Muhammad Mirza 
The 2024 SpaceNews Icon Awards honor extraordinary achievements that are driving humanity’s exploration of space and shaping the future of the industry. Chosen by the SpaceNews editorial team following an open call for nominations, these awards recognize individuals, missions, and organizations whose work has redefined excellence across 10 categories. This year’s winners represent the best … Read more
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” One of the obvious questions when it comes to portrayals of the “Dune” universe, whether in film, comics, books, or HBO’s new prequel show Dune: Prophecy, is … Read more
When Oumuamua traversed our Solar System in 2017 it was the first confirmed Interstellar Object (ISO) to do so. Then in 2019, Comet 2l/Borisov did the same thing. These are the only two confirmed ISOs to visit our Solar System. Many more ISOs must have visited in our Solar System’s long history, and many more … Read more
China’s growing presence in space has been undeniable since the turn of the century. Between sending the first “taikonaut” to space in 2003 (Yang Liwei), launching the first Chinese robotic mission to the Moon (Chang’e-1) in 2007, and the deployment of their Tiangong space station between 2021-2022, China has emerged as a major power in … Read more
Astronomer Teddy Kareta had spent countless nights over the years observing various objects across our solar system using Arizona’s Lowell Discovery Telescope, or LDT. On Nov. 19, 2022, he set his alarm to ring shortly before midnight, in preparation for what he presumed would be a quiet observing night — and woke up to missed … Read more
The Origin captures multiple hues of the hydrogen gas and dust within the emission nebula M8, also known as the Lagoon Nebula. Credit: All images by Phil Harrington unless otherwise noted I’m in love. I don’t often begin a review by saying that a product has wooed me, but the Celestron Origin Home Observatory has … Read more
On Nov. 19, SpaceX launched its Starship vehicle on its sixth test flight. While the flight showcased key technical advancements, such as a successful engine relight on the Starship upper stage, it also highlighted the challenges of reusability, with the Super Heavy booster failing to land back at the launch tower. This incremental progress … Read more
The latest “Lower Decks” episode, “Upper Decks”, reveals what the command crew gets up to when Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, and T’Lyn aren’t hogging all that main character energy. So, as the lead quintet gets busy “mutilating gourds” for Halloween — everyone but T’Lyn would describe it as carving pumpkins — “Upper Decks” shows that … Read more
The Artemis moon landings are delayed again due to technical difficulties. This time, the problem is with the Orion spacecraft heat shield. NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced that the new landing dates are in April of 2026 for Artemis II and sometime in 2027 for the first human landing during the Artemis III mission. The … Read more
The staggering and unexplained deaths of over 300 African elephants in early 2020 — one of the largest mass mortality events of wild mammals in recent history — was most likely due to toxins in water that proliferated due to climate extremes, according to a fresh analysis of a decade’s worth of satellite data. The … Read more