In a talk at the 67th International Astronautical Congress held this week in Mexico, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk finally unveiled technical details of the space mission architecture that would allow humans to build a permanent, self-sustaining colony of 1 million people on...
September 29, 2016
Astronomers have again imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, bolstering other observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water plumes. The observation increases the possibility that missions...
September 26, 2016
A very bright flash followed by a sonic boom was reported across central Queensland, Australia around 10:27 UTC (20:27 AEST) on September 26, 2016. Many witnesses said the bright light was followed by a tremor, leading media and public to speculate whether it was a...
September 26, 2016
After about six years in space, China's first prototype space station -- Tiangong-1 -- is expected to fall into the Earth's atmosphere in the latter half of 2017, Chinese officials said at a press conference last week. Tiangong-1 (Chinese for "Heavenly...
September 20, 2016
Chandra X-ray Observatory was aimed several times at Pluto from February 2014 through August 2015 and made a surprising detection of X-rays being emitted from this largest and best-known object in the Solar System's outermost regions. The observations offer new...
September 19, 2016
Hubble Space Telescope has captured one of the sharpest, most detailed observations of a comet breaking apart, which occurred 108 million km (67 million miles) from Earth. Hubble took the images over a three-day span in January 2016 and revealed 25 building-size...
September 16, 2016
The Sun, Earth and Moon will align in almost perfect line on September 16, 2016, treating observers in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia with a penumbral lunar eclipse. The eclipse will last 3 hours and 59 minutes and will be the last of three lunar eclipses in...
September 14, 2016
A rare daylight meteor was seen over North Carolina around 18:03 EDT on September 8, 2016 (22:03 UTC). At around the same time, a bright meteor exploded over Cyprus and parts of it are believed to have fallen north of the island. The American Meteor Society received...
September 09, 2016
A bright meteor exploded over Cyprus and was observed across a wide area of the south of the island around 00:45 local time on Friday, September 9, 2016 (21:45 UTC on September 8). The phenomenon was followed by a sonic boom, prompting hundreds of calls to the...
September 09, 2016
NASA's first-ever asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer), was launched September 8, 2016 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft thus started its two-year 193...
September 09, 2016
Newly discovered asteroid 2016 RB1 will make a very close flyby of Earth on September 7, 2016, passing at 0.1 LD (38 400 km / 23 860 miles) from the surface of our planet. The size of 2016 RB1, based on absolute magnitude, is estimated to be between 7.3 and 16 m (24...
September 06, 2016
NASA's Juno spacecraft has executed the first of 36 orbital flybys on August 27, 2016, when it came about 4 200 km (2 500 miles) above Jupiter's swirling clouds. It was Juno's first flyby with instruments switch on and it sent back first-ever images of...
September 02, 2016
September 2016 started with an annular solar eclipse visible across central Africa southwards to Madagascar and into the Indian Ocean. The next annular eclipse will occur on February 26, 2017, and will be visible from south and west Africa, much of South America,...
September 01, 2016
European Space Agency reported today that a solar panel on its Copernicus Sentinel-1A satellite was hit by a millimetre-size (0.04 inches) space particle in orbit on August 23, 2016. Thanks to onboard cameras, ground controllers were able to identify the affected...
August 31, 2016
Asteroid 2016 QA2 made an exceptionally close flyby of our planet at 01:24 UTC on August 28, 2016, just hours after it was discovered. Its estimated size is 34 meters (111.5 feet), between 16 and 52 meters (52 - 170 feet). This is about twice as big as the asteroid...
August 29, 2016
Have you ever looked up at the night sky and seen a strange, slowly moving light cross the horizon? Chances are it wasn’t an alien spacecraft, but instead, the International Space Station flying by. This extraordinary structure has been in orbit since 1998 and...
August 28, 2016
A large annular eclipse will cover 97% of the Sun on Thursday, September 1, 2016. The whole event will last from 06:13 - 12:00 UTC and will be visible across central Africa southwards to Madagascar and into the Indian Ocean. The partial eclipse will be visible...
August 27, 2016