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The US is ready for conflict in outer space, according to a senior military official, after developing anti-satellite technologies to counter the threats posed by “provocative” countries such as Russia and China. Brig Gen Jesse Morehouse at US Space Command, the arm of the military responsible for space operations, said Russian aggression and China’s vision […]

Ben Abeles’ impact on science was out of this world. He helped develop alloys that were key components of the radioisotope generators that powered US robot space probes on their interplanetary journeys. Nasa was then able to reveal the wonders of the solar system, from the ancient river beds of Mars to the icy moons […]

‘Yesterday afternoon, shattering the moorland peace of Inverard, in North Argyll, powered jets burst into action. For the second time in two months a space ship took off, its fiery trail vanishing wisp-like into the blue autumn sky.” Thus Angus MacVicar began his novel Return to the Lost Planet, with words that have stayed with […]

The Herefordshire hills basked in brilliant sunshine last weekend. Summer had arrived and the skies were cloudless, conditions that would once have heralded succeeding nights of coal-dark heavens sprinkled with brilliant stars, meteorites and planets. It was not to be. The night sky was not so much black as dark grey with only a handful […]

A supermassive black hole discovered at the heart of an ancient galaxy is five times larger than expected for the number of stars it contains, astronomers say. Researchers spotted the immense black hole in a galaxy known as GS-9209 that lies 25bn light-years from Earth, making it one of the most distant to have been […]

One of the brightest stars in the sky is behaving strangely, pulsating from bright to dim twice as fast as usual and giving scientists an unprecedented insight into how stars die. Betelgeuse, the closest red giant to Earth, has long been understood to move between brighter and dimmer in 400-day cycles. But from late 2019 […]

In science fiction, space crews are often spared the boredom and inconvenience of long-distance space travel by being placed into a state of suspended animation. Now this goal may have come a step closer after scientists showed that hibernation can be artificially triggered in rodents using ultrasonic pulses. The advance is seen as significant because […]

Virgin Orbit, the satellite launch company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, will permanently cease operations, just months after a major mission failure. The California-based firm, which had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States in early April, has auctioned off its main assets, recovering just over $36m. That figure is […]

At a press conference on 5 July 1969, 11 days before the launch of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins sat on stage in a plastic box with blowers making sure they did not inhale airborne germs from the sizeable gathering of journalists. Asked about the risk of getting stranded on the […]

Something pretty huge happened in space recently. Well, that’s not strictly true – to be more accurate, something truly gargantuan happened in space approximately 8 billion years ago, that we are only just finding out about now. Last Friday, scientists revealed the largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed: like a supernova, but more than 10 times […]

It may have reached the edge of the solar system and travelled more than 5 billion miles through space, but the New Horizons spacecraft is causing major ripples on Earth. A dispute has erupted between scientists and US space officials in the wake of Nasa’s decision to stop funding next year for the vessel’s main […]

Saturn has regained its crown as the planet with the most moons in the solar system, just months after being overtaken by its fellow gas giant Jupiter. The leap-frog comes after the discovery of 62 new moons of Saturn, bringing its official total to 145. Jupiter, which added 12 moons to its tally in February, […]

It started as an unremarkable flicker in the night sky. But closer observations revealed that astronomers had captured the largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed, an event thought to have been triggered by a giant cloud of gas being gobbled up by a supermassive black hole. The flare-up, traced to 8bn light years away, is more […]

A possible meteorite crashed into a bedroom of a New Jersey home, puncturing a hole into the roof and leaving residents rattled, though they were not home at the time. The metallic object in the Monday incident looks like a shiny rock, about 4in by 6in, police in Hopewell Township said. The rock appeared to […]

Astronomers have spotted an asteroid belt and an enormous dust cloud around one of the nearest and brightest stars in the night sky. Known as Fomalhaut, the star lies 25 light years from Earth in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus, or the southern fish. Though best seen from the southern hemisphere, it can be viewed […]

Astronomers have witnessed the intense burst of light from a planet being swallowed by its host star, the same dramatic fate that awaits Earth when the sun expands rapidly near the end of its life. It is the first time researchers have captured the moment when an ageing star swells so much that a nearby […]

China’s government has revised its conscription laws, allowing retired service people to re-enlist and increasing recruitment focused on expertise in space and cyberwarfare. The amended regulations, approved by the state council and the central military commission, came into force on Monday, and covered all aspects of China’s military recruitment and personnel deployment processes, for domestic […]

Last September, Catherine Heymans, one of the world’s leading cosmologists, was supposed to board a ferry for the northernmost island in the Orkney archipelago. The island, North Ronaldsay, is among the darkest inhabited places on earth. On a clear winter’s night, it is easy to be awed by the thousands upon thousands of stars visible […]

Astronomers have captured the first image showing a powerful jet being launched from the edge of a black hole’s event horizon into intergalactic space. The observations of the black hole at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87) could help reveal how black hole jets, which are among the brightest objects in the universe, […]

Japan’s ispace said its attempt to make the first private moon landing had failed after losing contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander when it unexpectedly accelerated and probably crashed on the lunar surface. The startup said it was possible that as the lander approached the moon, its altitude measurement system had miscalculated the […]

A Japanese startup attempting the first private landing on the moon has lost communication with its spacecraft and said that it assumes the lunar mission had failed. Ispace said that it could not establish communication with the uncrewed Hakuto-R lunar lander after its expected landing time, a frustrating end to a mission that began with […]

The largest and most powerful rocket ever built has blasted off from Texas and thundered towards space in a test flight that its makers, SpaceX, hope will be the first step on a human journey to Mars. After a cancelled launch earlier this week due to a pressurisation issue, the 120-metre Starship rocket system took […]

The first feature film shot in space premiered in Russian cinemas on Thursday, as Moscow exulted in beating a rival Hollywood project amid a confrontation with the west. The Challenge is about a surgeon dispatched to the International Space Station (ISS) to save an injured cosmonaut. Russia sent an actor and a film director for […]

A powerful flash in the sky over the Ukrainian capital that triggered an air raid alert late on Wednesday was caused by a Nasa satellite reentering the atmosphere, city authorities said. “According to preliminary information, this phenomenon was the result of a Nasa space satellite falling to Earth,” the head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy […]