SpaceX wants to start flying its Starship megarocket a lot more often.
The company has requested permission to launch Starship from its Starbase site in South Texas up to 456 times per year. That’s a big jump from the currently allowed cadence of 25.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is in the early stages of reviewing the request. Today (Oct. 14), the agency announced…
A Dragon has settled into its nest after a more than two-day-long orbital pursuit.
SpaceX’s cargo Dragon, flying the CRS-35 (35th Commercial Resupply Services) mission for NASA, rendezvoused with the International Space Station (ISS) this morning (Oct. 15), delivering…
The 1st SpaceX Starship to survive a launch to space just came home to its launch site
October 15, 2026
Nearly three months after surviving its launch to space and a tumultuous trial at sea, the first Starship spacecraft to survive its ocean splashdown has returned to Starbase.
SpaceX shared new photos and video of Ship 40, the Starship upper stage that launched on the…
Four years ago, NASA punched an asteroid. Europe's Hera probe arrives this month to inspect the wreckage
October 15, 2026
NASA’s DART mission made a cosmic mess four years ago — and now a new spacecraft is ready to scout out exactly what the first-of-its-kind collision accomplished.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into a small space rock called Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022, in humanity’s first test of planetary defense. That’s the field dedicated to protecting Earth…
Scientists discover that some of the universe's biggest explosions may have never happened at all
October 15, 2026
Now you see them, now you don’t. Scientists have discovered that some of the universe’s most powerful explosions, hypernovas, may not happen at all.
These explosions, known as hypernovas, were first proposed to explain unusual stars in the halo of our galaxy…
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover breaks interplanetary driving record - and it's far from done
October 14, 2026
In a milestone achievement, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has broken the record for most miles driven on a world beyond Earth.
On Oct. 11, Perseverance hit 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers) traveled on Mars, breaking the record previously held by NASA’s Opportunity…
The great Halley's Comet disappointment of 1986 — and the discoveries that changed astronomy forever
October 14, 2026
This year, 2026, marks the 40th anniversary of the most recent appearance of Halley’s Comet, the most famous comet in the solar system.
Roughly every 76 years, Halley punctuates history like an exclamation mark in the night sky. As writer Guy Ottewell has said, it is the “wildest of the tame comets.”
It is a tame comet because it can be anticipated. It is wild because it is…
Hydrogen may be the most common element in the cosmos, but scientists could use it to do something unique: uncover the nature of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.
This new line of dark energy investigation comes from the…
A telescope can be complicated, simple or somewhere in-between. The Celestron 114AZ Dobsonian telescope is a great telescope for beginners, thanks to its easy-to-use Dobsonian design and assistive StarSense smartphone app inegration. We gave the lightweight tripod version…
Cheapest it's ever been! This top-rated, scientifically accurate star projector is at the top of my shopping list for October's Prime Day
October 13, 2026
There are plenty of star projectors out there; I should know, I’ve got four sitting on my shelves, including two Astronaut Starry Sky projectors (don’t ask). But what if you want a projector that shows you the real cosmos? That’s where the Pococo Galaxy Projector comes in and, thanks to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days event, it’s cheaper than ever.
You can get the…
