Roman Space Telescope begins million-mile cruise to the dark universe

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Aug. 30, 2026 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy to study dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets.

Astronomers discover S301, the fastest known star in the Milky Way orbiting Sagittarius A* at over 8% the speed of light

Star S301 orbits our galaxy's supermassive black hole in just 8.7 years, approaching close enough to potentially measure the black hole's spin within a decade.

Hubble confirms Milky Way swallowed a tiny galaxy in its first two billion years

The Hubble Space Telescope has detected definitive evidence that the Milky Way swallowed a dwarf galaxy named LKH 11.8 billion years ago, revealing a previously unknown merger from the earliest epochs of galactic assembly.

ALMA Captures Trillion-Mile Gas Streamer Feeding GW Orionis

ALMA has mapped a trillion-mile gas streamer feeding the triple-star system GW Orionis, revealing how late-stage infall from the surrounding molecular cloud tilts and reshapes the protoplanetary disks where planets form.

JAXA Unveils MMX Spacecraft for First-Ever Sample Return from a Martian Moon

Japan's JAXA unveiled the MMX spacecraft on August 13, 2026, targeting a world-first sample return from the Martian moon Phobos. The probe, the largest lunar or planetary spacecraft Japan has built, is scheduled to launch this autumn on an H3 rocket and return to Earth five years later.

Long March 7A Failure Cuts Short Military Satellite Launch, Sparks Lunar Mission Questions

China's Long March 7A rocket exploded 85 seconds after launch on August 10, marking the vehicle's second failure and raising questions about the engines shared with the upcoming Chang'e-7 lunar mission.

XENONnT Experiment Achieves World-Leading Dark Matter Search Results with Ionization-Only Detection

The XENONnT experiment has published record-setting limits on axion-like particles and dark photons, nearing the neutrino fog threshold using a novel detection method.

Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star

Researchers confirm a new type of cosmic object called a 'black hole star' using JWST.

NASA's PUNCH Mission Predicts a Solar Storm's Arrival to Within 30 Minutes

NASA's PUNCH mission predicted the arrival of a May 31, 2025 coronal mass ejection to within 30 minutes, a tenfold improvement over the previous 12-hour forecast window.

Astronomers Watch a Massive Star Die From the First Explosive Moment, Finding a New Way Stars Can Explode

China's Einstein Probe caught a massive star's death from the very first moment — only the second clear X-ray shock breakout in 20 years — revealing a supernova that had all the ingredients for a gamma-ray burst but never produced one.

Astronomers Resolve 44 Nysa as a Three-Lobed Asteroid with a Small Moon

Astronomers have resolved 44 Nysa as a rare three-lobed asteroid accompanied by a small moon.

Astronomers detect a wandering supermassive black hole after a star's destruction

A dormant supermassive black hole, found far from its galaxy's center, was revealed when it shredded a passing star.

IXPE Measures Vacuum Birefringence Around a Magnetar for the First Time

NASA's IXPE telescope captures over 140 hours of magnetar observations revealing how ultra-strong magnetic fields polarize the quantum vacuum itself, confirming a ninety-year-old quantum electrodynamics prediction.

Inouye Solar Telescope Captures First Kelvin–Helmholtz Instability on the Sun's Surface

Scientists using the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope have confirmed the presence of Kelvin–Helmholtz instability on the Sun's photosphere for the first time, validating a decades-old theoretical prediction and revealing a hidden channel for plasma mixing and energy transport at the solar surface.

SpaceX Falcon 9 Upper Stage Crashes Into the Moon Near Einstein Crater

A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon near Einstein Crater on August 5, 2026, creating an artificial impact crater and highlighting concerns about space debris disposal.

Cygnus X-3 Confirmed as Galactic Acceleration Limits Exploded by LHAASO

LHAASO detects Cygnus X-3 accelerating cosmic-ray protons to at least 30 PeV, confirming the Milky Way's most powerful natural particle accelerator and shattering the long-held ~1 PeV ceiling for galactic accelerators.

The First ALMA SETI Survey Looked Where Nobody Had Listened, and Found a Bigger Search Than Anyone Knew

A new survey using the ALMA telescope searched for alien signals in radio frequencies above the traditional 'water hole' range and found nothing, but its results show past surveys may have covered over 6 million stars, not the 288,000 previously estimated.

Curiosity Found a Sea of Honeycomb Fractures on Mars. Nobody Knows How They Got There.

Curiosity photographed the largest field of honeycomb-shaped polygonal fractures ever seen on Mars during June observations in Valle Grande, a valley where the features spread in every direction — leaving scientists unable to say how they formed.

The Milky Way's Disc Was Flipped Upside Down 10 Billion Years Ago

Supercomputer simulations presented at NAM 2026 show the Milky Way's disc was flipped by more than 90 degrees after a head-on collision with the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus dwarf galaxy roughly 10 billion years ago — a finding diagnostic tests on thousands of simulated galaxies now support.

NASA Fuels the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for an August 30 Launch

Technicians completed fueling the Roman Space Telescope on July 25, loading 290 gallons of hydrazine ahead of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch that will send the observatory a million miles out to Lagrange point 2.

Helium Escape Confirms First Atmosphere on Rocky Habitable-Zone Exoplanet LHS 1140b

Helium escape detected from rocky super-Earth LHS 1140b marks the first confirmed atmosphere on any habitable-zone exoplanet, with follow-up data revealing time-variable loss rates and no envelope on its companion world.

Euclid Has Discovered 31 Ancient Quasars. Two of Them Are Now the Oldest Ever Seen.

ESA's Euclid space telescope has found 31 of the most ancient quasars ever observed, including two that set a new record as the most distant — glowing when the universe was just 670 million years old and their light has been travelling 13 billion years to reach us.