2026 is shaping up to be a spectacular year for lunar exploration, with a growing fleet of commercial missions set to attempt to land on Earth’s celestial neighbor.
It will be a huge year for the moon overall. NASA plans to send humans back to the vicinity of the moon with the Artemis 2 mission no earlier than February, while China, in the second half of the year, aims to land at the lunar…
Rogue planets — worlds that drift through space alone without a star — largely remain a mystery to scientists. Now, astronomers have for the first time confirmed the existence of one of these starless worlds by pinpointing its distance and mass — a rogue planet roughly…
On June 16, 2025, NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite caught a chain of elongated, oval lagoons near Billings and Cape Billings on Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula that lines up so perfectly that — when viewed from above — it resembles a stacked snowman pressed against the…
After the excitement of three visible comets in 2025, another may put on a show in late April 2026. However, although the comet, known as C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), could become bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, it could just as easily remain visible only through binoculars and telescopes.
In the wake of Comets C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) and C/2025 R2 (SWAN) in October, Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) is due…
15 skywatching events you won't want to miss in 2026
January 2, 2026
Skywatchers have plenty to look forward to in 2026, with a lineup of dazzling naked-eye events in the night sky throughout the year. From total solar and lunar eclipses and brilliant planetary conjunctions to iconic meteor showers peaking under moonless night skies and a…
Want to know when each planet will be at its best or when you can catch eye-catching planetary pairings in 2026?
This guide breaks down the major planetary events of the year, from conjunctions to oppositions to close planet-star encounters.
Related: Night sky tonight live…
Are image-stabilized binoculars good for stargazing?
January 2, 2026
Binoculars are an amazing tool for stargazing, and they are especially useful for beginners, as they often don’t need as much astronomy knowledge as you would need for operating a telescope. They do require a steady hand, though, for detailed views, and this can be a problem for many stargazers using them. Normally, the only way to counteract this would be to use a binocular tripod or have the…
The race to mine the moon is on – and it urgently needs some clear international rules
January 1, 2026
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
The vision of mining space for resources is no longer science fiction. The moon’s proximity to Earth and the…
Surprise, surprise: SpaceX shattered its single-year launch record again in 2025.
Elon Musk’s company has now set a new mark six years in a row, and the numbers are getting pretty silly. The record has risen from 25 orbital liftoffs in 2020 to 31 (2021) to 61 (2022) to…
Tear your eyes away from fireworks this New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31) to witness a magnificent natural light show, complete with twinkling constellations and star clusters, the steady light of planets and the awe-inspiring sight of the waxing gibbous moon shining in the constellation Taurus.
The moon will be visible halfway up the eastern horizon in the hours following sunset, with the delicate…
