Planting boots on Mars is hard enough. But getting “breathing room” on the Red Planet without inhaling toxic dust is yet another issue.
Given NASA’s plans to eventually put astronauts on the Red Planet, the agency assembled a Martian Dust Limit Working Group earlier this year to review what’s known and unknown about the toxicological hazard to human crews from exposure to…
Are aliens running out of places to hide? It turns out we've searched much more of the galaxy than we realized
August 5, 2026
When people grow impatient at the lack of success in the search for alien life, researchers often point to how few of the Milky Way’s 100 billion stars or so have been searched so far. But it may be that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has surveyed…
When brand new entry-level telescopes start at a few hundred dollars, the idea of getting anything decent for pocket change sounds like a pipe dream. Yet the secondhand market often hides real bargains for those willing to hunt them down. Deals like this appear because…
With a total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, an annular solar eclipse on Feb 6, 2027 and another total solar eclipse on Aug. 2, 2027, solar telescopes are about to be in hot demand. After all, why peer at the eclipsed sun when you can see it in close-up? However, the Sky-Watcher Heliostar 76mm offers something a little different to a telescope wearing a solar filter — and it’s just as good when…
Is the Nocs Provisions Lite View spotting scope a good alternative to a traditional telescope?
August 4, 2026
Spotting scopes are typically used by birders and for hunting, but under a dark sky, the Nocs Provisions Lite View reveals a different personality. With a 56mm objective lens and a versatile 9x-27x zoom range, this compact spotting scope is surprisingly capable when turned…
Astronomers watch a black hole's feeding frenzy end with a bad case of cosmic indigestion
August 4, 2026
Astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to observe the violent outflow of material from a distant black hole. The observation once again shows that even the hungriest black holes are extremely messy eaters, while also revealing the “digestive…
Martin Halliwell is a Partner at NewSpace Capital, one of the world’s first private equity firms devoted exclusively to growth-stage companies working in the space technology sector. He formerly served as Chief Technology Officer of SES, where he led global technology and R&D from 2011 to 2019. Halliwell contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices section.
There are now…
It was Lucky 13 for SpaceX, as new videos show just how much work came into getting the latest flight of Starship’s upper stage softly down into the ocean.
After Starship made its 13th launch on Friday (July 24) from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas, the upper…
Watching August's 2026 solar eclipse from the UK? Stay safe with the best solar eclipse glasses
August 3, 2026
Looking forward to the 2026 solar eclipse, happening on Aug. 12? I know I am and even though it’s not a total solar eclipse here in the UK (the path of totality crosses Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain), we’ll still get to watch the moon obscure around 90%…
Venus dominates the evening sky throughout August, but early risers have a special treat too, as Mercury and Jupiter draw together in a beautiful dawn conjunction around mid-month.
From our vantage point on Earth, Venus reaches the end of its tether to the sun on the evening of Aug. 15, when it is at greatest elongation 46 degrees to the east of the sun. And yet, paradoxically, instead of…
