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…
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…
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…
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 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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
After 22 months of failed communication attempts, NASA's Deep Space Network has finally reestablished communication with STEREO-B solar observatory. The STEREO Missions Operations team plans further recovery processes to assess observatory health, re-establish…
