Planet Labs won a NASA evaluation order to supply Tanager hyperspectral imagery, which NASA will assess before deciding whether scientists funded by the US government can use it.
SpaceAndSky news desk · 5 min read
Look upThe A-Carinid meteors are flaring again
Coming up in the sky
- OCT21-22Orionid meteor showerPeak night, 10-20 an hour under dark skies
- OCT26Full Moon: Hunter's MoonRises at sunset and stays up all night
- 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
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,…
Dragon’s 6,300 pounds of cargo opens a science rush on the space station
Five spacecraft are docked at the space station as the crew unloads SpaceX's CRS-35…
Planets4 bright planetsSaturn most of the nightMercury after sunsetMars before dawnJupiter before dawnWhere to look ›MoonWaxing Gibbous81% lit, waxingRise and set times ›Northern lightsActiveKp 4 now, up to 4.7 in the next 24 hours.Your chance tonight ›Space stationNext passChoose your city to see when the ISS passes over you.Live map ›
- Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier may add up to twice the projected sea level rise
- Kutryk’s first spacewalks: Canada’s astronaut, robot arm and voice all play a part
- NASA’s first nuclear-powered Mars spacecraft gets its power-conversion partner
Next launches
We're Not Hawking AroundElectron · Rocket Lab
Starlink Group 15-15Falcon 9 Block 5 · SpaceX
Long March 6A launchLong March 6A · China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
Latest News
NASA’s next space relay network is in orbit, built by Viasat and SES instead of NASA
Two NASA-funded relay demonstrations reached low Earth orbit on a SpaceX rideshare. They will test commercial links meant to replace the agency's aging relay…
Thinner Mars helicopter blades could stretch one flight from 0.7 to 18.7 km
A thinner, sharper blade shape called roamx-0201, designed with simulations and wind tunnel tests, could let a future Mars helicopter fly up…
Uzbekistan joins the Artemis Accords, the 77th country to sign
Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov signed in Samarkand while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was visiting, lifting the group from 8 founders…
Planet’s sharper Pelican-12 satellite reaches orbit with onboard AI and a data-relay test
Planet Labs says its second-generation Pelican-12 is in orbit after a SpaceX rideshare launch, with a 30 cm class camera goal, an…
Europe’s next weather satellite crosses the Atlantic under sail power
ESA's MetOp-SG-B1 weather satellite reached Europe's Spaceport on the wind-assisted ship Canopée and is due to fly on an Ariane 6 by…
Galileo’s next satellites get a signal ‘brain’ that can be rewritten in orbit
ESA says the first signal module for Galileo's second-generation satellites passed testing at Airbus and can be rewritten after launch to produce…
Featured
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…
Satellite night lights show Isaias darkening Pensacola, and the glow back within days
NASA's Black Marble HD imagery shows lights dropping sharply around Pensacola and U.S. Route 98 after…
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,…
Tiny asteroid 2025 UK9 to pass closer than the Moon on Oct. 31
NASA/JPL lists the small asteroid 2025 UK9 passing 314,648 km from Earth on Oct. 31. Sentry…
Europe’s Moon drill, built to cut a metre down, passes a deployment test
ESA's Prospect drill, due to search for water ice near the lunar South Pole in 2027,…
Northern lights forecast: How to read NOAA’s aurora maps, Kp and when to look
NOAA's 30-minute aurora map, the Kp index and a clear, dark sky decide whether you can…
Leaving Earth soon
Full launch schedule ›- OCT23Rocket LabWe're Not Hawking AroundElectron · Earth Science07:00 UTC
- OCT22SpaceXStarlink Group 15-15Falcon 9 · Communications22:40 UTC
- OCT23China Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationLong March 6A launchLong March 6Aaround 10:00 UTC
- OCT23China Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationLong March 4B launchLong March 4Baround 19:00 UTC
Times in your time zone. Launch times change often; the schedule refreshes every few minutes.
Rocket Launches
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
- Nine launches this week, led by Japan’s H3 sending MMX toward Mars’ moon Phobos
- Gilmour Space finds oxidizer pump faults behind Eris rocket’s 14-second flight
Missions
BepiColombo’s last weeks to Mercury: Capture on 21 November, then a split in two
- Curiosity spots the first twilight clouds of a new Martian autumn
- A year in a 3D-printed Mars habitat: NASA’s CHAPEA crew nears the exit
- A decade at Mars: Europe’s gas-sniffing orbiter has found no methane, and plenty more
Universe
ELT mirror passes the halfway mark: 931 segments, nearly 500 already in Chile
- Treble Clef radio shape traced to a black hole outburst and a cluster collision
- ALMA finds rings and gaps in compact planet-forming disks
- Hubble images a dust-lined galaxy, one of 111 done in a 260-galaxy survey
Top categories
Guides
How to see it, when it happens, what it means
Which planets have the most moons? Saturn leads with 293, ahead of Jupiter’s 115
Saturn has the most moons of any planet at 293, followed by Jupiter with 115, Uranus with 29…
Mars pictures: The best photos from NASA rovers and orbiters, and what each one shows
From Perseverance's 96-image Falbreen panorama to the 1998 Face on Mars, these NASA pictures show how Mars looks,…
Hunter’s Moon 2026: When October’s full Moon rises on October 26 and how to see it
The Hunter's Moon is full on Monday, October 26, 2026, and it looks round for about three nights,…
Orionid meteor shower 2026: Peak night of October 21-22 and how the Moon affects it
The Orionids peak overnight October 21-22, 2026, but a bright waxing gibbous Moon hides the fainter meteors until…
The universe doesn’t stand still
Latest discoveries & stories
NASA’s launch engineers swap rules of thumb for a reusable simulation template
Engineers at NASA's Launch Services Program used a decades-old commercial simulation tool in a new way to predict launch shock…
Euclid, a galaxy-mapping telescope, finds its first new comet by accident
ESA's Euclid telescope, built to map galaxies, caught a streak in its images that turned out to be a new…
Sentinel-3C sees Hurricane Rachel in its first temperature-radiometer image
ESA's newest Earth-observing satellite has imaged Hurricane Rachel off Mexico, showing that the visible channels of its temperature radiometer work.…
ESA’s Moon line-up runs from landing cameras to a drill for water ice
ESA's new overview covers instruments and demonstrations on landers from several partners, aimed at safer landings, lunar water ice, and…
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 away, where rovers are…
Perseverance passes 28.10 miles on Mars, beating Opportunity’s record in a third of the time
NASA's Perseverance rover logged 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers) on sol 2,006, passing Opportunity's 28.06 miles after about 5½ years on…
Station’s solar upgrade nears its finish: The last two roll-out arrays are due outside
NASA says the eight roll-out solar arrays will raise the station's power by more than 160 kW, and the final…
Saturn’s moons: How many are there, and which are most interesting?
NASA lists 293 confirmed moons for Saturn. Titan and Enceladus stand out, thanks to Cassini and Huygens.