Smart telescopes like the Seestar S30 Pro have changed astrophotography and, arguably, urban astronomy. The Seestar S30 Pro takes that concept further than most. Small enough to fit inside a camera backpack, it combines a refractor telescope, motorized mount, dual cameras and image-processing software into a compact unit controlled entirely from a smartphone. Within minutes of powering on, it can align itself to the night sky, slew to a specified target and begin stacking exposures to reveal galaxies, nebulas and star clusters — even from light-polluted locations. The Pro version…
Read MoreNASA’s ESCAPADE Snaps Family Portrait of Earth, Moon
On July 3, one of NASA’s two Mars-destined ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft captured photos of Earth and the Moon in visible and thermal infrared light. At the time, the spacecraft was 363,250 miles (584,600 kilometers) from Earth and 115,600 miles (186,100 kilometers) from the Moon, making the Moon appear relatively large. Taken with the Sun only partly illuminating Earth and the Moon, the visible light image shows the two bodies as crescents, with only around 8% of each face sunlit. Yet in the thermal infrared…
Read MoreNew Crew Members Welcomed to International Space Station
NASA/Chris Williams From left, Expedition 74 flight engineers Anna Kikina and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos, and Anil Menon of NASA pose for a July 18, 2026, photo while holding a cake celebrating their recent arrival aboard the International Space Station. The trio arrived at the space station on July 14, 2026, after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier the same day. Kikina, Dubrov, and Menon are in the second week of their planned eight-and-a-half-month mission. They are using their new skills to conduct space research while still familiarizing…
Read MoreNASA Announces New Spacecraft Technology Demonstration Mission at Moon
4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) An artist’s rendering of NASA’s CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft in lunar orbit. The mission features two identical small spacecraft that will further mature technologies to support Artemis, Moon Base, and deep space exploration. Terran Orbital NASA is working with industry to advance the next phase of cislunar infrastructure for the agency’s Artemis program and Moon Base, including orbital assets and demonstrations. Under a contract awarded to Advanced Space, the agency’s CAPSTONE 02 mission will demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations, autonomous…
Read MoreThis Week’s Sky at a Glance, July 24 – August 2
The waxing gibbous Moon passes Antares. Turn the Summer Triangle into the Summer Diamond. And as you snuggle into bed, would Vega land on your roof if it dropped out of the sky? The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, July 24 – August 2 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreNew Jersey Meteorite Offers Early Solar System Clues
When a meteorite tore through a New Jersey home, the homeowner quickly preserved the fragments. Now, they’re giving scientists a look at Earth’s early history. The post New Jersey Meteorite Offers Early Solar System Clues appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreCuriosity Blog, Sols 4954–4960: Celebrating Our Rover Engineers Past and Present
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4954–4960: Celebrating Our Rover Engineers Past and Present In this image acquired by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, the relatively light-toned bedrock in the foreground gives way to darker-toned rocks in the middle of the image, along…
Read MoreVulcan Centaur swapped out again: NASA goes with SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for launch of space weather mission
NASA is shaking things up for its next mission to research the sun. The six satellites of NASA’s Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) mission are poised to launch to Earth orbit soon, to serve as an early warning system for incoming solar storms. They were originally slated to lift off on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket but have now been assigned a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, according to a NASA mission update. SunRISE will fly to space as part of a rideshare mission sponsored by the U.S.…
Read More‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 4: Release date & how to watch Paramount+’s sensational sci-fi series
2026 is the 60th anniversary of “Star Trek”. To help celebrate the show that creator Gene Roddenberry described as “Wagon Train to the Stars,””Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” returns to Paramount+ for its penultimate season. From teasers and trailers that first dropped last summer and fall, we’re anticipating a rollicking batch of dynamic episodes that draw on diverse subgenres, with everything from classic film noir crime stories and time travel to spooky ghost stories and sword-clashing swashbucklers. But the end is nigh for this colorful modern interpretation of “Trek”. Next…
Read MoreScientists may have finally solved the mystery of the sun’s missing silver
For several years now, astronomers who study the sun have faced a little mystery — our star seemed to hold too little silver. Whenever scientists examined the sun’s outer layers, they’ve seen significantly less silver than they’ve expected to find. Where, then, did the missing silver go? As it turns out, this mystery may finally be solved. Newly published research suggests that the sun‘s missing silver may have been hiding in plain sight all along. At first, the real mystery might seem to be why you’d seek silver in the…
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