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Webb-Hubble survey uncovers unexpectedly sparse tiny Kuiper Belt objects
1 hour ago•Source: Space Daily
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5.475 min•3 hours ago
Rocket Lab protests NASA Mars comms award over eligibility clauses
Rocket Lab has filed a GAO protest challenging NASA’s selection of Blue Origin for the $700 million Mars Telecommunications Network, arguing the decision conflicts with congressional eligibility criteria tied to 2024–2025 Mars design studies and the intended end-to-end Mars sample return mission. NASA has not publicly released a source selection statement, leaving the rationale unclear as to why Blue Origin’s Blue Ring design won over Rocket Lab’s proposal amid broader questions about development timelines and the contract’s first-fixed-price approach.
12.26 min•4 hours ago
Chariklo’s Tiny Ring System May Be in Flux, Webb Observations Hint
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Planet Nine’s case gains momentum as data hints at a hidden world
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Webb and Hubble Uncover 27 Tiny Distant Objects Beyond Neptune
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Bear on Mars? Pareidolia Behind a Hill That Looks Like a Face
A HiRISE photo of a Martian southern highlands hill appears bear-like, but scientists say the look is due to pareidolia—the nose is a V-shaped collapse, the eyes are two craters, and a circular fracture forms the head—higher-resolution images show it’s simply a mesa; such features, including salt-pond deposits that could host biosignatures, remain relevant targets for future Mars missions.
Hubble captures a cosmic birth–destruction cycle in a nearby nebula
A new Hubble image of LHA 120-N44 in the Large Magellanic Cloud reveals a 210-by-140 light-year superbubble filled with almost 30,000 newborn stars, showing how massive stars carve out cavities with winds and supernovas while compressing surrounding gas to trigger new star formation—the cosmic cycle of destruction and creation.
SpaceX marks a milestone with SES’s three O3b mPOWER satellites launch
SpaceX lofted three SES O3b mPOWER telecom satellites into medium Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9, marking SpaceX’s 700th Falcon mission. The first stage landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas about nine minutes after liftoff; the upper stage deployed the satellites at about 5,000 miles altitude over roughly 14 minutes. Each Boeing-built satellite weighs ~3,750 pounds (1,700 kg), completing the O3b mPOWER constellation to deliver low latency and high throughput.
Mercury shrinks far more than scientists expected, reshaping its core story
Mercury has contracted up to 14.5 miles in diameter—roughly 30% more than earlier estimates—due to cooling of its iron core. Hidden surface roughness had masked the loss, but a new roughness map shows rugged regions carry fewer wrinkles while debris around major craters hides contractions. The finding implies a larger metallic core and fewer light elements, with implications for Mercury’s formation and magnetic field; upcoming laser mapping by the BepiColombo mission will help confirm the results.
NEOWISE’s Adriatic Dawn: a Time-Lapse of a Great Comet in Italy
APOD's 2026-09-13 image features Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) rising over the Adriatic Sea in Italy, captured in a 30-minute time-lapse from 240+ exposures; it shows its ion and dust tails against noctilucent clouds and stars, with a nucleus about 5 km across.
Orbiting with curls: Jessica Meir reveals zero-G hair routine from the ISS
NASA astronaut Jessica Meir shares her zero-G curly-hair routine aboard the ISS: she uses no-rinse shampoo focusing on the scalp, rinses with a water pouch, dries with a dedicated T-shirt, avoids brushes to reduce frizz, and applies leave-in conditioner; humidity isn’t a major issue in microgravity, and she notes Earthly 3a curls become more like 3c in space, with a real shower back on Earth anticipated.
SpaceX set to launch final trio of SES O3b mPOWER satellites from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX will launch SES's final three O3b mPOWER satellites (F11-F13) on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral's SLC-40, completing the 13-satellite MEO constellation. Liftoff is planned within an 87-minute window starting at 2:49 p.m. EDT, with weather forecasts indicating mixed conditions. Booster B1080 will attempt a drone ship landing on A Shortfall of Gravitas, marking SpaceX's 400th orbital launch from SLC-40 and the 166th booster landing on that vessel. The satellites are set to deploy from the second stage about 34 minutes after liftoff and are expected to enter service by mid-2027 after orbit-raising and checkouts; SES says the finalized constellation will boost capabilities to meet growing demand.
Could the Sun Have Devoured a Super-Earth? New Study Suggests a Planetary Feast
A Turkish astronomer’s simulations propose that the young Sun may have ingested a rocky super‑Earth (five to ten times Earth’s mass), delivering lithium-poor and heavy-element-rich material that better matches the Sun’s current structure and lithium depletion; the result aligns solar models with observations, though it stops short of proving such an ingestion occurred; future work aims to detect similar fingerprints in other stars.
Andromeda’s glow masks an Earth twin: why direct imaging there is off the table
The article explains that Andromeda is visible because the light from hundreds of billions of stars blends into a single patch, not because individual stars are resolved. A hypothetical Earth-like planet orbiting a star in Andromeda would be about 10 billion times fainter than its star and separated by only about 1.3 microarcseconds, a scale far beyond current or planned direct-imaging capabilities. Even advanced future telescopes (like Webb or Roman) would struggle, requiring an unrealistically large aperture or space interferometry; indirect methods such as microlensing could, in principle, detect such planets, but imaging a world in another galaxy remains out of reach.
China eyes 2031 Mars sample return with streamlined Tianwen-3 mission
China plans to launch Tianwen-3 in 2028 to drill a Mars sample (about 18 ounces) with a lander, then return it to Earth by 2031 using an accompanying orbiter, a simpler and cheaper approach than NASA’s multi-stage Mars Sample Return. The move comes amid budget debates and U.S.-China space competition, and officials frame it as open international cooperation.