Space

WASHINGTON—Black holes are hanging out at the center of our galaxy by the thousands, according to scientists who have detected a bunch of them in the neighborhood of a supermassive black hole already known to reside at the heart of the Milky Way. Researchers said data from the NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory allowed them […]

WASHINGTON—Scientists have detected the most distant star ever viewed, a blue behemoth located more than halfway across the universe and named after the ancient Greek mythological figure Icarus. Researchers said on Monday they used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to spot the star, which is up to a million times more luminous and about twice as […]

A Chinese space station hurling toward Earth is set to enter the planet’s atmosphere soon. According to the latest forecast from European Space Agency officials, the reentry window for Tiangong 1 has shrunk. They now predict it will reenter Earth’s atmosphere between 8 p.m. ET on Sunday and early Monday morning. The Aerospace Corporation said […]

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted into space Friday morning from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. The rocket was carrying 10 satellites for the Iridium communications company. The mission is called “Iridium 5” and is part of a larger aim to put a network of Iridium satellites into low orbit. This time, SpaceX plans to […]

For decades space has been an open frontier for humankind to explore, but we don’t often hear about those astronauts who’ve had a very close call with tragedy. This video highlights 10 space missions in which astronauts have had near-death experiences. Disastrous events that astronauts are lucky to have survived include times when spacecraft have […]

An almost 10-ton Chinese spacecraft the size of a school bus is expected to fall from the sky over the Easter weekend, although it’s unknown whether pieces of the station will survive re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. No one knows where it exactly it will land. While China has claimed the station would burn when re-entering […]

A man trying to prove Earth is flat tried to launch himself high enough in a rocket to see the edge. Not too surprisingly, he failed. The would-be astronaut, “Mad” Mike Hughes, made a braver effort—launching oneself into space in a homemade rocket certainly takes a lot of bravery—but he crash-landed in the Mojave Desert, […]

The European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL space observatory recently witnessed an astounding space happening, watching as a red giant brought its dead neutron star neighbor back to life. A slow-spinning zombie star was revived by X-ray flares from its swollen neighbor, according to the ESA. The observations revealed a neutron star that had likely just begun […]

Three residents of the International Space Station finished their mission on Tuesday, Feb. 27 and prepared to return to Earth. NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba, and Roscosmos commander Alexander Misurkin handed over command to Roscosmos’s Anton Shkaplerov before closing the hatch and undocking from the station. On Monday, Shkaplerov thanked the crew for […]

A reporter dressed head-to-toe in protective clothing was given unprecedented access to a NASA lab where final touches were being put on a 242-million-dollar satellite nicknamed TESS. The video by Fox 35  shows the lab behind the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, a space telescope designed to search for life on planets outside our solar system. […]

A newly discovered asteroid that is set to buzz past Earth today could be as large as the asteroid that exploded over Russia five years ago. Asteroid 2018 CB that was only spotted five days ago is between 50 and 130 feet in size, according to NASA. It will pass by Earth within one-fifth of […]

You can’t see it but, this very moment, millions of viruses are falling on the ground around you. Some might originate from thousands of miles away, riding air currents and piggy-backing dust particles, a new study found. Scientists first hypothesized decades ago that viruses could travel over great distances when they found genetically similar viruses occurring in very […]

A New Zealand space company has come under fire after secretly launching a reflective satellite that will create a flashing light visible from anywhere on earth. Astronomers around the world have expressed anger after space exploration startup Rocket Lab sent the “Humanity Star” into orbit, a three-foot-wide sphere fitted with 65 reflective panels. It is […]

An asteroid larger than 12 football fields that is set to pass near Earth early next month is being watched by NASA as a “potentially hazardous asteroid” or PHA. The asteroid, named 2002 AJ129, is estimated by NASA to be as many as 0.68 miles in diameter—more than the height of the world’s largest building, the […]

U.S. astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon in 1972 and even smuggled a corned beef sandwich into orbit during a career that made him the only person to fly with three NASA space programs, has died at age 87, officials said on Saturday. Young, who went to space six times, died on Friday […]

An out-of-control unmanned Chinese space station is expected to plummet to Earth in the next coming months. But where the parts of the Tiangong-1 that survive reentry will eventually crash-land on the Earth remains unconfirmed. It is expected that between 10 to 40 percent of its mass will survive reentry. The 8.5-metric ton space station is […]

An asteroid about the size of a bus and first spotted on Christmas Day will buzz by Earth today at a speed of 21,000 mph, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Named 2017 YZ4, the space object will barrel by the Earth at a distance of just 139,433 miles (224,000km)— a near miss in terms of astrological measurements. […]

People in South California had a surprising sight on Friday evening, Dec. 22. A slim, brightly lit cloud formed in the evening sky behind what looked like a comet. Local media was barraged with calls and social media posts reported the strange phenomenon, considered a UFO by many. It was, in fact, a multistage Falcon […]

A multistage Falcon 9 rocket developed by SpaceX company and carrying 10 Iridium Next commercial communications satellites was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California, on Dec. 22, 2017.

For the first time since theoretical physicists predicted their existence, scientists think they might actually get to see a black hole in 2018. Astronomers have detected signs of black holes—observed the giant interstellar gas clouds they attract and the distortion of space they cause. In 2008 scientists hope to actually see the supermassive black hole […]