Electron flew from New Zealand at 05:30 UTC on November 14 and deployed QPS-SAR-19, a radar imaging satellite for Japan's iQPS, in a mission Rocket Lab marks as its 100th…
SpaceAndSky news desk · 4 min read
Mission spotlightA year in a Mars habitat ends in Houston
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,…
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…
Planets5 bright planetsSaturn after sunsetMercury before dawnVenus before dawnMars before dawnJupiter before dawnWhere to look ›MoonWaxing Crescent35% lit, waxingRise and set times ›Northern lightsQuietKp 1.3 now, up to 3.7 in the next 24 hours.Your chance tonight ›Space stationNext passChoose your city to see when the ISS passes over you.Live map ›
- Roman telescope’s instruments now line up to a hair’s breadth, and starlight tests come next
- Dragon’s return cargo includes bacterial DNA, lab-grown blood vessels and a used spacesuit
- Nearby Type Ia supernova in NGC 1433 is still brightening, and telescopes are lining up
Next launches
Long March 2D launchLong March 2D · China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
USSF-317Falcon 9 Block 5 · SpaceX- SatNet LEO Group TBD?Long March 8A · China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
Latest News
Bennu’s amino acid carries the strongest isotope anomaly yet seen in space organics
Penn State researchers measured carbon atom by atom inside an amino acid from asteroid Bennu and the Murchison meteorite and found the same chemistry…
SpaceX plans $74 billion in supercomputer campuses in Texas and Arizona
SpaceX has set out two supercomputer projects, $24 billion at Starbase and about $50 billion in Arizona, with a $220 million Brownsville…
Hera’s first look at Didymos shows a sharp ridge and a half-hidden moonlet
From 56 km away, ESA's Hera probe has imaged the asteroid Didymos, with a sharp equatorial ridge and part of its small…
Hubble’s nine lenses show Roman what to hunt for in dark matter
NASA has released a nine-panel gallery of gravitational lenses seen by Hubble, a preview of what the new Roman telescope will find…
ispace and KDDI plan a Moon communications network Japan could run itself
Japanese lander company ispace and telecom giant KDDI signed a new agreement to explore a lunar communications network that Japan could operate…
Asteroid platinum could crash prices, but only after a long gold rush, MIT study says
Two MIT-affiliated authors model what asteroid platinum would do to prices: a boom for early miners, then a fall to near the…
Featured
When is the next solar eclipse? Dates and viewing regions
The 2026 total eclipse has passed; the next is an annular eclipse on Feb. 6, 2027,…
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…
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…
A year in a 3D-printed Mars habitat: NASA’s CHAPEA crew nears the exit
Four volunteers have lived as if on Mars for 365 days inside a Houston habitat. They…
SpaceX stock: Yes, SPCX trades on Nasdaq, and here is what the filings say
SpaceX has been public since June 12, 2026, under the Nasdaq ticker SPCX; this guide separates…
Mars facts: How far away it is, how cold it gets, its weather and the search for life
Mars is a cold, dry, dusty world half Earth's width, between 54.6 and 401.4 million km…
Leaving Earth soon
Full launch schedule ›- NOV18China Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationLong March 2D launchLong March 2Daround 22:00 UTC
- NOV19SpaceXUSSF-317Falcon 9 · Government/Top Secret03:00 UTC
- NOV20China Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationSatNet LEO Group TBD?Long March 8A · Communicationsaround 11:00 UTCOne to watch
- NOV21SpaceXNROL-136Falcon 9 · Government/Top Secret12:30 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
Voyager’s team to take questions a day after the probe passes one light-day
- Curiosity tests doing two jobs at once to save power as its output slowly falls
- Perseverance’s first rock sample in over a year may be among its oldest
- Mars rover finds the signature of ruby’s mineral in light-toned rocks
Universe
Two black holes already feeding on a grand scale, only 900 million years after the Big Bang
- Gravitational waves could expose planets circling dead stars, NASA team shows
- 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
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
Comets probably did not seed life on Earth, Cambridge study finds
Cambridge researchers say comets probably did not deliver the molecules of life: they strike too fast and too steeply for…
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…
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…
Two Mars probes used Earth as a slingshot, two days apart, and both burns worked
NASA's two ESCAPADE spacecraft each swung past Earth with a 9-minute engine burn, the first powered Earth flyby NASA has…
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…
NASA lines up eight Moon lander firms for $10 billion and a nuclear rover
NASA named eight companies for CLPS 2, a contract worth up to $10 billion, and gave Blue Origin $94 million…
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…
Tiny asteroid 2026 VL5 passed Earth at 0.14 lunar distances, first seen a day earlier
NASA/JPL data show asteroid 2026 VL5 passed Earth at 09:08 UTC on Nov. 7, about 55,545 km away, or 0.14…