Japanese lander company ispace and telecom giant KDDI signed a new agreement to explore a lunar communications network that Japan could operate independently, with ground stations in Yamaguchi.
SpaceAndSky news desk · 5 min read
Solar systemA tiny asteroid slipped by inside the Moon's orbit
Coming up in the sky
- NOV13Planet paradeMercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter before dawn, until Dec 4
- NOV16Mars and Jupiter meetAbout 1 degree apart in the morning sky
- NOV16-17Leonid meteor showerPeak night
- NOV20Mercury’s best morning viewFarthest from the Sun in our sky (20°): look before sunrise
- NOV24Full Moon: Beaver MoonRises at sunset and stays up all night
- DEC13-14Geminid meteor showerPeak night, 40-50 an hour under dark skies
Trending
Mars rovers today: Where Perseverance and Curiosity are and their latest pictures
Two NASA rovers still work on Mars: Perseverance, which just broke Opportunity's driving record,…
When is the next solar eclipse? Dates and viewing regions
The 2026 total eclipse has passed; the next is an annular eclipse on Feb.…
Planets4 bright planetsSaturn after sunsetVenus before dawnMars before dawnJupiter before dawnWhere to look ›MoonWaxing Crescent10% lit, waxingRise and set times ›Northern lightsQuietKp 1.3 now, up to 1.7 in the next 24 hours.Your chance tonight ›Space stationNext passChoose your city to see when the ISS passes over you.Live map ›
- Asteroid platinum could crash prices, but only after a long gold rush, MIT study says
- Comets probably did not seed life on Earth, Cambridge study finds
- Voyager’s team to take questions a day after the probe passes one light-day
Next launches
- Kuaizhou 11 launchKuaizhou 11 · ExPace
Amazon LeoVulcan VC6L · United Launch Alliance
Starlink Group 31-2Starship V3 · SpaceX
Latest News
Why Uranus and Neptune have lopsided magnetic fields, and how fast they may change
Simulations from the University of Texas at Austin link the tilted, disordered fields of Uranus and Neptune to changes in electrical conductivity deep inside,…
Two black holes already feeding on a grand scale, only 900 million years after the Big Bang
Astronomers using Gemini North and Webb have found the oldest compact quasar pair known, two giant black holes whose early growth current…
Gravitational waves could expose planets circling dead stars, NASA team shows
Two studies led by NASA astrophysicists show how LISA could find planets around pairs of white dwarfs, a population no telescope has…
A swirl on the Sun’s surface may explain why its atmosphere is so hot
A new paper links tiny swirls on the Sun's surface, recently imaged by the Inouye Solar Telescope, to the long-standing puzzle of…
Curiosity tests doing two jobs at once to save power as its output slowly falls
During a short recharge break in its Nazca drilling campaign, Curiosity tested running two tasks at once so the rover can stay…
Perseverance’s first rock sample in over a year may be among its oldest
After a failed attempt on a rock too hard to drill, Perseverance cored a 'Singita' sample from a neighboring light-toned rock that…
Featured
Asteroid 99942 Apophis: How close it passes on April 13, 2029, and how to see it
On April 13, 2029, the asteroid Apophis passes about 32,000 km above Earth, closer than many…
ESCAPADE’s twin Mars probes swing past Earth with a 9-minute burn on Nov. 7 and 9
Each of NASA's two ESCAPADE spacecraft will fly past Earth on Nov. 7 and Nov. 9…
Starbase could host up to 456 Starship launches a year, FAA review says
The FAA has opened scoping for an environmental impact statement covering up to 456 Starship-Super Heavy…
3I/ATLAS carries methane with 13 times more heavy hydrogen than any comet we have measured
Webb spectra of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS show methane with 3.18% heavy hydrogen, higher than any methane…
Vietnam is the 78th country on the Artemis Accords, a week after Uzbekistan
Vietnam's science minister signed the Artemis Accords in Ha Long, NASA said, making it the 78th…
Voyager 1 went silent for two days, then returned on its own
NASA's Voyager 1 went quiet on Oct. 18 and 19 and reappeared on Oct. 20 without…
Leaving Earth soon
Full launch schedule ›- NOV12ExPaceKuaizhou 11 launchKuaizhou 11around 19:00 UTC
- NOV13United Launch AllianceAmazon LeoVulcan VC6L · Communications17:54 UTC
- NOV13SpaceXStarlink Group 31-2Starship V3 · Communications22:45 UTC
- NOV14Rocket LabThe Mountain God RisesElectron · Earth Science05:30 UTC
Times in your time zone. Launch times change often; the schedule refreshes every few minutes.
Rocket Launches
Starship will try to fly itself back to Starbase and be caught by the tower on Flight 15
- India’s GSLV-F18 puts NVS-03 navigation satellite into its planned orbit
- Japan sets Mars moons mission launch for Oct. 19 UTC, with a Phobos sample due home in 2031
- Eight AI computing satellites ride Zhuque-2E in a 10-satellite launch
Missions
Mars rover finds the signature of ruby’s mineral in light-toned rocks
- Two Mars probes used Earth as a slingshot, two days apart, and both burns worked
- After 378 days in a Mars habitat, four volunteers step outside in Houston
- NASA lines up eight Moon lander firms for $10 billion and a nuclear rover
Universe
A hidden black hole or neutron star may be behind a star’s 113-day eruptions
- Webb finds brown dwarfs only twice Jupiter’s mass, the lightest known
- Hubble’s new Messier 30 portrait shows a cluster the Milky Way may have captured
- Hubble catches a rocky planet slipping behind its star for the first time
Top categories
Guides
How to see it, when it happens, what it means
Leonid meteor shower 2026: When it peaks on November 17 and how to watch
The Leonids peak around November 17 with up to about 15 meteors an hour under dark skies, and…
NASA Jupiter photos: The best Juno images and what they reveal about the giant planet
NASA's Juno spacecraft has photographed Jupiter from closer than any camera before it, and its images show deep…
James Webb Space Telescope images: Where to find them and what they have shown
NASA's image gallery holds every public Webb picture, free to download; here is how the images are made,…
Rocket launch from Vandenberg: Where to watch, how to check times and what to expect
Vandenberg launches can be seen from public roads, beaches and hills near Lompoc; the base, SpaceX and a…
The universe doesn’t stand still
Latest discoveries & stories
Student teams can win a share of $1 million by designing parts of NASA’s Moon Base
NASA's new Moon Base Student Challenge asks U.S. high school and college teams to design systems for a lunar South…
Astronaut applications open: NASA picks its next class for the Moon Base
NASA is taking applications for its next astronaut class until Dec. 3, with selection due in late 2027 for crews…
Station’s last new solar array lifts its power by about 30% after a 7-hour spacewalk
Two astronauts finished a years-long upgrade, taking the International Space Station from 160 to 215 kilowatts, then spent Friday cleaning…
Four decades of space junk damage, from Hubble’s dish to a shuttle window
NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office has put online photos of hardware pitted, holed and cracked by debris, from Hubble's antenna…
NASA unveils X-70 Fractal, a crewed X-plane built to be reconfigured fast
NASA revealed the crewed X-70 Fractal at Kennedy Space Center. The jet is meant to swap experiments quickly and to…
Voyager 1 is about to be one light-day from Earth, and NASA wants you to flash a light
NASA invites the public to flash Voyager's call sign skyward after sunset on Nov. 17, as Voyager 1 approaches a…
NASA picks 3 firms for up to $1.07 billion to replace aging relay satellites
Astranis, Global Enterprise Solutions and Viasat can each earn up to hundreds of millions of dollars to design Ka-band relays…
A drone rehearsed a Moon landing and steered itself away from a bad spot
NASA's SPLICE guidance payload flew simulated lunar descents on a drone, mapping the ground below and diverting if the target…