Independent curation from Earth orbit & beyond
The day in space, put in order.
The celestial event
Millions watched the Moon cover the Sun across Greenland, Iceland, Spain and Portugal—revealing the corona and briefly turning day into night.
Europe witnessed its first total solar eclipse in more than two decades on 12 August. The path of totality crossed the North Atlantic before reaching the Iberian peninsula, while a partial eclipse was visible across much of the continent.
Read full articleNight sky
A proposed constellation of orbital mirrors raises stark questions about artificial light in astronomy’s last dark places.
Human spaceflight
From the archive
Science & observation
01 / Early universe
A galaxy seen only 1.3 billion years after the Big Bang contains three black holes—evidence that mergers helped build the giants found in galactic centres today.
02 / Stellar nurseries
Combined observations help explain why a famous star-forming region emits fewer X-rays than astronomers expected.
03 / Heliophysics
NASA’s COFFIES project uses observations and machine learning to anticipate active regions capable of driving disruptive space weather.
Rockets & missions
Schedule watch
The company now expects the upgraded Alpha rocket to make its first flight in the fourth quarter.
In orbit
The Starlink 17-49 mission lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base carrying another batch for SpaceX’s broadband constellation.
Development
Development continues while the time remaining for a first launch in 2026 grows shorter.
The concise edition
The two-day MAX POWER event is scheduled for 7–8 November on and near Kennedy Space Center.
The large Italian observatory will continue probing fast radio bursts—brief cosmic signals whose origins remain incompletely understood.
From geostationary orbit, MTG-I1 followed the Moon’s shadow as it moved across the continent and met the advancing twilight.
A volunteer-developed machine-learning tool helps researchers classify unusual cloud formations submitted by observers around the world.