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On Aug. 20, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 2 spacecraft on a mission to explore the outer planets. Despite its name, this was the first of the two Voyager missions NASA launched that year.

Voyager 2: Sailing Among Giant Planets

Thanks to a rare alignment of the planets, NASA had the opportunity to send a spacecraft on an unprecedented journey to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.While Voyager 1 ended its planetary mission after Saturn, Voyager 2 completed a 12-year journey to Neptune. But they didn't stop there!

Voyager 1 left the solar system and entered interstellar space in 2012, and Voyager 2 followed suit in 2018. As it approaches 50 years of operation, the probe continues to return data from three functioning science instruments.

NASA's Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977. (Image credit: NASA)Why it mattered

Nearly half a century later, it remains the only spacecraft to visit all four has giants in our solar system, and the only spacecraft humanity has ever sent past Uranus and Neptune. Some of Voyager 2’s biggest surprises came from the moons orbiting those planets. Its images of Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, revealed active geyser-like plumes blasting nitrogen miles above the surface — making it one of only three geologically active moons in the solar system (maybe four, depending on what Europa Clipper finds).

Decades beyond its original mission, Voyager 2 has begun studying the Kuiper Belt environment beyond the Sun’s protective heliosphere, giving scientists measurements from a region no spacecraft had been designed to reach. Voyager 2's plutonium power supply drops in efficiency about four watts per year, and NASA engineers were recently able to reduce how much power Voyager 2 needs by switching off a number of non-science components to adapt a less demanding method of warming the spacecraft while it continues traveling ever farther away from the sun.

Imagine looking at a vast city on Earth from a great distance, knowing nothing about that city; you may assume that its only buildings are the largest, most visible skyscrapers. But, get closer or look with a far more powerful tool, and you would begin to discover smaller buildings between mountainous skyscrapers.

Now, the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered that this looks like that is a fitting analogy for early galaxies.

Astronomers are finding that in between the brightest stars, the 'tallest skyscrapers' in the above analogy, there are much fainter stars analogous to smaller buildings. That means early galaxies may actually have a lot more mass packed into them than we believed.

The team behind this research reached this conclusion by using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study nine early galaxies that have passed through their period of intense star formation. They combined this data with observations from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) here on Earth to measure the population of small and faint stars in these galaxies for the first time. What they found was that the proportion of small stars in these galaxies is much greater than is found in modern galaxies like the Milky Way. This comes as something of a surprise to scientists who have assumed these populations would be similar.

"This means that the galaxy as a whole is much more massive than previous estimates suggested," team member Chloe Cheng of Leiden University, Netherlands, said in a statement.

The first 'cosmic cities' weren't dominated by skyscrapers, it just looks that way

Astronomers study galaxies and calculate their stellar population rates using the total light, or spectrum, coming from these cosmic metropolises. The problem is, the more massive a star is, the brighter it is. Thus, the overall spectrum of a galaxy is dominated by the most massive stars, while smaller stars are drowned out.

The sensitivity of the JWST has allowed astronomers to finally give these smaller stars a chance to shine and stand out, like spotting an incredible piece of architecture in a vast metropolis of glass and steel.

"Until recently, this type of measurement was simply not possible," team member Martje Slob of Leiden University said. "We needed not only a telescope that collects sufficient light, but also spectra of exceptional quality and new analysis techniques to reliably distinguish the subtle features of small stars."

Nine galaxies studied by the James Webb Space Telescope. Their spectrum reveals that there are many more relatively small stars in these galaxies (Image credit: Cheng et al/ Nature Astronomy 2026)

The team's discovery has implications for our understanding of young galaxies in the early universe. This is because scientists had always assumed the stars of different masses were born in the same proportion across cosmic history. Now that seemingly isn't the case.

That is especially true if more early galaxies are like one particularly striking example examined in this study. This galaxy, which formed less than 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, contains up to four times the mass previously estimated thanks to its huge population of smaller stars.

Thus, our models of galaxy formation may need some serious revision in the near future.

"This result shows that much more mass than previously thought is hidden in small stars," team leader Mariska Kriek of Leiden University said. "That has implications for all kinds of fields within astronomy. Because many planets orbit small stars, it could even mean that more planets formed in the early universe than we previously assumed."

An illustration of the JWST which continues to break new ground in astronomy. (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))

The team now intends to apply this method to more of the universe's earliest galaxies, hoping to stretch their investigation back to the universe's first stars.

The team's research was published on Wednesday (August 18) in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The countdown is on for the deep partial lunar eclipse of Aug. 27-28. Over the next week, we'll be bringing you the latest eclipse news, viewing tips as well as live updates throughout eclipse night.

Although this isn't quite a total lunar eclipse, it's pretty close! At maximum eclipse, 96.2% of the moon will slip into Earth's dark central shadow known as the umbra, according to Time and Date. Much of the moon may take on a rusty red hue, while a thin sliver remains brightly illuminated.

It's the deepest partial lunar eclipse visible anywhere on Earth until Dec. 31, 2028, making it a must-see event worth staying up late — or setting an alarm early — for.

1 week to go until the deepest partial lunar eclipse until 2028

The partial phase of a lunar eclipse captured over Sydney in September 2025. (Image credit: Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP via Getty Images)

We're officially one week away from one of the best skywatching events of the year!

On the evening of Aug. 27 (for North America), or the early hours of Aug. 28 (for western Europe), Earth's shadow will creep across the full moon during a very deep partial lunar eclipse. At maximum eclipse, 96.2% of the moon will be immersed in Earth's dark central shadow.

The eclipse will be visible, at least in some part, from North and South America, Europe, Africa and parts of western Asia, weather permitting. Observers in the Americas are well-positioned for the best views while skywatchers across Europe will need to look toward the western horizon before sunrise as the eclipse reaches its peak.

Read more: A 96% partial lunar eclipse is just 1 week away: Here's what you need to know.

August 21, 2026 – 6:05 AMWhy this partial lunar eclipse is one you won't want to miss

Craters and lunar seas mark the lunar surface during a deep lunar eclipse. (Image credit: Orchidpoet via Getty Images)

When most people hear the words "partial lunar eclipse," they might often assume it will be less impressive than a total eclipse, and not really worth the effort to try and see it. But the Aug. 27-28 eclipse is anything but ordinary.

At maximum eclipse, 96.2% of the moon will be immersed in Earth's umbra, the darkest part of our planet's shadow. That means only a thin sliver of the lunar surface will remain directly illuminated by the sun, while the rest of the moon will take on a deep reddish-orange hue.

If you miss this one, you'll have to wait until Dec. 31, 2028 for another lunar eclipse that rivals it in spectacle. So whether you're planning on staying up late in the US or setting your alarms early in Europe, this is one skywatching show that's well worth making time for!

August 22, 2026 – 6:05 AMWhere will the Aug. 27-28 partial lunar eclipse be visible?

The partial phase of a lunar eclipse captured over Canada in 2025. (Image credit: Photo by Chen Shaojin/VCG via Getty Images)

The good news is that unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse can be seen from anywhere the moon is above the horizon. That means millions of skywatchers worldwide will have a chance to witness at least part of the Aug. 27-28 eclipse, weather permitting.

The best views will be from North and South America, where the entire eclipse will be visible. Across Europe and Africa, the eclipse takes place before dawn on Aug. 28, with the moon setting during the latter stages of the event.

Read more: Partial lunar eclipse August 2026: Where will it be visible from?

August 23, 2026 – 7:07 AMHow to view a partial lunar eclipse

A lunar eclipse captured over the United Kingdom in 2007. (Image credit: Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

One of the wonderful things about a lunar eclipse is that it can be witnessed by everyone who happens to be on the night side of Earth as it occurs, weather permitting.

You don't need any special equipment like eclipse glasses to enjoy the show. Simply step outside and look up to see Earth's curved inner shadow crawl across the moon in a spectacular display of orbital mechanics.

Want a closer look? No problem! It's completely safe to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at the moon during a lunar eclipse. Doing so will give you a magnified view of the colossal craters and dark lunar seas that mark the moon's near side as they fall within the umbral shadow.

August 24, 2026 – 3:35 AM3 days to go! Here's everything you need to know

3 days until the partial lunar eclipse, here's everything you need to know. (Image credit: Eclipse inset: Giovanni Bortolani via Getty Images. Royalty Free. Graphic created in Canva Pro.)

The deep partial lunar eclipse is just a few days away, so now is the perfect time to start planning how you're going to view the "almost blood moon".

At maximum eclipse, 96.2% of the moon's surface will be covered by Earth's dark central shadow known as the umbra. While the moon won't be completely eclipsed — so this isn't technically a "blood moon" — much of the lunar surface is expected to take on a reddish-orange hue, with just a thin sliver remaining brightly illuminated.

Check out our complete guide to the Aug. 27-28 partial lunar eclipse to make sure you're ready for the "almost blood moon".

We're just one week away from a stunning partial lunar eclipse on Aug. 27-28, when billions across North America, South America, Africa and Europe will see Earth's shadow dye the moon a subtle crimson hue, while leaving a thin crescent exposed to direct sunlight.

August's partial lunar eclipse will occur as Earth passes directly between the sun and moon during the full moon phase — an imperfect alignment that will see our planet's intense inner shadow cover 96% of the visible face of our natural satellite.

Stargazers on the night side of Earth will catch their first glimpse of our planet's umbra (the darkest, innermost part of its shadow) creeping onto the moon's surface at 10:33 p.m. EDT on Aug. 27 (0233 GMT on Aug. 28), according to TimeandDate.com. The vast shadow will continue its advance across the crater-scarred landscape in the hours that follow, until it hits the point of maximum eclipse at 12:12 a.m. EDT on Aug. 28 (0412 GMT).

Around this time, you may notice the shadowed region of the moon take on a reddish-orange color, as sunlight filtered through Earth's atmosphere is bent onto the lunar surface — a phenomenon often referred to as a "Blood Moon" during a total eclipse.

Each phase of a lunar eclipse occurs simultaneously for everyone viewing from the night side of Earth, where the lunar disk is visible. However, local timings will differ significantly depending on your location on Earth.

A partial lunar eclipse captured in the skies over the capitol city of Manila in the Philippines. (Image credit: Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP via Getty Images)

If you're watching from a city on the West Coast of the United States like California, then the point of maximum eclipse will occur shortly after midnight local time on the night of Aug. 27-28.

Viewers in the United Kingdom, meanwhile, won't observe the moment of maximum eclipse until shortly before sunrise on Aug. 28, as the moon lurks low on the southwestern horizon. Be sure to check out a trusted website like TimeandDate for eclipse timings specific to your location.

You won't need any special kit to protect your eyes during a lunar eclipse as you would during a solar eclipse, when there is a serious risk of vision damage from looking directly upon the sun. However, a pair of quality binoculars or a telescope will give you a stunning view of Earth's shadow as it races across the lunar disk.

Need to upgrade your equipment? Then be sure to read our roundups of the best binoculars and telescopes available in 2026. You should also check out our guide to photographing a lunar eclipse, along with our picks of the top cameras and lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you capture a photo of the lunar eclipse and want to share it with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Rocket Lab launched a private Japanese satellite to orbit this morning (Aug. 20), adding to a growing constellation of Earth-observing spacecraft.

An Electron vehicle lifted off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site at 9:04 a.m. EDT (1304 GMT; 1:04 a.m. on Aug. 21 local New Zealand time), carrying aloft a radar satellite for the Tokyo-based company iQPS.

The nine 3D-printed Rutherford engines that power Electron's first stage shut off as planned about 2.5 minutes after liftoff. Separation with the rocket's second stage immediately followed, which burned for another 6.5 minutes before releasing Electron's "kick stage" with the IQPS payload for a 40-minute coast phase.

Electron lifts off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand launch site at 9:04 a.m. EDT (1304 GMT) on Aug. 20. (Image credit: Rocket Lab)

This was Rocket Lab's ninth launch for iQPS, which is building a constellation of 36 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Such spacecraft can study Earth day or night, and they can peer through cloud cover as well.

The iQPS network "is being developed and deployed at a rapid pace to provide high resolution and near-real time SAR imagery to its global users," Rocket Lab wrote in a description of today's mission, which it calls "The Lightning God Defends."

That name is a reference to the satellite going up today: It's nicknamed SUSANOO-II, after a Japanese lightning god.

Following the 40-minute coast phase of Electron's kick stage, the rocket completed one final burn to circularize its orbit and successfully deployed SUSANOO-II about 50 minutes after launch, at an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers).

Today's flight was Rocket Lab's 14th of 2026 and 93rd overall. The company's most recent launch, on Aug. 6, also lofted an iQPS satellite to LEO.

The vast majority of the company's flights have been performed by Electron, a 59-foot-tall (18 meters) rocket that gives small satellites dedicated rides to Earth orbit and beyond. Rocket Lab also operates a suborbital variant of Electron called HASTE, which allows customers to test sensors and other tech in the hypersonic flight environment.

Astronomers have found the fastest known star in the Milky Way, a faint object racing around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. Dubbed S301, the star reaches about 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers) per second at its fastest — more than 8% the speed of light.

"What is special about this star is that it's orbiting Sagittarius A* on a very tight orbit, taking just 8.7 years to complete it, and is approaching the black hole at a mere 12 times the distance of Earth to the sun. That is unprecedented," study author Felix Mang, a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, said in a statement.

The discovery gives astronomers a new way to probe the roughly 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole. General relativity predicts that a rotating black hole drags spacetime along with it, an effect known as frame dragging, or Lense-Thirring precession. That distortion should gradually alter S301's orbit — because the star ventures so close to Sagittarius A*, those changes may become measurable within about a decade.

This visible light wide-field view shows the rich star clouds in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) in the direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The entire image is filled with vast numbers of stars — but far more remain hidden behind clouds of dust and are only revealed in infrared images. This view was created from photographs in red and blue light and form part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. (Image credit: ESO and Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin and S. Guisard)

For the first time, we would actually be able to measure very directly the spin of a massive black hole, which would be a key test of Einstein's theory," said study co-author Stefan Gillessen, also of the Max Planck Institute.

This sequence of images, taken with the GRAVITY instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), show several stars orbiting Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. One of these stars, known as S301, was recently found to pass much closer to the black hole than any other known star. (Image credit: ESO/GRAVITY collaboration)

Researchers spotted S301 in 2023 using the GRAVITY instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile, then traced it back through observations from 2021 and 2017. Its highly elongated orbit suggests S301 may once have belonged to a binary system that wandered too close to Sagittarius A*. The black hole could have captured S301 while flinging its companion outward at tremendous speed.

Astronomers plan to keep tracking S301 with GRAVITY+ and, eventually, ESO's Extremely Large Telescope. With its next close pass expected in 2031, observations spanning two full orbits could reveal Sagittarius A*'s spin for the first time.

The team's research was published on August 19 in the journal Nature.

NASA is calling off the effort to save its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after a private rescue spacecraft couldn't overcome its own problems in orbit.

LINK, the specialized probe from Katalyst Space that NASA contracted for the Swift Boost mission, was delivered to space on an air-launched Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on July 3. The vehicle was designed to rendezvous with the Swift Observatory in order to grapple and raise it to a more stable orbit, but LINK ran into trouble when it began to spin uncontrollably about three weeks after launch.

Today (Aug. 19), NASA announced an official end to LINK's efforts to boost Swift's orbit, citing ongoing attitude control issues with the private spacecraft, but the agency hasn't canceled the mission outright. LINK will still attempt a rendezvous with Swift in order to practice proximity operations and demonstrate its capabilities other than spacecraft capture, which could aid future missions down the road.

From its inception, the Swift Boost mission was always viewed as a long shot. Increased solar activity had already begun decaying the observatory's orbit faster than anticipated when NASA awarded the $30 million Swift Boost contract to Katalyst in 2025, giving the Arizona-based company less than a year to complete LINK's design, manufacture and testing before time to save Swift would run out.

"NASA should be willing to move quickly and take smart risks when the potential return is worth it, and that is exactly what we did with this mission," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement today. "This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting. The team moved with extraordinary speed to give Swift a chance to carry out more science while advancing capabilities America will need for satellite servicing in the future."

Swift is a one-of-its kind orbital observatory designed to study high-energy phenomena across the universe. It can detect sudden events like gamma-ray bursts and quickly direct its instruments to study them in X-ray, ultraviolet and visible light. The spacecraft is also routinely redirected for rapid response research to study things like newly discovered supernovae, black-hole ejections, fast radio bursts and other short-lived astronomical events.

With LINK now incapable of boosting Swift's orbit, NASA estimates the observatory will dip catastrophically low into Earth's atmosphere before the end of the year. After Swift dies, the agency says it will "continue to prioritize finding new options to react rapidly to cosmic events, using current missions to help fill the gap in the meantime."

Katalyst is working closely with NASA as the Swift Boost mission enters its next phase. Together, the company and space agency are evaluating logistics for LINK's rendezvous and maneuvering demonstration within Swift's vicinity, which will provide data for potential future servicing missions to other satellites, NASA's statement says.

If you have ever shared a room with multiple people for days on end, you may know how clothes and living conditions can rapidly turn rather smelly. Imagine that happening in a confined spacecraft.

Even worse, since water on a space mission is in short supply, space travelers can't easily do their laundry. This is more than a body odor problem — unclean clothes and linens are ripe feeding grounds for infectious bacteria. Astronauts might wear the same clothes for days or even weeks, seal away used clothes in airtight bags, then return them to Earth for cleaning or cast them away to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

This is fine for short trips near Earth, but what about a months-long odyssey to Mars? Engineers have devised a new way for astronauts to dry-clean their dirty laundry. They've crafted a prototype "laundry gun" that sterilizes fabric by shooting violet-colored plasma into it.

"This will reduce the microbial load and keep clothes and other soft surfaces clean, at least microbially, for astronaut health," says Gabe Xu, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and one of the laundry gun's creators, in a statement. "It could also be used to sterilize space suits and tools before they leave the habitat and step foot on Mars."

A plasma is an energized soup of charged particles, ions and electrons. While many plasmas like that in the sun are very hot, the laundry gun's plasma is "cold," closer to room temperature.

Its electrons are key to killing bacteria. As the laundry gun shoots plasma into fabric, the electrons collide with gas molecules in the surrounding air, such as oxygen (O2) and water vapor (H2O). These collisions create other molecules like ozone (O3), which chemists call "oxidizing species". These oxidizing species can chemically react with the membrane that surrounds a bacterium, damaging and destroying it.

In collaboration with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Xu and colleagues have created a prototype plasma gun, about the size of a pen, which can sanitize about a square centimeter at a time. In their tests, the prototype reduced spore colonies on a scrap of fabric by more than 75%.

Earthly disinfectants like peroxide and bleach also attack bacteria by oxidizing them in this way. The laundry gun's creators could allow astronauts to travel without such cleaning chemicals. Instead, the apparatus creates its cleaning plasma from the spacecraft’s own air and water vapor. In space travel, where every gram of mass matters, this is a major advantage.

The plasma gun at work. (Image credit: Gabe Xu | UAH)

"The use of plasma treatment could significantly reduce the mass of goods needed for a human mission, especially one to Mars where resupply is difficult," Xu wrote in the statement.

That said, the "laundry gun" is not a perfect replacement for the standard washing machine — not yet, at any rate. "This won't remove coffee or grass stains (though we haven't tried that)," Xu wrote in the statement.

Moreover, a pen-sized laundry gun is too small to be practical. Xu and colleagues are planning to build larger, but still handheld, devices. They'll also need to deal with their plasma gun's ozone, which can be harmful in large quantities — they're working on a filtration system to remove this.

Space laundry is a rather active area of research today — astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) recently tested a space detergent, and the Chinese space program has developed a washing machine suitable for low-water use.

Despite our love for little "Baby Yoda", "The Mandalorian and Grogu" wasn't the thrilling "Star Wars" feature film to drag fans back to theaters when it dropped back in May. It wasn't bad, but it felt more like a TV special than a cinematic event.

But now the $166 million space opera — recruited from the Disney+ series that ran for three seasons from 2019-2023 — is now about to enter Earth orbit and finally land in the streaming sphere when it hits Disney+ starting Sept. 2, 2026. Will this be the way?

Directed by Jon Favreau and starring Pedro Pascal as the laconic bounty hunter clad in his stylish Beskar armor and also featuring that pint-sized alien dynamo formally known as Baby Yoda, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" was the first big-screen "Star Wars" movie in seven years since 2019's "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker."

Could the underperforming spinoff film become a surprise hit with general streaming audiences since that's where the characters were born, or has the dynamic duo's time come and gone?

Will Mando and Grogu be welcomed home to Disney+ on September 2? (Image credit: Disney+)

"The evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy," states the official synopsis. "As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin and his young apprentice Grogu."

While some fans would have potentially welcomed a fourth season of "The Mandalorian" — which is where this cobbled-together feature was derived from — the majority of disgruntled "Star Wars" acolytes were still wincing from the series' lackluster third outing (yes, we're staring at you, Jack Black and Lizzo!).

As they say, time heals all wounds, and despite disappointing reviews and fan reactions, the movie did manage to scrape together $345 million worldwide. Now that it's coming back to its streaming home, perhaps all will be forgiven? We're certainly willing to give it another shot or a fair first screening. How about you?

Also starring Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" steers its way back onto Disney+ beginning on Sept. 2, 2026.

Astronomers have discovered that a jet of plasma erupting from a distant supermassive black hole at near-light-speed is being gravitationally lensed by an unseen clump of dark matter. The discovery could tell us about the source of cosmic "ghost" particles called neutrinos.

The supermassive black hole in question is powering a type of quasar called a blazar. All quasars involve supermassive black holes surrounded by vast quantities of material upon which the black holes feed. Material that isn't consumed by these feasting cosmic titans is channeled to the poles of the black holes, from where it is blasted out as plasma jets. A blazar differs from quasars in general because the jets it blasts out are directed at Earth. Blazars, like the one central to this study, designated PKS 2233-148, have long been proposed to be the cosmic particle accelerators that blast out neutrinos.

Neutrinos get their ghostly nickname because they carry no charge and very little mass, meaning that 100 trillion of them can pass through your body every second without you noticing a thing. This makes them hard to both detect and trace back to a source. This gravitationally lensed blazar could assist in that hunt, finally proving blazars are filling the universe with cosmic ghosts.

"These large-scale jets are cosmic accelerators and might be generating neutrinos," Silke Britzen at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany told Phys.org. "We study them to search for any peculiarities which might help us to gain a better understanding of neutrino emission."

Blazar jet receives a cosmic course correction

Astronomers have long been interested in PKS 2233-148, identifying this blazar as one that could solidify the link between neutrinos and the jets of feeding supermassive black holes. That is because one of its polar jets is aligned along our line of sight from Earth.

Britzen and colleagues took a new look at observations of PKS 2233-148 made by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) on Earth, the Fermi space telescope, which viewed the blazar in gamma rays, and the X-ray instrument aboard the Swift space observatory.

An illustration of the Swift spacecraft which observed PKS 2233-148 in X-rays. (Image credit: NASA)

This revealed how the motion of the jet of PKS 2233-148 changed over time, uncovering hitherto hidden details, including the fact that this blazar jet had been suddenly shifted from its expected path.

"We are very happy to have discovered as-yet-undetected phenomena in the jet, as well as in the gamma-ray light curve," Britzen said.

What could have caused this cosmic course correction? A phenomenon first predicted by Albert Einstein back in 1915 and an unseen cluster of the universe's strangest stuff, dark matter.

What is gravitational lensing and how can dark matter cause it?

The concept of gravitational lensing emerged from Einstein's theory of gravity, general relativity. General relativity states that objects with matter warp the very fabric of space, much like a bowling ball placed on a stretched rubber sheet. Gravity arises from that curvature.

And just as a cannonball would dent that hypothetical rubber sheet more than a bowling ball, an object with greater mass would cause a more extreme warp in space; its gravitational influence is greater.

Something cool happens when light passes this warped space; its usually straight path is curved. This means that when light from a background source passes a massive foreground object acting as a gravitational lens, it arrives at our telescopes at different times, meaning that the background source is magnified or, in extreme cases, can appear in multiple places in the same image.

In this case, it is the jet of PKS 2233-148 that is being lensed. But there is no object of great mass, like a galaxy or galaxy cluster, that can be seen in the right position to be doing the lensing. That leaves the possibility that the lensing body is something that can't be seen at all. Dark matter fits the bill.

An illustration shows the basic principles behind gravitational lensing (Image credit: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada)

Dark matter is effectively invisible because it doesn't directly interact with electromagnetic radiation, or light. In other words, dark matter doesn't emit light, and light doesn't bounce off it. That means even a clump large enough to play the role of a gravitational lens would be undetectable. But that doesn't mean light can't respond to the curvature of space caused by dark matter, just as it does to curvature caused by any body composed of "ordinary" matter like a star or a galaxy.

Like any gravitational lensing set-up, the lensing of the jet of PKS 2233-148 caused by this clump of dark matter requires precise alignment, and that means it is only a temporary thing.

"Because these are short-term phenomena, they are hard to find," Britzen said. "This is the first time that we find a lensing phenomenon which might hint at dark matter substructure."

Britzen and colleagues now hope to find other similar lensing events to further solidify the connection between blazars and neutrino factories.

The team's research was published on July 31 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

NASA's veteran moon-circling spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), has imaged the impact site of that errant Falcon 9 upper stage.

The photos were taken on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, just a few days after the SpaceX rocket body slammed into the moon near Einstein Crater at 5,400 mph (8,690 kph).

LRO's high-resolution camera system, known as LROC, got good views of the aftermath from a variety of angles, snapping away every 117 minutes, the time it takes the orbiter to circuit the moon.

This is an animated before-and-after view of the crater formed after a Falcon 9 upper stage struck the moon's surface on Aug. 5, 2026. The after images were taken on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12 by the Narrow-Angle Camera on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These images are enlarged three times from the original, with north facing up, and they cover an area about a quarter of a mile wide. (Image credit: NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines)Diameter and depth

According to LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson, who's based at the Houston company Intuitive Machines, the newly formed impact crater is about 60 feet (18 meters) wide and appears to be less than 10 feet (3 m) deep.

"The distinctive V-shaped ejecta pattern on the south side of the crater is consistent with natural impactors hitting the moon at low angles relative to the surface," said Robinson.

The sixth (and final) image in LROC's sequence of the new crater, he added, was acquired with the largest slew angle (68 degrees), presenting a view similar to what an Artemis astronaut would see looking out his or her Orion spacecraft window toward the lunar horizon.

Telling tilts

To capture imagery of the impact site, LRO operators tilted the spacecraft so its cameras would point toward the target region each time the spacecraft passed about 60 miles (97 km) above the moon. In doing so, researchers could see the crater under multiple lighting conditions that revealed impact features.

According to NASA, the LRO imagery shows bright and dark rays stretching out from the crater.

"The darker streaks are made of surface dust and rocks altered over a long time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. This weathered material was excavated by the collision," with the brighter streaks near the crater rim formed by "fresh material excavated from deeper underground," NASA officials said in an Aug. 18 statement.

Image of the Falcon 9 impact site, taken by South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter. (Image credit: KARI)Korea's lunar orbiter

The site of the Aug. 5 crash was imaged earlier by the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, also known as Danuri. That mission team used Danuri's high-resolution Lunar Terrain Imager to spot the new crater. After capturing images of the impact zone, the Danuri mission sent updated crater coordinates to the LRO team to help refine their follow-up imaging sequence, NASA officials said.

Wandering through space for over a year and a half, the leftover Falcon 9 upper stage had sent two robotic landers — Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and Resilience, built by the Japanese company ispace — toward the moon back on Jan. 15, 2025. Blue Ghost succeeded in its lunar touchdown, but Resilience crashed during its attempt.

A mysterious incident over the southern Indian Ocean forced a U.S. Air Force aircraft to turn around due to an unnamed hazard in space.

According to several New Zealand-based news outlets, a U.S. Air Force (USAF) C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft left Christchurch Airport on New Zealand's South Island on Tuesday (Aug. 18) bound for McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Aircraft trackers using flight radar software noticed the C-17 turn around over the ocean some two hours into its flight.

According to a statement from New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority given to the country's Stuff news outlet, the C-17 turned around after the Russian Air Traffic Management Corporation issued a notice advising of "space activity, potentially hazardous to aviation en route to Antarctica." It still remains unknown what that activity might have entailed, and the USAF has yet to issue a statement.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) on Aug. 10 for a large region of airspace over Australia and the Indian Ocean known as the Melbourne Flight Information Region, or YMMM. The notice states that, beginning on Aug. 14, "Russian aerospace activities will take place" and that there is "possible debris" in several areas throughout the massive YMMM airspace.

It's possible that the notice that caused the C-17 to turn around was related to this NOTAM, which was still active as of Tuesday.

A NOTAM issued by the FAA on Aug. 14 stating there was "possible debris" due to "Russian aerospace activities" throughout a large region of airspace covering Australia and the Indian Ocean. (Image credit: FAA)

There is precedent that might give some clues as to what that aerospace activity might have been.

In the last few years, pieces of falling space debris reentering Earth's atmosphere have caused several airspace closures. In November 2022, for example, the core stage of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket fell to Earth in an uncontrolled reentry over Spain, prompting multiple airspace closures out of caution.

In January 2025, SpaceX's Starship exploded on its seventh test flight, raining fiery debris over the Atlantic Ocean near the Turks and Caicos islands. The FAA activated a "Debris Response Area" near the falling debris, causing some aircraft to have to divert to secondary airports due to low fuel.

A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster set to leave Antarctica for New Zealand from McMurdo Station, Antarctica on Nov. 12, 2016. (Image credit: MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)

That same month, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports found there is a 26% chance of "an uncontrolled space debris reentry in busy airspaces" due to the sharp increase in space traffic in recent years. But experts say much more data is needed to determine how to mitigate risks and how to respond in the event of such debris incidents.

Of course, there remains the chance that Russia's notice to air crews wasn't caused by falling space debris at all. Governments regularly issue similar notices when they are testing weapons that fly to high altitudes, such as ballistic missiles.

Typically, however, such tests are planned far in advance, meaning any notices would have been issued long before the USAF's C-17 took to the air.

The world of science fiction started with the written word, long before it hit the silver screen. Stories of man-made life, Martians, and other marvelous subject matter were being read long before the first sci-fi movie was released in 1902: Georges Méliès' "A Trip to the Moon". Some of these stories became classic tales that have been repeatedly adapted for Hollywood and television, think Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds."

This isn't by any means an exhaustive list but these are the sci-fi books that inspired some of our favorite movies and shows. We have big names like Project Hail Mary and Dune, as well as more obscure titles like the haunting Under the Skin and Stalker. We have included links to the best streaming services to watch each adaptation on right now, but for those of you who are tired of endless subscriptions, we have provided the 4K and Blu-ray releases so you can physically own your favorite media again.

Jeff VanderMeer Annihilation

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Mary Shelley Frankenstein

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Ted Chiang Stories of Your Life and Others

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Emily St. John Mandel Station Eleven

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Andy Weir Project Hail Mary

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Ernest Cline Ready Player One

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Frank Herbert Dune

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H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds

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Michael Faber Under the Skin

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Andy Weir The Martian

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Edward Ashton Mickey7

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Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale

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Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Roadside Picnic

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Books are often sidelined in today's visual-obsessed world, but I think they deliver a stronger experience that movies and shows just can't replicate. Now don't get me wrong, I love the movie adaptation of Annihilation, but I have a very special connection to the book. I read it multiple times before the movie release and it made me feel immersed in the inherent weirdness of the natural world and think about how alien our own planet is. The book always came to mind when taking a walk out in the forest and seeing the hypnotic curl of a fern or a bird alighting on a branch inches away from me.

Top 5 things to see in the night sky with binoculars — ranked by an expert

Beyond simple naked-eye observing, a pair of the best binoculars are the most accessible way to experience the night sky. They are affordable (although pricier models are available), very easy to use compared to telescopes and they offer a wide range of celestial sights, from our solar system neighbors to distant deep-sky objects. They are great for both beginners, casual observers and even veteran stargazers who want to grab a quick look or spend time sweeping through the Milky Way.

So what are the best night-sky targets for binocular users? There are so many, but we’ve done our best to whittle them down to five of the best that provide a good sense of what can be seen through binoculars. We’ve also accounted for different apertures and magnifications to make sure there’s something for everyone, even kids

The moon

Binoculars can get you great views of the moon. (Image credit: Getty Images)

The moon is the ideal starting point for observing with binoculars. As a large target full of intricate features that appear differently depending upon the illumination, the moon rewards return visits, and you’ll never grow bored.

Even low-magnification, smaller-aperture binoculars will show some interesting details. Small 8x40 or 7x50 binoculars are sufficient; you certainly wouldn’t want to go as low as, say, 8x25 because the moon would appear small. While larger magnifications can improve the view, unless you have the binocular mounted on a tripod, the shake from jittery hands can look like moonquakes. If you don’t have a tripod, an alternate solution is to use image-stabilized (IS) binoculars, where the binoculars’ internal electronics are able to remove the jitter from the image, making the view more static.

The illumination on the moon changes across a 29.5-day cycle as the sun rises and sets over the lunar landscape, with phases cycling from new to first quarter, then to full and last quarter and finally back to new again. Often, the best time to observe a particular feature on the moon is when it is dawn or dusk at that location, and the sun angle is low, casting stark shadows. Otherwise, it is difficult to see the relief when the sun is overhead.

Jupiter’s moons

Jupiter and (some) of its moons in orbit. Through binoculars views will be less detailed and smaller, but the moons are still visible. (Image credit: Getty Images)

Earth’s moon isn’t the only moon in the solar system that can be seen through binoculars.

A simple pair of 8x40s or 10x50s will be sufficient to watch the four largest moons of Jupiter — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto — circle around the Jovian giant. Unfortunately, these binoculars won’t be enough to show you the belts of Jupiter or its Great Red Spot, but its four large moons, known as the Galilean moons, because they were discovered by Galileo, will appear as pinpricks of light on either side of Jupiter.

It’s fun to follow in Galileo’s footsteps and watch the moons orbiting Jupiter, sometimes disappearing from view as they move behind the giant planet, or pass in front of it. Binoculars will not be powerful enough to show the moons transiting against the face of Jupiter, though — Jupiter is too bright, and the contrast is not great enough. The other 91 moons of Jupiter are far too small and faint to be seen in binoculars.

Mizar and Alcor

The Big Dipper constellation houses the stars Mizar and Alcor. (Image credit: Spike Silvernail/Getty Images)

In the handle of the pan-shaped Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major) is the pair of stars called Mizar and Alcor. They make a lovely visual double, easily seen with the naked eye, and they really pop when viewed through 10x50 binoculars, with Mizar the brightest at magnitude 2 and Alcor a little fainter at magnitude 4.

Some double stars are just visual doubles, meaning they are many light-years apart and unrelated, but they just happen to be very close to each other on the night sky as seen from our line of sight. Not so with Mizar and Alcor, which are physically bound by gravity as they orbit each other. However, view Mizar and Alcor through binoculars, and you will get a glimpse of the true magnificence of this system. Large binoculars will show that Mizar is also a double star. Resolving Mizar as two stars is probably pushing it in 10x50s, but a pair of 20x80 binoculars will give you a better chance of splitting them, with image-stabilized binoculars, if you have them, giving you the edge.

There’s even more in the Mizar and Alcor system than what binoculars can show. Both stars in the Mizar system are also doubles, as is Alcor, making this a six-star system in total! Sadly, these extra companions are so close together that not even telescopes can split them. But there are plenty of other doubles for you to hunt down with binoculars. The trick is to find double stars that have a wide enough separation to be resolvable by 10x50 binoculars. Try also Epsilon Lyrae and Alpha Librae, also called Zubenelgenubi, meaning ‘southern claw’, as it was once associated with the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion, before being moved into Libra the Scales.

Auriga’s open clusters

The tadpole nebula, IC 410, in the constellation Auriga. Averted vision, powerful magnification and a tripod are a must to see this with binoculars. (Image credit: Getty Images)

Auriga the Charioteer is a constellation famed for two things: its brilliant yellow star Capella (the sixth brightest in the entire night sky), and its array of magnificent open clusters, notably Messier 36, 37 and 38.

Open clusters are young clusters of stars that were born together and are now gradually dispersing, and Auriga’s open clusters are some of the best and brightest of their kind in the night sky.

A pair of 10x50 binoculars can have a field of view between 5 and 7 degrees, depending upon the model. For the larger field, it’s possible to squeeze all three of Auriga’s open clusters into the same view!

To find the clusters, first drop down from Capella to alight on the bright star Elnath, which is actually Beta Taurii in the constellation of Taurus the Bull. You can find Elnath easily with the unaided eye. Switching to binoculars, look about three-quarters of the way along the line between Capella and Elnath. You should see six fainter stars of magnitude 6 forming a curve. Follow that curve west, and you’ll come across two other magnitude 6 stars close to M38, which appear as a hazy patch whose diffuse light is made from a multitude of faint stars. This is the case for all three clusters. Most of M38’s stars are not resolvable in binoculars, but some certainly are in 10x50s, and switching to larger aperture binoculars or an image-stabilized model will help to reveal more.

Just 2.5 degrees to the south-east is the next cluster, M36, which overall is brighter than M38. Through 10x50s look for eight or ten stars; again, large binoculars will reveal more.

Finally, M37 is located a little further away. The constellation of Auriga has an obvious five-sided shape marked by its main stars and Elnath. Draw an imaginary line between Elnath and Auriga’s bright star at its lower left, magnitude 2.6 Theta Aurigae. Messier 37 is found about halfway along and just outside of this line. Another hazy patch, it is the densest of the three clusters, but most of its individual stars are fainter than in M36 and M38, so M37 will need larger binoculars, say 25x100, to get the best out of it.

After spending time looking at the three clusters, sweep your binoculars along the splendor of the winter Milky Way, in which Auriga sits. Through binoculars, the vast star fields of the Milky Way are spellbinding.

The Andromeda Galaxy M31

This is a typical view of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) that you can easily achieve with binoculars, but dark skies and averted vision aid detail. (Image credit: Omid Qadrdan)

The Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) is the closest large spiral galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. That means it is large and relatively bright in our night sky, making it a great target for binocular users. If you are observing from a dark site away from city lights, you will probably be able to see it with the naked eye.

If you can’t or are having trouble knowing where to look:
- Use the stars of the nearby constellation Cassiopeia to find it. Cassiopeia has the shape of the letter ‘W’. Use the bottom star on the right of the W — the brightest star in Cassiopeia, Alpha Cassiopeiae or Schedar — to...
- Point down towards Andromeda and its bright star Beta Andromedae, or Mirach.
- Now using 10x50 binoculars, move north-west until Mirach is at the bottom-left of your field of view and the star Mu Andromedae is at the top-right.
- Then move your binoculars the same distance in the same direction again, and you should find the Andromeda Galaxy.

While you won’t be able to resolve its spiral arms, you will see a smudge of light that is its disk, and a brighter core. Also look out for its two companion galaxies, M32 beneath it and M110 to the top-right. Both appear as fuzzy stars and, depending on how dark your observing site is, you may need to use averted vision to see them (looking at them out of the corner of your eye). Larger binoculars, say 25x100, will show M31 and its companions much more easily, though you’ll need a tripod to take their weight.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover saw a solar eclipse from the Martian surface. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)

People around the world enjoyed stellar views with last week's total solar eclipse.

And the day after we looked up to see the moon obscuring out sun, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover looked up to see its own Martian solar eclipse.

What is it?

Solar eclipses aren't unique to Earth. In theory, any planet with at least one orbiting moon would have times where that moon might eclipse some part of its sun to anyone looking up from the planet's surface.

On Aug. 13, 2026, one day after Earth's total solar eclipse in which our moon temporarily blocked out our sun for skywatchers in some locations, Mars saw its own solar eclipse.

Looking up with its left Mastcam-Z camera, Perseverance snapped this image of one of Mars' two moons, Phobos and Deimos, partially eclipsing the sun. This appears to be Phobos — the larger of the pair — eclipsing the sun.

Why is it incredible?

So far, we humans have only directly had vantage points on Earth, in Earth orbit and on the moon. We have not yet landed humans on Mars, and it remains unclear how long it might be before that happens.

But robotic explorers like Perseverance allow us to travel where we can't go ourselves. Such travelers have taken us into interstellar space and all throughout our solar system. From Saturn's rings to Neptune's distant, icy neighborhood, robotic probes have allowed humanity's reach to stretch far through the cosmos.

And thanks to Perseverance and its two "eyes," the two Mastcam-Z cameras located high on its mast, we can travel right to the surface of Mars, look up and see an alien solar eclipse. What an amazing thing that is.

On Aug. 19, 1997, the Philippines' first satellite launched into space. Before then, the country's only communications satellite was one that had been purchased from Indonesia after it was already in orbit.

But 29 years ago today, the Mabuhay Philippines Satellite Corporation sent its own satellite into orbit using a Chinese Long March 3B rocket. The new satellite was named Agila-2 in honor of the great Philippine eagle. To this day, it provides the most powerful satellite coverage in Asia and the Pacific, though its ownership has change: In 2009, the Philippines sold it to the Asia Broadcast Satellite company.

Artist's illustration of the Filipino satellite Agila-2. (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)Why it mattered

International collaboration is a key enabler of progress in space. For example, astronauts from around the world work together to stay safe and push scientific progress forward on board the International Space Station (ISS). And more and more nations are getting involved in the final frontier these days. Over 70 different nations have signed the Artemis Accords, a U.S.-backed set of guiding principles for responsible space exploration.

The Agila-2 launch was a major breakthrough for Filipino progress in the space sector. It was followed up almost two decades later with the Diwata-1 microsatellite, which launched to the ISS on April 27, 2016. And the momentum kept growing from there, as the Philippine Space Agency was formalized in 2019. Since then, the Philippines has collaborated with NASA and JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) to develop and launch two more satellites, Diwata-2 and Maya-1.

I woke up on the morning of Aug. 12 and looked out of the window to something I hadn't dared hope for: blue sky.

After days of scrutinizing weather models that seemed determined to test the nerves of everyone aboard the HX Expeditions ship MS Spitsbergen, somehow, against the odds, the clouds had cleared. Even then, I didn't trust it (especially after my 2024 eclipse experience). We had traveled thousands of miles, crossed the Greenland Sea and ventured deep into Scoresby Sund to put ourselves in the path of the moon's shadow. Now there was nothing to do but wait — and hope the sky stayed clear.

The wind howled across the deck, but nobody seemed to mind. If anything, it was helping us, keeping the clouds at bay. The atmosphere aboard felt like Christmas Eve with a ship full of overexcited children. Some guests had chased eclipses across the world; for others, this would be their first. Either way, Aug. 12 was the date we'd been waiting years for.

But by the time we reached Scoresby Sund, something had shifted.

I had traveled all this way to look up. Instead, I found myself looking around. I'd come here for 2 minutes and 14 seconds of darkness. Instead, Greenland had spent the previous days relentlessly demanding my full attention.

This trip was made possible by travel and accommodation provided by HX Expeditions.

After a couple of days at sea during the crossing from Svalbard to East Greenland, our first sight of land appeared almost like a mirage on the horizon. Soon, icebergs were drifting past the ship and the scale of the landscape became increasingly difficult to comprehend. We could sail for hours through Northeast Greenland National Park without seeing a single sign of human civilization beyond our own ship. At times, moving through those immense geological landscapes felt less like traveling across Earth and more like exploring some distant, icy-covered moon.

The East Coast of Greenland is one of the most remarkable environments I have ever experienced. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

Yet, the more otherworldly Greenland appeared, the more it made me appreciate our own planet.

At times it felt as though I'd stepped into a geology textbook. Processes and structures I'd previously seen reduced to diagrams were suddenly towering above me. And amongst all the enormity were the tiniest signs of life: lichens and miniature Arctic plants hugging the ground beneath vast mountains and glaciers.

The scale and contrast were overwhelming at times, and no view stayed the same for long.

An iceberg viewed from one side could morph into a completely different form as the ship sailed past it. A break in the clouds could transform a gray mountainside in seconds. In Scoresby Sund, even the ice seemed to echo the landscape around it as jagged peaks, flat-topped slabs and sculpted ridges rose from the water like miniature versions of the colossal mountains behind them.

A landscape dominated by giants. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

The Greenland scenery was a gift that kept on giving, and I found myself increasingly reluctant to go inside. I began meticulously scanning for wildlife, because I'd learned how quickly something extraordinary could appear.

On an impromptu evening walk in Longyearbyen before we set sail, beluga whales had suddenly surfaced in the bay. Later, in Greenland, while I was distracted by a spectacular circumzenithal arc and sundogs overhead, one of a handful of people still standing on deck spotted two tiny white shapes in the water. I thought they were birds bobbing along.

Then I lifted my camera and zoomed in.

Polar bears.

Two unexpected visitors. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future, captured with Sony A7RV and FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS lens)

It became something of a lesson for the expedition: stay curious, keep your eyes open and remember to look both up and down.

That curiosity seemed to unite everyone aboard. Guests had traveled from around the world for this eclipse opportunity. There were seasoned eclipse chasers looking to experience totality somewhere extraordinary, first-timers who had no idea how they would react and people drawn as much by the adventure and wildlife, as the eclipse itself.

HX Expeditions' onboard science and education programme gave that shared enthusiasm somewhere to go. Our days were filled with nature landings, lectures, citizen-science projects and conversations with experts, helping us do more than simply travel through Greenland. The programme encouraged us to pay closer attention — not merely to see the landscape, but to understand and truly experience it.

Conversations jumped from eclipses to wildlife, travel, geology and perhaps, inevitably for a ship full of skywatchers, clouds. We took part in the GLOBE Observer cloud citizen science project and found ourselves happily studying them — while collectively hoping they would be nowhere near the sun on eclipse day.

The eclipse had brought us together, but the journey had quickly become about much more.

MS Spitsbergen poised and ready for the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

Then, on Aug. 12, our attention returned to the sky.

When the moon took its first tiny bite from the solar disk, excitement rippled across the deck. For the next hour, it steadily consumed more of the sun.

As totality approached, the quality of the light began to change.

It became strangely yellow and dull, yet at the same time the landscape seemed almost unnaturally sharp. It was eerie — familiar enough to still resemble daylight, but wrong enough that your brain knew something extraordinary was happening.

Poised and ready for the eclipse. I captured the image of totality with a Sony A7RV and FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS lens and a makeshift solar filter using Baader AstroSolar Safety Film. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

What amazed me most was how long that daylight persisted.

Even when only the tiniest sliver of sun remained, Greenland was still illuminated. I knew scientifically how intensely bright the solar photosphere is, but knowing it and watching that minuscule fraction of sunlight continue to illuminate an entire landscape were two very different things.

Then the final fraction disappeared.

The world around me plunged into twilight.

And there it was.

Totality.

The total solar eclipse viewed from the deck of HX Expeditions' MS Spitsbergen. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

I knew exactly what I was supposed to see. I've written about eclipses for years. I understand the science. I had seen thousands of photographs of the corona, prominences, Baily's beads and diamond rings.

None of it prepared me for the feeling of actually seeing one.

The first thing that struck me was how large the eclipsed sun appeared to the naked eye. Photographs had never prepared me for that sense of scale, nor how much detail I could see with my own eyes.

The giant pink prominence on the lower left limb was bright enough to see with the naked eye. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future, captured with Sony A7RV and FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS lens)

The moon itself looked impossibly dark — a black void punched into the sky — surrounded by the pearly white corona. Long streamers stretched away from the sun and around the moon's edge I could see bright pink prominences.

I was so surprised to see this vivid pink color with my own eyes. For 2 minutes and 14 seconds, I saw the sun as I had never seen it before.

But even then, I couldn't just look up.

I looked around. Jupiter and Mercury shone clearly off to one side of the eclipsed sun, with Mercury far brighter and easier to spot than I had expected. Venus blazed on the other side.

Then I looked down. Below the eclipsed sun were icebergs. Beside us rose the immense walls of Scoresby Sund. Glaciers carved their path through the landscape.

Above it all hung that black disk and its enormous, delicate corona. My brain simply couldn't take it all in.

There was too much beauty. Too much scale. Too much happening at once.

People use words such as "mind-blowing" and "speechless" so often that they begin to lose their meaning.

But my mind was really blown. And I really was speechless. Perhaps the best way I can describe it is that my mind felt full, but quiet. Full because there was almost too much to comprehend, but quiet because for those fleeting moments, there was room for nothing else.

I was astonished by how much of the corona you could see with the naked eye. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future, captured with Sony A7RV and FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS lens)

The intensity of the experience surprised guests who had originally joined the voyage for different reasons.

"My husband and I came to see the wildlife, and we were actually in awe of what we saw in relation to the solar eclipse," Kenya Haupt, from Colorado, told Space.com. "Truly an emotional experience"

The reasons for joining the expedition varied, but beneath the moon’s shadow, the experience became a collective one.

For Shubhada Maitra, from India, it was her first total solar eclipse.

"When I looked around me, I just had a feeling that we were one community, taking part in one of the most spectacular, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime celestial events," Maitra said. "Although we came from different countries, different nationalities, genders, all of that, that solar eclipse just bound us together."

"Without saying anything, we were just so connected in that experience."

Lisa Marie Morse, from Rhode Island, described the eclipse as both "joyous and melancholy."

"In that moment of darkness, I felt a powerful connection with all living things, to an infinite ancient rhythm locking us together for 134 seconds of shared awareness, then releasing us back into our daily slumber," Morse said. "It was magical."

Then, almost as quickly as totality had arrived, it was ending.

The first brilliant beads of sunlight appeared from behind the moon.

They were beautiful, but there was a sadness in seeing them too. The corona, prominences and extraordinary black void that had dominated the sky were about to disappear once more into the overwhelming glare of the sun.

Two minutes and 14 seconds had somehow felt both packed with experience and impossibly brief. I had just enough time to look with my naked eye, search for planets, check it out through binoculars and try to absorb the reactions around me.

Then it was gone.

For seasoned eclipse chaser Roy Tillcock from the Isle of Wight, the clear view had come as a genuine surprise.

"This was one of the most unexpected eclipses I've seen," he said. "I did not have high hopes of seeing it, and there it was. Brilliant."

And, as if to underline just how fortunate we had been, the clouds rolled in shortly after totality. A few minutes later, and this could have been a very different story.

Some skywatchers were emotional. Others were exhilarated. Many, like me, seemed to be struggling to find words big enough for what had happened.

Perhaps that is part of why eclipse chasing becomes so addictive. We can explain the science of totality in extraordinary detail. We can calculate the path of the moon's shadow years in advance, travel thousands of miles to stand beneath it and know exactly when and where darkness will fall.

But knowing what to expect is not the same as experiencing it.

The following morning, Greenland was still there, still demanding my undivided attention. Icebergs drifted past the ship. Mountains towered above the fjord. The sunlight shifted and the landscape transformed once again. I had traveled all this way to look up.

There was never a bad view as we journeyed through Scoresby Sund aboard MS Spitsbergen. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future)

But somewhere along the journey, I had learned to truly look around. Here I was, standing on a planet of glaciers, oceans, wildlife and ancient rock, watching its moon pass perfectly across its star at a moment in Earth's history when their apparent size in our sky happened to match. How lucky are we to experience any of this? Luck, ultimately, is something no eclipse chaser can ignore.

We could calculate where the shadow would fall. We could sail into its path. We could scrutinize forecasts, prepare our equipment and position ourselves as carefully as possible.

But we couldn't command the clouds to cooperate.

Nature always has the final say. And on Aug. 12, 2026, in a remote fjord in East Greenland, nature said yes.

Greenland was full of surprises. (Image credit: Daisy Dobrijevic/Future, captured with Sony A7RV and FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS lens)

Editor's note: This trip was made possible by travel and accommodation provided by HX Expeditions.

Astronomers have discovered an unusually massive, dense exoplanet that challenges conventional ideas about how rocky planets form.

Called GJ 523b, the exoplanet is about 2.5 times wider than Earth but packs roughly 23 times our planet's mass into that relatively compact size. Worlds this large and dense are sometimes referred to as "mega-Earths," an informal term for unusually massive, predominantly rocky planets. GJ 523b's high density suggests it contains relatively little atmosphere despite being large enough that astronomers would normally expect it to have accumulated a substantial gaseous envelope, according to a statement from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

"This isn't what we expected at all," Max Kroft, lead author of the study, said in the statement. "Dense planets like this aren't uncommon, but they're usually small rocky planets similar to Earth or Mercury. This planet is two and a half times bigger than the Earth."

GJ 523b was initially identified as a candidate by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which searches for periodic dips in starlight caused when planets cross, or transit, their host stars. Researchers followed up with observations from the ground-based WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, using a spectrograph to measure the planet's gravitational tug on its star.

Combining those observations, the team calculated that GJ 523b has a mass about 23.5 times that of Earth, a radius 2.55 times larger and a density of about 126.82 grams per cubic inch. It circles its star every 17.75 days. The planetary system is also relatively young, at an estimated nearly 170 million years old, according to the study.

That combination of size, mass and youth poses a puzzle for planet formation models. Planets begin by building cores of rock and metal, which can then pull in hydrogen and helium from the disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star. In our own solar system, giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have begun rapidly accumulating their massive gaseous envelopes once their growing cores reached roughly 20 times Earth's mass.

GJ 523b is already about 23 times Earth's mass, putting it beyond that threshold. Yet instead of developing into a gas-rich world, its unusually high density suggests it has relatively little gas and remains predominantly rocky — raising the question of why it followed such a different path.

"The question is, why didn't this planet do that, if it's 20 times the size of Earth?" Kroft said in the statement.

One possibility is that GJ 523b initially formed with a thick atmosphere that was later stripped away. Another is that it formed through a collision between two planets, creating a larger rocky world while blasting much of their gaseous envelopes into space, according to the statement.

Astronomers have used the term "mega-Earth" for more than a decade to describe exceptionally massive rocky worlds, though it has never represented a formally established class of exoplanets. Finding more examples like GJ 523b could help reveal whether these unusual worlds are rare exceptions or part of a broader population.

"It's hard to infer things about planet formation in general from a sample size of one," Kroft said in the statement. "We're not going to get to 10,000 of these overdense planets, but if we can get to 20 or 30, maybe some trends might pop out."

The findings have been submitted to The Astronomical Journal and are currently available on the preprint server arXiv and have not yet been peer reviewed.

China just notched another big spaceflight milestone.

The Beijing startup LandSpace successfully landed the first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket this evening (Aug. 18), becoming the first Chinese company ever to do so during an orbital launch.

It was just the second Chinese orbital rocket touchdown overall. The first was pulled of on July 10 by a Long March 10B, which is built by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

The first stage of Landspace's Zhuque-3 rocket rests on its landing pad shortly after its historic touchdown on Aug. 18, 2026. (Image credit: LandSpace)

The Long March 10B had some help returning to Earth, settling softly into a net-like device affixed to a ship at sea. But Zhuque-3 came down on terra firma and stayed upright thanks to a set of landing legs, like those sported by SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

"This mission marks China's first-ever successful recovery attempt of the first stage of an orbital-class launch vehicle using landing legs, and China's first successful booster recovery on land," LandSpace said via X this evening.

"It is a pivotal flight test for Zhuque-3 as it transitions from the technological demonstration and verification phase toward the engineering application phase of reusability," the company added. "This mission further verified the design correctness and reliability of the Zhuque-3 reusable launch vehicle system, validated its first-stage recovery capability and engineering maturity."

Zhuque-3 broadly resembles the Falcon 9, which made its first landing way back in 2015 and now has more than 600 of them under its belt. Both feature a reusable booster and an expendable upper stage, and they're about the same height — 230 feet (70 meters) for the Falcon 9 and 216 feet (66 m) for Zhuque-3.

Their lifting power is similar as well. Zhuque-3 can haul about 40,350 pounds (18,300 kilograms) to low Earth orbit, while the Falcon 9's LEO payload capacity is 50,265 pounds (22,800 kg).

The two rockets use two very different fuels, however — a combination of liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene for the Falcon 9, compared to LOX and liquid methane for Zhuque-3. This "methalox" mixture is also used by Starship, the fully reusable megarocket that SpaceX is developing to help humanity settle the moon and Mars, among other spaceflight tasks.

LandSpace's Zhuque-3 rocket launches on its second-ever mission on Aug. 18, 2026. The flight was a success, and Zhuque-3's first stage returned to Earth for a landing — the first ever for a private Chinese orbital rocket. (Image credit: LandSpace)

Today's launch — which occurred from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone in northwest China at 7:35 p.m. EDT (2335 GMT; 7:35 a.m. on Aug. 19 Beijing time) — was the second overall for the Zhuque-3. The rocket first flew on Dec. 2, 2025, on a mostly successful debut; Zhuque-3's upper stage reached orbit as planned, which is rare for a first flight.

LandSpace tried to bring the booster back for a touchdown that day as well, but the attempt failed. Zhuque-3 suffered "an abnormal combustion" as it neared the ground, according to the state-run outlet Xinhua (translation by Google), and ended up exploding near the designated landing pad.

Today's mission, however, was an unqualified success for the Zhuque-3: The rocket's upper stage delivered a satellite called Honghu 03, which was developed by Hongqing Technology, to its designated orbit, LandSpace wrote in another X post today.

MISSION SUCCESS | ZhuQue-3 Y2 Reusable Launch Vehicle Achieved Full Success in Orbital Insertion and First-Stage RecoveryOn August 19, 2026, at 07:35 (UTC+8), the ZhuQue-3 (ZQ-3) Y2 reusable launch vehicle lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone.… pic.twitter.com/fshijOxgtcAugust 19, 2026

Zhuque-3 is part of a concerted Chinese push toward rocket reusability, an efficiency-boosting feature that has helped make the Falcon 9 the world's leading launcher by far. (The SpaceX rocket flew 165 times in 2025, roughly equalling the activity of all other orbital launchers combined.)

For example, CASC isn't just working on the Long March 10 line (which includes the 10A crew-carrying variant); its Long March 12A and 12B rockets will also have reusable first stages. The Long March 12A has lifted off once to date, in December 2025, and its debut was similar to that of Zhuque-3: The Long March 12A second stage reached orbit successfully, but its booster failed to stick the landing.

And then there are the private rockets. A number of Chinese companies in addition to LandSpace are working on vehicles with reusable first stages, including CAS Space, Deep Blue Aerospace, Galactic Energy, iSpace, Orienspace and Space Pioneer. So Chinese rocket landings may not be a novelty for much longer.

Ringed worlds seem to be a fertile source of science fiction material, whether it be in sci-fi master Larry Niven's circular alien constructs in his "Ringworld" novels, the spherical megastructures of "Halo's" video game universe — which just launched its "Campaign Evolved" remake of the original game for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on July 28 — or the ringed orbital habitat for the ultra-rich depicted in director Neill Blomkamp's 2013 sci-fi flick, "Elysium."

Leave it to the funny folks at Hulu's "Futurama" to tap into that popular trope in the latest episode titled "Lords of the Ring," where the Planet Express crew crash-lands on a strange world whose shape resembles a colossal space ring.

This weird location is inhabited entirely by super-smart rats, and it's not long before Fry, Leela, Amy, Bender, Hermes, Zoidberg and Professor Farnsworth are embroiled in a mission to figure out how this all came to be. "Futurama" Season 14 just blasted off Aug. 3, so there's plenty of time to catch up with the zany far-future antics.

A scene from the new "Futurama" season 14 episode, "Lords of the Ring" (Image credit: Hulu)

"'Lords of the Ring' is absolutely loaded up with references and inspirations from classic sci-fi, even by our standards," showrunner David X. Cohen tells Space. "To begin with, the setting of the episode is a massive 'space ring' that creates its own artificial gravity as it rotates. I am a huge fan of space rings.

"The classic influence, of course, is the novel 'Ringworld' by Larry Niven, often cited as a prime example of the 'Big Dumb Object' genre of science fiction. It's a very memorable book, but the part you remember is the ring. If you have to pick one or the other, I'd recommend the 'Futurama' episode for more action."

Exclusive concept art for "Futurama's" latest episode, "Lords of the Ring" (Image credit: Hulu)

Another influential ring for series executive producer Cohen, and a particular favorite of episode writer Bill Odenkirk, is the elegant orbiting space station seen in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" from 1968.

"I think in our earliest discussion of the episode he proposed something more like that, but it evolved as we pitched out the story from a small orbiting ring into a medium-sized big dumb space ring," he adds. "I need to mention that both Bill and I played a lot of 'Halo' back in the early 'Futurama' days and that surely lurked in the back of our minds.

"Aside from rings, the episode draws influence from 'Planet of the Apes.' If not for the whole ring aspect, we could have called it 'Planet of the Rats.' Several aspects of the episode, including the idea of forbidden ancient relics and the non-human mammal civilization, take inspiration from 'Planet of the Apes.' I guess it's an example of convergent evolution… all mammals in science fiction eventually evolve to run their own terrifying Planet-of-the-Whatever. And lastly... I'll mention there are some Easter-Egg references to the classic 'Rats of NIMH.' Keep an eye out!"

Gorgeous space imagery from this week's "Lords of the Ring" episode (Image credit: Hulu)

Spectacular visuals presented in this seriously geeky episode are another standout for Cohen, who claims it's one of his favorites of the new season.

"The director, Crystal Chesney Thompson, actually had pet rats, and she really brought this insane world to life," he notes. "The rat acting as they switch between animal and human behaviors is hilarious, the ring itself is one of the most glorious things ever seen in the series, and the stylized section depicting the mysterious backstory of the ring world is a classic. I hope our nerding out over the details comes through!"

"Futurama" Season 14 currently airs on Hulu, with new episodes arriving each Monday through Sept. 28, 2026. "Lords of the Ring" aired on August 17, so it's available to watch right now.