Space

The tug-of-war over space shuttle Discovery is becoming more volatile. Discovery — the crown jewel of the Smithsonian Institution’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia — is the subject of a political battle over whether the shuttle should remain part of the National Air and Space Museum’s collection or be relocated to Houston, home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. New…

The towering rocket tasked with launching NASA’s next moon astronauts on their historic lunar journey has come together. The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket being stacked for the Artemis 2 mission has its final piece. Integrity, the Orion spacecraft that will fly NASA’s Artemis 2 crew around the moon as early as February 2026, was recently transported across NASA’s Kennedy Space…

The new moon will see dark skies for the peak of the Orionid meteor shower, while three days later the young moon will pass in front of the red star Antares for observers in South America and the Falklands. A new moon phase happens when the sun and moon are on the same line drawn from one celestial pole to the other. The exact moment of this month’s full moon occurs on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at…

A bright new solar system comet could put on a show in the October night sky as it zooms past Earth. Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) was discovered on Sept. 10 by Ukrainian amateur astronomer Vladimir Bezugly. It has brightened significantly since then, raising hopes that it could become a naked eye comet around the time that it makes its closest approach to Earth later this month on Oct. 21. As it draws…