toward exploring the unknown.

You can follow Dr. Michaela Musilova at her website and on social media: @astro_michaela (Instagram, TikTok and Threads), @Dr. Michaela Musilova (Facebook) and @astro-michaela.bsky.social (Bluesky).

Scientists are still learning about a cosmic "string of pearls," a unique celestial relic left by a supernova explosion that humanity witnessed around 850 years ago.

That is thanks to the most detailed observation of the dandelion-shaped chains of gas and supernova debris that comprise Pa 30, the only supernova remnant of its type observed in the Milky Way. What makes Pa 30 even more unique is that it has a rare "zombie star" at its heart.

Supernovas like the one that created Pa 30 are called Type Ia supernovas; they happen when a dead star called a white dwarf overfeeds on a companion star like a cosmic vampire. This overfeeding triggers a runaway nuclear explosion that usually destroys the white dwarf. But on rare occasions, the supernova doesn't completely destroy the star, and a shattered stellar body remains, called a zombie star. These events are called Type Iax supernovas.

Pa 30 was first identified in 2013 by a citizen scientist in 2013, but scientists soon linked it to a cosmic explosion recorded independently in the year 1181 in Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic historical documentation. That makes this one of only five supernovas seen before the invention of the telescope.

"Reliable historical records of stellar explosions extend back only about a thousand years. For all we know, there might well be similar remnants still lurking in the dark in our own galaxy," team member Ilaria Caiazzo, assistant professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), said in a statement.

"Today, we are lucky to study an intriguing object we know was observed by astronomers who made three independent historical records of the event centuries before the invention of the telescope."

Solar system-sized pearls

Pa 30 is a good laboratory to study supernovas because, at around 7,500 light-years away, it is relatively close to Earth on cosmic scales. For instance, the heart of our galaxy is around 26,000 light-years away. "We can see this much detail because of Pa 30's proximity to Earth," said Caiazzo. "This proximity makes Pa 30 uniquely valuable for study."

It is also an important subject of study because it is the only supernova remnant in which we can see a zombie star.

Using the Gemini North telescope, Caiazzo and colleagues zoomed in on Pa 30, discovering knots along the strands of gas radiating out from the site of the cosmic explosion, like pearls on a string.

These pearls are each wide enough to encompass the orbit of Neptune, the most distant planet from the sun, ten times over.

"The planetary region of our solar system could fit in each knot about ten times with room to spare," said Caiazzo. "The knots are quite strikingly uniform. We are excited to try to model them."

The team also discovered that the zombie star sits almost perfectly at the heart of Pa 30. When these cosmic explosions happen, they should provide any debris, including zombie stars, with a kick. The fact that this "living dead" star still sits dead center of this wreckage suggests that when this explosion happened, it was roughly symmetrical and the kick was relatively light.

"Explosions conserve momentum. If the explosion itself was perfectly symmetric, the ejecta should also be symmetric, and the surviving star should not receive a substantial kick," Caiazzo said. "We were able to measure a precise upper limit of the remnant star's transverse kick speed, showing that it was surprisingly small. We practically don't see the star moving away at all."

While there are still many mysteries surrounding Pa 30 and its zombie occupant, one of the most exciting prospects emerging from this research is the possibility it will help identify the wreckage of other Type Iax supernovas in our galaxy.

"While we can see Type Iax supernovas in distant galaxies as point sources of light, resolving the remnants of such explosions is only possible in our own galaxy and in very few nearby ones," Caiazzo concluded. "Eventually, we plan to use Pa 30's distinctive properties to search the Milky Way and nearby galaxies for similar objects."

The team's research was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The November full moon reaches maximum illumination at 9:53 a.m. EST (1453 GMT) on Nov. 24, as the lunar disk sits opposite the sun in Earth's sky, appearing fully lit by its rays.

November's full moon is traditionally known as the "Beaver Moon", because it rises around the time when the small mammals take refuge in their dens, having stored enough food to survive the long winter months, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.

The Nov. 24 full moon also happens to be the first of three consecutive "supermoons". The non-scientific term is often bestowed on full moons that occur when the natural satellite is within 90% of perigee, when the moon is closest to Earth in its elliptical orbit. The proximity can make a supermoon appear 14% larger and 30% brighter than the smallest full moon of the year, according to NASA.

When to see the November full moon

The November full moon will be below the horizon for stargazers in the U.S. when it turns full at 9:53 a.m. EST on Nov. 24. Instead, viewers in America will get their best view of the near-full Beaver Moon as it arcs towards the western horizon in the predawn hours of Nov. 23.

You may notice the lunar disk take on a gorgeous yellow-orange hue in the hour before moonset, as the bluer wavelengths of its light are scattered by Earth's dense atmosphere through a process known as Rayleigh scattering — the same phenomenon that turns the sky red at sunset.

November's supermoon may appear even larger as it travels close to the horizon thanks to a phenomenon known as the "Moon Illusion", which tricks us into thinking that the lunar disk is larger than it actually is while closer to foreground objects, compared to when it shines overhead. The moon will also appear fully lit to the casual observer on the evenings of Nov. 23 and Nov. 24, so there's no need to miss out if you struggle with early mornings!

The table below details local full moon timings for when the moon is 100% illuminated for a selection of cities spread across the globe (local moonset and moonrise times will vary based on your location):

Local full moon timings for November 2026

Why it's called the Beaver Moon

The November full moon is often called the Beaver Moon because it rises around the time that beavers retreat to their lodges after collecting enough food to see them through the winter.

It is also known as the Frost Moon by the indigenous Cree people of Canada and the northwestern U.S., and as the Digging Moon by the Tlingit, in reference to the animals that scratch around for fallen nuts in the hardening autumn earth, per the Old Farmer's Almanac.

The rising of the November full moon also marks the Hindu festival of Dev Diwali when worshippers light earthen lamps called "diyas" and offer prayers to celebrate Lord Shiva's defeat of the demon Tripurasura, after which the Hindu gods descended to Earth to celebrate, according to the Edinburgh Hindu Mandir & Cultural Centre.

Nov. 24 and the rising of the full moon also coincides with the Sikh celebration of Guru Nanak Gurpurab, when millions celebrate the birthday of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, according to the BBC.

What else to see in the sky around the full moon

Stargazers in the U.S. will be treated to a magnificent natural light show in the predawn hours of Nov. 24, when the near-full moon shines low on the western horizon less than 5 degrees from the bright stars of the Pleiades open star cluster.

The Pleiades and moon will be close enough to share the field of view of a pair of 10X50 binoculars, which will help reveal gorgeous detail on the lunar surface, while helping to resolve dozens more of the clusters blue-white stars as they cut through the deluge of moonlight.

Tear your gaze away from the moon and find a trio of spectacular multi-colored lights forming a tight triangle high in the southern sky. The red light of Mars will shine steadily above the twinkling star Regulus at the heart of the constellation Leo, with the yellow-white light of Jupiter to their right.

Venus will also be visible as a dazzling "Morning Star" hanging low on the eastern horizon, with Mercury below, tracing out the path of the approaching sun.

Saturn, meanwhile, will make for a satisfyingly easy and visually spectacular target in the post sunset hours of Nov. 24, as it shines in the southeastern sky in the constellation Pisces, whose stars will be a challenge to spot in the light of the newly waning moon.

Observing tips

The November full moon presents a stunning opportunity to photograph the entirety of the Earth-facing lunar disk as its disk appears temporarily free from shadow. Be sure to make use of our expert guide to photographing the moon, along with our picks of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography, if you want to upgrade your equipment.

• Use a tripod to keep your camera as steady as possible.
• Use a remote shutter/timer to prevent camera wobble.
• A smartphone stargazing app can help you find the exact point of moonrise on your local horizon.
• A lens with a focal length of 12-50 mm is useful for landscape photography, while a focal length of at least 400 mm is advised for capturing more detailed views of the lunar surface.
• The moon can be made to appear particularly large while close to the horizon next to foreground objects, where it may take on an orange-yellow appearance thanks to Rayleigh scattering. A cleaner, more "classic" view can be captured as it soars high overhead.

Upcoming full moons

These times mark the exact instant of full illumination. Your own moonrise or moonset may be hours earlier or later, depending on your location. For the best viewing plan, use an app such as Stellarium or SkySafari 7 Pro to find your local moonrise time and be sure to read our full moon calendar for comprehensive timings for each full moon in 2026.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your full moon photos with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s) along with your name, the location and any comments on what it was like to capture the picture to spacephotos@space.com.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Cowboy Space just showed us how it plans to become a big player in the final frontier.

The California-based company, which is run by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, intends to operate a constellation of 20,000 AI data centers in low Earth orbit (LEO). It will build those satellites in house and launch them on a homegrown rocket — a vehicle Cowboy Space unveiled here on Monday night (Oct. 26), at an event it called "Big Sky Rising."

"It's a fundamentally novel approach to rocketry in the modern era, in our opinion," Bhatt said during the event. "The idea is that you have a two-stage rocket where the upper stage of the rocket itself transforms into the satellite."

That rocket is called Big Iron, Bhatt told us on Monday night. And so is the data-center satellite, as both are considered to be part of the same system.

The stainless-steel rocket will be 282 feet (86 meters) tall and 15.4 feet (4.7 m) wide. It will be powered by Cowboy Space's Clydesdale engines — nine in the first stage and one in the upper stage, the same configuration employed by SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. And, like the Raptor engines that power another SpaceX launcher, the giant Starship, Clydesdale will burn liquid oxygen and liquid methane, a combo known as methalox.

Big Iron's first stage will be reusable; an animation Bhatt showed during "Big Sky Rising" showed the booster coming down for a landing on a ship at sea, as Falcon 9 first stages often do these days.

The upper stage, meanwhile, will stay in orbit as a Big Iron satellite. The spacecraft will tip the scales here on Earth at about 33,000 pounds (15,000 kilograms), and, after unfurling its solar panels, it will be about 433 feet (132 m) long.

The payload fairing that protected the satellite during launch will morph into a radiator, which will dump into space the prodigious heat generated by Big Iron's GPUs (general processing units). And there will be a lot of GPUs: Each satellite will carry five racks of them, Bhatt said, which will provide about 1 megawatt of compute payload.

Big Iron will therefore be much larger than an "imperial-class satellite" — Bhatt's term for SpaceX's planned Starmind AI data center spacecraft, each of which will have a solar wingspan of 246 feet (75 m) and boast about 250 kW of compute payload.

Cowboy Space plans to operate about 20,000 Big Iron satellites in LEO, a constellation it calls Stampede. Each rocket will carry just one of these satellites to orbit, so it will take 20,000 launches to build Stampede — and, likely, several thousand more every year to maintain it at that number.

Cowboy Space therefore intends to launch very often — multiple times per day, from launch complexes it calls Trailheads. The company has not yet announced where these complexes will be, but each one will likely feature four active launch mounts, Bhatt said on Monday night.

And not all of these launches will serve Stampede. Toward the end of "Big Sky Rising," Bhatt announced that Big Iron will also launch payloads for customers, a service that Cowboy Space calls Big Iron Express.

The first flights of this new rocket are a few years away. Cowboy Space — which was founded in 2024 as the power-beaming company Aetherflux — is still building and testing its Clydesdale engine and says it aims to launch Big Iron for the first time in December 2028.

"Now, a lot of things have to go right for that to happen; it's not a guarantee," Bhatt said. "I think it's ambitious. But if it wasn't ambitious, I wouldn't be an entrepreneur."

Cowboy Space is operating one piece of space hardware at the moment, by the way — a satellite called Reason-1, which launched on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission on Oct. 1.

"Its job is to prove out power beaming: using a high-power laser to transfer energy from low Earth orbit to a receiver on the ground," Cowboy Space said via X on Sept. 28. "If you want to build data centers in space, you have to master the optical systems between orbit and Earth. This is where that journey begins."

Matt Dinniman's "Dungeon Crawler Carl" is the hottest science fantasy novel series in the galaxy, and now it's getting a comic book adaptation.

"Dungeon Crawler Carl" follows the exploits of pantless Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s kitty, Princess Donut, as they compete in an intergalactic reality TV show to decide the fate of planet Earth. Carl and Princess Donut must endure a series of traps and challenges set forth by the neurotic, foot-fetishizing System AI.

Dinniman exploded in popularity from a viral self-publishing novelty to a New York Times bestselling phenomenon whose eight books in the "Dungeon Crawler Carl" universe have sold 14 million copies worldwide. There is even an upcoming TV adaptation produced by "Family Guy's" Seth MacFarlane and "Thor: Ragnarok" screenwriter Christopher Yost coming to streaming service Peacock.

Now in a move that seems almost obligatory, "Dungeon Crawler Carl" is leaping into the world of comic books with a newly announced series courtesy of Montana-based Vault Comics. A special double-sized, 48-page debut issue will arrive in January of 2027, with subsequent monthly issues landing in stores and digitally.

"New Achievement! You like 'em floppy! You wanted Carl and Donut every month, you get Carl and Donut every month," states the synopsis. "Reward: An ongoing series with scaled up art! You know what's worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Getting stuck on a sadistic alien game show with her cat!"

Vault's "Dungeon Crawler Carl" project will be an adaptation of the popular DCC webtoon series penned by Tevagah and Dinniman and illustrated by Laurel Pursuit Studios.

Artist Kuzomari will aid in the transition from webtoon to comic book format. Main covers will be crafted by Nathan Gooden ("Barbaric') with variants provided by a roster of artists including Ryan Ottley ("Invincible"), Brett Bean, Frank Cho, Clayton Crain, Yoshi Yoshitani, Katie Cook, Riley Rossmo, Tyler Walpole, Doug Mahnke, Trish Forstner and Luciano Fleitas, who creates the novel covers.

"Entering the comic space is nothing short of amazing," Dinniman stated in an official press release. "The fact that I get to work with some of the greatest creators and artists working today feels like a dream."

Serializing the first two episodes of the webtoon series, "Dungeon Crawler Carl #1" will be released by Vault Comics on Jan. 20, 2027.

On Oct. 27, 1961, NASA launched the first test flight of its new Saturn I space launch vehicle.

The Saturn I rocket was the United States' first heavy-lift rocket designed to launch big payloads beyond low Earth orbit. This was also the first test flight of any rocket in the Saturn family of rockets, which includes the Saturn V that was used to launch astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program.

The Saturn I was enormous compared to every rocket that came before it. It was almost three times as tall as the Jupiter-C rocket, which launched the first American satellite into orbit in 1958. It also produced more than 10 times the amount of thrust that the Jupiter-C rocket could. The liquid-powered rocket launched on its maiden voyage from Cape Canaveral.

Despite a one-hour weather day, the flight was nearly perfect. It reached an altitude of 85 miles and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 15 minutes later. The only thing that went wrong was that its engines cut off 1.6 seconds early, but that wasn't a huge deal. Scientists figured out that this happened because there was too much liquid oxygen in the rocket and not enough propellant.

Why it mattered

NASA was only 3 years old when it launched its first Saturn rocket on Oct. 27, 1961. Human spaceflight was a mere 6 months old, after the April 12 launch of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin earlier that year. Yet NASA had its eyes on the moon.

That's where the Saturn rocket family came in.

The Saturn I rocket, the predecessor to the Saturn V that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon, began its life in 1957 as the so-called Saturn C-1 booster, a project led by rocket scientist Wernher von Braun at the Advanced Research Project Agency. The plan called for a heavy-lift rocket capable of 1.5 million pounds of thrust (the first launch generated 1.3 million pounds of thrust, but later versions hit that 1.5 million mark). At launch, the Saturn I stood 162 feet tall and weighed 460 tons. NASA called that first test flight the Saturn SA-1 flight.

The Launch Complex 34 pad at what is now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was specially built for the Saturn I rocket, with NASA taking charge in June 1961.

"The flight was considered essentially flawless," NASA said in a statement. "The Saturn SA-1 flight was the first of 32 successful Saturn rocket launches — 10 Saturn Is, 9 Saturn IBs, and 13 Saturn Vs — between 1961 and 1973."

NASA ultimately built three different types of Saturn rocket, the Saturn I, more powerful Saturn IB and the super-sized Saturn V rocket for Apollo moon launches.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover left a mark on the Martian landscape when it passed a historic milestone driving across the Red Planet.

What is it?

On Oct. 11, Perseverance passed 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers) driven on Mars. This is farther than anything has ever traveled on the surface of another world, earning the rover the interplanetary driving record.

Previously, this record was set by NASA's Opportunity rover, and it took Opportunity roughly 14 years to drive this far. Perseverance traversed this distance in just over 5 years.

In this snapshot captured by Perseverance, the rover looked back at its progress, capturing its own tracks pressed into the planet's dusty surface. This moment of reflection captures years of achievement on the Red Planet.

Perseverance's driving record comes after many years of different rovers pushing autonomous driving on other worlds to new levels. As Vandi Verma, Chief Engineer for Robotic Operations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, shared in a recent mission update, the rover team continues to push the envelope, exploring new and better ways to drive the rovers remotely from another planet.

Why is it incredible?

While Perseverance has traveled nearly 30 miles across the surface of another planet, the rover has accomplished so much more than just this distance record on its enduring mission.

Since landing on Mars back in 2021, Perseverance has observed, sampled and studied a wide variety of rocks, boulder fields, Martian slopes and more. Recently, observations made using Perseverance provided the strongest evidence yet of possible biosignatures on the planet.

While we have not yet found conclusive evidence that life once existed on Mars, as the rover has made its way across the planet's surface, it has gotten us closer to that answer than we have ever been before.

The "Star Trek" community lost one of its most beloved icons on Sunday, October 25, with the sad passing of Walter Koenig at the age of 90 in his North Hollywood home.

Koenig was best known as the U.S.S. Enterprise's Russian navigator Pavel Andreievich Chekov for two seasons on "Star Trek: The Original Series." The popular American actor continued in that role for Paramount's first seven "Star Trek" films, which began in 1979's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and ended with 1994's "Star Trek: Generations."

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Marvin Walter Koenig was born on Sept. 14, 1936, to Lithuanian immigrant parents and spent his formative years in New York City. After a short college stint at UCLA in California, Koenig was accepted into the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York in 1958, joining future stars like James Caan and Christopher Lloyd.

TV guest spots in the early '60s on "Mr. Novak" and "Ben Casey" led Koenig to join the intrepid crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise for Gene Roddenberry’s sophomore series of "Star Trek." He co-starred in 36 of the 50 installments airing on the NBC Network in 1967-68 and 1968-69, premiering in famed sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon's excellent episode, "Amok Time," broadcast on Sept. 15, 1967.

Although Koenig's Ensign Chekov character was not resurrected for the 1973-74 Saturday morning cartoon spinoff, "Star Trek: The Animated Series," due to budget issues, he did write a screenplay for that show’s first season titled "The Infinite Vulcan."

In 1982's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," he was promoted to Commander aboard the U.S.S. Reliant when he and Captain Terrell (Paul Winfield) beamed down to Seti Alpha V and ran into the genetically enhanced Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban).

Following his work in the "Star Trek" movies, Koenig scored an ongoing TV role on creator J. Michael Straczynski's "Babylon 5" starting in 1993, where he portrayed the former Psi Ops commander and war criminal, Alfred Bester, through the 1998 season.

A core member of the original "Star Trek" and its Hollywood features alongside William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, and James Doohan, Koenig was often utilized as comic relief.

His thick accent, where he pronounced his “Vs” as “Ws,” was derived from hearing his Russian-Jewish father's particular manner of speech. Koenig’s undeniable contributions to the legacy of "Star Trek" and the chemistry of its cast cannot be overestimated, and he'll be sorely missed.

His bestselling 1998 autobiography, "Warped Factors: A Neurotic’s Guide to the Universe," was later followed by a detailed memoir titled "Beaming Up and Getting Off," released back in 2020.

Koenig is survived by his sole daughter, screenwriter and actress Danielle Koenig.

In 1927, Norwegian civil engineer and amateur radio operator Jørgen Hals made an unusual discovery: while monitoring transmissions from a shortwave radio station in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, he began hearing odd, "delayed" radio echoes, arriving approximately three seconds after the original transmissions, that sometimes accompanied the station's signals.

"From where this echo comes I cannot say for the present," Hals wrote of his peculiar discovery, adding that he could "only confirm that I really heard it."

Almost a century after Hals' discovery, the exact cause of this unusual phenomenon — known today as long delayed echoes, or LDEs — remains unknown. Their baffling nature has prompted a range of potential explanations, most of which focus on a variety of unexplained natural phenomena occurring in Earth's atmosphere. However, a few more far-out possibilities, including potential evidence of extraterrestrial technology, have also been considered.

What do we know?

A curious discovery

The enigma of long-delayed echoes has perplexed scientists since their initial detection by Hals, who at the time reported his odd findings to Norwegian physicist Carl Størmer. This prompted an investigation by Størmer with physicist Balthasar van der Pol, during which the duo was able to reproduce the phenomenon but were unsuccessful in determining its cause.

Since those early observations, ongoing reports of long-delayed echoes have continued to be recorded. Under normal conditions, radio echoes occur whenever a radio signal reflects or "bounces" off an object, although other conditions such as signals traveling through a delayed path can also cause echoes to occur.

Long delayed echoes, by contrast, are generally characterized by radio signals that return after more than 2.7 seconds following their original transmission, although the terminology has sometimes been applied more broadly.

Complicating investigations into this unusual brand of radio phenomena over the years has been their unpredictable nature, along with significant reported variances in the timing and nature of the delays, which has made it difficult for researchers to narrow down a single cause.

Possible explanations

Despite the challenges presented by this unique class of space mysteries, there are several theories that have been put forward over the years about what could cause long-delayed echoes.

In the mid 1980s, researchers R. J. Vidmar and F. W. Crawford conducted experiments in Alaska that aimed to detect long-delayed echoes, which built on earlier research they published involving possible detections in 1970. According to their findings at the time, Vidmar and Crawford hypothesized that radio signals could be captured between ionized layers in the atmosphere and "guided" over long distances.

More recently, University of Oslo researcher Sverre Holm has advanced a similar concept that he calls magnetospherically ducted echo (MDE), in which radio waves may become trapped within electrically charged regions of Earth's upper atmosphere and guided along magnetic field lines extending far into the magnetosphere. Under certain conditions, these signals may reach as far away as the opposite hemisphere before they are "bounced" back toward Earth, resulting in the delayed echo effect.

According to Holm, MDE "is the best understood mechanism for long delayed echoes" out of five promising explanations he outlines, adding that based on the MDE model, such long delayed echoes "can be predicted to what seems like about 5 ms accuracy using a simple model for the magnetic field lines."

Still, one problem that arises involves the relatively short delays associated with this mechanism, which may not necessarily account for the much longer, multi-second echoes reported in some historical observations. Since radio waves travel at close to the speed of light, a signal could theoretically cover distances equivalent to the planet's circumference several times in a single second. While this doesn't prove the signals actually followed such paths, it does imply that some of the reported instances of long-delayed echoes might correspond to dozens of journeys around the planet.

Speaking with Space about historical cases involving much lengthier long-delayed echoes, Holm was clear in expressing that the MDE theory also has its limitations.

"In my view," Holm told Space in an email, "Magnetospheric Duct Echoes cannot [account] for those historical LDEs at all."

To illustrate this, Holm points to two primary differences. First, the historical echoes were detected at approximately 9.55 MHz, well above the 1–4 MHz frequency range typically associated with MDEs. Additionally, historical LDEs reportedly exhibited delays ranging from 3 to 30 seconds, whereas MDEs generally produce delays of only a few hundred milliseconds.

By contrast, "MDES are only a few hundred milliseconds," Holm explained, meaning that they cannot account for all the characteristics of the earlier historic observations of long-delayed echoes.

Other theories that might be capable of filling some of the gaps in the long-delayed echo mystery include the idea that electromagnetic radio energy could be coupled into slower plasma-wave "modes" while traveling through Earth’s upper atmosphere, which, according to Holm’s review of the earlier work by Vidmar and Crawford, could potentially create much longer delays than ordinary radio propagation would allow.

After this proposed coupling into a plasma-wave mode, the signals may be converted back to ordinary electromagnetic signals and bounced back down to lower levels of Earth's atmosphere. Finally, a similar line of investigation has looked at whether clouds of plasma originating from the sun might also be able to produce the well-characterized echo effect.

What remains unknown?

Extraterrestrial origins?

Although scientific research has identified several promising explanations for long-delayed echoes, the mysterious nature of these events has also inspired more speculative theories over the decades, including some involving the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

This unique dimension to the LDE mystery has its roots in the theories of Australian physicist Ronald Bracewell, who was the first to propose the idea that autonomous interstellar probes might be used by an advanced civilization as a means of establishing contact.

According to Bracewell, the initiators of such a hypothetical contact scenario might choose to reveal their presence by intercepting and re-transmitting radio signals rather than engaging in direct communication. Carl Sagan explored a similar concept in his novel "Contact", in which transmissions from the 1936 Olympics — the earliest broadcast signals to leave Earth's ionosphere — are intercepted and rebroadcast back to Earth as a data-encoded message originating from the Vega system.

However, more than a decade before the publication of Sagan's famous novel, Scottish writer Duncan Lunan attracted international attention for his 1973 article in the journal "Spaceflight" outlining his belief that he had successfully decoded a radio message dispatched from an extraterrestrial probe. According to Lunan, the initial detection of this "hidden" alien signal had taken place decades earlier in 1927, with the famous discovery of long-delayed echoes by Jørgen Hals.

Lunan's theory essentially went like this: an extraterrestrial civilization in the Epsilon Boötis system had deployed a hypothetical autonomous communications probe (known as a Bracewell probe) to Earth in the distant past, which had been comfortably orbiting in one of Earth's gravitationally stable Lagrange points for thousands of years.

Using the original long-delayed echo detections from Hals and Størmer's research decades earlier, Lunan placed the transmitted sequence on a vertical axis, while placing the recorded echo delay time on a horizontal axis, revealing what he believed to be a view of the constellation Boötes as it might have looked 15,000 years ago — right around the time the suspected space probe would have been dispatched to Earth.

Despite Lunan's imaginative theory, an alternative hypothesis proposing a natural cause behind long-delayed echoes was subsequently advanced by Anthony Lawton, which ultimately garnered an award from the British Interplanetary Society. By 1976, Lunan had withdrawn his ideas in an article published in the Journal of the Society of Electronic and Radio Technicians, although he would eventually revisit a version of the theory in the 1990s.

The mystery continues

While few modern researchers seriously consider extraterrestrial hypotheses to explain long-delayed echoes, these obscure phenomena remain intriguing, even as ongoing research sheds light on their possible causes. Explanations such as Sverre Holm's magnetospherically ducted echo model offer promising mechanisms that may account for at least some of these unusual signals, although important questions remain unanswered.

For now, long-delayed echoes serve as a reminder of the challenges of studying electromagnetic phenomena, and how even seemingly familiar aspects of our physical world can harbor mysteries that resist straightforward explanations, even after nearly a century of investigation.

A new stack of Starlink satellites is now in orbit following an early morning SpaceX launch from California.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 3:25 a.m. EDT (0725 GMT) on Oct. 27, from from Pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The rocket delivered the 27 satellites of Starlink Group 15-16 to low Earth orbit (LEO), and successfully executed its first stage booster landing.

The mission's booster, B1082, cut its engines and disengaged from Falcon 9's upper stage approximately 2.5 minutes into flight, and adjusted its trajectory for a touchdown on SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) droneship in the Pacific Ocean.

B1082 successfullly landed on OCISLY at T+8:23, seconds before Falcon 9's second stage completed its first engine burn. The return of B1082 marks the booster's 21st Starlink mission, and 26th overall flight, the others of which include USSF-62, OneWeb Launch 20, NROL-145, Transporter-18.

Falcon 9's upper stage ignited its engine for a second time about 53 minutes after liftoff, circularizing its orbit with a burn that lasted a very short 3 seconds. That was followed several minutes later by the deployment of the rocket's Starlink payloads.

SpaceX's Starlink network consists of more than 11,000 active spacecraft. The speed with which the company is delivering them to orbit in bulk, however, has slowed somewhat.

As SpaceX shifts focus to its larger, more powerful Starship rocket under development, plans to retire Falcon 9 have already begun. Part of that process included ending Starlink launches from Florida earlier this year.

Today's mission was the 117th Falcon 9 launch of 2026, so far. About three-quarters of those were dedicated to Starlink.

Technologies developed and tested in orbit to remove space junk and fix broken satellites can be speedily repurposed to build fleets of bodyguard spacecraft to protect important satellites from adversary attacks, space clean-up company Astroscale thinks.

Astroscale made history with its 2024 up-close in-orbit inspection of a discarded Japanese rocket stage during the pioneering ADRAS-J mission in low Earth orbit (LEO), the region of space below altitudes of 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers).

The firm's ELSA-D mission, which ran from 2021 to 2024, was the first commercial endeavor to demonstrate orbital capture technologies in LEO. Now, this technology can come in handy as Western space assets face increasing threats from Russia.

Speaking on the sidelines of an event in London earlier this month, Alex Godfrey, Astroscale's head of defense, said the company could have a protector spacecraft ready for launch in under three years.

"In in-orbit servicing, we have to achieve very high levels of agility to be able to dock and close to a distance of zero meters to refuel something or remove it from orbit," Godfrey told Space.com. "With space control, you're rarely getting quite as close, so in some ways it's simpler because you are further away."

Space control — a military term for ensuring the space around Earth remains orderly and peaceful — is quickly becoming a hot talking point. Godfrey's remarks came just as the world witnessed in shock as Russia made close-up maneuvers around a radar satellite owned by Finland headquartered Earth-observation company ICEYE. The October incident, described by experts as the first rendezvous of two active satellites in low Earth orbit conducted without the consent of the target, raised concerns Russia may be preparing to damage the satellite, which is part of a fleet providing critical intelligence to Ukraine.

U.S. Under Secretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno described Russia's actions on X as "threatening behavior" and "consistent with on-orbit weapons operations."

The ICEYE incident is only the latest in a long string of activities conducted by Russia in space designed either to eavesdrop on or interfere with the activity of critical Western space assets. The Luch-1 and Luch-2 satellites have been stalking Europe's and America's communications satellites in geostationary orbit — the busy region 22,000 miles (36,000 km) above the planet where satellites have a fixed view of a portion of the globe—since 2014. Germany's military space command chief Major General Michael Traut admitted earlier this year that the Luch spacecraft have been spying on European strategic communications in space for years.

A bodyguard satellite would make sure no such intruder gets dangerously close. Godfrey said that the cost of a bodyguard mission would be on the order of a single percent of the value of a military-grade geostationary communications constellation such as the U.K.'s £8.4-billion Skynet fleet.

"To build a bodyguard satellite is absolutely within the capability and the budget of a single country like the U.K.," said Godfrey. "It would be similar to a carrier strike group where you have a [naval aircraft] carrier, but that carrier never leaves the port on its own. It has an escort of much smaller, lower-cost systems that move around to protect it."

Although Astroscale, headquartered in Japan but with significant presence in the U.K., is a leader in the commercial orbital rendezvous and proximity operations technology, no Western players currently match the deployed capabilities of Russia and China. Europe, in particular, is under-equipped for defense and military operations in space, according to the Secure World Foundation's Global Counterspace Capabilities Report. With Russia's accelerating orbital forays, the clock appears to be ticking.

Godfrey proposes a pan-European fleet of orbital bodyguards patrolling clusters of European assets to ward off future Russian attempts to jam or damage the satellites.

"The UK, for example, has multiple assets in different positions around the geostationary ring," Godfrey said. "That is difficult to protect with a single spacecraft. So what I encourage nations to think about is how to form a geo-patrol force through collaboration. If France has assets in a similar location to the UK and maybe Germany, then it makes sense for one spacecraft to protect two or three allied spacecraft, and then, in another region, another country takes responsibility for the protection."

Nick Shave, the UK managing director at Astroscale, told Space.com that the company sees interest in its technologies and is "in discussions" with "companies and customers across Europe" although it has not signed any contracts to develop bodyguard satellites.

"We have spent a good amount of time talking over the last few years, but now we have to go and really deliver," Shave said. "The UK government is promising funding for space control development from 2030 onwards. So what needs to happen now is really preparing the ground so that we've got the right capabilities, the right investment and the right demonstrator capability, by 2030."

In the meantime, Russia's COSMOS 2612 stalker satellite keeps lingering 298 miles (480 km) from the ICEYE intelligence satellite in LEO, keeping the Western space community on edge.

I have been dreaming of doing research in space as an astronaut my whole life, but for some reason, the thought of working underwater made me nervous. I’ve known for a long time that astronauts train underwater to simulate different scenarios they’re likely to experience in space. Diving was never an issue for me, either — I even made it as far as becoming a certified rescue diver. So what was the problem?

This summer, I led a simulated space mission in an underwater habitat called the Jules’ Undersea Lab. It is a research station that is located 22 feet (6.7 meters) underwater near Key Largo, Florida. You have to scuba dive to get in and out of the station. To become an aquanaut, you have to stay underwater for at least 24 hours in a so-called state of saturation.

I had been preparing for many years for this aquanaut experience, both as a scientist and as an analog astronaut. An analog astronaut is someone who takes part in a simulated space mission, where they live and work in conditions similar to those that astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) experience today, or will one day experience on the moon and Mars.

I’m no stranger to simulated space missions, either; I have been the Commander of almost 40 such missions in different facilities around the world. Almost all of those missions were on land, though, which made them substantially safer than a mission underwater. The risks of something going wrong during a simulated spacewalk or even during basic maintenance activities underwater are significantly higher than during standard analog missions on land.

Despite knowing all of that, a mission underwater was something I definitely wanted to experience to improve my skills as a leader, researcher and diver. However, the closer I got to the start of the mission, the more worried I became. My brain went through all the terrible scenarios that could occur during the mission while I was preparing for it — from someone’s gear malfunctioning during a spacewalk underwater to storms forcing us to evacuate in the middle of the night. Perhaps I still had some trauma from watching "The Abyss" by James Cameron as a child 😉.

Our mission was symbolically called SEA STAR, and I spent over a year organizing it. It took some time to get the right team and research projects together, as well as the necessary funding. My goal was to lead a mission simulating what astronauts go through on the ISS, both in terms of the diverse projects they work on and the challenges they face living in space. Only for us the deadly environment surrounding us wasn’t space, but water.

Since the health and safety of the crew is at higher risk during underwater missions, the team has to adhere to more strict procedures than they would need to during a simulated space mission on land. That, in turn, makes the mission feel more similar to an astronaut’s mission in space. The underwater environment also allowed us to perform neutral buoyancy experiments during simulated spacewalks, as well as scientific research focused on the effects of high atmospheric pressures on humans.

Our SEA STAR crew was composed of experienced analog astronauts and divers. Paul Bakken, an experimental engineer, was our Executive Officer responsible for most of the mission’s logistics. The Health and Safety Officer was Dr. Brandy Nunez, who performed microgreens research on top of overseeing the wellbeing of the crew. Our team’s Mission Specialist was Jenn Pint, who is an industrial safety expert. She was in charge of a project focused on developing a taxonomy for analyzing environmental and crew interaction factors in a space analog environment, in collaboration with Interstellar Performance Labs.

As the Commander of the crew, my main responsibilities were to make sure the crew was safe, in good health and spirits, getting along well and on top of their work. I worked with Paul to plan the mission’s schedule and to tweak it as needed — for instance, when we faced unexpected problems or some things were taking longer than planned. I also brought several research and educational projects with me on the mission, which I performed on top of my Commander duties.

Even though I was a bit concerned about the risks of the aquanaut mission before it started, I trusted my crew. I knew that we would find a way to problem-solve and face the challenges that would come our way, just like astronauts do in space. I was also looking forward to all of the interesting experiments that we had planned for the mission, which ranged from cognitive research under pressure to testing environmental student sensors.

In the end, I mostly had to trust myself that I had what it takes to not only perform this mission, but also to lead it. As I put on my scuba gear, before diving underwater for five days, I focused on the positive aspects of the mission. The nervous voices in my head made themselves heard a couple of times while I entered the water. Nevertheless, I was completely calm by the time I took my last breath of Earth air. I just waved at our collaborators on land, submerged myself and started our intense “space,” a.k.a. underwater, mission.

You can follow Dr. Michaela Musilova at her website and on social media: @astro_michaela (Instagram, TikTok and Threads), @Dr. Michaela Musilova (Facebook) and @astro-michaela.bsky.social (Bluesky).

On Oct. 26, 2004, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took the first close-up images of Saturn's largest moon Titan.

The Cassini spacecraft would later drop off a probe on Titan named Huygens, which was a European spacecraft that hitched a ride to the Saturn system with the Cassini mission. But before Cassini dropped off its robotic passenger, it flew by Titan a few times and took some amazing photos.

Cassini completed its first flyby on July 3, 2004, but when it swung by a second time on Oct. 26, it got about 300 times closer than it did the first time. At the closest point of this flyby, Cassini was 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) away from the surface of Titan. The spacecraft took hundreds of photos during this flyby, and these were the highest resolution views of Titan anyone had ever seen.

Why it mattered

Astronomers knew Saturn's moon Titan had an atmosphere before Cassini arrived at the smog-shrouded moon, but the spacecraft's first photos (and innumerable more that followed) revealed a strange world that looked eerily similar to what scientists suspect a young Earth might have been like.

The first close-up views of Titan by Cassini showed a large continent-sized region that scienitsts called Xanadu. It included bright features that hinted at a mountain range, as well as a large basin and smooth plains regions.

In all, Cassini would make 127 close flybys of Titan during its 13 years at Saturn before the mission ended in 2017. The probe even dropped the European Huygens lander on Titan, which landed in January 2005, to see the moon's surface first hand.

This flyby image of Titan (and other instrument observations taken at the same time) allowed scientists to measure Titan's atmosphere density and composition to better plan the path and descent for the Hygens lander.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's non-canon, but come on; Darth Vader wielding the gleaming Infinity Gauntlet is just an excellent visual. This nerd-baiting image comes to us via the main cover of Marvel Comics' upcoming "Star Wars / Marvel: Hope Assembles #1."

"Star Wars" celebrates its 50th anniversary next year, as does the first "Star Wars #1" comic, and to kick the intergalactic party off early, Marvel will publish the debut issue of this 6-issue miniseries from writer Kevin Smith ("Clerks," "Chasing Amy") and talented artist David Marquez on Jan. 13, 2027.

It's the first-ever crossover between the "Star Wars" and Marvel Universe, and we’ve got a sweet four-page preview recreating the memorable opening scene of the original "Star Wars," where the Rebel Blockade Runner is ensnared in a Star Destroyer tractor beam and boarded by Lord Vader and a squad of stormtroopers. But this time, it's got Marvel superheroes added!

We get to see all those iconic scenes, including Darth Vader’s terrifying entrance, Princess Leia’s bold defiance, and C-3PO and R2-D2’s desperate escape in an entirely new light, as Marvel heroes like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America rush to the rebellion's defense.

This historic event series will showcase multiple themed variant covers from acclaimed artists such as Alex Ross, David Marquez, Kaare Andrews, Cory Smith, Rafael Albuquerque, Dan Jurgens, Matteo Lolli, and many more.

Check out the four-page preview below:

"One of the most exciting things about this series is seeing familiar moments through an entirely new lens," Editor Mark Paniccia said.

"Kevin Smith and David Marquez understand exactly what makes these characters so enduring, and they find surprising, emotional, and often exhilarating ways to bring them together. Every issue has moments that will leave fans smiling, cheering, and eager to see what happens next."

"Star Wars / Marvel: Hope Assembles #1" lands on Jan. 13, 2027, and is available as both a physical copy from your local comic book shop and as a Kindle e-book download.

NASA has officially ended the mission of its Swift space telescope, after a private satellite failed in its bold bid to rescue the aging spacecraft.

That rescue mission was led by the Arizona company Katalyst Space Technologies, whose LINK spacecraft tried to meet up with Swift this summer to boost its orbit.

That didn't work out, however, so Swift continues its fall back toward Earth. The telescope is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere "in the next few weeks," NASA said in a statement on Friday (Oct. 23).

That statement served primarily to announce the end of the Swift mission after more than 20 very productive years.

The telescope launched to Earth orbit in November 2004, tasked with studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) — the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. Swift was designed to operate for two years, but it continued studying the high-energy universe for more than two decades.

"In that time, Swift played a major role in advancing our understanding of the changing universe and was part of a revolution in astrophysics that showed how critical rapid-response observations are to the entire community," Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in the statement.

NASA had hoped to keep Swift going even longer. In September 2025, the agency awarded a contract to the Arizona company Katalyst Space Technologies to rescue the observatory, which was falling back to Earth thanks to atmospheric drag.

Swift has no thrusters capable of counteracting this drag. So Katalyst built a refrigerator-sized spacecraft called LINK, which aimed to rendezvous with Swift, grapple it with three robotic arms and boost it to a higher orbit, allowing the observatory to continue its science work.

NASA and Katalyst stressed from the start that success was far from guaranteed. After all, LINK's mission was unprecedented: No private spacecraft had ever captured and boosted a satellite that wasn't designed to be serviced in this way. And the rate of Swift's orbital decay demanded a rapid timeline: LINK launched on July 3, a little over nine months after Katalyst won the $30 million NASA Swift-rescue contract.

LINK was not able to execute its very challenging mission. About three weeks after liftoff, it suffered problems with its propulsion system and orientation-maintaining reaction wheels, which caused it to start spinning at an unexpected rate. These issues prevented LINK from capturing and boosting Swift, but the private craft did manage to get within 7.5 to 9.3 miles (12 to 15 kilometers) of the observatory and photograph it.

"From the beginning, this was a high-risk, high-reward mission," Domagal-Goldman said in a statement on Sept. 25, the day that LINK fell back to Earth.

"And while we'll be sad to see Swift's mission come to a close, we knew this boost effort would be worthwhile either way — advancing U.S. spacecraft servicing technology, challenging us to meet unprecedented mission timelines, and testing how we operate satellites to extend their time in low Earth orbit," he added.

Swift — which was officially renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in 2018, after its first principal investigator, who died a year earlier — gathered its last scientific data on Oct. 20, according to NASA's Friday update.

During its long and storied career, the space telescope observed more than 2,000 GRBs. And it did other work, too, studying more than 1,400 supernova explosions, as well as eyeing asteroids, comets and black holes and conducting an all-sky survey in X-ray light. The mission's data has contributed to about 7,000 published scientific papers to date, according to NASA officials.

And that number is sure to keep rising far into the future.

"Swift leaves us with an extraordinary archive of multiwavelength observations that will fuel new discoveries for decades more," Domagal-Goldman said in the Oct. 23 statement.

"Have you ever seen a portal?"

The term "cult classic" has been loosely bandied about in cinematic circles until its definition has diluted into nothingness, but never has it been more appropriately applied than to director Richard Kelly’s strange psychological sci-fi thriller, "Donnie Darko", which celebrates its milestone 25th birthday today.

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Jena Malone, and Noah Wyle, "Donnie Darko" was released on Oct. 26, 2001, into an unstable world still shocked by the catastrophic Sept. 11 terrorist attacks less than two months earlier.

The thrust of the narrative revolves around an alternative universe accidentally forming via a supernatural anomaly after a jet engine falls off a commercial airliner and crashes through the roof of a suburban Virginia home, landing in the bedroom of our troubled title character.

As the frightening phantom of Frank the Bunny warns, this parallel reality has a ticking clock that’ll result in its imminent collapse in just 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.

From the haunting voice telling our heroic teen, "Wake up, Donnie," as the grandfather clock in the Darko residence ominously chimed midnight, to its exploration of the nature of mental illness, time travel paradoxes, fraudulent motivational speakers, teenage angst in the 1980s, and the logistics of interdimensional portals, "Donnie Darko" became an ideal parable for turbulent times.

But Kelly's post-modern sci-fi fantasy emerged on the big screen when there existed a pervading fear of gathering in large groups as America was just beginning to recover and process the atrocities committed on 9/11. Newmarket Films was perplexed on precisely how to market the movie, as it is such a unique combination of genres that forges something far greater than the sum of its parts.

Throughout that entire fall, "Donnie Darko" came and went in multiplexes with barely a whisper, pulling in just over $500K off of a meager $4.5 million budget. Years later, it would become a bona fide word-of-mouth sensation via several re-releases, home video editions, and further experiences in regularly sold-out midnight screenings on its way to earning cult status.

It's a deeply personal film that will affect any viewer who allows its meticulously slow build to seduce them into its dreamlike sphere. Much has been debated and discussed about its many metaphors and symbolism, which employed elements of a splintered universe long before the multiverse was hijacked by Hollywood superhero spectacles. It’s a raw meditation on death more than anything, and its labyrinth of quantum entanglements feeds our existential core.

"I remember pulling over to the side of the road to finish reading Richard's script and being mesmerized," Gyllenhaal told The Guardian. "It was clearly influenced by classic directors—Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg—but with this strange psychosis. It beautifully captured the experience of moving into adulthood: the world that felt so solid becoming movable and liquid. I thought, “This is what my adolescence felt like,” although I don’t speak, and have never spoken to, rabbits."

Kelly was just 23 years old when he penned the "Donnie Darko" screenplay in only 28 days based on his own adolescence growing up in Virginia during the ‘80s. Coincidentally, that is the exact number of days Frank the Bunny declares will mark the end of the world, and it is also the same amount of time taken to complete the Southern California production shoot in 2000.

Layered with ‘80s pop anthems like Echo & the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon," Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels," The Church's "Under the Milky Way," and Gary Jules' melancholy cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," Kelly's mysterious coming-of-age masterpiece still offers up a lucid nightmare tinged with a touch of consuming dread that lingers long after any screening.

Kelly did release a director's cut in 2004 that adds extra footage and alters the soundtrack, but we recommend the original theatrical cut for the purist’s version of this classic!

Considering today’s political strife, climate change concerns, AI paranoia, pharmaceutical overlords, and alienated youth culture, "Donnie Darko" and its 1988 election year setting still seems to have its finger on the zeitgeist's pulse, continuing to present provocative questions.

This Halloween, check out "Donnie Darko's" mind-warping weirdness on this 25th anniversary occasion and let no one ever question your commitment to Sparkle Motion ever again!

Are you a Star Trek fan about to beam down to a Halloween party? Maybe you want to give Trick or Treat a Trekkie twist? We've got you covered with costumes based on the iconic sci-fi franchise, from the original series through to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Discovery and beyond.

Adult costumes aside, we've also included outfits for younger Star Trek fans and props to round out your outfit. You needn't put them away when Halloween is over, either. Star Trek costumes are so universally recognized you can use them for cosplay purposes too, or the next time someone throws a Trek-themed party.

Or, if you're not a fan of Star Trek, check out our round-up of the best space and sci-fi themed Halloween costumes.

Astronomers have spotted a remarkable gamma-ray burst (GRB) that's a real Incredible Hulk compared to other cosmic explosions of the same type.

What makes this GRB so special is the fact that the central engine powering it remained active for around 27 days, flaring in X-rays following the initial blast. That's 20 days longer than the longest previous GRB on record.

This record-breaking burst — which is designated GRB 220706A and was spotted on July 6, 2022 — is even more exciting because scientists don't know what the central engine powering it actually is.

"In a nutshell, GRB 220706A is an extremely late X-ray flare. X-ray flaring is common following GRBs, but previously it has always come within the first few days after we detect the burst," study team member Benjamin Gompertz, of the University of Birmingham in England, told Space.com.

"The fact that we see flaring at around 27 days in the GRB’s rest frame tells us that there’s an ongoing active process, and that’s unprecedented in the known population," Gompertz added. "The previous record for delayed flaring was about six days after the GRB."

What created the Incredible Hulk of gamma-ray bursts?

GRBs are some of the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. They have been linked to the collapse of a massive star, which also triggers a supernova and creates a black hole. This results in a long-duration GRB, while short-duration GRBs are thought to be triggered when two stellar remnants called neutron stars collide.

GRB 220706A is an example of an ultra-long GRB, a rare cosmic blast of gamma rays in which the engine powering the GRB stays active for longer. They are incredibly rare, with their cause still unknown.

"We don’t know what the central engine driving this outburst is, and that’s what makes this such a compelling event," Gompertz said. "The fact that we see a supernova tells us that a star has collapsed, which is the standard power source for GRBs, but it doesn’t immediately account for the extremely late flaring or unusually bright supernova. We can interpret that through previous events to some degree."

Gompertz added that another ultra-long GRB detected in 2011, GRB 111209A, was associated with an unusually bright supernova (SN2011k) that had clear evidence for a central engine. The team behind that research determined that GRB 111209A is powered by a magnetar, a neutron star with a particular powerful magnetic field. In this case, the magnetic field is rotating at around 1,000 times per second.

"Our supernova looks a lot like that one, so a magnetar might be present here. That ties in nicely with super-luminous supernovas, which are also thought to be magnetar-driven," Gompertz said. "Another possibility could be that the GRB jet and the supernova are colliding with shells of dense material that were ejected towards the end of the parent star’s life, as it became unstable and began ejecting its outer layers. This sort of event is also seen in the super-luminous supernova population."

The team isn't quite sure how the central engine of this ultra-long GRB differs from that of others and why that resulted in 27 days of flaring.

"One possibility is that it’s a much bigger star than we usually see producing GRBs," Gompertz said. "A bigger star would take longer to fall in on itself and so provide a longer-lived source of energy to power the jet."

GRB sources may be members of a stellar population of massive, compact stars called Wolf-Rayet stars. These are 10 times wider that the sun, with around 10 times the mass of our star. However, even the collapse of such a star can't explain GRB 220706A.

"To power GRB 220706A, we estimated we need a star more like 1,000 times the radius of the sun, which would require a population of stars known as blue supergiants," Gompertz said. "On the other hand, it may be the remnant that’s different. If this star produced a magnetar, it may be that 'normal' GRBs just collapse to black holes."

The team thinks that the big question with GRBs like this one is whether they are members of the normal GRB population or a different kind of event. Having this second event, in addition to GRB 111209A, with an unusually bright supernova potentially adds weight to the idea that these are different stars. But the problem is not yet solved.

"The incredibly late flares also strain our models for how jets are powered," Gompertz said. "It will be fascinating to see how future theoretical work can incorporate a power source from a collapsing star that can last for a month!"

There could be even longer-lasting GRBs out in the cosmos that we have thus far failed to detect. Gompertz explained why such detections are tricky.

"GRBs this long are hard to detect because most of the satellites we use to find them are in low Earth orbit, which means the target is periodically blocked every 90 minutes or so," he explained. "That's fine for your typical 10- to 100-second-long GRB but becomes a nuisance when tracking much longer events. Long-lasting GRBs also seem to be more active in the X-rays rather than the gamma rays."

The University of Birmingham researcher added that newly launched missions like the Einstein Probe, which is more sensitive in X-rays than gamma rays, may be the perfect instruments to find more ultra-long GRBs.

"With any luck, we’ll get a few more of these to chase so that we can start trying to understand the incredible power sources that drive them," Gompertz concluded.

A pre-peer-reviewed version of the team's research is featured on the repository site arXiv.

SpaceX is shooting for new heights with its upcoming Starship test flight, and the booster tapped for the mission is in its final stretch of preparations before the mission.

The Super Heavy booster for Flight Test 15, Booster 22, underwent a static test fire on Sunday (Oct. 25), igniting all of its Raptor 3 engines for about 15 seconds. "Full duration 33-engine static fire for the Super Heavy booster preparing for Flight 15," SpaceX said in a post on X.

The test is a beginning of final checks on the first-stage vehicle, which will be mated with the Flight 15 upper stage, Ship 42, ahead of launch, but not before the spacecraft completes some tests of its own.

Ship 42 will also complete a series of tests as the next Starship launch approaches, including a static engine fire and final systems checks. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has stated that SpaceX will attempt the first launch tower catch of a ship upper stage on Flight 15, which, if successful, would be a significant step forward for the company's goal to mature Starship to full reusability.

SpaceX's confidence in its ability to catch both the Super Heavy and Ship stages has been building this year, following three launches so far in 2026. Its most recent (Sept. 28) mission, Flight 14, reached orbit for the first time and performed the successful deployment of 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, marking the first operational payloads delivered to orbit by the spacecraft. Starlink V3 satellites are too big to fit aboard the company's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

Flight 14 wasn't without setbacks, however. An upper-stage Raptor engine shut down prematurely during ascent, prompting SpaceX to cut the planned 10-hour mission short. Ship, nevertheless, completed a controlled reentry and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about three hours after liftoff.

Flight 15 could carry another batch of V3 Starlinks, though SpaceX has not officially confirmed a payload. Beginning to upgrade its global network with the fast V3 satellites, however, is a major reason SpaceX is pushing to bring Starship into regular service.

Starship's development also has implications for NASA's Artemis program, which has contracted SpaceX to develop a modified Ship upper stage capable of landing astronauts on the surface of the moon.

NASA recently updated the timeline of milestones SpaceX needs to accomplish with Starship before a lunar lander version will qualify to carry crews, with a significant demonstration mission coming up next summer on Artemis III.

The next Artemis mission will launch astronauts to Earth orbit aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft, which will dock with both lunar lander vehicles over the course of about two weeks (in addition to Starship, NASA contracted Blue Origin's Blue Moon spacecraft as a another lunar lander for the program).

SpaceX is also working toward an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration ahead of NASA's planned return of astronauts to the moon on Artemis IV, targeted for 2028. Which lander will be chosen for that mission is still undetermined, and SpaceX and Blue Origin are both still vying for the first crewed Artemis landing.

Beyond Flight 15, SpaceX hopes to demonstrate additional milestones before the end of 2026, including Starship's first launch from Florida and potentially the first re-flight of an upgraded V3 Super Heavy booster.

Booster 22's engine test marks the beginning in a series of tests leading up Flight 15, which, if recent Starship campaigns are any example, could lift off sometime in mid-to-late November.

The NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope has captured a breathtaking view of a majestic star-forming region shining 161,000 light-years from Earth in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way known as the Large Magellanic Cloud.

What is it?

The deep-space image reveals a 230-light-year-wide swathe of the glowing emission nebula N159, threaded with denser filaments of reddish molecular hydrogen that hide countless energetic young stars.

Ghostly blue clouds of ionized hydrogen gas (H II) glow in the center of the image, having been energized by the ultraviolet radiation pouring out from nearby stars, whose winds helped create the chaotic structure of the vast stellar nursery.

The ethereal pockets are surrounded by roiling orange clouds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — a type of organic molecule that may account for 30% of all carbon in the universe, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Why is it incredible?

N159 is estimated to be less than 3 million years old, making it one of the youngest star-forming regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It also has a markedly different composition than the stellar nurseries that spawn stars in our Milky Way, boasting a lower metal content that could mirror environments that existed in the early universe.

By pointing JWST at N159, astronomers open a window to the distant past. They can compare the characteristics of stars at varying stages of evolution, including pre-main-sequence stars that are still in the process of forming, or accreting from the vast interstellar cloud.

Want to know more?

Be sure to check out our JWST explainer page to discover everything that you need to know about the space telescope, and peruse our astronomy coverage for the latest discoveries made possible by its 21.3-foot-wide (6.5-meter) golden eye.

Earth almost always has more than one moon. The others are just very small, and they never stay long — but they could provide accessible and unique insights into the solar system.

Temporary satellites, or mini-moons, are small asteroids that wander into Earth’s neighborhood and get captured briefly by our planet’s gravity. A typical one stays about nine months and circles Earth roughly three times before escaping back into orbit around the sun, Grigori Fedorets of Finland's University of Helsinki said in a presentation at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2026 in The Hague in September.

Fedorets' modeling suggests that the largest mini-moon around Earth at any given moment is typically only about 75 centimeters (30 inches) across. An asteroid about 3 meters (10 feet) wide should be captured every 10 to 20 years.

"This is not just a theoretical construct. There is observational evidence," Fedorets said. Only two mini-moons have been confirmed to date, however — 2006 RH120 and 2020 CD3, both discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Two fireballs, seen over the Czech Republic in 2013 and Australia in 2016, were traced back to objects that had been in geocentric orbits. Two more asteroids, 2022 NX1 and 2024 PT5, were captured only briefly, without completing a full orbit.

Fedorets noted a potential third mini-moon — the recently detected Sar2901, which could also be an artificial object. Sar2901 has since faded from view but should be observable again around mid-to-late November, according to the Minor Planet Center.

Small rocks, big questions

Mini-moons are so small that scientists know little about them. For objects between 1 and 10 meters (3.3 to 33 feet) across, models of the near-Earth asteroid population disagree with the numbers suggested by records of fireballs in Earth's atmosphere. Mini-moons sit right in that gap, so finding more of them should show which picture is right.

They may also reveal how much of the material in Earth’s neighborhood traces its origin back to our moon, as some small asteroids may be chunks of the lunar surface blasted into space by impacts. During the temporary flyby of asteroid 2024 PT5, for example, scientists found its spectrum to be closer to lunar rock than to typical asteroids, according to a 2025 study led by Theodore Kareta, which Fedorets described as the strongest evidence yet for lunar ejecta among Earth's small neighbors.

Kamo’oalewa, a much larger asteroid and quasi-moon of Earth, at which China’s Tianwen-2 mission arrived in July, has been the subject of debate over possible lunar or asteroidal origins.

Rubin game-changer and budget sample returns

The transformative Vera C. Rubin Observatory's 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) should find many more mini-moons, though further work will be needed. On its own, Fedorets estimates, the survey should catch a mini-moon about once every two years.

Fedorets and colleagues are setting up a dedicated system running on a virtual server at Finland's Center for Scientific Computing, to sift Rubin's alerts through the ANTARES real-time astronomical data broker to flag potential mini-moons for follow-up observations, which could raise detections to two or three per year.

Making regular discoveries could open doors for future missions, providing targets for relatively easy, low-cost asteroid sample-return missions. Mini-moons’ proximity to Earth, and their low relative speeds, means less rocket propellant is needed to get out to these diminutive targets and back to Earth.

Initially, Fedorets envisions cubesat tech demo missions, which would pave the way for mid-sized missions that could collect samples. He sees the Tianwen-2 low-energy sample mission as a potential stepping stone to resource utilization, while also noting that, at the higher end of the scale, there have been programs such as NASA’s cancelled Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) and plans by, for example, TransAstra to put a 100-ton asteroid into a stable orbit around Earth.

"This is not sci-fi," Fedorets said. "These people are actually thinking about this kind of stuff."

The short warning times and instability of the orbits of mini-moons dictates potential mission profiles. A spacecraft could wait in Earth-moon space, ready to head for a newly found mini-moon, similar to how ESA's Comet Interceptor will launch and then wait for a suitable comet to study. Asteroids could also be nudged into more stable orbits, allowing more extensive future missions.

"LSST is now online, and over the next 10 years, we are expected to find many more of these temporary moons," Fedorets said. Regular discoveries could pave the way for exploration in the early 2030s and sampling missions later in the decade.

The full "Hunter's Moon" wowed stargazers with a breathtaking display of natural light when it rose to dominate the autumn sky overnight on Oct. 25-26. Here are our favorite photos captured from around the world.

October's full moon is often known as the Hunter's Moon because it traditionally rose around the time that hunters would take to the newly harvested fields to catch animals to prepare as food for the coming winter.

Well, in 2026 the Hunter's Moon certainly succeeded in captivating the imagination and attention of photographers, who snapped the lunar disk alongside magnificent natural vistas, glowing cityscapes and ancient wonders. Read on to enjoy the most spectacular images of the Hunter's Moon.

Best photos of the full "Hunter's Moon" 2026

We begin with a beautifully detailed shot of the Hunter's Moon captured by photographer Bill Trojan, who sent in a spectacular view of October's full moon close to moonrise on Oct. 25, shortly before the lunar disk reached its point of 100% illumination.

Next feast your eyes on an atmospheric shot of the near-full moon captured by Tayfun Coskun as the lunar disk shone balefully over the skyscrapers of San Francisco on Oct. 25 ahead of moonset.

Coskun also captured this incredibly well-timed shot of a passenger jet as its landing gear appeared to skim the upper edge of the Hunter's Moon, while leaving contrails in its wake.

Veteran New York photographer Gary Hershorn was also able to line up a shot of the full Hunter's Moon rising behind the iconic architecture of the Empire State Building from Hoboken, New Jersey, on that same night.

Davide Pischettola, meanwhile, captured the moon as it loomed behind the stained glass windows and towers of the Basilica of the Madonna dei Martiri in the town of Molfetta, Italy, as a river of cloud appeared to crown the lunar disk.

Photographer Sayim Harmanci combined the ancient with the new in his composition by positioning Earth's satellite at the heart of a neon star that shines in the city of Hakkari, Türkiye.

Our next view of the Hunter's Moon was captured by Salih Zeki Fazlioglu as it gleamed red alongside the historic Galata Tower in Istanbul, Türkiye, at the mouth of the Black Sea.

Lisa Shislowski took this photo of the Hunter's Moon as its light illuminated clouds and reflected in the waters of the city of Plantation, Florida. " [The] Hunter's Moon was bright in the sky adjacent to the lighthouse at Hillsboro Inlet in Pompano Beach," Shislowski told Space.com in an email. "Two different beacons of light—one natural, one man-made—but both with equal brilliance".

Selcuk Acar, meanwhile, managed to line up a spectacular shot of the October moon as it appeared to balance on the observation deck of the Hudson Yards skyscraper in New York on Oct. 24.

Next month's full moon will occur as the lunar disk draws closest to Earth in its elliptical orbit, giving rise to a dramatic supermoon that can shine up to 30% brighter and appear 14% larger than the smallest full moon of the year!

Be sure to read our guides on how to observe and photograph the moon to ensure that you're ready to make the most of the lunar spectacle, along with our picks of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography if you're looking to upgrade your gear.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

NASA is overhauling how it selects and develops science missions, with changes intended to reduce costs, streamline competition and get missions into space faster.

The new approach, called Competition Model 2.0 (CM 2.0), was announced on Oct. 21 in an open letter from Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), to the NASA science community. The changes, directed by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, could significantly reshape how scientists, universities, NASA centers and commercial companies vie for future missions.

"We have heard you. We have listened. We know that the burden of bringing great ideas forward has been too heavy for too long," Fox stated in the letter.

The new process aims to prioritize scientific merit over unduly complicated engineering and financial planning during initial evaluations, and reduce selection timelines to encourage innovation.

Fox and other top NASA science officials will provide an overview of the reforms during a virtual town hall today (Oct. 26) at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT). A livestream of the event will be available here, with an opportunity for the public to submit questions here.

NASA currently selects many of its science missions through competitive Announcements of Opportunity (AOs), inviting scientists and research institutions to submit proposals. Under the existing two-step process, competing teams must include thorough engineering and financial details as part of their proposals before NASA selects finalists for further study. The process can take almost three years, requiring significant investments of time and resources from teams that may ultimately never get selected.

CM 2.0 aims to reduce that burden by emphasizing scientific distinction during initial evaluations, allowing teams to defer much of the engineering and financial planning until later. Instead, initial proposals will focus on the scientific objectives of a mission and a preliminary plan for how to accomplish them.

NASA organizes its science missions into different classes based on their size, cost and objectives, with selection procedures varying between them. These range from smaller Explorer missions to large, expensive flagships like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Under CM 2.0, programs including smaller Discovery planetary missions, larger New Frontiers spacecraft and Astro-Probes, a program that focuses on mid-sized astronomy missions, will retain a streamlined version of the existing two-step process, but with nearly half of the material required for initial proposals. "This means that the original 35-months timeline will be reduced to about 19.5 months, all while having a stronger, more mature mission at the time of selection," Fox wrote.

Flagship missions, meanwhile, will continue following their current procedures, which were recently revised based on lessons learned from a study of best practices examining the development of JWST.

Medium-class Explorer (MIDEX) and Earth Explorer missions will open to a wider range of applicants, including universities and commercial organizations, and will have similar changes implemented for their two-step selection process. NASA plans to evaluate prospective mission developers based on their track records with projects of similar size, cost and complexity, and offer principal investigator-led teams the opportunity to request support from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center or Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) during the first stage of selection.

Smaller, lower-cost science programs will see a more substantial selection process shakeup. "Our smallest missions will be riding the momentum of a maturing commercial space economy and will move even faster," Fox wrote.

Under CM 2.0, these programs will move to a single-stage selection process, eliminating the need for a second round of competing proposals entirely.

These include the Small Explorer (SMEX) and Earth Venture missions, which conduct astronomy and heliophysics research, and targeted studies of Earth and its climate. Missions of Opportunity, which allow researchers to piggyback scientific investigations onto other missions, as well as hosted payloads and rideshares, will fall under the same one-step umbrella, which is expected to drop final selection timelines from approximately 32 months to just 19.

"This means more missions, more often, with more incredible science at a lower cost," Fox wrote.

Beyond shortening competition times, the changes put particular emphasis on the roles of Goddard and JPL for developing NASA's science missions. NASA hopes that involving those centers more directly in mission maturations will reduce competition between the centers while maintaining the expertise of the agency's workforce.

The reforms also come with stricter oversight, with NASA insisting on "rigorous cost and schedule control" across its mission classes. "Breaches of control thresholds will carry real consequences," Fox wrote, adding that such consequences could include mission cancellations in the face of unmet expectations.

Together, the changes represent an attempt to shift NASA's mission selection process to one focused on prioritizing scientific merit. The longer-term outcome of the new approach, the agency hopes, will reduce the financial and technical burden on competing research teams and ultimately get missions from idea to orbit with efficiency and speed.

"This is a moment of real opportunity," Fox wrote. "We have an administrator who is empowering us to move faster and a commercial market that is ready to help. We have NASA Centers with unmatched expertise, and a science community whose ideas expand and redefine the bounds of human achievement in the cosmos."

On Oct. 25, 1671, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini discovered a new moon at Saturn! Iapetus was the second moon anyone had ever found orbiting Saturn, and it was the first of four moons Cassini would discover at the ringed planet.

The Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens had discovered Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons, about six years earlier. After Cassini found Iapetus, he also found the moons Rhea, Tethys and Dione.

When Cassini first saw Iapetus, the moon looked like a tiny speck on the west side of Saturn. He calculated its orbit and thought he would be able to see it again on the east side of Saturn 39 days later, but it was nowhere to be seen. When it reappeared on the west side again, Cassini realized that Iapetus must be darker on one side than the other, which made it harder to see when the dark side was facing Earth.

More than 300 years later, NASA sent a spacecraft named Cassini to Saturn, and that Cassini took some pretty awesome photos of Iapetus. Realizing Iapetus kind of resembled a yin-yang, it has since been nicknamed the "yin-yang moon."

How it mattered

The discovery of Iapetus, with its yin-yang bright and dark hemispheres, has added to our understanding of how moons form.

"Using the computer simulations, the researchers concluded ... the inner moons of Saturn and its gorgeous rings are all relatively young. The more distant moons Titan and Iapetus would not have been formed at the same time."

"Our best guess is that Saturn had a similar collection of moons before, but their orbits were disturbed by a special kind of orbital resonance involving Saturn's motion around the sun. Eventually, the orbits of neighboring moons crossed, and these objects collided. From this rubble, the present set of moons and rings formed."

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

October's full "Hunter's Moon" treated stargazers to a mesmerizing natural light show when it rose overnight on Oct. 25-26! Check out our wrap article to see the best photos of the October full moon.

The October full moon rises tonight! Here's everything you need to know about the "Hunter's Moon," including where to see it, how it got its name and other tricks of the light and mind that could conspire to create a truly spectacular lunar light show.

October's moon reaches 100% illumination at 12:12 a.m. EDT (0412 GMT) on Oct. 26, as the lunar disk shines opposite the sun in Earth's sky. The shadowy terminator that separates the day and night side of the moon is conspicuously absent around this time, as are the shadows that throw craters into spectacular relief during the waxing and waning lunar phases.

Instead, it's a perfect time to explore the dark lunar "seas" that cover the moon's surface where lava flooded impact basins billions of years ago, before hardening to create enormous basaltic plains. Streaks of reflective material can also be spotted streaking away from bright young craters, where material from the lunar subsurface was excavated and cast across the moon's surface during brutal asteroid impacts.

Where and when to see the October full moon.

Stargazers in the U.S. will get their first view of the full moon as it climbs into the eastern sky at sunset on Oct. 25. Be sure to check out Time and Date's moonrise tracker to discover the exact timings for your location.

The moon often appears particularly large while close to the horizon, thanks to a phenomenon called the "Moon Effect," wherein our brains trick us into thinking that the lunar disk is larger while in close visual proximity to the ground than it is when overhead.

The moon can also take on a spectacular yellow-orange color in the hour after moonrise, as blue wavelengths of its reflected light — the shortest in the visible spectrum — are scattered during its oblique passage through Earth's atmosphere.

Why is the October full moon called the "Hunter's Moon"?

October's full moon is commonly known as the Hunter's Moon in the Northern Hemisphere because it rises soon after farmers have cleared away the summer's harvest, leaving the fields bare for hunters to catch their prey and prepare it as food for the winter, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.

It's also called the "Migrating Moon" by the North American Cree people, in reference to the birds that travel to warmer climates around the time of its rising. The Ojibwe and the Haida know it asthe "Freezing Moon," to reflect the drop in temperature that occurs in autumn.

Want to make the most of the October full moon? Then be sure to check out our guide to observing the moon and photographing the lunar disk, along with our picks of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your photos of the October full moon with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

On Episode 233 of This Week In Space, Tariq Malik and guest host Rick Jenet are joined by Dr. Amanda Smith-Hackler, the Director of Education for the Universities Space Research Association and Principal Investigator for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Scholars and STEM Workforce Development Programs, about the new and exciting opportunities available to young people seeking to enter the space workforce.

Newspace is hiring! With the major powers heading to the moon, low-Earth orbit becoming busier than ever, and countless new companies entering the space marketplace, the hiring pipeline is more critical than ever.

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Space news of the week

• Watch NASA's update on accelerating Artemis moon plans today
• After Starshield interruption, Ukraine wants to build its own satellite communication network with ICEYE and Nokia
• Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' depicts the sky on July 22, 1889, researchers find
• The Air Force Research Laboratory Scholas Program

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

On October 24, 1946, a V-2 rocket captured the first-ever photo of Earth from space.

While these grainy, black-and-white images might not look like much today, they were a huge deal at the time, because no one had ever seen Earth from space before.

The V-2 rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It carried a 35-millimeter motion picture camera that captured a new frame every second and a half. The rocket soared to an altitude of about 65 miles before falling back to Earth.

Both the rocket and the camera were destroyed after crashing into the Earth at a speed of about 340 miles per hour. But the film survived because it was protected inside a steel case. Scientists had to drive out into the New Mexico desert to retrieve the film. When they saw the images for the first time, the scientists were literally jumping up and down with joy.

How it mattered

The ability to photograph Earth from space drove both an expanded interest to continue pushing into space and led to unexpected societal changes with regards to how humanity considered its home planet.

For military and intelligence agencies, the potential now existed for reconnaissance at a far larger scale than what was possible with high-altitude aircraft. That capability expanded to agriculture and meteorological purposes, eventually making Earth observation one of the most common reasons satellites and space stations are deployed into orbit today.

Earth photography from space also gave birth to the environmental movement, as people began to see the planet differently. The fragility of this orb became more apparent, as now Earth appeared a "blue marble" set against an endless black void.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

It didn’t take long for fans to figure out that the fourth season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" was going to be unlike any season of "Star Trek" before it. The entire season was one giant gimmick, and that gimmick was shoving "Trek" into as many genres as possible and often directly adapting classic films from those genres.

You could argue that an entire season of gimmick episodes is a bold risk: putting the characters in fun, wacky situations to see how they react. It could be interesting, but the season we got never made the most of the concept. It was all so safe and paint-by-numbers, and, most importantly, it didn't have anything profound or interesting to say.

That should trouble any Trekkie. "Star Trek" — a show built on progressive ideals, thoughtful characters, and boundary-breaking television — was completely and totally afraid to say anything at all.

Mash it up, Scotty

To be clear, "Star Trek" is no stranger to genre mashups, and they're not inherently a bad thing. Trek has been running for nearly 1,000 total episodes, and they've been doing mashups since the very first season of "Star Trek: The Original Series", which featured gangster, historical fiction, and war-themed episodes.

The holodeck took things further, giving the writers an excuse to set the action anywhere they could dream up. No more alien planets that look suspiciously like Earth were necessary to completely flip the series’ genre; just work up a hologram malfunction and suddenly "Trek" is a Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery or a noir thriller. And even without the holodeck, genres are fluid things that often take from each other to tell stories within each other’s realms.

But while "Trek" has always dabbled, it's never done an entire season of genre episodes… in fact, that might be unprecedented in all of science fiction TV itself, let alone "Star Trek". This season of "SNW" didn’t use occasional gimmicks to take a break from space fare; it was all gimmick, all the time.

Check out the episode rundown below:

• Episode 1: Dinosaur adventure/western (Land of the Lost)
• Episode 2: Space horror (Event Horizon)
• Episode 3: Raunchy comedy (The Hangover)
• Episode 4: Wartime drama (Casablanca)*
• Episode 5: Puppets (The Muppets)
• Episode 6: Disaster movie/real-time story (The Poseidon Adventure)
• Episode 7: Soap opera (Days of Our Lives)
• Episode 8: Cold War film/submarine movie (The Hunt for Red October)
• Episode 9: Fairytale fantasy (Anything with a dragon)
• Episode 10: Star Trek (Yes, this episode was basically SNW mashing up with TOS, and we're counting that).

* Some of you are screaming that Episode 4 was a noir. It was not. Not everything in black and white with fedoras is noir.

"Strange New Worlds" season 4 was genre-blending at scale. This wasn’t a hint of another genre influencing the episode; it was full-blown immersion into each and every one.

In the past, when other genres have come into "Trek", the series still felt tonally consistent; the characters never bent to the will of the genre, and its direction stayed the same. That was not true of this season. Characters, directorial style, and tone all bent to the will of the selected genre instead of fitting into the already established universe. There were multiple episodes this season that felt nothing like a "Star Trek" episode.

Also — and I may be in the minority here — there were only two episodes this season that I’d argue were executed well (Episode 6 and Episode 8), meaning that the relentless gimmicks paraded out each week felt not just detrimental to the show itself, but they weren’t much fun to watch either.

To go where everyone has gone before

The real question that crops up from this season is why they did it at all. If you listen to the show’s producers, it’s because they love "Trek" so much and they thought it would help move the characters along.

"I really do respect and hear the criticism that: 'When you have 10 episodes [per season], should they be more homogeneous?’”, co-showrunner and executive producer Akiva Goldsman told TV Line when addressing the criticisms for the season. “For us, the answer was no, because the original series always jumped around in genre … Part of what 'Star Trek' did well was use genre for storytelling, and that was what we wanted to explore in this series.”

He is, of course, absolutely correct; that is exactly what "Trek" has traditionally used genre episodes for. When "The Original Series" went to the Nazi planet, it was one of the first and earliest examples of directly confronting fascism and Nazism on American television. When the show played with Greek gods, it took the moment to have a groundbreaking interracial kiss. Even when it went broad comedy in “The Trouble with Tribbles,” it at least kept its characters consistent and its universe coherent.

For the most part, that practice continued throughout classic "Trek" and even into the modern era, with genre being used to aid storytelling, not overwhelm it.

Season 4 of "Strange New Worlds" does none of this. It isn’t using genre as elevation; it’s using it as a distraction: a shiny gloss over a collection of episodes too afraid to say anything that will get the series accused of being “woke” or progressive. Later in the interview, Goldman claims that they can’t please everyone, but that seems like exactly what they were trying to do this season-- resulting, of course, in pleasing no one.

This season is running scared from the current moment, and it’s doing so by hiding behind gimmicks. Any previous series of "Trek" (or any great science fiction) would be tackling subjects such as immigration, fascism, war, or any other societal issue that is overwhelming us right now, but "SNW" is doing none of that, instead presenting farcical genre fare

Fear exists for one purpose; to be conquered

It’s hard not to draw a direct line from this approach to the purchase of Paramount by Skydance last year and the company’s new leadership, who are more than cozy with President Donald Trump. There seems to be little other reason that a franchise and series that were being bashed for being “too woke” and overly progressive would veer so hard into gimmickry that barely hides the hollow shell this show has become.

Rewatching the first three seasons of "SNW" shows how hard a turn this series has taken since the re-election of Trump and the steady march of companies trying to kowtow to a government that wants to squash progressive ideology.

The show has gone from telling powerful stories for both its characters and society to a series of running gags that do little more than slap the Federation delta onto people’s chests so people think it's still "Star Trek".

It isn’t. This season of nothingness is exactly what you get when you ask "Trek" not to push boundaries, not to be hopeful, not to be bold, and not to progress forward. When a show founded on speaking out and saying something spends an entire season running away from doing just that, it’s not just a condemnation of the show itself; it’s a condemnation of the creative process behind it.

The real issue with this season isn’t the attempt to play in genre for ten episodes straight; it’s that the reason they did it was fear, not hope.

The spooky season is officially here! To celebrate, we've put together a list of five Halloween-themed skywatching targets that you can enjoy with nothing but the naked eye or binoculars and, of course, clear skies.

Over millennia, the night sky has helped shape human beliefs. In return, we have imprinted our myths, stories and perceptions upon it, seeing monsters and mythology in the twinkling lights of the stars and assigning sinister aspects to innocent cosmic objects.

Many of these ghostly impressions and meanings have survived to the present day. Here are a few of our favorites.

The Pleiades open star cluster

Don't be fooled by their beauty; the blue-white stars of the Pleiades are dripping in spooky lore. Ancient Celtic druids would hold the celebration of Samhain — the precursor to Halloween — when the star cluster reached its highest point in the autumn night sky at midnight.

The veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead was believed to be at its thinnest around this time, granting the departed a brief window to visit the living before the realms separated once again.

The Pleiades appears as a tight collection of six or seven bright twinkling stars to the naked eye, while a pair of binoculars will reveal dozens more of the 1,000-strong star cluster.

Stargazers in the U.S. can find the Pleiades using the three familiar stars of Orion's Belt, which glisten in the eastern sky in the hours preceding midnight. Trace an imaginary line upward through the trio of stars until you find the bright orange star Aldebaran, which represents an eye of the great bull represented in the constellation Taurus. The Pleiades can be found glowing less than 15 degrees above! (Reminder: Your clenched fist held at arm's length covers about 10 degrees of sky.)

The 'Demon Star' Algol

Next we turn our gaze to the "Demon Star" Algol — a beautiful binary system that represents an eye of the monstrous Gorgon Medusa, whose severed head is depicted in the constellation Perseus.

The demonic eye appears to "wink" at us every 2.867 days, as one of a pair of co-orbiting stars eclipses the other, making Algol appear 3.3 times dimmer than usual at the climax, or "minima," of each 10-hour eclipse. Algol won't be eclipsed on Halloween night in 2026, though you may notice its light dim during the surrounding minima on Oct. 29 and Nov. 1, according to Sky and Telescope.

Cetus, the sea monster

The night sky is often described as a sea of stars, so it's only fitting that a monster lurks within its depths. The constellation Cetus — also known as the sea monster, or the whale — can be found shining in the southeastern sky after sunset in late October, with the circlet of stars representing the monster's head glistening to the right of the Pleiades for viewers in the U.S.

In Greek mythology, Cetus was a mighty sea beast that terrorized the coast of Aethiopia under the command of the god Poseidon, according to the website for NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The sea beast was eventually killed by the hero Perseus, who in some tellings used the severed head of medusa to turn Cetus to stone!

Spiderwebs on the moon

Look to the lunar disk in the week surrounding the full moon on Oct. 26 and you may notice a bright network of spiderweb-like patterns surrounding the Tycho, Copernicus and Kepler craters.

Thankfully, these aren't the nests of some colossal moon-dwelling arachnids, but streaks of bright material cast across the lunar surface by the violent impacts that created the bright young craters. They're best viewed around the full moon phase, when the lunar disk shines opposite the sun in Earth's sky.

Halloween fireballs

Our last pick is going to take a great deal of patience, and a good amount of luck! Look out for bright, slow-moving meteors belonging to the Taurid meteor shower, which appear to streak away from a patch of sky close to the Pleiades in the constellation Taurus (hence the name).

The Taurids are comprised of two separate meteor showers — the Northern Taurids and Southern Taurids — which are active in late October as Earth passes through the debris trails left by the 3-mile-wide (4.8 kilometers) Comet 2P/Encke.

Taurids are known for producing bright "fireball" meteors, which are often called "Halloween fireballs" because they tend to coincide with the annual celebration. They're spectacular and can appear anytime after the constellation Taurus rises above the horizon, which is shortly after sunset in October for stargazers in the U.S.. But they're also very rare, so it's best to treat the fireballs as a bonus if you're lucky enough to spot one, rather than a target to plan your nights around, at least outside of the shower's peaks in early November.

Be sure to check out our beginners tips for skywatching if you're a newcomer to exploring the night sky, along with our picks of the best binoculars and telescope deals that'll have you exploring everything from the moon and stars to impressive deep sky objects in no time.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your Halloween astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

SpaceX launched its newest batch of Starlink broadband internet satellites today (Oct. 23) from the California coast.

The spacecraft, Starlink Group 15-15, were stacked 27 high inside the payload fairing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off from Pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 6:48 p.m. EDT (2248 GMT; 3:48 p.m. local time in California).

The rocket's first stage booster, designated B1063, executed its main engine cutoff and stage separation about 2.5 minutes into flight, sending the second stage to continue onward to low Earth orbit (LEO). The vehicle's two-piece protective payload fairing was jettisoned just before T+3 minutes.

The booster, meanwhile, reoriented for its descent back to Earth. As the mission clock passed 8 minutes, B1063 began its landing burn, and it touched down about 20 seconds later on SpaceX's droneship "Of Course I Still Love You." This was the 36th launch and landing for B1063, which notably launched NASA's DART asteroid-smashing mission in November 2021.

The Falcon 9's upper stage completed its first engine burn shortly after B1063 landed and will coast for about 45 minutes before initiating a second and final orbital insertion burn. Following that burn's execution, deployment of the vehicle's 27 satellites into LEO is scheduled to begin 62 minutes after launch.

Today's Starlink liftoff adds to SpaceX's growing constellation of more than 11,000 active spacecraft. But Starlinks aren't launching quite as often as they used to, as SpaceX shifts its focus from the Falcon 9 to its bigger and more powerful Starship rocket.

Starship is designed for full reusability and is equipped with a payload bay outfitted to accommodate SpaceX's upgraded Version 3 Starlink satellites, which are too large for the workhorse Falcon 9. Starship is still under development, but once the rocket begins operational flights (and that day is getting closer), SpaceX plans to phase out the Falcon 9 and its Falcon Heavy variant almost entirely.

Falcon 9's 100th launch of 2026 was the Starlink 10-49 group from SpaceX's pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which was later revealed to be the final Falcon 9 Starlink mission that would fly from Florida's Space Coast. The same might soon be true for Starlink launches from the West Coast as well.

The reduction in missions lifting off from Florida has slowed Falcon 9's Starlink launch cadence considerably. At their peak, these missions were flying every two to three days. But the most recent one before today lifted off 11 days ago, and that launch itself was the first Starlink mission in more than three weeks.

Today's launch was the 116th Falcon 9 flight so far in 2026, with about three-quarters of those being dedicated to Starlink. The reduced cadence will likely solidify 2025 as the Falcon 9's busiest year ever, with 165 launches completed. At its current rate, the Falcon 9 is expected to fly just under 150 missions by the end of this year.

NASA just gave us our best look yet at its Artemis III moon-lander test flight.

The agency laid out a detailed concept of operations for Artemis III today (Oct. 23) during a press conference at Kennedy Space Center, stressing how important the flight is to its moon plans and how challenging it will be to make everything go right.

"We're launching three of the most powerful rockets in the world, and undertaking what is likely the most complicated launch campaign ever undertaken," Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager, said during today's event, which lasted more than two hours.

Those three rockets are NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn, all of which will fly from Florida's Space Coast.

If all goes according to plan, New Glenn will lift off first, carrying Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar lander to low Earth orbit (LEO). SLS will go next, launching the Artemis III astronauts — NASA's Randy Bresnik, Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio, and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano — aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft.

SLS will deploy Orion into a highly elliptical orbit, one that gets as close to Earth as 18 miles (29 kilometers) and as far away as 1,122 miles (1,806 km), according to Parsons. The capsule will then maneuver itself into an orbit with an altitude of about 345 miles (555 km).

"That's really about getting thermal stability," Parsons said. "Orion was built as a deep-space vehicle, and so we're going to have to really manage the thermal environments, which are higher in a low Earth orbit."

The Artemis III crew will spend two days checking out Orion and its systems in LEO before meeting up with Blue Moon, which will take place on Flight Day 3 at an altitude of 273 miles (439 km).

"Over the next two days, the crew will conduct operations docked with Blue Moon," Parsons said. "They're going to open up the hatch. They're going to enter the lander. They're going to evaluate the environmental controls, the life support systems. We'll confirm that the spacecraft can maintain the right atmospheric pressure, and we're also going to test emergency scenarios, dual vehicle control, and we're going to put our Mission Control teams through their paces."

After those operations are complete — likely on Flight Day 6 or thereabouts — Starship will launch, with a specially built docking adapter on its nose.

The SpaceX vehicle — the 171-foot-tall (52 meters) upper stage of its fully reusable Starship megarocket — will meet up with Orion in LEO on Flight Day 8, at an altitude of about 237 miles (381 km). But this will be a very different encounter than the rendezvous with Blue Moon.

"The demonstration with Starship is shorter, about two hours," Parsons said. "The crew will not enter the Starship during the mission, but it gives us critical data and allows us to really understand the forces of docking, how we're going to push, how we're going to work together."

Artemis III will continue for another six to nine days after Orion undocks from Starship before finally heading back down to Earth for a parachute-aided ocean splashdown. (The nominal mission length is 14 days, Parsons said, but it could last as long as 17 days.)

During that time, the crew will evaluate their survival suits — something that didn't get done during the 10-day Artemis II flight around the moon this past April — and do a variety of other work as well, from detailed health assessments to scientific experiments and technology demonstrations. The main goal is to keep everything on track for Artemis IV, which will land astronauts near the moon's south pole in 2028, if all goes to plan.

"Everything we do on Artemis III is designed to reduce risk for our future lunar landing missions," Parsons said. "We're teaching these teams how to work together, how to make critical real-time mission decisions, all in an environment that is low Earth orbit, where if something goes wrong, we can come home much more quickly."

It's unclear at the moment which of these two privately developed landers — Blue Moon or Starship — will fly on Artemis IV, pulling off the first crewed lunar touchdown since Apollo 17 in 1972.

NASA is still preserving optionality, "to give both of our lunar landing partners the greatest opportunity for readiness in advance of astronauts landing on the moon in 2028," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said during today's event.

"We have no intention of surrendering a viable path to the surface before the data and schedule compels us to do so," he added.

No matter what decision NASA makes for Artemis IV, both Blue Moon and Starship should hit the gray dirt relatively soon, according to Parsons. "Regardless of who goes first, both providers are planning for lunar landing missions in 2028," he said.

And those missions will be quite different from each other. For example, on Blue Origin touchdowns, Orion will meet up with Blue Moon in lunar orbit. On SpaceX landings, however, Starship will likely dock with the NASA capsule in Earth orbit and propel it to the moon, Parsons said — the "push" he referred to above.

It remains unclear when exactly Artemis III will launch. NASA is targeting the summer of next year but may find it tough to meet that timeline: Last month, in an internal memo, Isaacman told agency employees that Artemis III was about 90 days behind schedule.

Some of the biggest challenges have involved the supply chain for the mission's lunar landers, Parsons said during today's event. But he and Isaacman both stressed that NASA is confident in its ability to work through such issues.

"We're moving with real speed and purpose right now," Isaacman said.

On October 23, 2007, the space shuttle Discovery launched the Harmony module to the International Space Station.

The Harmony module is a utility hub 14 feet wide and 24 feet long, or about the length of a minibus. It joins the European Space Agency's Columbus module and Japan's Kibo laboratory and serves as the crew quarters for the American astronauts.

Once it was installed, the space station grew from about the size of a three-bedroom house to something more like a five-bedroom house. When astronauts delivered Harmony to the space station, they left it temporarily attached to the Unity node.

After the shuttle left, astronauts used the space station's robotic arm to move the shuttle docking port out of the way at the Destiny module. This made room for Harmony to then dock at its permanent home next to the Destiny module.

Why it mattered

In 2007, the International Space Station was much smaller than it is today in terms of living space for its astronaut crew. The Harmony connecting module changed all that.

The STS-120 mission opened a new phase of ISS expansion by adding a vital connecting hub for future modules. Prior to Harmony's launch, the last new room addition to the ISS had occurred in 2001, when Russia's Pirs docking module (since discarded) arrived.

The Harmony module (its original name was Node 2), was the second NASA-led hub module (after the Unity, or Node 1, module) for the ISS. It was built for NASA by the Italy-based Thales Alenia Space and is covered with five "common berthing mechanisms," or connecting points for different ISS modules.

After the two-week STS-120 flight, Harmony was moved from a temporary berth at the Unity module to the forward port on the NASA's main Destiny laboratory. Once there, it served as a connection point for Europe's Columbus lab on the starboard side, and Japan's massive Kibo lab on the port side. Some of its ports have been used by visiting caargo ships and a docking port on its roof allows visiting vehicles to park there.

Inside the module are eight payload racks that include four used for avionics and four others for either stowage or crew quarters. NASA's astronaut crew quarters are based in the Harmony module. The name Harmony was selected durng a public naming contest by NASA.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

Astrophotographer Tim McCollum captured a spectacular view of Orionid meteors sharing the night sky with a host of deep sky wonders on Oct. 21, as the annual shooting star display ramped up to peak activity.

Comet 1P/Halley may be over 3 billion miles (4.8 kilometers) from Earth, but that didn't stop it from putting on a breathtaking display earlier this week, as particles cast off by the ancient wanderer carved a fiery path through the autumn sky.

McCollum was able to capture a trio of vivid Orionid meteors as they streaked through the night sky above the city of Toccoa, Georgia, between 3-4 a.m. on Oct. 21. Each of the shooting stars can be seen racing away from the shower's apparent point of origin — or radiant — which is located close to the red giant star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.

Successfully imaging a shooting star takes a combination of skill, luck and patience. McCollum photographed the meteors over the course of multiple 30-second exposures taken with a Canon EOS Ra camera and RF 28-70 f2.0 lens, which was fixed unerringly on the radiant with the aid of a star tracker. The individual exposures were then combined into a single composite image using the astrophoto software PixInsight.

The familiar stars of Orion's Belt glisten to the right of McCollum's image, close to the glow of the Orion Nebula — one of the nearest major star forming regions to Earth. The Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49) can also be spotted embedded in the dense starfield and dust lanes of the Milky Way's galactic plane, which runs diagonally through the composite image, as can numerous star clusters.

The Orionid meteor shower is active until Nov. 7, so be sure to head outside over the next few nights for a chance to spot one of Comet 1P/Halley's dazzling shooting stars. If you're lucky, you may even spot a Halloween Fireball belonging to the Taurid meteor shower, as Earth passes through the debris streams cast off by Comet 2P/Encke!

Why not read our handy guide to photographing shooting stars? You can also take a look at our picks of the best lenses and cameras for astrophotography available in 2026, including the Canon EOS R8, which delivers the essential interval shooting functionality you need to capture meteors without bursting the bank.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Halo: Campaign Evolved was Xbox’s second attempt at refreshing the 2001 sci-fi FPS classic, and it is perfectly fine. A cromulent remake, if ever there was one, but it’s hardly a franchise-saver, especially as Xbox looks to rethink its studio structure and approach to renowned IPs like Halo or Gears of War.

Halo hasn’t been the same since original developer Bungie — now owned by Sony and working on Destiny and Marathon — departed, leaving 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) to guide the franchise.

Neither Halo 4 nor 5 meaningfully evolved the gameplay formula or overarching narrative. Halo Infinite found more success by reheating what “old Halo felt like” and sticking it into a half-baked open world, but it still felt far from the series’ glory days.

This year’s full remake of Combat Evolved's campaign delivered exactly what it promised: a shiny, 2026 version of the game that made audiences fall in love with the franchise. It was a clear attempt to reignite faith in 343’s vision, but how is a faithful, shinier remake proof of anything?

It might not even matter anymore, as the new Xbox leadership has rocked the ship again, leaving Master Chief and the universe’s future cloudier than ever before. Now, with rumors of a reboot being considered at new steward Activision, is there hope for the Spartans, or will Xbox run into another dead end?

Rebooted or not, Halo needs to leave Master Chief behind

It looks like the ‘Halo Studios’ moniker only lasted a single (remade) game, as Xbox has recently announced that Call of Duty maker and publisher Activision — which houses many FPS-oriented studios — is taking over development, essentially leaving the 343 veterans as a minor support studio, which translates into more layoffs.

If we put aside the human and institutional cost of this whole back-and-forth over the years (a big ask in today’s climate), there are reasons to be optimistic about the quality of an Activision-developed Halo. Regardless of what you think about the Call of Duty IP in 2026 and the publisher’s overall vision for it, it’s clear there’s plenty of talent holding everything together and, more importantly, enough experience to iterate on what Halo’s multiplayer side needs to shine bright again.

But this won’t fix the larger issue with Halo, which is that Master Chief should’ve been left behind long ago. Like it or not, it’s difficult to deny Halo’s “golden era” ended with Halo: Reach (Bungie’s swansong under Xbox) and the Halo Wars spinoffs, which took the series into the real-time strategy genre. These games were wildly different, but they had one core thing in common: they made the sci-fi setting feel bigger instead of smaller, offering the perfect blueprint to build upon in a post-Halo 3 world.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the Master Chief. Franchises can be built around iconic characters like Mario or Lara Croft. But in the post-Bungie era, his role changed from an extremely competent Spartan soldier to a space messiah. Halo 4, 5, and Infinite used sci-fi nonsense to transform him into this larger-than-life figure, rendering the rest of the UNSC largely powerless in the process.

It’s the same mistake ID Software made with Doomguy, centering the story on how super special he is, and not on the world he inhabits. Now rumours are rumbling that Activision’s reboot might focus on Chief’s origins; that's the last thing Halo needs.

Are Halo 2 and 3 remakes happening?

Forgetting Activision’s next Halo for a second, we were teased with (even if there wasn’t an official confirmation from Xbox) at least a Halo 2 remake via Halo: Campaign Evolved’s alternative ending.

Back in May 2026, renowned insider Rebs Gaming confidently reported that Halo 2 and 3 remakes were in development. But can fans realistically expect them after new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s latest shakeup?

Halo Studios could have done a "fine" job with safe remakes of the two original Halo sequels while Activision handles new projects. It’s hard to reject that approach, especially after Xbox finding success with Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and confirming two Fallout remasters are in the works. It seems like money waiting to be made, but the remakes could be cooked too.

Xbox and 343/Halo Studios have made plenty of mistakes with Halo, but the killer has always been their lack of conviction in their ideas. And look, nostalgia shouldn’t be the driving force behind a franchise in dire need of reinvention, but I’m far more annoyed by the creative rollbacks, flip-flopping, and now the loss of knowledge and talent accompanying the gutting of Halo Studios.

Xbox Live Action

We haven’t even touched on the mess that was the live-action Halo show. It lasted only two seasons, had John-117 walking around outside the Mjolnir armor for most of its runtime, and was cancelled just as the story finally got to the titular Halo. Why would you stray so far from the source material, and how do you miss the mark so badly?

In many ways, it perfectly encapsulated what’s been wrong with Halo as a whole for so many years. The powers that be can’t decide what they really want from it, and thus it’s stuck, unable to leave the past behind or convincingly establish a new horizon for itself. Other franchises have run into the same issues — looking at you, Star Wars — but Halo has been stuck in this purgatory for 15+ years, as Xbox leaders and strategy shifts come and go.

Could Xbox’s newly-formed XP division deliver the focused big-screen adaptation the series has always deserved? I’m sure that’s the plan, but even a cursory glance back at Xbox’s handling of the franchise for the past decade or so says no.

Halo’s deep problems won’t be fixed overnight, and throwing a bunch of hard-working developers to the curb certainly won’t help. Halo’s current struggles didn’t come from Halo Studios or 343 Industries; they came from impatient and incompetent leadership calling the property-defining shots. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that’s changed.

The robotic Griffin lunar lander has passed a host of critical tests ahead of its first-ever moon mission, which is scheduled to launch later this year.

What is it?

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, Voyager Technologies' Griffin Mission One (or Griffin-1) lunar lander has gone through an absolute gauntlet of tests. The spacecraft was put through environmental testing that explored how the vehicle will fare in the extreme conditions it will experience on its ride to the surface of the moon.

This testing simulated the extreme temperatures, shaking and even the sounds that the spacecraft will experience from launch to landing. And, as JPL announced recently, the lander passed this series of tests with flying colors, as we can see in this image snapped Aug. 31 of the lander inside the 25-foot-wide (7.6 meters) space simulator at JPL.

"NASA JPL’s Environmental Test Laboratory has been putting robotic explorers to the test since the Ranger program gave us NASA’s first up-close views of the moon's surface in the mid-1960s. We’re proud to provide our expertise and facilities to support this new phase of commercial lunar exploration," Charles Whetsel, manager for the Exploration Systems Development Office at JPL, said in a statement.

Why is it incredible?

Griffin-1 is expected to launch to the moon later this year as part of NASA's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. The spacecraft will carry over 1,100 pounds (455 kilograms) of cargo to its landing site near the lunar south pole.

In this cargo will be science experiments and new technologies that will be tested on the moon's surface, including Astrolab's FLIP rover, which will explore the lunar surface with a history-making supercomputer onboard.

This suite of experimental hardware won't just expand our understanding of the moon up close. Griffin-1's exploration will also help set the stage for a future, crewed moon base, which NASA aims to build near the south pole over the next half-decade or so.

Black holes more massive than entire galaxies are not a major component of the mysterious dark matter that's thought to make up most of the matter in the cosmos, a new study finds.

For decades, to explain why galaxies do not spin apart at the speeds at which they whirl, scientists have suggested the existence of an unseen substance known as dark matter, whose gravitational pull helps keep galaxies together. Dark matter is thought to make up about five-sixths of all matter in the universe.

Much remains unknown about dark matter, however — including whether or not it actually exists. Black holes make good potential contenders for dark matter, since they are extremely massive and are difficult to spot in the dark depths of space.

In the new study, researchers investigated whether dark matter could be made of "stupendously large black holes," ones with masses greater than 100 billion times the mass of the sun. Stupendously large black holes greater than 1 million billion to 10 million billion suns in mass would be heavier than entire galaxies.

So far, astronomers have not detected any stupendously large black holes — currently, the largest black hole known may weigh about 36 billion suns. Since researchers have not seen any even after looking at many galaxies, the new study noted they cannot make up all of dark matter — but team members wondered if the exotic objects still might constitute a significant portion of the puzzling substance.

Often, dark matter is thought of "as a fine dust spread everywhere," study co-author Christopher Gerlach, a theoretical physicist at the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics in Germany, told Space.com. However, if dark matter is packed into a handful of gigantic objects such as stupendously large black holes, "the universe becomes grainy on very large scales. And we can check that."

Specifically, the scientists analyzed the light from the dawn of the universe, study co-author Yann Gouttenoire, a theoretical physicist at the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, told Space.com.

For the first 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the cosmos was filled with a hot plasma in which light was trapped. Eventually, the expansion of the universe let the cosmos cool enough for the plasma to largely dissipate and form atoms. This in turn let light shine freely, "and that light is still arriving today," Gerlach explained. "We call it the cosmic microwave background, a snapshot of the infant universe covering the whole sky."

The temperature of the cosmic microwave background "varies from place to place by about one part in 100,000," study co-author Antonio Iovino, a theoretical physicist at New York University, Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, told Space.com. "That pattern tells us how matter was spread back then."

Analyzing the cosmic microwave background revealed it is not grainy the way stupendously black holes would have made it. "So these black holes can't be a significant part of the dark matter," Nicholas Leister, a theoretical physicist at the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, told Space.com.

The researchers cautioned that the new findings do not suggest that stupendously large black holes cannot exist, only that they do not make up a major fraction of dark matter. They added that another candidate for dark matter — relatively tiny black holes the size of asteroids — might potentially exist. They are now investigating whether they can rule out such itty-bitty black holes as a major constituent of dark matter.

The scientists detail their findings in a study that will be published Oct. 26 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Rocket Lab launched a trio of private signals-intelligence satellites to orbit today (Oct. 23).

The mission lifted off aboard an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand launch site today at 3:11 a.m. EDT (0711 GMT; 8:11 p.m. local time in New Zealand).

The Electron carried three "Hawk" satellites for the Virginia-based company HawkEye 360, which explains the name Rocket Lab gave to the mission: "We're Not Hawking Around."

If all goes according to plan, the three Hawks will be deployed into low Earth orbit (LEO), at an altitude of 323 miles (520 kilometers). Once up there and commissioned, the satellites will scan the globe for radio frequency (RF) emissions.

"Operating in clusters of three, HawkEye 360's satellites collect signal data from across the RF spectrum for maritime tracking, GNSS jamming detection, radar monitoring, communications mapping and space defense," Rocket Lab wrote in a mission description.

HawkEye 360 provides this data to the U.S. government and its allies "to enable faster, better decision-making," according to the company. "Our space-based collection, proprietary signal processing and AI-powered analytics transform knowledge of the RF spectrum into a strategic advantage."

HawkEye 360's first satellites launched in 2018, and the company has now sent nearly 50 of them to LEO. The most recent Hawk launch before "We're Not Hawking Around" came just two days ago; three of the satellites went up on SpaceX's Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission.

"We're Not Hawking Around "was Rocket Lab's 98th launch to date and its 19th of 2026 so far. Sixteen of this year's flights have been performed by the two-stage, 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron. The other three have been conducted by HASTE, a suborbital variant of Electron that allows customers to test technologies in a hypersonic flight environment.

David Zamora is the chairman of the Space Data Association. He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The commercialization of space is well underway, and as a result, Earth’s orbit is becoming ever more congested. The current number of active satellites in orbit stands at around 16,000, according to the European Space Agency( ESA), and this number is expected to jump close to 60,000 by 2035, Novaspace projects. While it’s not always given the recognition it deserves, space has fast become a critical infrastructure layer, underpinning nearly all systems that enable modern life as we know it. Therefore, it’s critical that a safe and clean operating landscape is maintained.

Yet this is becoming increasingly challenging, particularly given that, alongside the rapid increase in space traffic, there are also more than 1.2 million pieces of debris over 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) cm in Earth’s orbit, each of which could damage satellites and spacecraft and potentially cause disastrous consequences. With the number of active satellites and debris objects in space continuing to increase, the space environment is under growing pressure.

Balancing expansion with sustainability

Space was once the sole domain of nation states, but this is no longer the case. As technology has advanced, launch costs have decreased, and satellites have become more efficient, smaller and cheaper to build. These changes have democratized space, resulting in a massive increase in space traffic, not least constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) that comprise thousands of satellites.

Plans are underway to further expand these constellations, and new and even bigger constellations are also expected to launch in the coming years. Added to that, we’re also likely to see the first space-based data centers within the next few years, which may well mark the start of the wholesale shift of data centers from Earth to space, which will further add to the congestion already being felt.

To ensure that space continues to meet our current and future needs, this continued expansion must happen in a sustainable way. Maintaining a safe and clean landscape is more important than ever before, and mitigating the impact of space debris is critical to that effort.

Maintaining a safe environment

Mitigating the impact of debris involves a multipronged approach. Whether intentional or unintentional, the creation of new space debris by future space missions must be minimized as much as possible. This applies during launch, operation, and end of life phases, and satellites and other spacecraft need to be designed with this in mind. Additionally, satellites that are no longer active should not remain in orbit for extended periods, because this only increases the chance of collision events which would create new debris. The standard rule has been 25 years, but there are recommendations now that this should be lowered to five years.

Also critical is the prevention of in-orbit collisions between active satellites and other objects. This is only achievable through effective Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Coordination (STC) systems. SSA maps out and characterizes objects in space (both satellites and debris), determining their location, trajectory and velocity, while STC actively manages the space traffic identified through SSA to prevent collisions. When a conjunction is probable, SSA/STC service providers alert the operators involved, who then decide whether to undertake a collision-avoidance maneuver.

Extending the operational life of satellites is another important aspect of debris mitigation because it reduces the need for so many new launches, thereby reducing the likelihood of more debris being created. Innovations such as electric propulsion systems that allow for greater maneuverability and extended mission durations are part of the solution, as is in-orbit servicing, maintenance and refuelling.

While these strategies focus on preventing new debris from being created, we also need effective methods for removing existing pieces of debris. This is a rapidly growing sector attracting much investment. Debris-removal technology being developed ranges from physical capture and tethered deorbit to destruction with ground and space-based laser ablation and plasma systems, as well as the emerging concept of mining debris to extract metals and gases for in-orbit processing to feed into the circular space economy.

How stakeholders are responding

The UN views space safety and space sustainability as urgent priorities. Its treaties and agreements focus on preserving the peaceful, safe, and sustainable use of outer space, preventing collisions, managing space debris, and ensuring responsible operations. Governments, space agencies and international organizations are also strengthening their focus on space sustainability.

ESA has launched its Zero Debris strategy, which is aimed at achieving a debris-neutral orbital environment by 2030. As part of this approach, ESA has updated its debris mitigation requirements and standards that will govern how its missions are designed, built, flown and disposed of. It also sets requirements for any company or institution that works with ESA on its missions.

In the U.K., the UK Space Agency is also taking a proactive role in space safety and sustainability through its Active Debris Removal (ADR) program and through the development of space sustainability standards in partnership with industry. It is also in the process of developing a space sustainability strategy to ensure a coordinated approach to sustainable practices in space.

On the other side of the pond, NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy identifies five key challenges that are felt nationally but also within the wider space community. These include the absence of a single framework for space sustainability that has been accepted by the space community and the fact that space sustainability may be in tension with other mission interests. The strategy defines six goals that are intended to address each of the challenges alongside corresponding objectives to guide NASA’s achievements of the goals.

The U.S. is also building on the National Orbital Debris Mitigation Plan, which was released in 2022, with the Orbital Sustainability (ORBITS) Act. The Act, which has been introduced to the Senate but not yet been enacted into law, seeks to establish a program for the active remediation of orbital debris as well as requiring the development of uniform orbital debris standard practices. The Office of Space Commerce has also developed TraCSS (Traffic Coordination System for Space) to provide basic SSA data and services to civil and private space operators in support of spaceflight safety, although the system is currently in beta mode.

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) is also working on a standard for STC (Space Traffic Coordination) so that SSA activities can be standardized. Titled Space Systems — Space Traffic Coordination (STC), the standard is moving toward final publication, and its core focus is on establishing baseline protocols, data exchange formats and operational requirements for space safety, on-orbit conjunction assessment and collision avoidance.

Beyond today

While these strategies are certainly moving the industry in the right direction, there is a real need to act quickly. Success will rely not only on speed, but also on sustained and collaborative effort, as well as engagement from all space users. The decisions made and actions undertaken over the next decade will shape the space environment for generations to come.

As to whether sustainability becomes a core principle rather than an afterthought, that remains to be seen. There is, however, reason to be optimistic.

Europe has dropped the ball on the prototype for its first reusable spacecraft. Or, rather, the prototype itself was dropped — on purpose — but the outcome of its fall was not what engineers had hoped for.

The incident occurred during an Oct. 6 drop test of the full-scale Space Rider model, from the European Space Agency (ESA). The robotic vehicle's initial drogue parachute deployed successfully, but its main parafoil detached during deployment, leaving the prototype unable to slow its descent before crashing into the ground, according to ESA officials. The cause of the failure remains under investigation.

"Following several successful tests using representative vehicle masses, the latest system-level drop test in October was not completed as planned due to an anomaly during the parafoil deployment sequence," an ESA spokesperson confirmed in an email to Space.com. "An independent investigation is ongoing to determine its root cause and inform the next steps."

Space Rider is being developed as Europe's first reusable orbital spacecraft — an uncrewed vehicle designed to carry scientific experiments to orbit for up to two months, then return them to Earth for analysis. Its method of return, though, differs from that of any other spacecraft in operation today. Space Rider''s wingless, lifting-body design relies on a steerable parachute, or parafoil, to maneuver toward its landing area. This allows it to perform runway-style touchdowns, as opposed to other, less accurate parachute-aided recoveries in current practice.

This month's drop test was intended to demonstrate that ability, which is a critical requirement for Space Rider's planned reuse after missions in orbit, but the impact of its failure may not end up disrupting its ultimate development timeline. According to Géraldine Naja, ESA's director of space transportation, the vehicle's other remaining qualification tests aren't holding back its path to launch.

"We hope that this test will not damage, or let's say lead us to modify, the remaining schedule and qualification activities," Naja said during an ESA Council media briefing on Oct. 22. "In any case, the remaining qualification activities are not on the critical path of the development of the Space Rider."

Naja described the incident as an unfortunate but important event. "We have had many successful tests before, but testing and validation is part of the development of a space system," she said.

The lost vehicle was a full-scale test model assembled to evaluate Space Rider's descent and landing systems. The minivan-sized mockup reproduced the size and flight characteristics of its reentry module, with avionics to control its autonomous guidance and navigation systems, but the vehicle was far from a space-ready article.

The Oct. 6 test took place at a military range on the Italian island of Sardinia, where the mockup was released from a helicopter at an altitude of approximately 2 miles (3 kilometers). According to Naja, the vehicle's initial drogue parachute triggered as expected and began slowing the Space Rider mock-up's descent before its larger, steerable parafoil was supposed to unfurl. The parafoil, however, detached during deployment, leaving the vehicle in freefall before impacting the ground. ESA has subsequently recovered all the craft's components.

This month's event was the first drop test since an unsuccessful attempt in May, when a sensor flagged an issue during preparations, prompting engineers to abort the test before the model was released. Following that, Space Rider's testing range, operated by Italy's Ministry of Defense, was unavailable from June through September.

Space Rider's descent and landing qualification campaign began in 2025, with previous successes demonstrating its parafoil deployment and autonomous capabilities. Beyond its landing systems, Space Rider also underwent separate thermal protection testing earlier this year, exposing its heat-shield materials to temperatures around 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit (1,600 degrees Celsius) in plasma wind tunnel trials.

ESA has targeted Space Rider's first orbital mission for later this decade.

On Oct. 22, 1992, the space shuttle Columbia launched into space with the ashes of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek," aboard.

During mission STS-52, NASA astronaut and shuttle commander James Wetherbee brought a small container with a portion of Roddenberry's ashes into space as part of his personal effects at the request of Roddenberry's widow, Majel Barrett. It was Roddenberry's lifelong dream to go to space, but he never got to go while he was alive.

But thanks to his wife, a little bit of Roddenberry finally made it to space almost exactly one year after his death. NASA and his family didn't tell anyone about it until almost two years later in 1994.

Wetherbee said he was "honored to be asked" by Barrett to carry Roddenberry's ashses on the spaceflight. "I'm just glad I was able to bring a little happiness to the family," he said, according to Newsweek.

Here's why it mattered

The launch of Roddenberry's ashes into space on NASA's STS-52 mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia marked the world's first "space burial," but it wouldn't be the last.

About five years after Roddenberry's memorial flight, in 1997, the space memorial company Celestis began launching a series of "burial" flights by flying capsules with human cremains on rockets . In fact, more of Roddenberry's ashes flew on Celestis' "founders flight" in April 1997 aboard an air-launched Pegasus rocket that took off from the Canary Islands in Spain. The ashes of Roddenberry's wife and of Star Trek actor James Doohan have also flown in space, among others.

Celestis has gone on to launch human cremains on many suborbital and orbital flights, including some on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. The company even launched the ashes of the late astronomer Eugene Shoemaker to the moon in 1999 on the Luna 1 flight, with another set of cremains launched into deep space on the Enterprise mission in 2023.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

Ukraine wants its own satellite-communication system, which shouldn't be surprising given the events of the past week or so.

The Ukrainian military just signed a letter of intent with two Finnish companies — the telecom giant Nokia and satellite maker ICEYE — to look into developing a sovereign satellite-communications network for Ukraine.

"Ukraine needs secure, sovereign and high-performance satellite communications systems that it controls," ICEYE cofounder and CEO Rafal Modrzewski said in a statement today (Oct. 22). "We have a proven track record of delivering sovereign missions at speed to help build that capability. ICEYE has proudly supported Ukraine since 2022, and we remain committed to continuing that support today."

Ukraine relies heavily on satellite-based communications and data to defend itself from Russia, which invaded the nation in February 2022 and continues to attack it with ground troops, missiles and drone strikes.

But Ukraine does not own those satellites. It primarily uses the services provided by SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) and Starshield, a military-grade, jamming-resistant version of Starlink employed by the U.S. government and its allies.

Starshield in particular is crucial to Ukraine, as it allows the nation to operate fast-moving drones over large distances in war zones. Ukraine has gotten very good at drone warfare, employing these little robots both in offensive and defensive capacities.

On Oct. 14, however, Ukrainian soldiers and officials reported a severe throttling of their access to Starshield services — a speed limit on terminal-carrying drones, which caused many of them to fall out of the sky.

It's not entirely clear who's behind the throttling. Some U.S. officials have apparently said the order came from Elon Musk, but the billionaire SpaceX founder and CEO put the ultimate responsibility on the Trump administration.

"Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," Musk said on Oct. 14 via X, the social media platform he owns.

Whoever made the call, it certainly wasn't Ukraine. And the Starshield throttling — which apparently is still in effect — has doubtless reinforced the nation's desire to control its own satellite-communications infrastructure.

"Nations need communications they can rely on in every situation. Satellite networks extend and protect connectivity when networks on the ground are disrupted," Mikko Hautala, Nokia's chief geopolitical and government relations officer and chairman of Nokia Defense, said in the same statement.

"This makes them a key part of any secure communications system," he added. "Through this Letter of Intent, together with Ukraine and ICEYE, we will explore how trusted, sovereign satellite communications can strengthen Ukraine's resilience and give it control over the connectivity it depends on."

Nokia and ICEYE announced on Oct. 1 that they plan to work together to help nations develop such sovereign satcom systems. The partnership with Ukraine follows on from that earlier agreement.

ICEYE has already been aiding the Ukrainian defense effort. The Finnish company and its U.S. subsidiary jointly operate a fleet of Earth-observing satellites in LEO, which study our planet using synthetic aperture radar. Ukraine uses data from the ICEYE constellation for intelligence and planning purposes.

This relationship has put ICEYE — or one of its satellites, at least — in Russia's crosshairs. A Russian inspector satellite called Kosmos 2612 recently made an extremely close approach to ICEYE-X36, which is operated by ICEYE US.

The goal of the unsanctioned rendezvous is unclear. Russia may have wanted to assess the satellite's capabilities or interfere with it in some way. Or perhaps the nation simply wanted to send a message, letting ICEYE (and Ukraine) know that it could mess with satellites if it wanted to.

The total solar eclipse on Aug. 2, 2027, has an ancient feel. It will certainly be a celestial event for the ages — at 6 minutes 23 seconds, it will feature the longest totality on land of the 21st century and the longest anywhere until 2114. However, its point of greatest eclipse occurs just a few miles from Thebes, the magnificent religious and political capital of ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom.

On the east bank of the mighty Nile is Luxor, the great city of the living, with its massive temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor. On its west bank is the city of the dead, which includes the Valley of the Kings and the Temple of Hatshepsut. Modern Luxor, population 285,000, is set to become a focal point for eclipse chasers on Aug. 2, 2027, and will attract many thousands of international visitors. They'll come for the forecasted 0% chance of clouds and the era-defining duration of totality, but also to tour ancient Egypt's temples and monuments.

The chances of actually witnessing totality at any of the major temples are probably slim. Still, almost every eclipse chaser headed to Luxor will want to tour them before or after the eclipse. Visitors should be prepared for extreme August heat and check official opening and access arrangements before planning to watch the eclipse at any archaeological site. Certified eclipse glasses are essential during the partial phases; only during totality, when the sun is completely covered, is it safe to look without them.

Ancient monuments in the path of totality

Not all of ancient Egypt will experience totality. Egypt's top-ranking monument, the Pyramids at Giza, near Cairo, lies north of the path of totality and will get a 95% partial solar eclipse. Abu Simbel, on the shores of Lake Nasser south of Aswan, will also see a 92% partial solar eclipse. No matter, Luxor is home to some of the world's most impressive and well-preserved ancient monuments. Here are its temples, necropolises and palaces — and those nearby, also in the 160-mile (257-kilometer)-wide path of totality — that will have the moon's umbral shadow fall upon them on Aug. 2, 2027. All times, totality durations and historical cloud cover data come from Time and Date.

1. Karnak Temple

Dedicated to the god Amun-Ra — a fusion of the hidden god of the sun Amun and the ancient sun god Ra — this vast temple complex will be the hottest ticket in town for the eclipse. One of Egypt's most impressive and well-preserved ancient monuments, it's a place designed by ancient astronomers — the winter solstice sunrise still illuminates the innermost sanctuary. Access arrangements for eclipse day have yet to be confirmed, so keep an eye on official announcements before making plans to watch totality from the complex.

2. Luxor Temple

This is one of Egypt's best-preserved ancient temples and a must-see during the 2027 eclipse. It's on the banks of the Nile near the city center, so it's relatively easy to visit. Dedicated to the god Amun, it is known for its beautiful pillars and intricate carvings. A 75-foot (23 meters) tall obelisk on the east side of its entrance will point at the eclipsed sun almost directly overhead on Aug. 2, 2027. Its missing right-hand obelisk is in the Place de la Concorde, Paris.

3. Valley of the Kings

This incredible necropolis is home to the tombs of the pharaohs and is a testament to the advanced engineering and architectural skills of the ancient Egyptians. Of course, you don't want to be underground for totality, but some of the tombs are a must-see. Your tickets include entry to any three tombs of your choice from those open that day, with extra tickets available for the really impressive ones—the spectacular KV17 (Seti I), small but iconic KV62 (Tutankhamun), and KV9 (Ramesses V & VI). The latter's Corridor G has a ceiling decoration that may depict a deep partial solar eclipse from 1143 BC.

4. Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

If one temple is best suited to crowds for an eclipse, it's this vast, open-air gem dedicated to the legendary queen who became pharaoh. However, with almost no shade, it could be the least practical option. Three huge terraces rise above the desert floor and into the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari to the west. It's an absolute masterpiece.

5. Colossi of Memnon

This is where we get to temples that are fairly well known, but likely won't have as much pressure on them from eclipse chasers as the big three — Karnak, Luxor and Hatshepsut. However, anyone looking for ways to get temple architecture into images of an eclipse at zenith should look no further than these two large stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Behind them are the ruins of the largest temple in the Theban Necropolis.

6. Medinet Habu

Getting off the beaten track in August 2027 will be near-impossible, but here's an option — the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III. Featuring towering stone columns, colorful reliefs (despite being 3,200 years old) and famous carvings, it's bypassed by tour buses heading straight for Hatshepsut.

7. Ramesseum

Another temple that, without Karnak and Luxor nearby, would be rammed with visitors, is the Ramesseum — the mortuary temple of Ramesses II. Featuring the remains of a huge fallen statue that inspired Shelley's poem Ozymandias, it's in an area once used by the artisans who built the royal tombs, and slightly off the tourist route.

8. Temple of Khnum

If you want to avoid the scrum of eclipse chasers in Luxor on and around Aug. 2, the Temple of Khnum could be an option. Located in Esna, about 34 miles (55 kilometers) south of Luxor, the so-called 'Rainbow Temple' (for its colorful ceilings) is dedicated to the ram-headed creator god Khnum. Dating from the Greco-Roman era, there's a vast Hypostyle Hall that sits below modern street level, which could be good for some shade.

9. Temple of Dendera

If you want to escape Luxor but (almost) keep its long totality, head to Qena, 40 miles (65 km) north, where one of Egypt's best-preserved and most beautiful temples stands. Dendera was the cult center for Hathor, one of the most important and popular deities in ancient Egypt and known as the 'lady of the sky.' The temple's entrance has six massive columns, each decorated with Hathor's head, and its ceiling features astronomical engravings.

10. Temple of Horus

Another great option for those who prioritize ancient Egyptian surroundings over the longest possible totality is the Temple of Horus, one of the most striking and best-preserved temples in ancient Egypt. About 68 miles (110 km) south of Luxor, it's dedicated to the sun and sky god Horus, one of the main gods in ancient Egypt, whose right eye represents the sun and left eye the moon. The temple's stone roofs are intact, so its Hypostyle Halls, inner chambers and central sanctuary provide some shade.

Researchers think they might have pinpointed the exact night sky that we see depicted in Vincent van Gogh's iconic painting "The Starry Night."

Perhaps one of the most famous paintings in modern history, Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" carries a legacy that continues to inspire and mystify generation after generation. But while you might see in its swirls of color and bright spots of starlight a night sky derived purely from imagination, some scientists think it represents an actual view — one that includes a waning crescent moon, Venus and the Hyades cluster. And they may know exactly when this sky appeared..

In a new study, researchers suggest that "The Starry Night" depicts the pre-dawn sky seen around July 22, 1889 from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh painted it. But while this sky happens to perfectly match the one depicted in the artwork, art historians have long thought that Van Gogh painted this piece in June. Could these findings shift the date of this legendary artwork?

Finding a painted sky

This investigation started decades ago with art historian Albert Boime and astronomer George Abell at UCLA in 1984 and continued in the following years with astronomer Charles Whitney at Harvard University. However, these earlier analyses did not agree with one another, and there was no true consensus about exactly when the sky matched with the painting.

So the question remained, lingering in the minds of those with a shared love for both art and space. And a team led by Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim, the CEO of South Korean robotic telescope company SLLAB and a Ph.D. candidate at Kyung Hee University's School of Space Research, picked up the search once more.

"When they see a fragment of a starry sky, observational astronomers like me and amateur astronomers alike will want to solve the puzzle. I am simply someone who pursued that process a little more actively," Kim told Space.com.

But how did Kim's team come to their conclusion, after others had failed to nail down a date over the decades? In short, "we analyzed the painting astronomically, analyzed documents about his situation in July 1889, and then carried out ecological and meteorological investigations," Kim said.

To start with, the team analyzed the sky from the exact location in Saint-Rémy where Van Gogh is said to have painted "The Starry Night." They then used observational geometry to map the historical night sky.

"Modern telescopes are equipped with a function called astrometry, which compares an image of the night sky with celestial coordinates stored in a computer and automatically extracts the coordinates of the image," Kim said. "We used Procrustes analysis, a method that compares only the 'shape' of two sets of points. After matching their position, size and rotation, it measures how similar the two shapes are from the differences that remain (the residuals)."

"Because a star cluster on the canvas may be larger or smaller than in reality and slightly tilted, this method was the right fit. It allowed us to explain, in quantitative terms, what earlier studies had described only qualitatively as 'resembling a certain constellation,'" Kim added.

But this quantitative analysis wasn't enough to say for sure that this was the right-fitting sky, as different constellations could fit to a similar degree, Kim explained. To get closer to their answer, the team combined their analysis with a deep dive through history.

"We also checked whether the stars were actually in that part of the pre-dawn sky on that date, whether they fall within the painter’s field of view, and whether the appearance of the moon and Venus matches the painting. It was the Hyades that satisfied all of these conditions," Kim said.

Exploring astro-art history

As mentioned, the date of this matching sky comes in late July, a month after art historians think Van Gogh painted "The Starry Night." But the researchers suggest that their findings could provide evidence to support the idea that the work was actually painted in July.

Letters written by Van Gogh as early as 1888 describe his desire to paint a star-filled sky. A letter dated April 12, 1888 reads: "A starry sky, for example, well — it’s a thing that I’d like to try to do, just as in the daytime I’ll try to paint a green meadow studded with dandelions."

Kim followed these letters through the months to try and find more information that could potentially alleviate the discrepancy between the matching skies and the actual month the painting was created. Kim pointed to a letter from between late May and early June 1889 that reads: "This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big."

Kim drew on "personal imagination" to find ties between Van Gogh's sky observations in these months and what they might mean for the painting's timeline, Kim shared, so this doesn't definitively change the view of this painting's history. However, Kim suggested that these records could indicate that Van Gogh was repeatedly looking up and watching the pre-dawn sky, which could have led to him seeing this exact sky on July 22.

The painting itself even ignites uncertainty among art historians. As the researchers cite in their new paper, leading art historians see "The Starry Night" as stylistically different from Van Gogh's other works during the month of June, drawing further questions over the date painted.

"What our study shows is that the sky in the painting matches, in both observation and shape, the real pre-dawn sky around July 22. So, what we propose is the possibility that Vincent conceived the idea in June and completed the painting after July 22," Kim said.

However, "I think further research in art history and conservation science could shed more light on this question," Kim added.

This work was described in a study published Oct. 22 in the journal Scientific Reports.

TENERIFE, CANARY ISLANDS — NASA's Artemis II astronauts were just minutes away from a critical engine burn that would send them toward the moon when an unexpected cabin leak warning threatened to change the course of their historic mission.

"If it had happened five minutes later, we may not have been able to have that burn," Artemis II pilot Victor Glover revealed during an Oct. 18 discussion with Canadian former astronaut Chris Hadfield at the Starmus VIII festival here in Tenerife.

The incident unfolded on April 2, the second day of the Artemis II mission, as the astronauts' Orion spacecraft swooped back toward Earth after traveling some 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) away. Orion had been completing a highly elliptical orbit around Earth, giving the crew and mission control an opportunity to test the capsule's systems before committing to the journey to the moon. Orion was now approaching its closest point to our planet, roughly 100 miles (160 km) above the surface, ahead of the crucial translunar injection (TLI) burn that would send the astronauts moonward.

"Jeremy looks out the window and says, 'I think we're going to run smack dab into the middle of Earth,'" Glover recalled, referring to Artemis II mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. "Because we were getting so low."

The close approach brought additional challenges, as Orion passed through a region populated by orbital debris and satellites.

"The density of things is going up from where we are, and also an increase in radiation," Glover explained.

It was at this particularly demanding point in the mission that Orion issued a warning that indicated a possible cabin leak, around 15 minutes before the critical TLI burn.

"So, determining whether it was real or not was a big deal," Glover said.

The crew and mission control faced a crucial question: Was it safe to continue heading to the moon, or would they have to abandon the planned maneuver and cut the mission very short? "Are we going to do a TLI and burn to go to the moon, or are we putting on our spacesuits to prepare to come back to Earth right now?" Glover recalled.

The timing was particularly critical. The TLI burn was designed to propel Orion out of Earth orbit and onto its trajectory around the moon, marking the first time astronauts had headed toward Earth's nearest neighbor since the Apollo era.

Luckily, as NASA flight director Judd Frieling told us during an April 2 media briefing, the warning turned out to be a false alarm.

So Artemis II received the go-ahead. Orion fired its main engine for approximately five minutes and 50 seconds, successfully setting the four astronauts on their journey around the moon.

"We're watching the timer count down, velocities go up, and the magenta and green numbers coming together," Glover recalled.

"Everything is tracking. It's looking good."

Before long, the crew had broken free of Earth's gravitational hold and were hurtling toward the moon at around 24,500 mph (39,430 kph).

Despite the tense moments before the burn, Artemis II went on to make history. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (the mission's commander), Glover (pilot) and Christina Koch (mission specialist), along with Hansen, traveled farther from Earth than any humans before them, reaching a maximum distance of 252,756 miles (406,771 km) during their journey around the moon.

The four astronauts returned safely to Earth on April 10, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego after nearly 10 days in space.

From the dangerous Sydney funnel-web to the common huntsman, Australia is home to its fair share of spiders. It even has a crater shaped like one.

What is it?

One stretch of the vast Western Australia wilderness is imprinted with a curious crater, which likely formed after a meteor impact hundreds of millions of years ago. Geologists think the spider-like pattern in the crater's center was created when its floor rebounded following the initial impact, NASA has said.

In the hundreds of millions of years since the initial impact, erosion has continued to carve this formation into its current, signature shape. Complete with "legs," the planetary imprint has earned its name Spider Crater.

This image shows the impact structure in its entirety, which stretches 8 by 7 miles (13 by 11 kilometers) in full, with the central "spider" piece measuring 2.5 miles (4 km).

Why is it incredible?

In this image, we can see this "spider" from space. This snapshot shows the geologic feature as captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) aboard the Landsat 9 satellite, an Earth-observing craft that launched back in 2021.

The satellite, a collaborative effort between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, is the ninth in the Landsat Earth-observing series, which goes all the way back to the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972. On a near-weekly basis, Landsat 9 delivers observations of everything from deforestation to water quality and crop growth.

The series of Landsat satellites have been a critical piece in the modern understanding of how our planet continues to change. Whether it's the repercussions of climate change or fluctuations in agriculture, observations from orbit do more than provide interesting photos of our home world; they also capture critical data.

The writing was on the wall, but the news still hit us like a truck yesterday. BioWare, the iconic RPG studio behind the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, is no more. Development on the next Mass Effect has stopped, but EA might not be entirely done with the IP.

Variety reported, backed by EA’s own statement and BioWare’s goodbye on socials, that EA is laying off 3% of its global workforce and closing down BioWare. The shift comes shortly after the company went fully private this summer, with Saudi Arabia and private equity acquiring it alongside all its studios and properties.

A new Mass Effect game — meant to serve as a follow-up to the original trilogy — had been in development since the early 2020s, though progress was slow following severe downsizing after 2024’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed to meet EA’s expectations. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, only around 50 staff remained at the studio, which would’ve needed to go on a hiring spree to complete development of the massive sci-fi RPG.

The first post-shutdown shocker arrived a bit later, with IGN exclusively revealing that Mass Effect isn't entirely dead, as the upcoming live-action TV show based on Mass Effect is still moving forward at Prime Video.

The series started active development at Amazon in late 2024, but it has yet to reach production status. Little is known about the story, but rumors point to it aiming to bridge the gap between the original trilogy and the now-cancelled new game. Despite closing the studio that created it, EA still owns the Mass Effect property.

Variety’s report, which includes more comments from EA’s top brass about the present and future of the publisher, also contains updates on Marvel’s Iron Man (developed at Motive) and Star Wars Jedi 3 (Respawn Entertainment). Both are still coming, and the more surprising news comes in the shape of DICE and Respawn teaming up for a totally new project, believed to be Star Wars Battlefront 3 after days of strong rumors from a number of reputable sources.

Elsewhere, ex-BioWare developers have teamed up at new studios like Archetype and Arcanaut. The former is preparing to ship Mass Effect-inspired action RPG Exodus in 2027, and the latter recently started work on Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, with original Knights of the Old Republic (and Mass Effect) director Casey Hudson behind the wheel.

Here’s hoping both studios, as well as the recently laid-off developers, can find success in an increasingly hostile industry.

NASA will provide an update about its Artemis moon plans today (Oct. 23), and you can watch it live.

The news will come during a press conference at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which starts today at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT). You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA.

"The update will include details about NASA’s Artemis III mission that will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test critical systems needed for future lunar landings, and how plans to return American astronauts to the moon by 2028 are progressing," NASA officials said in an Oct. 14 media advisory.

Three agency officials will participate in Friday's "Artemis Acceleration" event. They are:

• NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
• NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
• Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager

NASA is currently gearing up for Artemis III, which is targeted for mid-2027. The mission will test rendezvous and docking technologies between NASA's Orion capsule and one or both of the private spacecraft that NASA picked to be the Artemis program's crewed lunar landers: SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon.

After that will come Artemis IV, which will land astronauts near the lunar south pole in early 2028, if all goes to plan. That will be the first crewed moon touchdown since Apollo 17 way back in 1972.

It's unclear which lunar lander will fly on Artemis IV; that depends on how the development of each one progresses and what happens on Artemis III.

And there will be other landings after Artemis IV. NASA plans to establish a moon base via Artemis, and doing so will require a variety of missions, both robotic and crewed.

The agency feels some urgency in this quest, for China has similar goals. It's important that the U.S. wins this new space race, military and political officials have said, so that the nation can establish the norms of responsible behavior on Earth's nearest neighbor.

On Oct. 21, 2008, the Indian Space Research Organization launched its first mission to the moon. The mission was named Chandrayaan-1, and it consisted of both an orbiter and an impactor.

Chandrayaan-1 launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on an Indian rocket called the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV-XL. (Launch occurred at 8:52 p.m. EDT, though it was about 6:22 a.m. local time at the launch site on Oct. 22.)

It arrived in lunar orbit about three weeks later and dropped off the Moon Impact Probe, which crashed into the moon on Nov. 14. The rest of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft stayed in orbit, where it collected and transmitted data from the moon to Earth for about a year. The mission ended abruptly 14 months ahead of its planned end date when scientists lost contact with the probe.

Why it mattered

The Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, had a lot riding on the success of Chandrayaan-1 moon mission, which marked the first-ever deep space mission by the Indian space agency. It was also the first mission to the moon for India, a country that hopes to launch its own crewed spacecraft and build a space station.

Chandrayaan-1 did more than just demonstrate that India's space program was capable of launching missions to the moon; it also returned some amazing science results, like evidence of water ice on the moon.

"In September 2009, scientists published results of data collected by the American M3 instrument which had detected absorption features on the polar regions of the surface of the Moon usually linked to hydroxyl- and/ or water-bearing molecules," NASA said in a mission overview.

The spacecraft carried 11 instruments to study the moon, five of them built by ISRO. The rest were experiments for the European Space Agnecy and NASA.

"In addition to the five Indian instruments, the spacecraft carried scientific equipment from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, and Bulgaria," NASA said.

It took until Nov. 8, 2008 for Chandrayaan-1 to enter lunar orbit, where it stayed until contact was lost in August 2009, most likely due to a power supply failure caused by overheating.

"This was short of the spacecraft’s planned two-year lifetime, although ISRO noted that at least 95% of its mission objectives had been accomplished by then," NASA wrote.

India did not stop at the moon with Chandrayaan-1. In 2019, the country launched the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which carried the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover. Chandrayaan-2 reached lunar orbit successfully, but the Vikram landing failed.

The Chandrayaan-3 misson followed in 2023, which successfully landed a new Vikram lander and Pragyan rover near the moon's south pole. India plans to launch the Chandryaan-4 mission to return moon samples to Earth in 2028.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

Few names in the science fiction literary world carry as much weight and respect as author Alan Dean Foster. His award-winning 55-year career as a grandmaster of the genre continues with his latest novel from Blackstone Publishing, "Lost on Paradise," and we have an exclusive excerpt to share with our readers ahead of its release this week.

Foster famously ghost-wrote the first "Star Wars" novelization for George Lucas in 1976 and "Splinter of the Mind’s Eye" in 1978, which was intended to be a low-budget "Star Wars" sequel should the space opera not become a hit. He’s been a mainstay for go-to fantastic adventures featuring engaging characters, dynamic plotlines, and imaginative worlds for six decades.

In addition to crafting the screen story for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," Foster also wrote the novelizations for the first three "Alien" films, Disney's "The Black Hole," John Carpenter's "The Thing," "The Last Starfighter," "Star Trek," "Transformers," "Terminator: Salvation", and many more.

The near-future, off-world escapades of "Lost On Paradise" are the latest addition to Foster’s acclaimed bounty of bestselling standalone novels and series, including the popular "Spellsinger" series.

"Earth is crowded, polluted, and dismal," states the novel's synopsis. "Like millions of others, Jonos and Liina scrape by on her poorly paying job and what little money he gets selling items scavenged from rich people’s trash. Like millions of others, Jonos and Liina dream of Paradise.

"Paradise: a beautiful, clean, verdant world where three races live in harmony—at least, according to the videos sent back to Earth. There are the Eiquan, masters of astonishing technology; the Lusanata, hunters and farmers; and humans, who may be restricted to a few scattered settlements, but still live a life ten times better than those on Earth.

"On the run after a criminal act, Jonos and Liina finally escape to Paradise. It's everything they hoped for. Until tragedy strikes."

The genesis of Foster's "Lost on Paradise" is something that’s been percolating in his fertile mind for many years.

"I had this notion of a planet called Paradise where everything is perfect, and everything on Earth is seriously messed up," Foster tells Space. "There’s this couple who have problems; they’re poor like everybody else.

"And you have a unique male protagonist because he recognizes that his female partner is smarter than him, so she’s the brains of the outfit, and he supplies the muscle. Although he's not stupid. Too often you get a big, hulking guy with no brains. But she has a potentially fatal disease, and they’re trying to get away like a lot of poor people in the world today. So here's a place called Paradise. How do you get there? It’s expensive and difficult. And what happens if they do? Maybe Paradise isn’t always Paradise."

In crafting a deteriorating New York some 150 years or so down the calendar, it was important to stay sharp regarding developments that pop up in the news to avoid any internal logic conflicts.

"You just don’t want to get caught out by a scientific development that you postulate is near future when it's actually contemporary," explains Foster. "So I was very careful with that. But as you’re building out an alien environment and one that’s supposed to be perfect and beautiful, and then there’s maybe some things about it that aren’t, what do you introduce to show that?

"You don’t want to contradict yourself when you’re worldbuilding. That's a large problem that’s unfortunately common in science fiction," notes Foster. "Where somebody is breathing air, and suddenly they’re breathing methane, and it just doesn’t work. There’s a lot of different variables that come together that prove that Paradise is Paradise in some ways and not in others. A good example would be when the first Europeans reached Tahiti. The problem was that the people who entered this Paradise brought venereal disease and smallpox, to which the Polynesians had no resistance. So it's Paradise until you get there, and then maybe you mess it up."

Now enjoy our exclusive chapter excerpt from Alan Dean Foster’s "Lost On Paradise." Published by Blackstone Publishing.

Why shouldn’t a man and a woman in his and Liina’s position try to get to Paradise? Jonos mused as he treaded his way homeward. Though morning continued its ascent, the sun did not. Or so it seemed, when the omnipresent pollution often rendered day as dark as night. The gloom was useful for masking scavenging activities and for concealing one’s identity. It was less suitable for more plebian activities such as breathing and eating. Or living. Life on Earth sucked.

But on Paradise…

To emigrant humans it went without saying that Paradise was aptly named. Everyone had heard the stories. On Paradise a person could breathe freely. Without a mask, without fear of needing lung implants, without having to worry about inhaling a soupçon of strychnine or similar industrial pollutants. On Paradise food was plentiful and fresh, water devoid of contaminants. There was work, too, for anyone willing to adapt to entirely new surroundings, for those willing to acknowledge the much-talked-about overlordship of the dominant species. For arrivals willing to submit to the experimental, ever-evolving social structure, and to the limitations that were placed on newcomers, the technologically superior Eiquans professed an indifference that amounted to a willing welcome.

Or so the compendium of hugely diverse anecdotes insisted. That’s all they were, Jonos knew. Stories and speculation, rumors and conjecture. Ignoring the spotty rain that had begun to fall, he turned a corner and nearly ran over a couple who scrambled to get out of his way. The man he had accidentally jostled started to say something, quickly realized the size of the individual he was about to chastise, and mumbled on his way, dragging a woman—likely his wife—with him. Jonos paid them no mind. Half of him was engaged in navigating his way home, the other half in dreaming of what Paradise might actually be like.

In truth, he had never met anyone who had actually been to Paradise. He had never met anyone who knew anyone who had been to Paradise. That did not make the distant world any less real. The media periodically released vits and images of the place. These showed an Earth-like planet swathed in an atmosphere perfectly suitable for humans. The indigenous wildlife was fascinating, the few but thriving, improvised communities intriguing, and the rarely seen Eiquans themselves tall, gracile, and sophisticated. So what if they weren’t humanoid? They were bisymmetrical, anyway, highly intelligent, and by all accounts no worse than indifferent to the interests of other species. So beautiful and graceful was their slender physicality, so mellifluous their speech, that even though they were quite alien the idea of living among them held no fear for Jonos.

Anything, he knew, would be a step up from Earth.