https://phys.org/space-news/space-exploration/ en-us Space exploration news and updates. Space missions and science news. Planet exploration and more. In extreme environments, habitats are built for survival. Submarines, Antarctic bases and post-disaster dwellings are designed to prioritize health and safety. This is especially the case for habitats in space, where room is limited, contact with Earth is remote and hazards are numerous. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-space-habitat-residents-mental-health.html Space Exploration Wed, 12 Aug 2026 05:00:04 EDT news705673502 Millions of Europeans will contemplate the sky in awe on Wednesday as a rare total solar eclipse crosses part of the continent and plunges a swath of Spain into eerie daytime darkness. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-total-solar-eclipse-spellbind-europe.html Space Exploration Wed, 12 Aug 2026 04:40:01 EDT news705724806 Sorry, North America. After winning the cosmic lottery with a pair of coast-to-coast total solar eclipses, now it's Europe's turn. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-solar-eclipse-north-america-sliver.html Space Exploration Wed, 12 Aug 2026 03:37:15 EDT news705724600 The scramble for protective glasses has reached fever pitch across Europe ahead of Wednesday's rare total solar eclipse, as pharmacies, opticians and other shops struggled to keep them in stock. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-solar-eclipse-scramble-glasses-europe.html Space Exploration Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:00:04 EDT news705664107 Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered that dust and water can form and survive surprisingly close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The observations reveal that the evolved star IRS 3 continues to enrich its surroundings with newly formed material despite the intense radiation environment around Sagittarius A*. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-webb-reveals-oxygen-rich-surviving.html Astronomy Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:00:02 EDT news705665284 Most current space activities operate close to Earth in what is called near–Earth orbit. However, as more satellites and other infrastructure begin to extend beyond that region, maintaining situational awareness of those objects will be crucial. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-smarter-track-satellites-earth-orbit.html Space Exploration Tue, 11 Aug 2026 09:00:05 EDT news705657422 In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Aug. 5, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the moon in an uncontrolled collision. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rocket-debris-moon-threaten-future.html Space Exploration Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:20:09 EDT news705594061 The Perseid summer light show is back—and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-perseid-meteor-shower-summer-dazzle.html Space Exploration Sun, 09 Aug 2026 14:52:39 EDT news705505929 What shape is an asteroid? For (44) Nysa, the honest answer until now has been that nobody knew. It is one of the brightest and largest E-type asteroids in the main belt, a class with a surface rich in enstatite, and its oddness has made it a favorite target for well over a hundred years. Successive observations hinted that it was elongated, perhaps even two lumps stuck together, but the picture stayed frustratingly blurred. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-asteroid-worlds.html Space Exploration Sun, 09 Aug 2026 06:40:01 EDT news704978242 From reaching for a cup of coffee to tying your shoelaces, gravity shapes nearly all human movement. So how do our bodies react when that familiar force begins to change? Texas A&M University researchers are exploring the answer through a multiphase project supported by NASA. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-gravity-people-simpler-movement-patterns.html Space Exploration Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:20:01 EDT news705377293 Researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), part of The University of Alabama System, are developing plasma-based technology to help astronauts stay healthier during missions to the moon and Mars by sanitizing clothing, bedding and other fabrics without water or traditional cleaning chemicals. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-plasma-gun-technology-space-laundry.html Space Exploration Fri, 07 Aug 2026 11:20:03 EDT news705320164 In the sweeping shadow of a satellite dish, staff at the Chilbolton Observatory in southern England track a growing number of objects in Earth's orbit, providing data that underpins Britain's space monitoring efforts. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-uk-observatory-nervously-space-junk.html Space Exploration Fri, 07 Aug 2026 04:40:02 EDT news705288801 A South Korean satellite has captured the first pictures of the moon's fresh crash scene caused by a stray SpaceX rocket. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-south-korean-satellite-captures-views.html Space Exploration Fri, 07 Aug 2026 02:31:07 EDT news705288638 The recent confirmation of an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet called LHS 1140b has created a wave of interest within the astronomy community. The planet orbits within the habitable zone around its parent star—a red dwarf located some 48 light-years from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-technology-star.html Space Exploration Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:20:01 EDT news705237481 Researchers from the University of Leicester and the University of Aberdeen have carried out a series of field demonstrations in Portsoy to test cutting-edge handheld analytical instruments. Designed for use by astronauts on the moon and, eventually, Mars, these instruments would support astronauts working as field scientists while exploring these worlds. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-space-kit-future-missions-scotland.html Space Exploration Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:40:01 EDT news705220021 A SpaceX rocket that launched a pair of lunar landers slammed into the moon as predicted on Wednesday after drifting off course for the past year, scientists reported. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-scientists-wayward-spacex-rocket-slammed.html Space Exploration Thu, 06 Aug 2026 03:04:29 EDT news705204228 You might think of rockets as powerful vehicles that blast astronaut crews and robotic missions into space. But what if they could be used to send cargo from one side of Earth to the other in a fraction of the time it would take a plane? The company SpaceX recently announced a project that aims to use its rockets to do just that. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spacex-aims-rockets-quickly-cargo.html Space Exploration Wed, 05 Aug 2026 13:00:01 EDT news705150364 In March 2026, the Einstein Probe detected a brief flash of soft X-rays emitted from a galaxy about 500 million light-years away. The flash, dubbed EP260321a, immediately triggered a worldwide observing campaign. Within an hour, ground-based telescopes began monitoring the source, revealing a rapidly brightening supernova, later designated SN 2026gzf. Two teams of scientists used several NSF NOIRLab facilities to observe the event and monitor its evolving light profile. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-astronomers-massive-star-death-explosive.html Astronomy Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:40:01 EDT news705057700 A piece of a SpaceX rocket weighing four tonnes (4.4 tons) was believed to have unintentionally crashed into the moon on Wednesday, a collision that posed no danger to Earth but is expected to leave behind a lunar crater. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spacex-rocket-stage-believed-slammed.html Space Exploration Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:38:50 EDT news705148702 Suddenly, the world is plunged into an eerie, violet darkness. The temperature drops. Birds and other animals, bewildered by unforeseen night, start behaving strangely. Stars and planets appear in the sky next to the blotted-out sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-world-eclipse-chasers-flocking-spain.html Space Exploration Wed, 05 Aug 2026 03:20:01 EDT news705116680 Two proposed computer chip designs could efficiently process data on future space telescopes while they search for Earth–like exoplanets, according to a University of Michigan Engineering study that will be presented at the IEEE Space Computing Conference in August. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-memory-centric-chips-future-space.html Space Exploration Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:40:01 EDT news705056322 A new Vera C. Rubin Observatory image featuring hundreds of thousands of distant galaxies in and around the COSMOS field marks the observatory's first LSST Camera image and catalog release for science. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rubin-observatory-deep-window-famous.html Astronomy Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:40:04 EDT news704991967 Imagine trying to swallow a sip of water while your face feels stuffed with congestion, your sense of taste is dulled and your body is floating 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spaceflight-astronauts-swallow-subtle-ways.html Space Exploration Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:20:03 EDT news704979421 For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse is coming to mainland Spain with an even longer encore next summer. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-august-total-solar-eclipse-spain.html Space Exploration Mon, 03 Aug 2026 03:12:40 EDT news704945507 Finding water on the moon may only be a matter of detecting the right vibrations. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-moonquakes-reveal-ice-beneath-lunar.html Space Exploration Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:40:03 EDT news704731117 A drifting SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon after launching a pair of lunar landers more than a year ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-discarded-spacex-rocket-high-collision.html Space Exploration Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:00:06 EDT news704718500 When astronauts travel deeper into space, every drop of fuel becomes critical, and keeping those fuels stable for months or even years is one of the biggest engineering challenges facing future missions. Now, University of Florida researchers have uncovered a surprising behavior in boiling liquids that could help solve that challenge. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-behavior-liquids-advance-future-space.html Space Exploration Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:40:01 EDT news704710081 Cislunar space has become the focal point of considerable interest and strategic planning because of the many proposed missions to send crews to the moon in the next decade. These include NASA's Artemis program, China and Russia's International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), the European Space Agency's Argonaut program and others. The long-term goals of these programs include creating infrastructure between Earth and the moon that will facilitate continued exploration and even development. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-debris-earth-moon-future-exploration.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Jul 2026 20:00:01 EDT news704623676 Space isn't known for rich soil or ideal agricultural conditions anywhere in the solar system. Yet amid extreme temperatures and vast distances, multidisciplinary teams at USF's Aerospace: Science, Technology, Research and Applications Center (ASTRA) are collaborating on sustainable space agriculture projects with potential applications back on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-advance-space-agriculture-future.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:00:05 EDT news704625181 Every year, thousands of satellites are launched into orbit around our planet. The result is an increasingly congested "space" above Earth populated by equipment that provides services to the surface. At the same time, these satellites affect ground-based astronomy and create the potential for damage when they eventually fall through Earth's atmosphere to the surface. In addition, near-Earth space hosts old rocket bodies and other materials (cameras, gloves, etc.) left in orbit by past missions. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tracking-satellites-space-debris-radio.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:20:04 EDT news704622625