Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 14, 2025
Images captured by NASA's Parker Solar Probe as the spacecraft made its record-breaking closest approach to the Sun in December 2024 have now revealed new details about how solar magnetic fields responsible for space weather escape from the Sun - and how sometimes they don't. Like a toddler, our Sun occasionally has disruptive outbursts. But instead of throwing a fit, the Sun spews magneti

Orlando, FL (SPX) Dec 14, 2025
Mission Space will launch its second payload in orbit in partnership with Rogue Space, extending its commercial space weather measurement network. The companies announced the mission during the Spacepower Conference in Orlando. The first Mission Space payload, ZOHAR-I, launched in March 2025 and recently received the 2025 Global Tech Award for advances in high-cadence radiation monitoring

Cambridge, MA (SPX) Dec 14, 2025
Astronomers have assembled the first continuous, two-dimensional maps of the outer edge of the Sun's atmosphere, tracing the boundary where the solar wind escapes the Sun's magnetic control. By combining these global maps with close-up measurements, researchers at the Center for Astrophysicshysics | Harvard and Smithsonian report that this boundary expands and becomes more irregular and spiky as

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Dec 14, 2025
NASA engineers are continuing efforts to restore contact with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter after the spacecraft fell silent during a routine pass behind Mars on December 6 2025. Before the loss of signal, telemetry from MAVEN indicated that the spacecraft and its subsystems were operating within expected parameters as it approached occultation by the planet. A

On 17 December, two Galileo satellites will be launched on an Ariane 6 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana in the 14th launch of operational satellites for the Galileo programme. This will be Galileo’s first launch on Ariane 6 and the fifth launch of Europe’s heavy-lift launcher. 

Image: XMM-Newton sees comet 3I/ATLAS in X-ray light

Week in images: 08-12 December 2025

Discover our week through the lens