Ariane 6, the European Space Agency‘s (ESA) next-generation launch vehicle recently passed a major milestone as the rocket moves closer to its debut. A Nov. 23 wet dress rehearsal put the spacecraft and its ground crews to the test, running through a full countdown and rocket fueling, and...

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station got a front-row seat to some rare atmospheric “fireworks.” On Wednesday (Nov. 29), the Russian Progress MS-23 cargo spacecraft departed from the International Space Station (ISS) with a load of refuse no longer needed on the orbital...

One of the primary tasks of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is to scan the atmospheres of exoplanets for signs of habitability. And, as far as we know, water is necessary for life. So naturally, detecting the presence of water in and around alien worlds is a high priority for planetary...

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have observed the luminous cloud of material that surrounds a newborn star, cocooning it in a crib of gas and dust. These so-called Herbig-Haro objects are created when stellar winds and jets of gas billow from newborn stars, causing...

A new search for dark matter has turned up empty handed — but, in a silver lining, the effort provided important limits that will help future experiments narrow down the hunt for this elusive substance. Most astronomers believe that dark matter accounts for 85 percent of all mass in the universe...

After RFA won the DLR Microlauncher competition organized by the German Space Agency in the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in April 2022, the company was awarded prize money of 11 million euros. As part of this, RFA was able to secure the German government as an anchor customer for the first two...

SkyFi continues to evolve and expand their EO capabilities — the company is introducing Urban Sky’s stratospheric balloon imagery and that represents a significant enhancement to SkyFI’s data offerings and also has the distinction of being the firm’s first, integrated, aerial imaging provider. This...

SpaceX added yet more satellites to its ever-growing Starlink internet megaconstellation on Monday night (Nov. 27). A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Monday at 11:20 p.m. EST (0420 GMT on Nov. 28). A SpaceX...

The moon has a date with the Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades stars cluster, on Sunday (Nov. 26). The nearly full moon will make a close approach to the star clusters, passing to within 1 degree of the Seven Sisters, officially known by astronomers as Messier 45 (M45). Both the moon and the...