All articles
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Stargazing
Planetary nebulae: the most photogenic objects in the sky that no one talks about
Planetary nebulae are the glowing shells left when Sun-like stars die. The Ring, Dumbbell, and Blinking Planetary are all reachable with small telescopes. Understanding what you're looking at makes them far more interesting than any photograph suggests.
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Stargazing
America's Astronomy Clubs: A State-by-State Guide
From Stellafane in Vermont to the Houston Astronomical Society, 203 amateur astronomy clubs span all 50 U.S. states — and what they offer goes far beyond monthly meetings under the stars.
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Commercial
The first private module is going to the ISS. It's a down payment on something bigger.
Axiom Space is attaching a commercial module to the International Space Station — and it's designed to eventually detach and operate as an independent station after the ISS is decommissioned. The module going up now is the foundation for the first fully private orbital outpost.
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Stargazing
Double stars are the most underrated objects in the night sky
Point even a small telescope at the right patch of sky and you'll find pairs, triplets, and systems of stars orbiting each other in colors the naked eye can't see. Double star observing requires no dark sky, no special equipment, and no precise planning — just a list and a clear night.
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Astronomy
Webb is finding brown dwarfs we didn't know existed. There may be as many as stars.
The James Webb Space Telescope's infrared sensitivity is revealing a population of brown dwarfs — objects too small to fuse hydrogen, too large to be planets — lurking near the Sun that previous surveys missed entirely. The implications for our census of the galaxy are significant.
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Missions
China is heading to the Moon's south pole. What Chang'e 7 is actually trying to do.
China's Chang'e 7 mission is targeting the lunar south pole — the same region NASA's Artemis program is aiming for. The mission is more than a flag plant: it's the most technically complex robotic lunar mission ever attempted.
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NASA & Agencies
China's space station is done. Now it's being used.
Tiangong — China's modular space station — has completed its core assembly and is now hosting regular rotating crews for science, materials research, and technology demonstration. Understanding what China is actually doing in orbit matters as competition for the high ground intensifies.
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Science & Discovery
The biggest 3D map of the universe ever made just got bigger. What DESI is finding.
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument has mapped tens of millions of galaxies across billions of years of cosmic history. The results are testing whether dark energy — the mysterious force accelerating the universe's expansion — behaves the way physicists assumed it did. Early hints suggest it might not.
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NASA & Agencies
ESA is building a telescope just for exoplanet atmospheres. Ariel will change what we know.
The European Space Agency's Ariel mission — the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey — is designed to systematically characterize the atmospheres of hundreds of exoplanets in a single mission. It's the first telescope built specifically to answer the question: what are other planets made of?
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Missions
Europa Clipper is on its way, and its first look at an ocean world will be worth the wait
NASA's Europa Clipper is currently in cruise toward Jupiter, its nine science instruments deployed and checked out. When it arrives in 2030 and begins its 49 planned close flybys of Europa, it will deliver the most detailed look scientists have ever had at one of the solar system's most compelling targets.
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Astronomy
Fast radio bursts are everywhere. We still don't fully understand any of them.
The CHIME telescope in Canada has catalogued thousands of fast radio bursts — millisecond flashes of radio energy from across the universe — and the patterns in that catalog are raising more questions than they answer. Some repeat. Some don't. A few seem to come from inside our own galaxy.
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NASA & Agencies
India is about to send humans to space for the first time. Here's where Gaganyaan stands.
India's Gaganyaan program — the country's first crewed spaceflight mission — has completed its uncrewed test flights and is closing in on a crew launch. A successful mission would make India only the fourth nation to independently send humans to orbit.
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