Science & Space

starcloud banks another 250m for orbital data centers as launch slots dry up Starcloud's FCC paperwork covers 88,000 spacecraft. The company employs 25 people.

Starcloud banks another $250M for orbital data centers as launch slots dry up

six days of waiting nasas orbiter finally captures the moon crater left by a falcon 9 Six days of orbital patience were needed before NASA could get a clean view of the mark left when a rocket stage — one that departed Earth back in January 2025 — slammed into the Moon on Aug. 5.

Six Days of Waiting: NASA’s Orbiter Finally Captures the Moon Crater Left by a Falcon 9

swift observatory left to burn up as nasa calls off its orbital rescue There will be no rescue. NASA has cancelled the piece of the mission that counted: no spacecraft will lift the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory back to a safe altitude, and the telescope is now expected to fall back into Earth's atmosphere and burn up before the year is out.

Swift Observatory Left to Burn Up as NASA Calls Off Its Orbital Rescue

falcon 9 debris leaves a 60 foot scar on the moon and nasa just photographed it Getting the photograph took six days of orbital waiting. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter needed its own track and a freshly made scar on the moon to fall into alignment, and then had to roll onto its side so its cameras looked straight down at terrain 60 miles beneath it.

Falcon 9 Debris Leaves a 60-Foot Scar on the Moon, and NASA Just Photographed It

kyoto researchers turn 1200 starlink satellites into an upper atmosphere imaging array Roughly 99 percent of the gas in Earth's upper atmosphere carries no electrical charge — and that neutral majority happens to be the portion our instruments have the hardest time detecting. The remaining fraction, the ionosphere's ionized gas, is comparatively simple to track: charged particles disturb the passage of radio waves and leave behind a signature that can genuinely be measured.

Kyoto researchers turn 1,200 Starlink satellites into an upper-atmosphere imaging array

esa will livestream the aug 12 total solar eclipse from a spanish mountaintop totality runs just 81 seconds On Aug. 12, 2026, the strip of ground where the Moon covers the Sun completely barely grazes Europe. Greenland, Iceland, a sliver of northeastern Portugal, and then Spain — that's the list. The rest of the continent is left with a partial eclipse, and that is a wholly different thing to witness.

ESA will livestream the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse from a Spanish mountaintop — totality runs just 81 seconds

voyager 2 gets a power reprieve nasas big bang buys the probe another year Since the Nixon years, Voyager 2 has shed roughly 4 watts of usable power annually — and that slow bleed was on track to claim yet another one of its science instruments before 2026 ended.

Voyager 2 Gets a Power Reprieve: NASA’s “Big Bang” Buys the Probe Another Year

an ai wrote 300 virus genomes from scratch sixteen actually came alive Three hundred synthetic genomes were loaded into E. coli. Sixteen emerged as functioning viruses.

An AI Wrote 300 Virus Genomes From Scratch. Sixteen Actually Came Alive

astronomers finally resolve the suns miniature plasma whirlpools each barely 20 kilometers wide Twenty kilometers across. That was the threshold scientists needed to reach on the solar surface before they could spot what they were hunting for, and it happens to sit right at the ceiling of what the biggest solar telescope on the planet can manage.

Astronomers finally resolve the sun’s miniature plasma whirlpools, each barely 20 kilometers wide

nasas perseverance is about to out drive every rover that ever reached mars Roughly nine out of every ten meters NASA's Perseverance rover has covered on Mars were driven without a single instruction from Earth about where to go. For its predecessor Curiosity, that figure sits at around 10 percent.

NASA’s Perseverance is about to out-drive every rover that ever reached Mars