Washington DC (UPI) Oct 12, 2025
Elon Musk's SpaceX will conduct the 11th test flight of its Starship rocket Monday amid concerns that the United States is losing the race to return humans to the moon. SpaceX said in a statement that the launch window will open at 6:15 p.m. CDT on Monday as the rocket prepares to launch from the company's Starbase compound in Texas. The launch will be livestreamed on Musk's social medi

Washington DC (SPX) Oct 01, 2025
Researchers have discovered a young protoplanet called WISPIT 2b embedded in a ring-shaped gap in a disk encircling a young star. While theorists have thought that planets likely exist in these gaps (and possibly even create them), this is the first time that it has actually been observed. Researchers have directly detected - essentially photographed - a new planet called WISPIT 2b, labele

Week in images: 06-10 October 2025

Discover our week through the lens

Image: This is not static noise

Paris, France (SPX) Oct 06, 2025
The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a euro 50 million contract with Thales Alenia Space to initiate the preliminary design phase of the Security And cryptoGrAphic (SAGA) mission. This milestone marks a significant step toward establishing secure quantum communications from orbit. SAGA's goal is to demonstrate satellite-based quantum key distribution (QKD), which enables encryption

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Sep 30, 2025
Crest Robotics and Earthbuilt Technology will present Charlotte, the first robot capable of constructing buildings on both Earth and the Moon, at the 76th International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. The project, supported by the NSW Space+ Program and SmartSat CRC, integrates advanced robotics with Earthbuilt's low-carbon building process to meet urgent housing and space exploration needs.

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Oct 06, 2025
Since the early 20th century, scientists have known that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating pace. This acceleration has been attributed to dark energy, a mysterious property of spacetime that counteracts gravity. Traditionally, cosmologists have treated dark energy as constant under the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model, but new data are challenging this assumption. Recent fin

London UK (SPX) Oct 01, 2025
The lunar far side may have a colder interior than the near side, according to a new analysis of rock samples collected by China's Chang'e 6 mission. A study led by researchers from UCL and Peking University examined 300 g of lunar soil retrieved from a vast crater, revealing key differences in mantle temperature and composition between the two hemispheres. The research, published in Natur

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 09, 2025
EUMETSAT has unveiled the first Earth imagery from the METimage instrument aboard its newly launched Metop Second Generation A1 (Metop-SGA1) satellite, offering an early look at the mission's extraordinary visual clarity and scientific potential. Captured on 24 September 2025, METimage's debut scene spans Europe and North Africa, detailing complex weather systems, cloud fronts, and clear-s