Supercharged auroras possible from sun's colossal 'hole' | Parker Solar Probe beams 1st detailed message after sun flyby | Space debris crashes into Kenya village
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A massive coronal hole has formed in the sun's atmosphere, unleashing a powerful stream of solar wind toward Earth. Nearby, a second, slightly smaller coronal hole is also directing solar wind our way. There is a great chance of strong northern lights, especially at high latitudes this weekend. Recent solar activity has prompted the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a minor G1 geomagnetic storm warning for Jan. 4 and Jan. 5.
On New Year's Day, NASA's Parker Solar Probe added to the festive cheer by sending home more good news about its record-breaking closest-ever approach to the sun. "The data that will come down from the spacecraft will be fresh information about a place that we, as humanity, have never been."
Officials with the Kenya Space Agency Nairobia report that a a large metallic ring roughly 8 feet (2.5 meters) in diameter and weighing some 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) fell from the sky on Dec. 30, crashing "red-hot" into Mukuku village in the country's south. An early review by Inside Outer Space of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS) Reentry Database suggested a possible link to an incoming rocket body associated with an Atlas Centaur launch back in 2004.
Four bright planets are conveniently placed for viewing in January's evening sky. By far, the most brilliant is Venus, which dominates the southwest sky for several hours after sundown. Saturn, always a favorite for viewers with telescopes because of its famous ring system, is not far away. Here's what else to see.
NASA wants to Mars samples to Earth, but budget problems and technical woes have the mission caught between a rock and the Red Planet. The space agency plans to have a new plan in place before the new Trump adminstration takes charge later this month.
Astronomers have discovered a rare group of five dwarf galaxies located relatively close to Earth; these galaxies exist in a near-perfect alignment, resembling a string of cosmic pearls in the sky. "This discovery poses a challenge to the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, which may struggle to account for the formation of such small, aligned groups of galaxies in isolated environments," one astronomer says.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to take off on Friday at 8:27 p.m. EST (0127 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The flight will launch the Thuraya 4 spacecraft to geosynchronous orbit on behalf of Space42, a satellite and space services company based in the United Arab Emirates. You can watch the launch live at SpaceX.com or via the company's X account.
(La Cañada Flintridge Tournament of Roses Association)
Here's something you don't see every parade. NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the first aircraft to achieve powered flight on another planet, is now the first drone to fly on a parade float — in the form of a flower-covered replica. The floral-but-flight-worthy display was just one of the highlights aboard "Rover Rendezvous," a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade held in celebration of New Year's Day in Pasadena, California on Wednesday (Jan. 1)
Want to dive into the Alien universe? Arriving for the New Year from Survios in cooperation with 20th Century Games, this tactical sci-fi survival release for PlayStation VR2, PCVR via Steam, and Meta Quest 3 (Feb. 13, 2025) and was highly anticipated as an enveloping "Alien: Isolation"-type adventure all wrapped up nicely in a next-generation virtual reality environment. Critical reviews have been mixed, but mostly positive.
Moon landings and more: 2025's top space missions | Space Quiz! Do galaxies with supermassive black holes at their center produce new stars faster or slower than galaxies without supermassive black hole? | Satellites map Earth's ocean floors in unprecedented detail
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2025 is set to dazzle with a wide array of exciting and spectacular space missions. On tap are a flurry of moon landing attempts, high-profile test launches of SpaceX's Starship megarocket, human spaceflight adventures and asteroid sampling missions. Here's a look at some of the most alluring space events expected in the coming year.
Space Quiz! Do galaxies with supermassive black holes at their center produce new stars faster or slower than galaxies without supermassive black hole?
A new satellite has mapped Earth's ocean floors in unprecedented detail, a new study reveals. The first year of measurements from NASA's Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission, launched in December 2022 and developed by NASA and France's Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales, enabled researchers to study the boundaries between continents and identify underwater hills and volcanoes that are too small to be detected by earlier satellites.
What a start to 2025! While many celebrated New Year's Eve with bursts of glittering fireworks, Earth joined the festivities with a natural display of its own: the northern lights. Two coronal mass ejections (CME) struck Earth's magnetic field, sparking geomagnetic storm conditions and painting the night sky with vivid aurora displays as far south as California U.S., Austria, and Germany. The geomagnetic storms waxed and waned throughout the night, creating a dynamic celestial fireworks show that stretched well into the new year.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope found evidence that supermassive black holes suppress star formation in maturing galaxies. The team used the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), analyzed 19 galaxies that are part of the Spiderweb protocluster, one of the best studied galaxy groups in the universe, which lies some 11 billion light-years away from Earth.
SpaceX's Starship megarocket may come into its own in 2025. The 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket system ever built, and it's designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. In 2025, SpaceX could try to launch it up to 25 times.
In living things, structures are built from simple, repeatable patterns. These often come in the form of a disorganized lattice. Large structures, like bones or coral, emerge from repeated rounds of growth of a fundamental pattern that builds off of itself in a haphazard way. Now, researchers have designed a flexible material that could pave the way for the development of adaptable space structures.
Ever since the discovery of methane on Mars, scientists have wondered if the Red Planet might harbor life. Now, researchers know where to look: deep under the surface of a broad Martian plain.
"All Good Things", "What You Leave Behind", "Endgame"… Now "The New Next Generation" becomes the latest addition to the pantheon of memorable "Star Trek" season finales, as the franchise's only out-and-out comedy, "Lower Decks", goes out in style.
