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ESA
European spacecraft launches for ‘crash scene investigation’ of first planetary defense test
The European Space Agency’s Hera mission and two satellites are on the way to survey the aftermath of NASA’s DART spacecraft, which intentionally hit an asteroid in 2022.

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PABest A fisherman watches a meteor during the Draconid meteor shower over Howick rocks in Northumberland. Picture date: Sunday October 10, 2021.
Owen Humphreys/PA Media/FILE
Dark skies will help the Draconid meteor shower shine. Here’s how to see it
Next solar eclipse: When and where to view the celestial event
Meet SpaceHopper, a three-legged hopping asteroid explorer
Video Meet the three-legged asteroid explorer 2:59
Voyager 2 shuts down science experiment as power stores dwindle
A ‘ring of fire’ will soon appear in the skies over some parts of the world
ARIS reusable rocket.
• Video 6:31
CNN
‘This is high stakes’: students test high-tech rocket-recovery system 6:31
ARES 7 Mars development rover.
• Video 4:36
CNN
This Mars rover with a robotic arm was made by students 4:36
JAXA's SORA-Q rover
• Video 1:39
CNN
This mini moon rover could change how we capture images in space 1:39
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule is attached to the International Space Station on Sunday, September 29.
NASA
Crew-9 astronauts arrive at space station after SpaceX reports rocket anomaly

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CNN/Adobe Stock
Why scientists say we need to send clocks to the moon — soon
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Chris Meaney/NASA/CIL
Scientists have spotted unexpected X- and C-shaped structures in the atmosphere. They are struggling to explain them
In this photo provided by NASA, Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams pose for a portrait inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station's Harmony module and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on June 13, 2024. (NASA via AP)
NASA/AP
What the two Boeing Starliner astronauts will do in space until 2025
This composite image shows the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, also known as the "bullet cluster." This cluster was formed after the collision of two large clusters of galaxies, the most energetic event known in the universe since the Big Bang. Hot gas detected by Chandra in X-rays is seen as two pink clumps in the image and contains most of the "normal," or baryonic, matter in the two clusters. The bullet-shaped clump on the right is the hot gas from one cluster, which passed through the hot gas from the other larger cluster during the collision. An optical image from Magellan and the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxies in orange and white. The blue areas in this image show where astronomers find most of the mass in the clusters. The concentration of mass is determined using the effect of so-called gravitational lensing, where light from the distant objects is distorted by intervening matter. Most of the matter in the clusters (blue) is clearly separate from the normal matter (pink), giving direct evidence that nearly all of the matter in the clusters is dark.
NASA/CXC/CfA/M.Markevitch et al.
Scientists may have found an answer to the mystery of dark matter. It involves an unexpected byproduct

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off carrying NASA's SpaceX Crew-9, Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, to the International Space Station from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., September 28, 2024.
Joe Skipper/Reuters
SpaceX launches mission that aims to return long-delayed Starliner astronauts
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E. Wernquist/D. Nelson/M. Oei
Massive jets of material shooting from a black hole dwarf even the largest galaxies, scientists say
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CNN/Adobe Stock
A space rock is about to become Earth’s new ‘mini-moon’
Partial lunar eclipse is seen over the residential building in Moscow, Russia, September 18, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
A partial eclipse took a ‘bite’ out of the harvest supermoon. See the stunning images
In this screengrab from video, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore attend a NASA press conference about Boeing Starliner on September 13, 2024.
NASA
Boeing Starliner astronauts are unexpectedly spending Election Day in space. Here’s how they will cast votes
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Courtesy NASA
Mannequins flew around the moon on a path astronauts could soon take. Scientists just revealed how they fared
This artist's concept depicts NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft entering interstellar space, or the space between stars. Interstellar space is dominated by the plasma, or ionized gas, that was ejected by the death of nearby giant stars millions of years ago. The environment inside our solar bubble is dominated by the plasma exhausted by our sun, known as the solar wind.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft just fired up thrusters it hasn’t used in decades
The Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts returns to Earth after a five-day mission to orbit on September 15, 2024. The capsule is expected to land off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida. The Polaris Dawn mission reached a higher altitude than any human has traveled in five decades and conducted the first privately funded and operated spacewalk.
SpaceX
SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew returns home after history-making mission
Sarah Gillis during first commercial spacewalk on September 12, 2024.
Polaris Program/SpaceX
‘A giant leap’: Why a tech billionaire’s climb outside a spacecraft was so historic
In this screengrab from video, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore attend a NASA press conference about Boeing Starliner on September 13, 2024.
NASA
Boeing Starliner astronaut: ‘We found some things that we just could not get comfortable with’
JIUQUAN, CHINA - MAY 30: Members from China's Manned Space Agency and visitors watch as the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft onboard the Long March-2F rocket launches at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on May 30, 2023 in Jiuquan, China. The three astronaut crew of the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft will be carried to China's new Tiangong Space Station and will replace a similar crew that have been at the station for the last six months.(Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
China’s secretive space plane has returned to Earth. Its mission? Unknown
Jared Isaacman outside the capsule.
SpaceX
Four civilians on a daring SpaceX mission complete the first commercial spacewalk
Astronomers have captured a sequence of images of a star other than the Sun in enough detail to track the motion of bubbling gas on its surface. The images of the star, R Doradus, were obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a telescope co-owned by ESO, in July and August 2023. This panel shows three of these real images, taken with ALMA on 18 July, 27 July and 2 August 2023. The giant bubbles — 75 times the size of the Sun — seen on the star’s surface are the result of convection motions inside the star. The size of the Earth’s orbit is shown for scale.
ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. Vlemmings et al.
Giant bubbles on the surface of a nearby star preview the fate of our sun
TOPSHOT - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule, carrying the crew of the Polaris Dawn Mission, lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission just made history. But the riskiest part is still to come
A pair of merging black holes
NASA/ESA/Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
Bright lights detected by NASA telescopes lead to a dancing pair of supermassive black holes
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NASA
NASA sets sights on another ‘world that might be habitable today’