STARBASE, Texas — SpaceX launched the 15th test flight of its massive Starship rocket today (Nov. 13) and is preparing the vehicle's upper stage for its first-ever return to the launch site in less than 24 hours.

Flight 15 lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase facility here in South Texas at 5:47 p.m. ET (2247 GMT; 4:47 p.m. local Texas time). The towering Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage cleared the tower without incident and climbed into the skies under more than 18 million pounds of thrust from the booster's 33 Raptor 3 engines.

The flight continued nominally through its initial ascent, with the successful execution of Super Heavy's main engine cutoff and Ship's subsequent hot-staging — firing its own Raptors during separation from the booster — about 2.5 minutes after launch. Following stage separation, Super Heavy reoriented for a planned return to Starbase as Ship powered its way toward low Earth orbit (LEO).

SpaceX originally planned to catch Super Heavy with the Starbase launch tower's giant mechanical "chopstick" arms. But it wasn't to be: The company called off the catch attempt and brought the booster down for a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about 6.5 minutes after launch, for reasons that were not immediately clear.

A successful catch would have been a significant milestone for SpaceX and its efforts to design Starship as a fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle. It would have been the first successful recovery of a Version 3 (V3) Super Heavy, which SpaceX began flying earlier this year. The company previously recovered three of its V1 Super Heavy vehicles and reused two of those in later flights.

Ship goes to orbit

Ship's Raptors continued to fire following stage separation, completing their first burn just after eight minutes into flight. All went according to plan after that for Ship as well: A second engine burn lasting about 20 seconds parked Ship in LEO at an altitude of around 170 miles (275 kilometers) at T+26 minutes and 10 seconds.

"We’ve got a nominal orbit insertion, so Starship now in orbit around Earth for the second time ever," SpaceX's Dan Huot said during today's Flight 15 launch webcast. "That’s a really great moment."

Ship first reached orbit on Flight 14, which launched on Sept. 28.

Ship carried 26 of SpaceX's Starlink V3 spacecraft, which were deployed into LEO on schedule today over a 42-minute span starting 35 minutes after launch.

The upgraded wireless internet satellites are the second V3 batch to reach orbit, after a set of 26 that were delivered on Flight 14 . V3s are significantly more powerful than SpaceX's V2 Starlinks, which currently number more than 11,000 in LEO. The addition of this new set of V3s will add a terabit of data capacity to the constellation, according to SpaceX's Flight 15 mission outline. That's equivalent to the amount contributed by 10 Starlink V2 launches, which are carried out by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

Three of the V3 Starlinks flying today were equipped with cameras to point back at Ship after deployment in order to analyze its heatshield tiles and other hardware following its ascent to orbit. Their data will help SpaceX determine if Ship can indeed come home to Starbase on Saturday.

"Starship will only execute a return to launch site if the flight control team has ensured that the vehicle systems critical for reentry maneuvers and final landing burn and tower approach are healthy," SpaceX wrote in its Flight 15 mission description.

SpaceX engineers will have ample time to go over Ship's systems before making a final landing decision. Ship is scheduled to circle Earth 14 times, spending more than 21 hours in space before coming home.

You can follow all of the action on here at Space.com via our Flight 15 live updates page.

To catch or not to catch?

SpaceX has reserved three contingency checkpoints during Flight 15's mission timeline to allow for an early Pacific Ocean return, should engineers determine a catch attempt to be unfeasible or unwise. The first comes just 10 minutes after the completion of Starlink satellite deployment, the second at T+7 hours and 15 minutes, and a final one at T+20 hours and 41 minutes.

Should Ship continue to look good through each of these milestones, SpaceX will proceed with a 10-second deorbit burn at approximately T+21 hours and 36 minutes, setting the spacecraft on a trajectory back toward South Texas. Its plunge through Earth's atmosphere will begin about 35 minutes later. SpaceX has also designated a contingency splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico, should conditions prevent a safe catch during Ship's final approach.

If all goes according to plan, Ship will return to Starbase on Saturday at approximately 4:17 p.m. EST (2117 GMT; 3:17 p.m. Texas time), about 22.5 hours after liftoff. A successful catch would be a major milestone for SpaceX — the first-ever recovery of a Starship upper stage.

Full reusability is central to the company's ambitions for launching its V3 Starlink satellites, as well as a proposed constellation of orbital data centers envisioned by company founder and CEO Elon Musk. The next-gen Starlink constellation will consist of about 100,000 satellites, while the AI network will be 10 times that size, Musk has said. Building and maintaining those constellations will require a mind-boggling number of launches. Indeed, SpaceX is targeting 10,000 Starship liftoffs per year by 2030, according to Musk.

Some of Starship's other planned missions won't necessarily require full reusability, but the spacecraft's reliability will be critical to NASA's Artemis program and its efforts to return astronauts to the moon. The space agency selected Starship as one of the program's crewed lunar landers, and it's slated to fly a demonstration mission with NASA's Orion spacecraft and Artemis III astronauts to Earth orbit in the summer of 2027.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 7:10 p.m. ET on Nov. 13 with news of successful payload deployment.

On Nov. 13, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. At the time, scientists didn't know much about the Red Planet.

NASA had several Mars flybys before Mariner 9. Those flybys showed that Mars had a cratered surface, so some scientists thought that Mars looked just like the moon. Then Mariner 9 blew blew their minds.

When Mariner 9 got to Mars, it arrived in the middle of a dust storm. It saw some tall structures sticking through the clouds. When the dust settled, images from Mariner 9 revealed that these structures were the tops of huge volcanoes.

One volcano, Olympus Mons, is the tallest in the solar system. Mariner 9 also spotted an enormous canyon called Valles Marineris. This canyon is five times longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Mariner 9 worked for one year in orbit. When it ran out of gas, NASA shut it off. But the spacecraft remains one of the most famous Mars voyagers of all time.

Here's why it mattered

Mariner 9 cemented its place in space history when it entered into orbit around Mars, the first human-built spacecraft ever to do so.

The NASA spacecraft actually beat the Soviet Union's own Mars 2 spacecraft to the Red Planet, even though Mars 2 "had an 11-day head start," NASA said in a mission description. (Mars 2 would go on to be the first human-built craft to impact the surface of Mars when it crashed into the Red Planet.)

But it was the science from Mariner 9 that transformed Mars from a mysterious Red Planet into a full world for humans to explore.

• The Boldest Mars Missions in History

Mariner 9 carried four primary instruments to study Mars, including a camera system for imaging, an ultraviolet spectrometer, an infrared spectrometer and an infrared radiometer. The probe mapped 85% of Mars with those tools during its nearly one-year mission.

The Mariner 9 spacecraft discovered 20 giant volcanoes on Mars (including Olympus Mars) and made key observations to map Valles Marineris, which runs 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) long acros the Tharsis region and is 120 miles (200 km) wide.

"The canyon was named in honor of Mariner 9," NASA said in an overview.

In all, Mariner 9 took 7,329 photos of the surface of Mars, mapping the planet down to a resolution of between 1/2-1 mile (1-2 km). It also snapped at least 80 photos of Phobos and Deimos, the two small moons of Mars.

By February 1972, Mariner 9's supply of gaseous nitrogen, which it used to feed its attitide control thrusters, had run dry. NASA finally shut down the mission in October 1972.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

This year marks a rather auspicious anniversary for meteor watchers. Sixty years ago, one of the most stupendous Leonid meteor displays lit up the predawn skies over the central and western U.S. So, what will the 2026 Leonids bring us? And what might they bring in the years to come?

The Leonid meteor shower is one of the most celebrated of the year's annual displays of "shooting stars." The mere mention of the Leonids usually elicits mental images of a sky filled with shooting stars pouring down through the sky like rain. Such meteor storms have indeed occurred with the Leonids, such as in 1833 and 1966 when meteor rates of tens of thousands per hour were observed. In more recent years, most notably 1999, 2001 and 2002, lesser Leonid displays of up to "only" a few thousand meteors per hour took place.

Unfortunately, that's not likely to be the case this year. In fact, comparatively speaking, this is going to be a lean year for the Leonids chiefly because of the expected lack of any significant activity. Although the Leonids are one of the most famous of all the annual meteor displays, this year they're not likely to be very productive. It's probable they are going to be rather weak and there probably will be long stretches when not a single Leonid will be seen. I'll explain why in a moment. First, let's find out about this shower's lineage.

What causes the Leonids?

The Leonids are so named because the shower's radiant point, from where the meteors seem to fan out, is located within the constellation of Leo the Lion, from the backward question mark pattern of stars known as "The Sickle." The meteors are caused by the Tempel-Tuttle comet, which sweeps through the inner solar system every 33⅓ years. Each time the comet passes closest to the sun it leaves a "river of rubble" in its wake: a dense trail of dusty debris. A meteor storm becomes possible if the Earth were to score a direct hit on a fresh dust trail ejected by the comet over the past several centuries.

The "lion's share" (no pun intended) of comet dust can be found just ahead and trailing behind Tempel-Tuttle. That comet last swept through the inner solar system in 1998. That's why spectacular meteor showers were seen in 1999, 2001 and 2002, with declining numbers thereafter.

When is the best time to look for Leonids?

According to the International Meteor Organization's 2026 meteor shower calendar, the Leonids are expected to reach their regular maximum at 23:45 UTC (6:45 p.m. EST) on Nov. 17, with around 15 meteors per hour possible under ideal viewing conditions.

Other forecasts place the peak at slightly different times. Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown, meteor experts for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, predict that the peak of this year's Leonids will occur at 00:00 hours UTC on Nov. 18. Russian meteor expert Mikhail Maslov feels that the peak will come about a third of a day earlier, at 16:00 UTC on Nov. 17.

Several weaker encounters with older debris trails are also predicted between Nov. 17 and 19, although no major meteor storm is expected.

Hardly any crumbs this year

Back in September 2014, comet Tempel-Tuttle was as far from the sun as it can get: 1.84 billion miles (2.96 billion km). The comet has since spent the last dozen years slowly approaching the inner solar system, but it's still 1.11 billion miles (1.79 billion km) from the sun, which is still well beyond the orbit of Saturn.

In contrast, at the point in the comet's orbit where we will be passing by on Tuesday morning, there is nothing save for a scattered few particles; bits and pieces likely loosened from the comet's nucleus a millennium or two ago.

So, this year's Leonids are expected to show only low activity; "maybe" at best 10 to 15 Leonids per hour might be seen, but more likely hourly counts will be less than that. The moon will not pose a problem; it's at first quarter phase, but it will set before 11 p.m. local time Monday evening, leaving the rest of the night dark.

What to look for

Watching a meteor shower consists of lying back, looking up at the sky... and waiting. Keep in mind that any local light pollution or obstructions like tall trees or buildings will further reduce your chances of making a meteor sighting. Leo does not start coming fully into view until the after-midnight hours, so that would be the best time to concentrate on looking for Leonids. As dawn is about to break at around 5 a.m., the Sickle will have climbed more than two-thirds of the way up from the southeast horizon to the point directly overhead (called the zenith).

Because the Leonids are moving along in their orbit around the sun in a direction opposite to that of Earth, they slam into our atmosphere nearly head-on, resulting in the fastest meteor velocities possible: 45 miles (72 km) per second. Such speeds tend to produce bright meteors, which leave long-lasting streaks or persistent trains in their wake. A mighty Leonid fireball can be quite spectacular, but such outstandingly bright meteors are likely to be very few and very far between this year (if any are seen at all).

1966: Stormy times

It was a different story 60 years ago, in 1966, when anticipation ran high for a potentially heavy display of Leonid meteors. The previous year, comet Tempel-Tuttle swept around the sun and was accompanied later that year by an unexpected surge of Leonid activity, with brilliant meteors darting across the sky at one or two per minute as seen from Hawaii and Australia. The most sanguine prediction for 1966 came from Dr. Kenneth L. Franklin (1923-2007), chief scientist at New York's Hayden Planetarium. Dr. Franklin had carefully examined the orbit of comet Tempel-Tuttle and concluded that " . . . the position of the comet is roughly what it was in 1833. So, a dramatic shower like the one that occurred in that year may yet be in the offing for 1966."

Based on Dr. Franklin's prediction, a "meteor party" was planned for the peak night of the Leonids in Central Park. New Yorkers of all ages were invited to gather on the Great Lawn at midnight to watch for the shooting stars. Ten thousand people turned out, but unfortunately skies were hopelessly cloudy.

But across the central and western US, where skies were mostly clear, Leonids were falling at a rate described by many as "too numerous to count." One observer stationed north of Mission, Texas said that meteors falling in all directions gave the impression of a "gigantic umbrella," appearing to "waterfall" out of the head of Leo. Perhaps the best views were from California and Arizona. At the Table Mountain Observatory, near Wrightwood, California, one resident astronomer commented that he and a colleague " . . . watched a rain of meteors, turn into a hail of meteors and finally a storm of meteors, too numerous to count by 3:50 a.m. Pacific Time. Instinctively we sought to shield our upturned faces from imagined celestial debris." From 6,850-foot Kitt Peak in southern Arizona, thirteen amateur astronomers saw Leonids falling at the staggering rate of 40 per second (144,000 per hour)!

Looking ahead. . .

In 2005, French meteor expert Jeremie Vaubaillon published a technical paper with two colleagues in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics that forecast Leonid activity for years up to 2100. Sadly, in the year 2029, Jupiter is expected to throw Comet Tempel-Tuttle off its current path through space, making it all but impossible — at least through the beginning of the 22nd century — to see a repeat of the Great Leonid Storm of 1966.
But Vaubaillon expects the next big Leonid outburst in the year 2034, when rates could reach up to 2,000 per hour.

That's just 8 years from now. Mark your calendars.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope, The Old Farmer's Almanac and other publications.

In many of the biggest science fiction franchises, conversing with alien races is an absolute doddle. In "Star Trek", universal translators come as standard, while C-3PO has spent the last 49 years reminding everyone in "Star Wars" that he's fluent in over six million forms of communication.

But in "Arrival" — which was released 10 years ago in November 2016 — making first contact proves to be rather more challenging than maintaining your Duolingo streak. In fact, working out how to establish a dialogue with extraterrestrial visitors becomes the whole point of this powerful and heartbreaking story, as the fate of planet Earth hinges on the interpretation of a single noun.

The film's journey to the big screen began when a screenwriter best known for his work on horror franchises such as "Final Destination", "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "The Thing" read a short story in an online magazine. Eric Heisserer was so impressed by Ted Chiang's "Understand" that he bought himself a collection of the author's short stories. One in particular, the Nebula Award-winning "Story of Your Life", piqued his interest.

"It had a very profound emotional effect on me," he reminisced to Deadline. "I was in tears, and I was both heartbroken and uplifted. My head was just full of big ideas. I had to walk around the block a couple of times afterward and just hug my friends. The next day, I was like, 'Oh god, I want to give this to other people.'"

So when 21 Laps (the production company that later went on to make "Stranger Things") invited Heisserer to discuss possible future projects, the writer mentioned "Story of Your Life". The producers were also smitten.

"I was so excited, but I had that dread that a lot of producers get, which is, 'Are the rights available?'" 21 Laps' Dan Levine told the Hollywood Gold podcast. "You read something that blows you away, and then you find there aren't the rights, and there's no chance, you have to move on. So we were trying to track down this Ted Chiang, and he had no agent. He had a day job. He was impossible to find, so we started the hunt for Ted Chiang."

An up-and-coming Canadian director named Denis Villeneuve had also found his way on to 21 Laps' radar after his 2010 French-language drama "Incendies" earned rave reviews and an Academy Award nomination. He told the producers that he'd always wanted to direct a science fiction film — a hint of things to come? — and they showed him "Story of Your Life".

He was also drawn to the story, while the now-located Chiang was suitably impressed by the director's work on "Incendies" to make a deal for the rights. And with Amy Adams also interested in playing the lead role of linguist Dr Louise Banks, the film that would eventually become "Arrival" was ready to proceed — or, at least, it would be once Villeneuve had completed his first three Hollywood movies, "Prisoners" (2013), "Enemy" (2013) and "Sicario" (2015).

With 12 alien spaceships arriving simultaneously around the globe, "Arrival"'s poster-friendly elevator pitch could almost have been borrowed from "Independence Day". Indeed, the question of whether these whisper-quiet, chocolate button-shaped craft belong to the "Day the Earth Stood Still" / "Close Encounters" friendly extraterrestrial camp, or have the invasion of planet Earth on their minds is a mystery the world's governments are desperate to solve.

"Denis didn't really see this as an alien invasion movie — more an alien arrival movie," producer Aaron Ryder told SFX magazine. "What would be the protocols that were in place? How would they be implemented? How would people react? What would the government be doing? What would the news organisations be saying? That was the tone and the texture, which is established right up front."

These Hollywood blockbuster components were not part of "Story of Your Life". But even though Heisserer's script was not a direct translation of Chiang's tale, he retained the most important bits — namely Dr Banks' efforts to establish a means of communication with seven-legged extraterrestrial heptapods, and the profound effect their language has on her perception of time.

Designed by Carlos Huante, the heptapods themselves are like giant elongated hands, alien visitors light years away from the "Star Trek" tradition of actors with a few ridges glued to their foreheads. Like the evil 456 in "Torchwood: Children of Earth", they're enclosed in gaseous chambers and make sounds imperceptible to the human ear.

This, however, is where "Arrival" gets really interesting. Working alongside physicist colleague Dr Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Banks gradually exchanges foundational vocabulary with two heptapods they name Abbott and Costello. They discover that the alien visitors use a sophisticated written language of circular "logograms", squirted into their atmosphere as if it were sentient squid ink.

"The idea in the short story is of circular language that has no beginning and no end," Villeneuve explained in an interview with IndieWire. "We were looking for no relation to any human language. I had to figure out how to produce logograms from my aliens while avoiding being long and boring. The sounds were an expression of their emotions, with more intellect coming from the signs. This beautiful species uses written language as their first means of expression instead of movement or gesture. They produce words out of their bodies."

But Banks and Donnelly's research project has a purpose. With the world's military on high alert — and, ironically, struggling to communicate — they need to work out how to ask the aliens a fundamental question: Why are you here?

The heptapods' answer — "offer weapon" — is tantalizingly ambiguous. Are they planning to attack? Or is, as Banks suggests, 'weapon' simply being used as a synonym for 'tool'?

SPOILERS AHEAD

Aside from a bomb planted on the heptapod ship by a rogue US soldier, "Arrival" is mostly free from the big-budget explosions that are part-and-parcel of most alien visitation movies. Instead, the film's denouement delivers a twist — the crux of Chiang's story — that rivals "The Sixth Sense", "Fight Club" and "The Prestige" in its audacious sleight of hand.

It turns out the "weapon" in question is actually the heptapod language, which, thanks to their non-linear perception of time, gives speakers a unique perspective on the past, present, and future. Therefore, those scenes we assumed to be flashbacks to the life and tragic death of Louise's daughter, Hannah, are actually flashforwards, as her increased understanding of heptapod-speak gives her memories of a life she hasn't yet lived.

Villeneuve put on multiple test screenings to ensure the big reveals hit properly.

"I wanted to screen it with people who knew nothing about the project," he said. "What we discovered is when someone in the audience felt too lost — if intellectually they were not engaged — the ending was less powerful from an emotional point of view. So we tried to give as few clues as possible, but enough clues to be able to stay engaged and follow the story."

Those subtle hints become obvious on second and third viewings, whether it's a lingering shot of a wedding ring absent in the movie's "present" or a conversation about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (the notion that the structure of a language can influence the way its speakers think). The absence of young Hannah's father also takes on tragic new meaning when we realize it's Ian, who'll leave after Louise tells him about their daughter's sad fate.

"We were walking on this tightrope of trying to play things so it could play both ways, because of the reveal at the end," Adams recalled in a Vanity Fair conversation with Villeneuve. "I had to do so much work to understand how I play a character so that the first time you watch it you think that it's one thing, and the second time you watch it you can see it from a totally different perspective."

While Adams didn't get the Oscar nomination her performance deserved, everything else paid off, with the film making over $200 million worldwide from its reported $47 million budget. (The film did win an Academy Award for sound editing, while receiving further nods for best picture, director, and adapted screenplay.)

Villeneuve has famously gone on to become Hollywood's go-to guy for intelligent sci-fi, thanks to "Blade Runner 2049" and the smash-hit "Dune" saga, and will next be given the opportunity to resurrect James Bond.

Normally we'd take this opportunity to say no one could have foreseen Villeneuve's subsequent ascendancy but — in a story involving heptapods and some clever people at 21 Laps — who can be so sure?

"Arrival" is available to stream on Paramount+ in the US, and Netflix in the UK.. It's also available on Blu-ray via Amazon.

Rocket Lab will launch its 100th space mission early Saturday morning (Nov. 14), and you can watch the milestone liftoff live.

An Electron rocket topped with a private Japanese Earth-observing satellite is scheduled to launch from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site on Saturday, during a window that opens at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT; 6:30 p.m. local time).

The mission, which Rocket Lab calls "The Mountain God Rises," will be the 100th to date for the California-based company. You can watch it live via Rocket Lab here, and Space.com will carry the feed if, as expected, it's made available. Coverage will begin about 30 minutes before launch.

Rocket Lab launched for the first time in May 2017, sending the brand-new Electron up on a test flight from New Zealand. That effort failed, but Electron bounced back on its second-ever liftoff, delivering several cubesats to low Earth orbit (LEO) in January 2018.

In the years since, the 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron has become one of the most prolific and reliable rockets in the world, carrying small payloads to the final frontier for a variety of customers.

And it's hitting the century mark in record-breaking fashion: No commercially developed rocket has gotten there faster, not even SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9, according to Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck.

"It's an unprecedented milestone for a commercial small-lift orbital rocket, and a threshold rarely crossed in modern spaceflight," Beck said on Monday (Nov. 9), during Rocket Lab's third-quarter earnings call with investors. "But what matters most to us and our customers is that we have achieved a 96% reliability rate across 99 launches."

Electron will meet the moment in style on Saturday morning, thanks to some fancy livery.

"Black rocket 🤝 Golden milestone. Electron is all dressed up for launch 100," Rocket Lab said via X on Tuesday (Nov. 10), in a post that shared a photo of the specially painted first stage.

Not all of Rocket Lab's missions have gone orbital, it should be noted: A suborbital variant of Electron known as HASTE, which customers use to test technologies in a hypersonic flight environment, has nine missions under its belt to date.

"The Mountain God Rises" will be Rocket Lab's 11th launch to date for the Tokyo-based company iQPS, which is building a constellation of three dozen synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites in LEO. If all goes to plan, Electron's upper "kick stage" will deploy a single iQPS spacecraft 357 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth.

SAR satellites can see through cloud cover and image our planet at night as well as during the day, offering key advantages over spacecraft that are optimized to view in optical wavelengths.

LOS ANGELES — The California Science Center officially opened its brand-new Samuel Oschin Air & Space Center to the public today (Nov. 13).

After more than three decades in development, folks can finally visit the Los Angeles science museum's massive new wing. For most of us, the biggest draw is its centerpiece: the retired space shuttle Endeavour, sitting upright in launch position, towering at nearly 200 feet (61 meters) tall.

"It just takes your breath away when you see that reveal and the doors open and you get to look at it for the first time. It's just — it's overwhelming," former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman told Space.com during a visit to the museum. Reisman flew on two space shuttle missions during his astronaut career, the first of which was on Endeavour.

"There are people that come from all over the world, and when they come to Los Angeles, they're going to have the opportunity to see it, too," Reisman added. "The exposure it's going to have is just a force multiplier. There are so many people that can have that opportunity to bring their kids here and show them [the shuttle] and have that experience."

Entering into this exhibit is an experience in and of itself, as I can personally attest; I was among of group of reporters who got a sneak peek at the new wing on Oct. 28. A video presentation ends in a dramatic reveal: Visitors walk into a space where the enormous shuttle, which flew 25 missions to Earth orbit from 1992 to 2011, feels truly larger than life.

There are a number of interactive exhibits around the base of Endeavour, which you can slide down to (though, of course, you can also take the elevator or stairs). From a shuttle landing simulator to a replica of a shuttle cockpit that you can sit in, to shuttle tires and space tech from across decades of spaceflight history, there's an incredible variety of space artifacts to both observe and interact with.

As for Endeavour itself: It is open, so you can peer inside to see the robotic arm tucked away among a myriad of handles, straps and electronic gear inside. And you can see the shuttle from underneath all the way to the top.

You can lie on the floor underneath the shuttle's engines, for example, and then take an elevator up the launch tower to come face-to-face with Endeavour's nose. There's even a transparent floor at the top that allows you to stand above the shuttle (though if you have a fear of heights, this might not be for you).

This is the abbreviated description, but know that if you are visiting the California Science Center, you will want to budget a serious amount of time to explore all that this new center has to offer.

The new air and space center is designed for all ages, and for civilians and astronauts alike. For instance, looking at Endeavour spurred some memories for Reisman: He reflected on his time aboard the shuttle and his time as an astronaut and pinpointed specific places on the shuttle that played important roles in his mission.

"I'm looking at handrails that I held onto during a spacewalk," he said. "They're the same handrails. My hand was in the glove, but it was wrapped around those handrails. And I practiced for a long time exactly how I was going to do that, how I was going to root my tether, and all that kind of stuff. And I get to stand [here] now. When you go up the elevator there, you can actually have a direct view of those handrails, and every time I see that, I'm thinking about that spacewalk."

But you don't need to have completed a spacewalk to get that view. And, as of today, the general public is welcome to visit the museum, which is free to the public — as is the new aerospace center with its Endeavour exhibit.

However, due to the excitement over this new center opening, you will need to make a reservation online to attend. And, while the museum is free to the public, there is a cost associated with reserving slots during these busy first few days.

Every autumn, I conduct an eyesight test that no reputable optometrist would understand.

I go outside, find the Pleiades and count how many stars I can see. Usually I start confidently. One, two, three, four, five. Then things become contentious. Is that another star? Did I actually see it, or did I decide I ought to see it because I know it's there? I look away, look back and begin again.

This is not, I should emphasize, a meaningful test of eye health. What it tests, rather, is how badly I've prepared for looking at the night sky.

The Pleiades sit roughly 444 light-years away in Taurus and are right now becoming extremely convenient in the evening sky. You don't need a telescope to find them. You don't even need binoculars. In fact, you're likely to catch their collective brightness in your peripheral vision every time you go outside and look up.

But every November the Pleiades remind me that naked-eye observing isn't as simple as opening the back door and looking up. How many Pleiades I can see can change depending on what I do during the next 10 minutes.

What's happening and when to look

The Pleiades, also known as Messier 45 (M45) or the "Seven Sisters," are an open star cluster in Taurus. They're one of the closest clusters to the solar system and some of the youngest stars you can see with the naked eye — just 100 million years old. They're basically newborns.

In mid-November, they rise in the east in the early evening and climb higher as the night progresses, making this an excellent time to get acquainted with them. Look east after dark for a tiny, compact group of stars. If you know Orion, which rises later, the Pleiades are above and to the right of it from mid-northern latitudes. Nearby you'll also find orange Aldebaran and the much broader V-shaped Hyades cluster. The Hyades are closer to the sun, but their stars are about 625 million years old.

The name "Seven Sisters" creates an immediate observational trap: people assume they're supposed to see seven stars. That's not necessarily true. In fact, six is a common naked-eye result under decently dark conditions (note that the shape of the six brightest is like a mini Big Dipper/Plough), while people with sharp eyesight under darker skies may see more. The cluster itself contains about 1,000 stars. The number you personally distinguish depends on eyesight, sky brightness, atmospheric conditions and how well your eyes have adapted to darkness.

That makes M45 much more interesting to me than a simple tick-box target. So tonight, don't just find the Pleiades — count them.

How and when I'm watching it

I'm going to run my Pleiades eye test in stages. First, I'll step outside and look almost immediately. I'll count the individual stars I can distinguish without spending ages convincing myself about marginal ones. Then I'll wait. After about 10 minutes (without looking at my phone or bright outdoor lights, of course), I'll count again. Full dark adaptation takes considerably longer, but even 10 minutes can make an obvious difference when you've just come from a brightly lit house.

I'll then try my trusty 10x50 binoculars. This is where the experiment stops being subtle. The little naked-eye knot of brightness suddenly becomes a field filled with stars. The Pleiades don't just become brighter through binoculars. Their whole character changes because stars that were below my naked-eye threshold appear. I'll also use the averted vision technique, looking slightly to one side rather than directly at M45. It's one of the best demonstrations of the technique, with its fainter stars seemingly popping into view as your more light-sensitive peripheral vision takes over.

Stargazer's corner: November 13-19, 2026

The moon is returning to the evening sky this week, waxing from a thin crescent toward first quarter. It reaches first quarter around Nov. 17, so moonlight becomes progressively more noticeable during the first half of the night. Look southwest during twilight, and you'll see the beautiful sight of a crescent moon sporting Earthshine, sunlight reflected from Earth onto the moon's night side.

Overnight, Nov. 15-16, don't miss Mars and Jupiter in conjunction. The two planets will appear just over a degree apart, rising in the east during the evening before climbing high into the southern sky in the hours before sunrise.

The following night, Nov. 17-18, the Leonid meteor shower peaks. This is one shower where staying up later actually matters. Leo, the constellation containing the shower's radiant, doesn't rise until late, so the better opportunity comes after midnight and toward the predawn hours.

Asterism of the week: The Kids

Auriga, "the Charioteer," is easy to see in the northeastern and eastern sky during November evenings, but have you spied the asterism close to its brightest star, Capella? It's known as the "Goat Star," though its Latin name is the diminutive of capra, meaning "little she-goat." The reason is esoteric — Capella represents Amalthea, the mythological goat that suckled the infant Zeus — but there is a neat asterism (shape of stars) nearby that suddenly makes sense. Close to Capella is a triangle of faint stars that are known as The Kids — Epsilon, Zeta and Eta Aurigae — traditionally imagined as the offspring of Capella. It's one of those little patterns that makes a constellation much easier to recognize.

"Martian Isolation" is an upcoming single-player, first-person survival horror game that's just been revealed with a suitably creepy launch trailer. And yes, it does look an awful lot like "The Martian," doesn't it?

There's a lot of survival gameplay on display here that mirrors Mark Watney's tale of survival on the Red Planet, as your stranded protagonist is forced to explore the Martian surface to acquire resources, grow plants, and repair their base.

That comparison to Andy Weir's sci-fi masterpiece does fall away as you get further into the trailer, though, when the horror part of the game's description comes into play: Flickering lights, creepy figures stalking the halls of your Martian habitat, and blood dripping from the walls.

Oh yeah, that's some good creepy sci-fi horror right there. It's giving "Event Horizon", and that's always getting a thumbs-up from me.

There's no release date scheduled at this time, with the 'Martian Isolation' Steam page simply listing it as "coming soon," though the YouTube trailer description does say it "will be available on Steam in 2027".

You can't pre-order yet, but if this looks like your jam, you can add it to your wishlist.

Beyond that, we know shockingly little about this title. It's the debut game from Golden Milestone Studio, but there's very little information out there beyond a name. The latest blog post on the game's Steam page says that they're a "small team," but what we've seen so far is encouraging.

There seems to be a pronounced split between the survival and horror elements of the game along the day/night cycle. Daytime sees you exploring the Martian surface, smashing rocks, cleaning solar panels, and doing sick jumps on a quad bike.

The psychological torment only begins once the sun goes down (they mostly come out at night … mostly), as your character starts encountering cosmic horrors and weird naked zombie men.

Are they hallucinations, or is there some malevolent presence hiding in the blood-red sands of Mars?

I'm always looking for new ways to shatter my psyche and possibly soil my pants, so I'll be keeping a close eye on this one. In the meantime, I do need to get back and finish "Routine." I left my character hiding under a desk months ago, and I haven't been brave enough to go back. As Mama always said, you can't have any Martian horror until you finish your lunar horror first.

Astronomers have traced a mysterious radio signal back to a cosmic odd couple comprised of a dead star, a white dwarf, and its stellar companion, a sun-like star.

The white dwarf in the newly discovered system, designated GPM J071507−114153 and located around 5,000 light-years away, spins once every eight minutes, sending out radio pulses. These radio pulses have been seen from binary systems with smaller and cooler red dwarf stars before, but rarely from a system like GPM J071507−114153.

GPM J071507−114153 belongs to a class of celestial objects called long-period transients (LPTs) known to produce radio signals that switch on and off over intervals of minutes or hours. Around a dozen LPTs have been detected since the team behind this research found the first in 2021. Several previously discovered LPT systems contain a white dwarf and a companion star, but it has been unclear which of the two stars was generating the radio pulses. That means the discovery of GPM J071507−114153 and finding that the pulses come from close to the white dwarf could be a significant step toward understanding the nature of LPTs.

"This is the first time the pulses are clear enough to see the white dwarf moving in its orbit around its companion," team leader and commissioning scientist with the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKA), Sam McSweeney, said in a statement. "So we know that the pulsations are coming from a region close to the white dwarf, or possibly even from the white dwarf itself."

The pulses seen by the team also allowed them to detect stellar flares erupting on the sun-like star.

"As a bonus, we also saw the white dwarf moving behind a region with a strong magnetic field, most likely a 'stellar prominence,' which is a large loop of plasma erupting from a star's surface," team member Natasha Hurley-Walker of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), Curtin University, Australia, said. "It's amazing that by using radio wavelengths we can detect the storms on a star over 5,000 light-years away."

Hurley-Walker and the team at ICRAR have been at the cutting edge of rare star systems like this.

"We detected this system in a large survey using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) to scan the entire Milky Way visible from Australia," Hurley-Walker said. "We then used the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa to determine its precise position."

After the radio telescopes detected this LPT, it was confirmed using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii. The visible light follow-up of Keck also confirmed that the star in GPM J071507−114153 was a G-type star, just like the sun.

MeerKAT and the MWA are both precursors for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope project. That means the future is bright for LPTs.

"If we are already making such discoveries with precursor telescopes, just imagine how many more star systems we will be able to find, and what a beautifully detailed view of their signals we will have, once the SKA telescopes are completely built," McSweeney said.

The team's research was published on Thursday (Nov. 12) in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Dreaming of a bright and shiny future filled with personal jet packs, levitating autos, and automated gadgets straight out of "The Jetsons?" Add in a gritty mystery, a notorious private eye, double-crossing aliens, and a bombshell diva framed for a killing, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for "Ray Gunn."

Oscar-winning director Brad Bird ("The Incredibles," "Ratatouille") returns to our screens with his new big-budget animated sci-fi project, "Ray Gunn," and this latest trailer has us primed.

"In Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn (Sam Rockwell) is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder, and a multimedia starlet named Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson)," states the official synopsis.

Netflix Films and Skydance Animation's "Ray Gunn" is a stylistic pastiche of classic film noir tropes populated by down-and-out detectives and femme fatales living in the inspiring air of technological optimism viewed through a pre-war America lens.

Think "The Fifth Element" meets "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and "The Maltese Falcon," and you’re going to be close to this sci-fi whodunnit's vibe, which is intended for more mature audiences and rated PG.

This energetic new preview is locked and loaded with dazzling visuals by Cinesite, freaky creatures, streamlined flying cars, and a blistering pace. And if you listen very closely, The B-52s' "Planet Claire" can be heard playing in the background, which is one of the touchstones that inspired Bird to begin his 36-year journey to bring "Ray Gunn" to life. Was it worth the wait? We'll have to find out.

Also starring the vocal talents of Tom Waits, Bobby Cannavale, Alan Tudyk, Matt Berry, and Michelle Rodriguez, "Ray Gunn" opens in select theaters and 70mm screenings Dec. 4. After that, it lands on Netflix on Dec. 18... a date you might want to circle on your calendar, as that’s also the release slot for "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Dune: Part 3."

It's going to be a busy day for sci-fi fans. "Strap in, buster!"

Saturn was only a night past its annual opposition when I pointed the Celestron StarSense Explorer 150mm Tabletop Dobsonian straight at it. The planet was at its biggest and brightest of the year, the seeing was good and its famous rings were visibly opening up after appearing edge-on from Earth in recent years. It was an obvious target for a new telescope.

Finding it took seconds. After selecting Saturn in Celestron’s StarSense Explorer app, I followed the on-screen arrows as I moved the telescope across the sky. As I got closer, the app zoomed in until a bullseye turned green. I looked through the supplied 25mm eyepiece, then swapped to the 10mm to see a pale yellow Saturn at 75x magnification, with its rings sharply defined and its giant moon Titan visible in orbit.

It was a stunning view, and exactly the kind of experience a beginner needs from a first telescope. There was no frustration and no wondering whether I was looking in the right place. StarSense took me straight there — but, crucially, I moved the telescope myself. I’ve always liked that combination of hand-holding and DIY observing that Celestron’s StarSense tech gives you.

I’m less convinced by the tabletop telescope it’s attached to. Although this $599 RRP (£379) model is significantly smaller than the Celestron StarSense Explorer 8-inch Dobsonian telescope I’ve previously reviewed, it still weighs 25 lbs (11.33 kg). You need to place it on something sturdy before you can use it comfortably. After living with it in my backyard, I’m not convinced the tabletop format is the advantage it initially appears to be.

What StarSense Explorer does well

I’ve used Celestron’s StarSense Explorer system on a variety of telescopes and have always been impressed by how easy this type of smartphone navigation is to use. The technology works just as well here and, for me, it remains one of the best ways of making a traditional optical telescope accessible to a complete beginner.

This isn’t a computerized GoTo telescope. There are no motors to slew across the sky automatically and no tracking system to keep an object centered. Instead, a smartphone sits in a dock attached to the telescope, and its camera looks at the sky via a small mirror. Celestron’s StarSense Explorer app analyzes the reflections of the stars it sees, works out exactly where the telescope is pointing and tells you which direction to push it to reach the object you want to observe.

My iPhone 16 Pro Max fitted perfectly into the dock, and the initial alignment process was identical to what I’d used before. Once that was done, I used StarSense to find the Pleiades (M45), the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Double Cluster in Perseus and Saturn. It worked every time, with the target appearing in the eyepiece when the app told me I had reached it.

I can find all of those objects without an app, but that’s not really the point. Beginners often struggle to translate a star chart or an astronomy app into actual telescope movements. StarSense gives you confidence that you’re heading in the right direction while still requiring you to operate it physically.

That makes it a useful way to learn the night sky. After repeatedly pushing the telescope from one familiar object to another, you begin to understand how everything fits together. That’s very different from pressing a button and watching a GoTo or smart telescope move itself, and it’s why I think StarSense is worth paying extra for, even on a relatively wide-field telescope like this one.

The 5.9-inch mirror produces lovely wide-field views

The StarSense system may be the headline feature, but the reason to buy any Dobsonian is aperture. This one uses a 150mm (5.9-inch) parabolic primary mirror with a 750mm focal length and a relatively fast f/5 focal ratio. That combination gives it fairly low-power, wide-field views that are particularly well suited to large star clusters.

The Pleiades was one of my favorite views. At 30x through the supplied 25mm eyepiece, the telescope gave me a sharp field of stars and a particularly good view of what I call “Carter’s Whip” — the curving line of stars running through the cluster. I saw little obvious softness towards the edges, and focusing was straightforward.

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) was a different proposition. From my light-polluted backyard, I could see Andromeda’s bright core, but not its outskirts or its satellite galaxies. That’s largely a consequence of observing a galaxy from a city, not a criticism of a 150mm telescope, but it’s a useful reminder of what visual astronomy is actually like. Don’t expect the colorful, detailed views of galaxies and nebulas you see in astrophotos, such as the stacked images a smart telescope can give you.

Saturn was more rewarding, but I would have liked more magnification when the seeing was this good. Add a Barlow lens if planets are a priority — it can double the magnification of any eyepiece you use it with.

Overall, I was impressed by the telescope’s optics. The views were sharp and contrast-y, and there’s enough aperture here to make a serious start in visual astronomy. However, the two supplied 25mm and 10mm Kellner eyepieces are decidedly entry-level — and obvious candidates for upgrading in the medium term.

The focuser is a weak point. It’s a fairly basic 1.25-inch rack-and-pinion design, but I noticed some wobble and vibration while using it. That’s a shame because the focuser is one of the parts of a telescope you constantly interact with, and something smoother and more precise would make the entire instrument feel more accomplished.

A tabletop telescope needs the right table

The tabletop design isn’t necessarily as convenient as it sounds. I expected this scope to feel considerably more convenient than Celestron’s 8-inch StarSense Dobsonian. The base has built-in grab handles, but the assembled telescope's shape and weight make it awkward to lift onto a table — I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with a bad back. You could move the optical tube and base separately, but that starts to cancel out the convenience of owning a relatively compact tabletop telescope.

You also need to choose your table carefully. It has to be sturdy enough not to introduce vibrations, but not so large that you have to stretch across it to reach the eyepiece as the telescope points to different parts of the sky. I found myself bending and stretching into some awkward positions.

Once it’s in position, the Dobsonian mount worked well. The balance was good, and I didn't need to adjust the altitude tension, while the movements offered a useful mix of resistance and fluidity as I followed StarSense around the sky. At 75x, however, keeping Saturn centered was more difficult than I expected. It was easy to over-nudge the telescope, then correct in the opposite direction.

Celestron sells an optional tripod for the telescope, and after using the tabletop base, I can see why that might be attractive. However, I’d personally rather put the money towards a larger Dobsonian whose base is designed to sit directly on the ground.

Putting it together was harder than using it

This scope doesn’t arrive in one piece. Assembly took about 90 minutes, and it required all manner of screws and screwdrivers. The main problem was getting the screws into the holes in the Dobsonian base, which took so much effort that I ended up with a blister on my hand. That’s not what I expected from a telescope aimed at beginners, especially when almost everything about using it has been designed to make things easy.

Once built, things improved considerably. My review sample arrived well collimated, so I didn’t have to adjust the mirror alignment. The tube rings, phone dock and general construction were all good enough for a telescope at this price, and nothing about the telescope felt particularly fragile. Once the telescope is outside, on a suitable table and aligned, it’s an impressively straightforward instrument to use.

Why I would still choose the 8-inch version

The more I used the StarSense Explorer 150mm Dobsonian, the more I wondered who really benefits from the tabletop format. It’s certainly smaller than Celestron’s 8-inch StarSense Explorer Dobsonian, but it’s still a substantial object to store, and I didn’t feel any more inclined to grab it for a quick observing session.

Going bigger offers an optical advantage. An 8-inch/203mm aperture collects about 83% more light than a 150mm aperture, which matters when you’re observing faint deep-sky objects. The 8-inch StarSense also had a much nicer 2-inch Crayford focuser, and generally felt like a telescope with a little more room to grow into.

Visual astronomy matters more than ever

Dobsonians are the perfect companion to smart telescopes. The latter have completely changed what beginners can photograph from their backyards, particularly under light pollution. They can reveal galaxies and nebulas that are extremely difficult or impossible to see visually. I use them all the time. But they are no substitute for navigating to and actually seeing objects in the night sky with your own eyes.

The two approaches don’t need to compete. A smart telescope has to be pointed and then left alone for an hour or four to stack images. That time could be spent pushing something like the StarSense Explorer 150mm Tabletop Dobsonian around the sky, and actually looking through an eyepiece at the same objects. One shows you far more than your eyes can detect, but the other lets you see the photons yourself — and make a human connection with the night sky.

Where the StarSense Explorer 150mm sits against its rivals

At $599 RRP (£379), the StarSense Explorer 150mm sits in an interesting part of the beginner telescope market. There are smaller tabletop Dobsonians like the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm without smartphone navigation, but I think StarSense is worth paying extra for, particularly for a first-time telescope owner.

If you mainly want to observe planets and the moon, a refractor like the Celestron StarSense Explorer LT 70AZ also makes sense. However, if you want to go relatively large, I do recommend the StarSense Explorer 150mm Tabletop Dobsonian — with an important qualification. Its optics are good, StarSense is superb, and it’s an excellent way for a beginner to learn their way around the night sky, but I’m not convinced that 150mm is the sweet spot for this particular design. It’s too big to feel genuinely convenient as a tabletop telescope, yet not big enough to deliver the full advantages of a larger Dobsonian.

If space is tight, this is a very capable first telescope. If you have room for the 8-inch StarSense Explorer, I’d go bigger.

New Yorkers got a space-y surprise on Wednesday (Nov. 11): Retired NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Captain Sunita "Suni" Williams rolled down 5th Avenue in the back of a classic convertible wrapped in patriotic decals as Grand Marshal of the Veterans Day Parade.

What is it?

On Wednesday, New York City's 107th annual Veterans Day Parade made its way through Manhattan to the cheers and respectful nods of thousands of onlookers.

The parade is an annual tradition on the holiday, which honors veterans of the U.S. armed forces. As part of the parade, veterans, active-duty soldiers, firefighters, marching bands, youth cadets and more march through the city and honor those who have served and sacrificed in the U.S. military.

This year, the parade featured Suni Williams as its grand marshal. "I’m proud to join New Yorkers and Americans from around the country in honoring the service, sacrifice, and commitment of veterans from every generation," she said during the event.

Why is it incredible?

Williams was selected for NASA's astronaut program in 1998 and retired from it in December 2025. She spent 608 days in space during her astronaut career, the second-most by an American astronaut behind Peggy Whitson, who racked up 695.

Williams also had an extensive career in the U.S. Navy. She began as an ensign in 1987 before serving in a number of different roles. For example, she was a diving officer and a naval aviator and also provided helicopter combat support during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Provide Comfort. She further served as a squadron safety officer and finally as a captain, a rank she achieved in 2017.

During this time, Williams supported relief efforts following Hurricane Andrew, trained within the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School and gained a wealth of further experience flying as a military pilot.

Williams is part of a longstanding tradition of astronauts serving in the U.S. military. From test pilots to naval officers and more, there's a strong link between the U.S. armed forces and NASA's astronaut program.

Update for 6:25 p.m. ET: SpaceX has launched the Starship Flight 15 mission, but did skip the first stage Super Heavy booster landing. See launch video and our full Starship Flight 15 liftoff wrap.

Having reached orbit for the first time with Starship last time out, SpaceX is looking to take a huge stride toward full reusability with Flight 15 — the first attempt to catch the megarocket's Ship upper stage, as the company eyes hourly launches by 2030.

SpaceX is targeting today (Nov. 13) for Starship's 15th flight, which will lift off from the company's Starbas site in South Texas. If all goes well, the mission — which you can watch here at Space.com — will end on Saturday (Nov. 14) with the first attempt at what SpaceX itself calls the "Holy Grail of rocketry": Catching both Starship's Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage chopstick-style back at the launch pad.

"If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket," SpaceX wrote in its Flight 15 mission description.

The 75-minute Flight 15 launch window opens today at 5:45 p.m. EST (2245 GMT), and a number of Starship firsts are planned for early in the flight. For example, while SpaceX has caught three Super Heavy boosters and reused two of them to date, the first attempt to catch a next-gen Super Heavy "V3" vehicle will come today, around 6.5 minutes after liftoff.

If the Ship upper stage gets the go-ahead for orbital insertion, it will deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites — designed especially for use on Starship — into low Earth orbit (LEO), starting about 35 minutes after launch. Then, 21 hours later, if "internally developed, and FAA-approved, conditions" for a return to Starbase and catch are met — including on-orbit assessment of Ship's heat shield by three of the V3 satellites — SpaceX will attempt to recover the orbital upper stage.

This landmark try will follow the first-ever Ship reentry over inhabited areas, as the vehicle will maneuver its way over sparsely populated regions of northern Mexico and southern Texas. (On previous missions, Ship has splashed down in the open ocean.) It will head back to Starbase and make a bellyflop maneuver as it descends to the site's Pad 2 before flipping itself vertical, ready for embrace of the launch tower's waiting mechanical arms.

"SpaceX will attempt to catch both the Super Heavy booster and Starship on the upcoming flight. If both are successful, it will mark the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket return to Earth intact," Elon Musk said via X, the social media platform he owns, on Nov. 6. "This is the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary."

The catch

Half of the system is already proven. With catching and reflying boosters largely established, the next and unprecedented step is catching Ship. This is no easy task. The vehicle, returning from orbital speeds, must survive the heat of reentry, make its way precisely back to the pad put itself in position to be caught by the tower's "chopstick" arms. The full recovery of an orbital launch system would, in the words of SpaceX, be a "breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket" and would open the "door to airplane-like cadence."

A successful catch would allow SpaceX to then work on refurbishing Ship for reflight, the next challenge of full reusability. Musk said in August in a SpaceX earnings call that the company will aim to refly the Super Heavy and Ship early next year.

SpaceX has a lot of experience with rocket reuse, as its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket pioneered the practice. But the company is eyeing another level of reflight with Starship: It's targeting roughly 10,000 launches of the megarocket per year by 2030, which works out to more than one launch per hour.

"We're aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized," Musk posted on X in August.

Why so many launches?

The company has repeated that figure to regulators. In comments filed with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in late October, it said that "SpaceX anticipates conducting 10,000 launches per year itself." Meanwhile, the recently signed National Space Transportation Policy aims to boost the U.S.'s capabilities to support more than 1,000 rocket launches per year by 2030.

Musk added that SpaceX's planned Starbase Louisiana site alone could support that many Starship launches. For context: SpaceX launched 165 Falcon 9 missions in 2025, and that was about half of the global total for orbital flights.

Why is SpaceX targeting this incredible increase in launch cadence? It wants to build satellite megaconstellations that dwarf anything the world has ever seen.

The company's V3 Starlink satellites are too large to fly efficiently on the Falcon 9. Each one of the next-gen spacecraft adds 1 terabit of capacity to SpaceX's broadband network, and the 26 flying on Flight 15 are equivalent to around 10 Falcon 9 launches packed with Starlink V2 Mini satellites, according to SpaceX. And the company wants to put a staggering 100,000 V3 Starlink satellites into orbit. (There are currently about 11,000 current-gen Starlink satellites in orbit, and that's by far the largest satellite network assembled to date.)

SpaceX's Starmind project blows even this figure out of the water. SpaceX wants to launch up to 1 million satellites to serve as orbital AI data centers, and it appears to be making the moves terrestrially regarding the hardware. On Nov. 10, German firm Singulus Technologies announced a contract worth more than 60 million euros for a solar cell production line for Starmind satellites, which SpaceX builds in Bastrop, Texas. Musk said the order covers equipment for 100 gigawatts of solar cells per year. In terms of orbital hardware, the project is only feasible if SpaceX can reach its targeted "airplane-like cadence."

The gap

The gap between SpaceX's vision and the situation today is vast. Starship flew four times in 2024 and five times in 2025, and Flight 15 would be its fourth launch of 2026. Musk said on the earnings call that he expects Starship to fly weekly at some point in the first half of 2027, and twice weekly or more by the end of that year. Starbase in Texas is currently authorized for 25 launches per year, and the Louisiana site is not expected to host a launch before 2029.

Even a perfect outing for Flight 15 and two clean catches will leave lots of work to do. SpaceX will then need to demonstrate reflight with Ship, after assessing the impact on its heat shield system. Then comes orbital refueling, which is a necessary step for any Starship trip beyond LEO and a requirement for SpaceX's commitment to NASA's Artemis program of moon exploration. It's unclear how many tanker flights and refuelings will be needed to make a lunar mission possible, but, whatever the number, Starship will probably need to be rapidly reusable. Another step is carrying people. SpaceX has tested life support hardware on the ground in a crew cabin for the moon lander version of Starship that it is building for NASA, but no Starship has flown with such a system.

There are no guarantees for Flight 15. Ship will only be cleared for a return to Starbase and a catch attempt if it meets safety checks after reaching orbit, which itself is an achievement not to be taken for granted. Flight controllers may end up needing to bring Ship down in the Pacific Ocean or divert its reentry into the Gulf late into flight.

Musk told investors last month that success on this flight is "more likely than not." Whatever happens today and on Saturday, the measure of Starship's progress will soon shift from whether SpaceX can catch a Ship to how quickly it can launch one again.

Update: United Launch Alliance has delayed the launch of its Vulcan Centaur rocket to Saturday (Nov. 14) at 12:32 p.m. ET (1732 GMT) due to a power issue in a liquid gaseous nitrogen factory that pumps propellant into the rocket. "The vehicle and spacecraft are healthy," ULA wrote in an update on X.

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly on Saturday (Nov. 14) for the first time in nine months, and you can watch the action live.

A Vulcan Centaur topped with 40 Amazon Leo internet satellites is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Nov. 14 at 12:32 p.m. ET (1732 GMT).

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will start 20 minutes before liftoff.

Vulcan Centaur is the successor to ULA's workhorse Atlas V rocket, which has just a half-dozen launches left on its manifest.

Vulcan debuted in January 2024 and has flown three more times since. On two of those missions — its second, in October 2024, and its fourth, in February of this year — the rocket experienced an issue with one of its solid rocket boosters (SRBs).

In both cases, an SRB nozzle burned through and fell off about 30 seconds after launch. Vulcan Centaur overcame the problem on both launches, successfully delivering its payloads to their designated orbits. But the U.S. Space Force was concerned enough that it decided to pause national security launches on Vulcan until ULA addresses the problem. (Vulcan's third and fourth launches were Space Force missions.)

ULA has been working hard on that front, and the company is confident that Vulcan is ready to return to flight.

"The integrated team has made great strides in improving our understanding of the SRB anomaly that occurred on the previous Vulcan flight and have identified several potential contributors, which have been mitigated through design and process improvements to the nozzle," the company said in an Oct. 28 update.

"To support our customers, this upcoming launch will utilize the improved nozzle design, and additional testing and analysis will continue in parallel with the mission," ULA added. "By flying the improved design, ULA gains valuable flight data that validates these improvements and is the most beneficial path in support of all our customers."

Saturday's launch will help build out Amazon's broadband constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO), which was previously called Project Kuiper but is now known as Amazon Leo. It will eventually compete with SpaceX's Starlink network, which has been up and running for several years.

Amazon Leo will eventually consist of more than 3,200 satellites. About 400 of them have reached space to date on 15 launches, which have been conducted by three different rockets — the Atlas V, SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Arianespace's Ariane 6. Today's launch will be the first such mission for the Vulcan Centaur, which explains ULA's name for the launch — Vulcan Leo 1.

If all goes according to plan Saturday, Vulcan Centaur will deploy the 40 Amazon Leo satellites over a 25-minute span beginning about 70 minutes after launch. They'll be released roughly 270 miles (435 kilometers) above our planet.

The Amazon Leo launch could be part of a very busy 12-hour stretch. SpaceX plans to launch its Starship megarocket on Friday (Nov. 13), on a test mission that will feature the first-ever catch attempt of the vehicle's Ship upper stage. And Rocket Lab is scheduled to launch its 100th-ever mission at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT) on Saturday (Nov. 14).

You can watch all of this action live here at Space.com when the time comes.

SpaceX has a message for itself, and for the spacecraft set to make history today (Nov. 13): Don't panic.

The company's Starship megarocket will conduct its 15th test flight this afternoon, a landmark liftoff that will feature the first-ever attempt to catch both of its stages with its launch tower's "chopstick" arms.

On Thursday (Nov. 12), SpaceX rolled the Flight 15 upper stage, a vehicle known as Ship 42, out to the launch pad at its Starbase site in South Texas to prep. The company shared photos of the move on X, and in two of those shots we can see some intriguing words inked on the spacecraft: "Don't panic."

The phrase is familiar to fans of Douglas Adams' sci-fi classic "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": In the novel, the electronic guidebook that helps travelers find their way across the cosmos has "Don't panic!" on its cover.

And Ship 42 itself is connected to the beloved book, by virtue of its serial number. In "The Hitchhiker's Guide," a supercomputer named Deep Mind is asked to come up with "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." It thinks for 7.5 million years and comes up with "42."

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has voiced his affection for "The Hitchhiker's Guide" in the past — and he has already paid tribute to it with a well-placed "Don't panic."

The debut launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket back in February 2018 sent Musk's red Tesla Roadster into orbit around the sun, with a spacesuit-clad mannequin named Starman at the wheel and its entertainment display programmed to read "Don't panic!"

Starship Flight 15 is scheduled to launch today during a 75-minute window that opens at 5:45 p.m. EST (2245 GMT; 4:45 p.m. local Texas time). You can watch it here at Space.com.

If all goes according to plan, Starship's Super Heavy first stage will come back to Starbase for a chopsticks catch about 6.5 minutes after liftoff.

Ship 42, meanwhile, will head to orbit, a destination that Starship reached for the first time on Flight 14, which took place on Sept. 28. Ship 42 will deploy 26 of SpaceX's next-gen Starlink V3 satellites today — the second batch of the spacecraft to reach orbit. (The first set of 26 were delivered on Flight 14).

Ship 42 will stay up for a while after that, circling Earth 14 times before coming back for its own chopsticks catch on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 14), 22.5 hours after launch.

That's the plan, anyway; SpaceX will only go through with a Ship catch attempt if all systems on the vehicle look good. If there are any problems, the company will divert to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, near either Hawaii or Chile.

Both of Starship's stages — Super Heavy and the Ship — are designed to be rapidly reusable. And "rapidly" is a bit of understatement: SpaceX wants to launch 10,000 Starship missions per year by 2030, Musk has said.

The chopsticks-catch strategy is a big part of that vision. Bringing both Starship stages directly back to the launch mount will greatly reduce the time needed for inspection, refurbishment and reflight, according to SpaceX.

The company has already caught Super Heavy on three previous Starship test flights. It has never tried to do so with Ship, instead targeting ocean splashdowns with the upper stage.

The double catch attempt may be unprecedented, but SpaceX seems to be taking its own advice: There's no panic around Flight 15 or its bold goals.

"I'd say it's more likely than not that this succeeds next flight," Musk said last month, during SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call.

Update for 6:25 p.m. ET: SpaceX has launched the Starship Flight 15 mission, but did skip the first stage Super Heavy booster landing. See launch video and our full Starship Flight 15 liftoff wrap.

SpaceX plans to launch its Starship megarocket on an unprecedented mission today (Nov. 13), and you can watch the action live.

Starship is scheduled to launch on its 15th test flight today from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas, during a 75-minute window that opens at 5:45 p.m. EST (2245 GMT; 4:45 p.m. local Texas time). SpaceX plans to bring both of Starship's stages back to Starbase for a catch by the launch tower's "chopstick" arms — something it has never done before.

You can watch it all live here at Space.com. And there should be a lot to see: Starship Flight 15 will last more than 22 hours, if all goes according to plan.

Starship consists of two elements: a huge booster known as Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft called Starship, or Ship for short. Both are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable — a first in the world of orbital spaceflight.

The rapidity of Starship's reuse hinges heavily on SpaceX's recovery strategy: Returning both vehicles directly to the launch mount will enable much faster inspection, refurbishment and reflight, the company has said.

SpaceX has already caught Super Heavy, pulling the feat off on three previous Starship test flights. But it has never tried to do so with Ship, which flies farther and faster than the booster and is therefore a more challenging vehicle to recover.

So today's flight is a pretty big deal for SpaceX.

"If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket," the company wrote in a Flight 15 mission description.

The action will unspool over two days, if all goes to plan. Super Heavy will return to Starbase for a touchdown just 6.5 minutes after launch, but Ship will continue on to low Earth orbit.

The upper stage will deploy 26 of SpaceX's next-gen Starlink V3 satellites, during a 42-minute stretch beginning about 35 minutes after liftoff. This will be just the second batch of V3 spacecraft to reach orbit, after the 26 that went up on Flight 14 on Sept. 28.

Ship will then stay aloft for nearly a full day. The mission plan calls for the upper stage to return to Starbase for its chopsticks catch on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 14), about 22.5 hours after liftoff.

There's no guarantee things will go according to plan, however. SpaceX will call off a Ship catch if the vehicle experiences any issues during Flight 15. If something crops up, the company will steer Ship to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, either near Hawaii or off the coast of Chile.

So it'll be a busy weekend for SpaceX, and for space fans who want to keep tabs on the mission. And we can help you out there, with our Flight 15 updates page.

It feels like yesterday when we were discussing Superman, the first big-screen entry in James Gunn's rebooted DCU. Now Gunn is out, and Skydance (the company formed by the merger of Warner and Paramount) is already dismantling his grand plans for the DCU.

That means that Man of Tomorrow, which arrives next summer, will be the final entry in Gunn's ambitious, and occasionally divisive, DC experiment. The DCU's first chapter — officially titled 'Gods and Monsters' — gave us Supergirl and Clayface (as well as TV shows like Peacemaker S2 and Lanterns) in the run-up to Clark Kent and Lex Luthor's return.

Man of Tomorrow looks to be upping the stakes from Earthly villains to intergalactic baddies with the introduction of Brainiac, and it may well have been the herald of the first Justice League movie in the rebooted DCU.

Gunn has yet to prove audiences actually care about more than Batman and Supes, which might explain why this follow-up is also an ensemble of sorts. As the Marvel Cinematic Universe prepares to unleash Avengers: Doomsday, Secret Wars, and even a fresh X-Men reboot, their DC counterparts have always struggled to get their dream team off the ground.

We'll never know what might have been, but we can still enjoy Gunn's DC swansong when it lands in 2027. Here's everything we know about James Gunn's Man of Tomorrow.

When is Man of Tomorrow coming out?

Man of Tomorrow will be released theatrically in the United States on July 9, 2027. Most international territories are expected to get it around the same time.

Only a few months after Superman's release and successful box office run, DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures confirmed the sequel would be coming two years after Clark Kent's return to the big screen.

How to watch Man of Tomorrow

Man of Tomorrow isn't out yet, but you can watch the rest of the DCU so far (it's pretty good for the most part) in preparation first.

When the movie hits theaters on July 9, 2027, it'll likely remain exclusive to big screens for at least two or three months, depending on how successful it is.

With that said, we know Warner Bros. (now part of Skydance) isn't the most patient when it comes to theatrical runs based on its track record, so the chances are Man of Tomorrow will hit HBO Max sooner rather than later, probably by early autumn 2027.

Is there a Man of Tomorrow trailer?

No, we're still waiting for the first Man of Tomorrow trailer. Looking at the timeline of Superman's fantastic marketing campaign, however, we can guess the sequel will get a first trailer before 2026 ends, probably in time for Christmas.

Is Brainiac the main villain in Man of Tomorrow?

Yes, James Gunn has officially confirmed Brainiac is the main threat Earth is facing in Man of Tomorrow. This explains why other heroes will be joining Superman in a fight against the alien mastermind, but the plot is looking a bit more complex.

In typical comic book fashion (and somewhat reminiscent of Thor: The Dark World), the main hook in Man of Tomorrow appears to be a reluctant alliance between the first movie's villain, Lex Luthor, and Kal-El (aka Clark Kent). "Enemies to allies" is always a fun dynamic to have in a sequel, especially when stars David Corenswet (Superman) and Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor) delivered strong and memorable performances the first time around.

The actual plot remains under wraps, but we can guess Brainiac — one of DC's biggest and most iconic alien villains — will be a tough nut to crack, thus requiring some sort of unofficial team-up that will include returning heroes like Mister Terrific, Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, John Stewart, Blue Beetle, and even Kara Zor-El (Supergirl). There are other names circling the project that could lead to even bigger appearances, but don't expect to learn much about them before the movie's marketing kicks off.

Why should you care about Brainiac? Well, he's a super-intelligent techno-organic alien from the planet Colu with an obsession with knowledge and self-improvement. A perfect foe for Luthor, Earth's greatest mind, but also a breath of fresh air for Superman, who's been stuck battling either Kryptonian menaces or just Luthor too long on the big screen.

Who is in the cast of Man of Tomorrow?

As a direct continuation of Superman, Man of Tomorrow is bringing back plenty of actors in both main and supporting roles, including:

• David Corenswet (Superman / Clark Kent / Kal-El)
• Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor)
• Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane)
• Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner / Green Lantern)
• Edi Gathegi (Michael Holt / Mister Terrific)
• Isabela Merced (Kendra Saunders / Hawkgirl)
• Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen)
• Frank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr.)
• Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher)
• María Gabriela de la Faría (Angela Spica / The Engineer)
• Neva Howell (Martha Kent)
• Pruitt Taylor Vince (Pa Kent)
• Wendell Pierce (Perry White)

New cast members with publicly announced (or previously established) characters include:

• Lars Eidinger (Brainiac)
• Aaron Pierre (John Stewart / Green Lantern)
• Milly Alcock (Kara Zor-El / Supergirl)
• Xolo Maridueña (Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle).

Last but not least, we also know Adria Arjona, Andre Royo, Matthew Lillard, and Sinqua Walls are part of the cast, but their parts remain a secret for now.

Who is Adria Arjona playing in Man of Tomorrow?

Much of the current Man of Tomorrow speculation centers on Adria Arjona's role in the story. While many have theorized she could be playing Wonder Woman — something that neither Gunn nor Arjona has straight-up denied — the earlier reports and rumors suggested she could be Maxima.

Such a role would fit Gunn's penchant for throwing lesser-known comic book heroes and villains into his movies wherever possible. If you're not an avid reader or longtime DC fan, all you need to know is that Maxima is an alien conqueror from the planet Almerac obsessed with Superman as her perfect mate and king. She's also morally ambiguous, at least when she first appeared, so that makes her a particularly interesting character to bring in for a more complex and nuanced sequel.

With Brainiac spearheading the roster of new DC icons joining Man of Tomorrow, it also isn't hard to imagine another alien figure factoring into the plot, though the flick is getting extremely crowded as it is.

Is James Gunn returning to write and direct Man of Tomorrow?

Yes, James Gunn is the sole writer and director of Man of Tomorrow.

Despite his previous role as co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios, Gunn is extremely hands-on when it comes to most DCU projects. In fact, it seems he had already begun working on his next movie after Man of Tomorrow, though his unceremonious exit will almost certainly mean the end of those plans.

He's also co-producing alongside Peter Safran, who was also ousted in November 2026's DC Studios shakeup.

The rest of the crew includes Sam McCurdy (Peacemaker, Shogun) as cinematographer, Fred Raskin (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Supergirl) as editor, and David Fleming (Superman, Anaconda) as the main composer, among others.

A cosmic imposter that has faked being a supernova 27 times and counting is actually a hot, luminous, and decidedly unstable star that is being fed on by a vampiric black hole or neutron star, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered.

When a massive star reaches the end of the road and runs out of nuclear fuel to power fusion reactions in its core, the star is destroyed in a supernova explosion. That’s what astronomers thought they had found on 11 January 2012, when they observed what appeared to be a supernova on the outskirts of the spiral galaxy NGC 4559, which is about 25 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices.

Yet when the light of the 'supernova' faded, the star was still there, only to continue bursting into light every 113 days.

"For 15 years, astronomers have been watching this star get really bright and then dim again on a regular basis," Mojgan Aghakhanloo of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville said in a statement.

Several other supernova imposters have been observed over the past decade or two. Until now, no one knew what causes these stars to repeatedly cry wolf. Thanks to Chandra’s X-ray vision, Aghakhanloo has led a team of astronomers who think they have now uncovered an explanation.

How did a cosmic vampire hide as a supernova?

The supernova imposter is named AT 2016blu, and is a type of star that we call a 'luminous blue variable,' or LBV. These are the most massive and luminous stars in the universe and their extreme characteristics result in them being highly unstable, undergoing intermittent bouts of mass loss as they eject material from their outer layers into the surrounding space.

However, faking a supernova is not part of their typical behavior, so a new way of looking at AT 2016blu was needed.

"To understand the cause of these eruptions, we realized that we needed X-ray data that was timed so that we’d observe the star when it was in an outburst," team member Núria Torres-Albà, also from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said.

Aghakhanloo’s team were granted the opportunity to commandeer Chandra to target an outburst of AT 2016blu at the earliest opportunity. That opportunity arose in March 2026.

Chandra had previously and coincidentally looked in the direction of NGC 4559 back in 2001 and 2002 and did not notice anything unusual back then. This time around, however, it captured a powerful blast of X-rays coinciding with yet another false supernova outburst.

The X-ray detection allowed Aghakhanloo’s team to assemble a picture of what is happening.

"Until we were able to get Chandra data at the right time, we couldn’t figure out what was making this happen," he said.

Chandra’s X-ray observations indicate that AT 2016blu has an unseen companion, a compact, high-gravity object that is either a neutron star or a stellar-mass black hole on an elliptical 113-day orbit around the luminous blue variable.

Neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes are the core remnants of massive stars that have gone supernova for real, meaning that at one time AT 2016blu was a binary star system.

Blue star falls victim to a cosmic vampire

Each time the compact object reaches the point in its orbit that is closest to the luminous blue variable, its powerful gravity is able to pull material from the unstable star. This sets in motion a chain of events that results in the brilliant outbursts.

As the stolen starstuff is dragged away from the wounded star and towards the compact object, it forms an accretion disk swirling around the neutron star or black hole so fast and growing so hot that it emits X-rays. These are the X-rays that Chandra saw.

The X-rays are immense, energizing the surrounding cloud of material that had been ejected by the luminous blue variable years before. The cloud is heated and glows extremely brightly in visible light, creating the impression of a supernova.

"We suspected that the bright repeating flashes at optical wavelengths might actually be powered by periodic blasts of high-energy X-rays," said team member Nathan Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson. "The dense gas surrounding the system is heated by the X-rays and then glows in the optical."

Calculations suggest that each year a 440 billion trillion pounds of material at minimum is stolen by the compact object, and possibly two orders of magnitude more than that. This is a huge amount, yet it is only 800 millionths of the mass of the sun, and AT 2016blu’s luminous blue variable is at least 33 times the mass of the sun.

Nevertheless, it is far greater than the maximum rate of material that a neutron star can safely accrete, referred to as the Eddington limit. It’s little wonder that the accretion onto the compact object unleashes such extreme energies.

AT 2016blu is also connected with another mysterious and rare astrophysical phenomenon, that of ultra-luminous X-ray (ULX) sources. The identity of whatever it is that is powering ULXs remains unclear, but the involvement of compact objects such as black holes and neutron stars is high on the list.

AT 2016blu is bright enough to be considered a ULX, so could it act as a Rosetta stone connecting supernova imposters with ULXs? It’s too early to say that; only one other supernova impostor has so far been found to have X-ray emission typical of material being stolen from one star and accreting onto a compact body, and that is SN 2010da, but in that case it is known that the companion is another massive star, a red supergiant, rather than a compact object.

The X-ray detection of AT 2016blu is described in a paper published on Monday (Nov. 9) in The Astrophysical Journal.

On Nov. 12, 2014, a European spacecraft named Philae landed on Comet 67P. To say it was a bumpy landing would be an understatement.

The European Space Agency's Philae lander separated from an orbiter called Rosetta ahead of its historic landing in 2014. It was supposed to use harpoons to secure itself on to the surface of Comet 67P, but the harpoons never fired.

When it touched down, it immediately bounced back up into space. The first bounce brought Philae half a mile above the comet's surface before gravity brought it back down.

Philae was missing for almost two years before scientists found it. Images from Rosetta showed Philae stuck in a dark crevice on top of the rubber duck-shaped comet.

Why it mattered

The European Space Agency's Rosetta and Philae expedition was a first-of-its-kind mission, an endeavour to not just rendezvous with a comet and watch it change over time as it approached the sun (that was Rosetta's job), but also to soft-land a probe on its icy and rocky surface to see what a comet is truly made of.

The Rosetta and Philae mission succeeded on both counts, but Philae's historic landing was marred by its turbulent touchdown. Philae actually landed three different times on Comet 67/P, all because the harpoons designed to secure it in place didn't fire as planned.

After the first landing, Philae bounced up and drifted around the comet for two hours, making another bounce before Rosetta's cameras lost track of it. Scientists figured it was stuck in a shady spot where sunlight couldn't reach its solar panels. Because it was solar-powered, Philae needed to be facing the sun properly to generate enough power for sustained operation on the comet's surface.

Still, Philae did have some power stored in batteries, which lasted for more than two days on the surface. That allowed Philae to perform some science with its 10 instruments in the time it had on Comet 67/P. Most notably, Philae found organic molecules that had never been detected on a comet before.

The Rosetta orbiter continued to orbit Comet 67P until September 2016, and it was in that month -- just weeks before Rosetta itself landed on the comet on Sept. 30, 2016 -- that the spacecraft rediscovered the Philae lander lying on its side in a rocky crevice.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

SpaceX's Starship megarocket is slated to launch on its ambitious 15th flight test as soon as this Friday (Nov. 13). Will you be able to spot its leviathan upper stage, known as Ship, or its Starlink satellite passengers as they circle Earth during the historic orbital jaunt?

Flight 15's 75-minute launch window opens at 5:45 p.m. EST (2245 GMT) on Nov. 13. Starship will fly from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas, where it will be 4:45 p.m. at the opening of the window — about an hour before sunset. The launch could therefore be especially dramatic for folks in the area.

"As it launches towards the southeast, and it will be daylight, then the prospects for viewing from the U.S. are going to be in Texas and the states along the Gulf of Mexico," Robert Massey, deputy executive director at the Royal Astronomical Society, told Space.com. "They could see the exhaust plume (the 'jellyfish') with the sky darker for observers further east."

If all goes to plan, Starship's Super Heavy booster will propel the Ship upper stage through the densest part of Earth's atmosphere before returning to Starbase for a powered landing and capture via the "chopstick" arms of the "Mechazilla" tower system. Ship, meanwhile, will go on to orbit Earth approximately 14 times over the following 22 hours, during which time it will deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites before returning to Starbase for its own ambitious catch attempt.

When should I look for Starship and its Starlink train?

Satellite visibility in the night sky depends on a cocktail of factors, from the size of the spacecraft to its reflectivity, orbital inclination and position relative to the Earth and sun.

Ship is big — about 171 feet (52 meters) tall — so it will be a viable target for skywatchers, experts say.

"It certainly will be visible in twilight hours. It should be very bright, considerably brighter than the Starlink satellites due to its size," professor James Osborn of Durham University told Space.com. "Where and when is a bit more tricky."

Ship and its Starlink satellites may be seen in the 90 minutes directly after sunset on Nov. 13 and before sunrise on Nov. 14, as the probes catch the sunlight on either side of Earth's colossal shadow as they drift through the twilight sky.

The spacecraft will initially appear as a string of bright, evenly spaced lights, with Ship most likely appearing significantly brighter than the Starlink satellites. However, Osborn noted that the lack of publicly available data makes it challenging to forecast exactly when the spacecraft will appear.

"During its 14 orbits over 22 hours, the spacecraft is between inclinations of 30.5 [degrees] N and S of the equator," explained Massey. "So it will be best viewed between those latitudes, and then lower in the sky up to latitudes of 40 N and 40 S. That's pretty much the whole of the contiguous U.S."

Space.com skywatching columnist and veteran meteorologist Joe Rao shared further details on what stargazers may see with the naked eye as Ship drifts silently through the autumn sky.

"When it passes overhead, it will look like a bright, fast-moving star crossing the sky — similar to the International Space Station, but potentially even brighter depending on its orientation," explained Rao. "The Starlink V3 satellites are much smaller, so not as bright, perhaps ranging anywhere from 2nd to 4th magnitude, depending on the angle of illumination with reflected light from the sun."

Magnitude is the scale used by astronomers to measure the brightness of objects in the night sky. The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object! The unaided eye can make out objects with a magnitude of around +6.5 under ideal dark sky conditions, while the planet Venus currently shines at magnitude -4.41.

The Starlink train will likely fall further behind Starship as the 22-hour mission progresses, while the train itself will become more elongated, according to Rao. "For locations where it will make a high arc across the sky, the Starship should be visible for at least a few minutes, although because it is orbiting at a lower altitude (170 miles/275 km) compared to the ISS, it probably will appear to move somewhat faster. "

How can I track Starship after launch?

There are multiple handy resources that should allow you to track Ship and the newly deployed batch of V3 Starlink satellites following their scheduled launch on Nov. 13, including the websites Heavens-Above, Star Dash, Orbital Radar and Find Starlink.

Be sure to keep an eye on our Starship Flight 15 live blog for all the latest news along with our launch timings article containing details on how to watch SpaceX's potentially historic orbital launch attempt.

Editor's Note: If you capture a photo of Starship and want to share it with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

We've had no shortage of great Warhammer 40K games lately, but most aren't exactly aimed at the casual crowd. Warhammer Survivors changes that, finally providing curious gamers with an easy entry point into the grim darkness of the 41st millennium.

Developed by Auroch Digital (in collaboration with Vampire Survivors' Poncle), this new spin on the survivors-like roguelite subgenre mixes the sci-fi 40,000 setting with the pure fantasy Age of Sigmar universe. This means heroes and enemies from all over the Warhammer mythos meet together in a bite-sized game that anyone can figure out and enjoy in less than five minutes.

When you look at the alternatives, that's a remarkable achievement for a franchise that's notoriously hard (and often expensive) to get into.

Warhammer Survivors isn't bogged down by dense lore, involved mechanics, or massive campaign playthroughs. It's more of an "inspired by" effort that gives casuals a small taste of the series' iconic characters — including Boltgun's Malum Caedo — and factions like the terrifying Tyranids, the raucous Orks, and the foul forces of Chaos.

All of 40K's (and Age of Sigmar's) recognizable elements are on display, but they serve more as flavoring sprinkled on top of Vampire Survivors' successful formula.

If you're new to the Survivors-like subgenre, it's a unique gaming experience. You battle an endless onslaught of enemies that slowly march towards you, with your character passively attacking automatically. You only need to move them around sprawling arenas and select level-up upgrades and items after collecting enough gems (skulls in this case).

The moment-to-moment gameplay is as simple as it can get outside of walking sims and interactive "experiences," but there's a deceiving depth to item synergies and how to correctly "build" characters to endure all the carnage.

Unlike Poncle's original game, Warhammer Survivors struggles a bit to get going. The early hours are sluggish until you unlock certain meta upgrades, but its still got that Vampire Survivors magic at its core.

As far as "podcast/gym games" go, this is a perfect fit. There's just enough going on to keep one's brain engaged, but minimal inputs and a tight overarching design lead to a rhythm that's easy to get into without using much brainpower. It's oddly satisfying to weave through enemies and level up your firepower, watching a single Astra Militarum grunt grow into a full Lasgun-spamming, chainsword-wielding wrecking ball.

Achievement and unlock hunters will find enough to bite into here, too. It's unclear if the devs will continue to add more Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar deep cuts to this game via DLCs and free updates, but those universes have daunting depths to explore. This really could become a gateway game for future 40K fans: by the time they realize they're hooked, they'll already have 2000 pts of space marines painted and ready to play.

As massive sci-fi and fantasy properties try to aggressively expand and absorb more and more fans, it's easy to pander to already-converted diehards too much. And sure, we can't wait for strategy heavyweights like Dawn of War 4 and Total War: WH40K either, but they're hardly good recommendations for folks who don't even know what a Space Marine is or why the robotic Necrons are so grumpy.

Warhammer Survivors won't answer those questions beyond the surface-level iconography, but it's fun enough to push those curious to dig deeper and embrace the same material in more mature video game genres... and maybe even pick up a few miniatures.

Warhammer Survivors is now available on PC (Steam & GOG), PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 1/2, and mobile (iOS & Android). It's also playable on Game Pass.

On Thursday (Nov. 12), the Euclid space telescope released its first major batch of data, capturing the light of more than a billion objects over an area of sky as big as 9,500 full moons. The data release lays the foundation for one of the largest-ever 3D maps of the cosmos and many groundbreaking discoveries about the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid space telescope has been called the "Dark Universe Detective" because of its capability to investigate the dual mysteries of dark matter, the universe's most mysterious stuff, and dark energy, the force accelerating the expansion of the universe. Collectively, these cosmic elements are sometimes referred to as the dark universe.

The new data release, designated DR1-Foundation, was built from 13 months of observations and is accompanied by a multitude of images, including large sky mosaics. It marks the first major release of mission data since Euclid launched in mid-2023.

"These are far more than beautiful pictures; today marks a scientific milestone in our study of the cosmos," ESA's Director of Science, Carole Mundell said in a statement. "This major Euclid data release represents the largest space-based survey of its kind, laying the foundation of future discovery in a new regime for astronomy and demonstrating the excellence of European technology, science and international collaboration."

What's in the Euclid release

The ESA put into raw numbers the sheer number of celestial objects viewed by the Dark Universe Detective and contained in DR1-Foundation. That includes light spectra from 160 million sources, over 900 million galaxies, and 60 million candidates for quasars, regions of space dominated by feeding supermassive black holes.

"This is a change in scale from Euclid's previous releases, which included a few days of observations over around 60 degrees squared of sky," ESA's Euclid project scientist Valeria Pettorino said. "We're now releasing more than a year of data covering a significantly larger area. This unlocks groundbreaking science."

Euclid can see such a vast number of cosmic objects thanks to the fact that its space-based position helps it avoid interference caused by Earth's atmosphere.

This includes clusters of galaxies and even larger superclusters. The study of these objects, some of the largest structures in the cosmos, can reveal how matter came together across the larger network of gas, dust and dark matter called the cosmic web.

"Euclid doesn't just look far back in time  — it does so across huge areas of sky," Euclid Consortium member Barbara Sartoris of JL Lagrange Laboratory, Nice, France, explained. "This gives us an unprecedented view of large samples of ancient galaxy clusters that were previously out of reach.

"We will explore these in the coming months to learn how these giants grew, and decipher what they reveal about the dark universe."

Another exciting element of the new Euclid data release is the 15,000 strong gravitational lensing candidates catalogued by the space telescope. Gravitational lensing is an element of the universe first explained in Einstein magnum opus, general relativity, in 1915.

General relativity says that objects with mass cause the very fabric of space to warp, and that gravity arises from this warping. But there is another consequence. When light passes this curvature, its usually straight path is curved. That means when light from a single background source passes an object with great mass, like a galaxy or galaxy cluster, a strong gravitational lens, it can arrive at our telescopes at different times.

As a result of this strong lensing, background sources can be greatly amplified. It is an effect that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been using to great effect to study galaxies in the early universe.

Thus, the prospect of mapping 15,000 strong gravitational lenses is monumental, especially in studying the rate at which the universe is expanding and thus the effect of dark energy.

"Strong lensing provides unique insight into the dark universe, allowing us to 'weigh' individual galaxies, including their invisible dark matter, and explore how the universe is expanding," Natalie Lines of the University of Portsmouth, U.K., and member of the Euclid Consortium, said. "Over 10 years ago, we forecast that Euclid would revolutionize the field of strong lens discovery. That day is finally here."

The best is yet to come

Arguably, the most exciting thing about DR1-Foundation is that Euclid is just getting started. The area of sky covered from spring 2024 to spring 2025 represents just 14% of Euclid's target for its entire six-year survey.

That means whatever scientists discover from this data release could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of how the Dark Universe Detective will change our understanding of the cosmos.

"DR1-Foundation includes raw data, calibrated images, catalogues, and spectra over a huge sky area, with enough statistics touncover even rare objects," Valeria said. "It will be used to map the large-scale structure of the universe in unprecedented detail.

"So much discovery is yet to come."

An astronaut from Pakistan is set to launch on China's Shenzhou 24 mission in the coming weeks and become the first-ever international visitor to the Tiangong space station.

A pair of astronaut candidates from Pakistan have been training at the Astronaut Centre of China in Beijing, following an agreement reached between China and Pakistan in Islamabad in February 2025 and a subsequent selection process.

China's human spaceflight agency confirmed in a Nov. 7 press statement that the upcoming Shenzhou 24 mission will carry one of the astronauts. The agency also released a mission patch.

"China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Nov. 9. "Having the Pakistani astronaut on board China's spaceships will mark the first-ever joint mission of Chinese and foreign astronauts in the history of China's manned space program."

It is not yet known which of the two candidates will fly on Shenzhou 24. They were named in Pakistani press reports as Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud, both pilots from the country's military forces. The pair were chosen from a wider pool of around 20 finalists.

The chosen candidate will fly as a payload specialist on Shenzhou 24 along with two Chinese colleagues, while the other will be on standby as a backup. While the Chinese astronauts will be starting a six-month-long stay in space, the Pakistani astronaut will spend roughly a week in orbit aboard Tiangong during a standard crew rotation period. He will then return to Earth aboard the departing Shenzhou 23 spacecraft, along with two Chinese astronauts who will have completed a six-month-long stay in orbit.

The arrangement means changes to China's usual "three in, three out" Tiangong crew rotations. One of the three Shenzhou 23 astronauts, who arrived at Tiangong on May 24, will stay aboard and complete China's first-ever year-long stay in orbit, while the Pakistani astronaut will take their seat aboard Shenzhou 23 to return home.

During his stay in space, the Pakistani astronaut will be responsible for four research payloads selected from more than 300 proposals, according to Pakistan's space agency, SUPARCO.

China has not announced a timeline for the launch of the Shenzhou 24 mission, but it is expected to lift off before the end of November. The Shenzhou 23 astronauts currently aboard Tiangong are closing in on 180 days in orbit, nearing an end to their six months in space.

Shenzhou 24 will launch from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on a Long March 2F rocket. The identities of the crew for China's human spaceflight missions are typically closely guarded, and will only be revealed in a press conference a day ahead of launch. Shenzhou 24's Long March 2F rocket will be rolled out to the pad around a week ahead of launch.

The partnership between the two countries has already produced Chinese-launched Pakistani satellites, including a lunar cubesat, and a Pakistani-built rover due to fly on the Chang'e-8 lunar landing mission.

One of the most anticipated fall TV series, "Blade Runner 2099," recently dropped its final neon-tinted trailer, and now we’ve finally got a handle on the plot dynamics of this dystopian thriller set in the cyberpunk world of Ridley Scott's original.

Prime Video's bold and brooding 8-episode series lands Nov. 25 as a tangential sequel to Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049," unfolding some 50 years after the 2017 feature film. Now the artificial inmates are running the asylum when violent replicant uprisings flip the script, causing humanity to become second-class citizens.

"In Los Angeles 2099, Cora (Hunter Schafer) lived her entire life on the run, a chameleon forced to adopt numerous identities," states Prime Video's synopsis. "To secure a stable future for her brother, she assumes one final identity and is forced to partner with Olwen (Michelle Yeoh), a Blade Runner who’s confronting the end of her life. The two are pulled into a widening conspiracy that poses an existential threat to a city that’s fighting to be reborn."

This engrossing final trailer reveals more of the detailed noir world and Cora's plight to blend into society as a Blade Runner who links up with Olwen, an aging replicant exterminator, for an uneasy partnership. Here, a tense scene plays out in this preview as Cora undergoes an intense police station screening while being used as a resistance pawn to help take back the city from usurping androids. But another deep mystery lies hidden in plain sight!

"You have to see the lie that is in front of you," warns Yeoh's dying synthetic cop.

"Blade Runner 2099" sports a spirited cast that includes Dimitri Abold ("The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes") and Lewis Gribben ("Somewhere Boy”) in collaboration with Katelyn Rose Downey ("The Nun II"), Daniel Rigby ('Renegade Nell"), Johnny Harris ("A Gentleman in Moscow"), Amy Lennox ("Only Child"), Sheila Atim ("The Woman King") and Matthew Needham ("House of the Dragon”).

Delivered by creator and showrunner Silka Louisa ("Shining Girls"), and executive produced by Silka Louisa and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions, "Blade Runner 2099" lands on Prime Video beginning Nov. 25, 2026.

I’ve spent a lot of time with smart telescopes, from relatively inexpensive Seestar models to the original Vaonis Vespera and the Vespera Pro. They all promise essentially the same thing — you put a telescope outside at night, choose something interesting on your smartphone and let the technology take care of the rest. The Vaonis Vespera 3 does that exceptionally well, but after spending several nights with it, I’m convinced it’s designed for a rather different kind of buyer.

At $2,490/£2,199, this is hardly an impulse purchase for the beginner who’s curious about astronomy – you could buy several perfectly capable smart telescopes for the same money. Yet I found myself increasingly impressed by what the Vespera 3 could achieve, particularly when I returned to the same object over several nights. The images were sharp, the colors were excellent and I almost never had to think about the battery.

That doesn’t mean the experience was flawless. I sometimes spent longer than I’d have liked waiting for the telescope to get ready, but once it began photographing the sky, the Vespera 3 reminded me why I love smart telescopes so much.

Why I kept returning to the same objects over several nights

One of my favorite things about smart telescopes is watching a photograph develop as more light is collected. What begins as a fairly ordinary patch of stars gradually becomes something much more interesting. First a faint cloud of gas appears, then more structure emerges, and eventually you have an image that, only a few short years ago, would have been difficult to capture without specialist equipment.

With the Vespera 3, I spent several nights photographing the Pleiades (M45), the famous star cluster in Taurus. The Pleiades make an excellent subject for testing a telescope because the stars are bright, but the surrounding nebulosity is much harder to capture convincingly. The Singularity app used to control Vespera 3 stacks each image as it goes, but keeps them in sight as an optional time-lapse, so you can see exactly why you’re spending so much time on one object.

Even better, the Vespera 3’s PerseverENS feature lets you add data to an existing observation over multiple nights (it’s actually called multi-night observation in the app). Instead of having to call it a night or start again every time the weather interrupts an imaging session, you can return to a target and continue building the image over weeks — or years. This is excellent for faint nebulas, but also for anyone who lives somewhere with unpredictable weather.

The Vespera 3 also has CovalENS, Vaonis’s mosaic imaging system, which captures adjacent sections of sky to produce a larger image. That’s helpful for objects such as the Pleiades and large nebulas, which occupy a substantial area of the sky.

Mosaics inevitably take longer than conventional images — if it images six sections of the night sky, it takes six times longer for the same image quality — but they also make the telescope more versatile than its native field of view (2.5 x 1.4 degrees) might suggest.

I was impressed by what it captured from an urban location

Smart telescopes are particularly useful for people living under light-polluted skies. A conventional optical telescope can show you the moon, the planets and some brighter star clusters, but faint nebulas are largely out of reach. The Vespera 3 tackles that problem by taking repeated short exposures and combining them automatically. As the exposures accumulate, faint details become clearer, and the image becomes less noisy.

I photographed the Orion Nebula (M42), one of the most rewarding deep-sky targets for almost any telescope. Its bright central region makes it a quick capture, but the surrounding clouds of gas give a camera plenty more to uncover. The color in M42 via the Vespera 3 was particularly striking: stars looked sharp, the background was pleasingly clean, but the colors had a richness you don’t always see from less expensive models.

The Vespera 3 uses a 50mm refractor telescope and an 8.3-megapixel Sony IMX585 camera sensor. Those specifications are identical to the Vespera 2, but the Vespera 3 has a new optical system, which uses four lenses in three groups, including two extra-low-dispersion elements. Vaonis has also introduced internal baffling to reduce unwanted reflections from nearby artificial lights. For urban astronomers, every little helps. I wouldn’t claim that the Vespera 3 makes dark skies unnecessary. It doesn’t — and if you do take a trip to dark skies with the Vespera 3, your images will improve — but it can produce extremely satisfying images even from a city.

For anyone who wants more control over their images, the Vespera 3 also saves lossless TIFF files that can be exported to a PC or Mac using a USB-C cable. That means you can take the images into your preferred editing software for further processing, rather than relying entirely on the results produced by the Singularity app.

I wish choosing what to photograph was more intuitive

There’s something wonderfully simple about looking at a map of the night sky, spotting an interesting object and tapping it to point your scope in that direction. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy using Seestar smart telescopes. I did miss that experience with the Vespera 3.

Vaonis’s Singularity app has an extensive catalog of galaxies, nebulas, star clusters and other targets, but I found myself browsing lists when I’d rather have been exploring an interactive sky chart.

There is a section devoted to constellations, which initially got my hopes up. I thought it might allow me to photograph an entire constellation, capturing its familiar star pattern as a wide-field image. Sadly not — each constellation has a diagram showing where the catalog’s deep-sky objects are located. That’s useful if you already know what you’re looking for, but it isn’t the same as being able to see the sky overhead and choose a target visually.

However, the telescope can still find and photograph the objects in its catalog, and the automated tracking works well once you’ve made your choice.

It takes a while to get started

That smart telescopes give you instant gratification is something of a selling point — but it’s also a myth. Yes, they save an enormous amount of work compared with traditional astrophotography equipment. There’s no separate tracking mount to align, no camera to attach and no laptop required to control the imaging process. However, automation doesn’t necessarily mean instant results.

For example, every time the Vespera 3 is switched on, it needs to establish its position by identifying stars overhead. Its Star Zone Search and autofocus procedure took around five minutes, with a percentage displayed in the app to show how far it had progressed. That’s not an unreasonable wait for a sophisticated astronomical instrument, but it felt a little drawn-out when I was eager to begin photographing something. If there are clouds, expect it to take much longer.

Once the Vespera 3 had aligned itself, I could choose a target and leave the telescope to work. The optical arm moved into position, the camera began collecting exposures and an image gradually appeared on my smartphone.

I was less impressed by the touch-sensitive power button. Its softly illuminated indicator didn’t always make it obvious whether the telescope was switched on. More than once, I had to check my phone’s available Wi-Fi networks to establish whether it was on or off.

Not having to worry about battery life is bliss

Vaonis claims the Vespera 3 can operate for up to 11 hours. I didn’t run it continuously until the battery was exhausted, but it lasted longer than every observing session I attempted. That did change how I used it, because I could concentrate on the target instead of keeping an eye on the remaining charge or wondering whether I should connect a portable battery.

The new, improved tripod also makes a difference. It’s tall, adjustable and reassuringly stable, with a useful canopy strung between its legs for holding any accessories — perhaps filters, a red torch or snacks.

I wouldn’t buy it primarily for the sun or planets

The Vespera 3 is capable of photographing the moon and the sun, although solar photography requires a properly fitted optional solar filter. Unfortunately, that costs a further $179/£159, which is rather steep.

It’s also not the best choice for detailed planetary images. The 245mm focal length is ideal for framing many galaxies and nebulas, but Jupiter and Saturn remain small subjects.

Another omission is an equatorial tracking mode. Some cheaper smart telescopes — such as the Seestar S50 Pro and the DwarfLab Dwarf 3 — offer EQ mode for more advanced imaging, but the Vespera 3 relies solely on its motorized alt-azimuth mount. That doesn’t stop it from producing excellent photographs, but it does mean more experienced users have one less option to experiment with.

I’d recommend it to someone who knows they’ll use it

The biggest question surrounding the Vespera 3 isn’t whether it works — it’s whether it’s worth the money. After all, it costs far more than the Seestar S50 Pro, which also has built-in imaging filters, whereas the Vespera’s light pollution ($229/£219), dual-band ($399/£370) and solar (£179/£159) filters are optional purchases. They do, however, make a significant difference — with the dual-band filter giving nebulas more contrast, color and detail.

Overall, the Vespera 3 offers a slightly more polished imaging experience than the many entry-level smart telescopes on the market. I enjoyed its clean, colorful images and appreciated the ability to work on the same subject over several nights, while the excellent tripod and battery endurance make it particularly well suited to longer observing sessions.

I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but I can see why someone who already loves photographing the night sky might happily pay extra for the Vespera 3.

A commercial satellite has spotted the International Space Station (ISS), giving us a unique view of the orbiting lab from above.

What is it?

Most of the time, when we see the ISS, it is from down here on Earth or from the viewpoint of the astronauts onboard, peering out the windows at the station's limbs, solar arrays and instruments.

But in this snapshot, which was posted on X on Nov. 9 by the Australian company HEO, we can see the station stretched out in all its glory.

HEO specializes in using satellites in low Earth orbit to capture images of other spacecraft, though longer-term the company aims to capture observations far out into the solar system. HEO doesn't build the satellites that take these photos; rather, the company's software tasks the spacecraft to image targets as they come into range.

This great photo of the ISS from above, for example, was taken by a satellite operated by BlackSky, a Virginia-based company that holds a non-Earth imaging agreement with HEO.

So far, HEO and its partners have captured imagery of a variety of spacecraft in orbit, including the ISS, China's Tiangong space station and the European Space Agency's ERS-2 satellite (while it was hurtling back to Earth in 2024).

Why is it incredible?

While it might seem that satellites are just hovering above Earth, the space station and other spacecraft in LEO are hurtling through space at roughly 17,500 mph (28,160 kph), hundreds of miles above our planet's surface.

A snapshot of a satellite from above is therefore far from mundane. Rather, it requires incredible coordination and technical skill; satellite operators must know precisely when their target will present itself, and their equipment must be capable of getting the shot.

Ancient Egyptian temples will inevitably dominate the story of the total solar eclipse on Aug. 2, 2027.

After all, the path of totality crosses Luxor, home to Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, and some of the ancient world's most famous monuments. But follow the moon's shadow west and another ancient civilization comes into view. Before reaching Egypt, totality will sweep across the Mediterranean and North Africa, passing over an extraordinary collection of Roman cities, fortresses, theaters, temples and triumphal arches. Many lie within what became Rome's North African provinces, a region that produced some of the empire's wealthiest and most impressive cities.

From beachside Baelo Claudia in Spain and military Tamuda in Morocco to Timgad and Djémila in Algeria and the jaw-dropping El Jem Amphitheater in Tunisia, Roman ruins will experience between two and more than five minutes of darkness — creating extraordinary possibilities for eclipse chasers and photographers. Here are some of the best places to watch the moon's shadow cross what was once the Roman Empire. All times, totality durations and historical cloud cover data come from Time and Date.

1. Baelo Claudia, Spain

Roman ruins, an Atlantic beach and the mountains of Africa could all share the frame with the eclipsed sun at Baelo Claudia. Founded in the second century B.C., this remarkably well-preserved Roman city near Bolonia beach includes a forum, basilica, theater, temples, baths and a decumanus maximus (east-west street), all set against forested hills and a vast coastal sand dune. For photographers, the possibilities are exceptional — columns and temples may provide an ancient foreground, while wider compositions could incorporate the beach and dunes. On particularly clear days, Morocco is visible across the Strait of Gibraltar — potentially putting Roman ruins, two continents and a total solar eclipse into one extraordinary scene.

2. Málaga Roman Theatre, Spain

Few eclipse locations can offer two civilizations in the same photograph. Málaga's Roman Theatre was built in the first century B.C., when the city was part of the Roman province of Hispania, and today sits directly beneath the Alcazaba, the imposing Muslim-era palace-fortress that dominates the hillside above. Although its totality is considerably shorter than locations farther south, the photographic possibilities are compelling. From a carefully chosen position, it may be possible to frame the darkened sun with the theater's ancient stonework and the walls of the Alcazaba rising behind it. Another major advantage for eclipse chasers is that this extraordinary historical setting sits in the heart of Málaga, making it one of the most accessible ancient sites on the path of totality.

3. Tamuda, Morocco

Long before the Romans arrived in northern Morocco, Tamuda was already a thriving Mauretanian settlement. Founded around the third century B.C. in the Martil Valley, near modern Tétouan, the Romans established a fortified military camp here in the first century A.D., whose massive stone walls remain the defining feature of this archaeological site. Tamuda combines long totality, promising weather and an atmospheric archaeological foreground — yet remains far less famous than the Roman sites across the Strait of Gibraltar.

4. Timgad, Algeria

Few places in the 2027 path of totality combine ancient architecture and long totality quite like Timgad. Founded around A.D. 100 as the Roman colony of Thamugadi, this remarkably well-preserved city sits on an open plateau at the foot of Algeria's Aurès Mountains. Its grid of streets, forum, theater, temples, baths and columns survives alongside its most famous monument, the three-arched gateway traditionally known as the Arch of Trajan. A relatively high sun will make close architectural compositions challenging, but Timgad's wide-open site provides plenty of possibilities for carefully planned wide-angle images.

5. Lambaesis, Algeria

Just 12—15 miles (20—25 km) west of Timgad lies its military counterpart. Lambaesis was the principal base of Rome's Legio III Augusta, the legion that helped secure Rome's African Empire. Rather than an entire gridded colonial city, the attraction here is monumental military architecture, most notably the imposing remains of the heart of the fortress. The eclipse circumstances are almost identical to nearby Timgad, with more than five minutes of totality and historically excellent prospects for clear skies. Scout both sites beforehand, study where the sun will stand above the ruins, and decide which offers the strongest alignment — and the easiest access — on eclipse morning.

6. Djémila, Algeria

Djémila trades a long eclipse for one of the most spectacular settings on the path of totality. Known to the Romans as Cuicul, this exceptionally well-preserved city was built in mountainous terrain around 2,950 feet (900 meters) above sea level — an unusual setting for a Roman settlement — and its ruins include temples, forums, houses, baths, arches and a theater. The surrounding green hills and mountains give eclipse photographers a very different backdrop from the flatter, more arid landscapes farther south. The catch is totality, which is significantly shorter than at other Roman ruins.

7. Sbeitla, Tunisia

Sbeitla could be one of the great archaeological settings for the 2027 eclipse. Known in Roman times as Sufetula, the city prospered under Roman rule and today contains some of Tunisia's most impressive ancient ruins. Its centerpiece is an unusual group of three remarkably well-preserved temples dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, standing above the forum and reached through the monumental Arch of Antoninus Pius. That high sun will require some careful positioning and probably a wide-angle composition, but eclipse photographers will have an extraordinary collection of arches, columns and temples to use as foregrounds.

8. El Jem Amphitheater, Tunisia

It may be the third-largest and one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheaters in the world, but El Jem offers another reason to consider it for totality. Unlike Rome's Colosseum — which it closely resembles — visitors can explore its multi-tiered seating, climb high into the surviving structure for panoramic views and visit the underground passages once used by gladiators and animals. Built around A.D. 238, El Jem combines one of Rome's greatest surviving monuments with some of the most promising eclipse conditions on the entire track.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered the oldest pair of supermassive black hole-powered quasars ever seen. There's just one problem: they shouldn't exist!

The compact quasar pair, spotted with the aid of the Gemini North telescope, has been designated J1602+4228AB and nicknamed Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua, which means "Two celestial bodies of fathomless powerful darkness in the brilliance of heat reincarnating energy into the universe." The compact quasar pair is seen as it was 900 million years after the Big Bang at a time when such supermassive black holes should not have had time to grow to such tremendous masses.

Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua isn't just the oldest and most distant quasar pairing ever seen. There is just 18,100 light-years, or roughly one-fifth the diameter of the Milky Way, between the supermassive black holes, which have masses of 1.5 billion and 400 million times that of the sun. That makes Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua the most compact quasar pair found during a period of the universe's history known as Cosmic Dawn, shortly after the birth of the first stars, galaxies, and black holes.

"There is no definitive theoretical explanation for how a single one of these giant quasars exists so early in the age of our universe, much less two," research team leader Silvia Onorato of the NOIRLab said in a statement.

"We observed Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua at a time when the universe was only a thirteenth of its age and, astonishingly, its supermassive black holes are just as massive as those we see today."

How were supermassive black holes over fed at Cosmic Dawn

Quasars occur when the supermassive black holes that sit at the heart of large galaxies are surrounded by a flattened cloud of swirling gas and dust called an "accretion disk," from which they feed or "accrete" matter. The immense gravity of the central black hole causes friction, heating the accretion disk and causing it to glow, often brighter than the combined light of every star in the surrounding galaxy. We see that glow as a quasar.

Finding such objects in the recent cosmic history of the 13.8-billion-year-old universe isn't troubling, though finding compact pairs of them is still extremely rare. Such pairs should be common because the merger of galaxies that brings together supermassive black holes is frequent. That should lead to an abundance of pairs of quasars with a separation less than the typical size of a galaxy.

There are three reasons this has proven tricky. Firstly, the "quasar phase" of a supermassive black hole is relatively short on cosmic terms. Secondly, even relatively close quasar pairs are very far away, making them faint and hard to detect with ground-based telescopes. Finally, at such great distances and with such a small separation between the two supermassive black holes, the individual members of a quasar pair are hard to individually resolve.

Yet, astronomers do find quasar pairs. Sometimes at distances and times that they would probably rather not, because it challenges everything we know about black hole growth.

The trouble arises before the universe was 1 billion years. That is because, according to current models, black holes should need at least 1 billion years to feed and merge enough to reach masses millions or billions of times that of the sun.

Yet, since it began operations in 2022, the JWST has been routinely discovering supermassive black holes powering quasars as early as 400 million years after the Big Bang. If that wasn't confusing enough, the discovery of Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua, the third quasar pair seen at Cosmic Dawn, could really break current models.

Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua was uncovered in data from the JWST's Aether survey, which is conducting a census of objects in the early universe. Using JWST’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph Integral Field Unit) instrument, the survey has uncovered 200 quasars, just under half of all currently known early universe quasars. It was while browsing the Aether dataset that the team discovered that quasar J1602+4228A is not alone, it had a companion now designated J1602+4228B.

Resolving these two quasars should have been nearly impossible from the ground. But this was possible for Gemini North thanks to perfect timing and perfect weather conditions over Maunakea, the dormant volcano on the island of Hawai'i where the telescope is located.

A definite scientific feat, Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua remains a mystery for now, but it could actually help scientists better understand how galaxies were coming together during Cosmic Dawn, a vital stage in the evolution of the universe.

"Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua is a really unique environment," Onorato said. "It's a laboratory for astronomers to study how the very first massive galaxies and their central black holes assembled together through direct galaxy interactions during these early times."

The team's results were published on Tuesday (Nov. 10) The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

SpaceX launched a classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California tonight (Nov. 11), the second such flight for the company in a six-day span.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base tonight at 11:36 p.m. EST (8:36 p.m. local California time; 0136 GMT on Nov. 12), kicking off a mission called USSF-627.

Vandenberg hosted a similar liftoff less than a week ago: On Nov. 6, a Falcon 9 sent the USSF-432 mission skyward from the site, which lies on California's gorgeous but often foggy central coast.

We don't know much about USSF-627 or USSF-432; both are classified. Some experts have speculated, however, that each mission launched a batch of SpaceX's Starshield satellites for the Space Force's Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, which helps the military branch track potential targets around the world.

SpaceX didn't reveal details about either USSF-627 or USSF-432, and the company ended the webcast of both launches shortly after the first stages of their Falcon 9 rockets came back to Earth.

In both cases, that touchdown occurred about 8.5 minutes after liftoff on the SpaceX droneship "Of Course I Still Love You," which was stationed downrange of Vandenberg in the Pacific Ocean.

It was the seventh mission for USSF-627's Falcon 9 booster, which carries the designation 1103.

USSF-627 was the 120th Falcon 9 launch of 2026 and the rocket's 15th national-security flight of the year to date. Eighty-five of the 120 flights have been devoted to building out SpaceX's Starlink broadband constellation in low Earth orbit, which currently consists of more than 11,000 satellites.

The Falcon 9 is not on a record-breaking cadence this year. In 2025, the rocket flew a whopping 165 missions, and 122 of them were Starlink flights.

A long-term goal at NASA has been the ability to robotically haul back to Earth specimens from the Red Planet.

NASA is kickstarting a new initiative for its troubled Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, called the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture, or PSRA in space shorthand. The plan is to establish a fresh NASA strategy for gathering Mars samples collected by the Perseverance rover and launching them back to Earth.

The PSRA initiative was noted on Nov. 9 by Tiffany Morgan, director of the NASA Mars Exploration Program (MEP), during the virtual meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG).

Here's the PSRA strategy:

• Develop impartial recommendations for retrieving the Martian samples collected by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover and deliver them to Earth
• Assess proposed mission requirements
• Review prior lessons learned
• Evaluate current capabilities and acquisition options

Morgan noted that there will be a PSRA strategy team kickoff in January 2027 with a final report due in winter 2027-2028.

Pick-me-ups

The backdrop to the PSRA activity is that there's one busy rover already on the Red Planet snagging and bagging samples.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover remains on the prowl within Jezero Crater following its touchdown in February 2021. That car-sized robot has been grabbing select specimens from across the area and gingerly dropping the sealed pick-me-ups on the surface of Mars, as well as stuffing them inside the rover itself.

Those collectibles may well hold signs of past life on the enigmatic, dusty and foreboding Red Planet.

NASA and the European Space Agency have for years been intently plotting out plans to send future spacecraft to Mars and haul those Perseverance-plucked bits, pieces, and sniffs of atmosphere to Earth for rigorous inspection here on Earth using state-of-the-art equipment.

Sticker shock

However, over the years, multiple reviews of a NASA Mars Sample Return (MSR) project by independent groups have reported sticker shock findings. Indeed, one last price tag came in at about $11 billion, with samples being returned to Earth in 2040. That finding was deemed by NASA itself as too costly and not doable within an acceptable time frame.

Yet another appraisal group ended up finding it feasible to return Mars samples as early as 2035 for a less costly ship and shoot cost of some $8 billion.

How the PSRA review deals with MSR cost and a multitude of other concerns is in the to-be-determined column.

Why samples now?

In the first place, why are samples from Mars delivered by robotic means? Why not let a human expedition bring back the goods?

Also speaking at MEPAG was Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder and Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington.

Jakosky called for an integrated approach to planning human missions to Mars. He highlighted recommendations stemming from a workshop in which he participated, held last May and organized by Explore Mars, Inc.

That report focused on the impact of MSR on reducing risk for human missions, rather than focusing on the science, Jakosky told Space.com.

"The purpose is to understand the risk to astronauts and to hardware. The risk includes that from compounds that are present in the soil that are hazardous to astronauts if breathed in," said Jakosky. "This includes perchlorates and chloromethanes that have been identified already, and detection of other species that might be present. It also includes dust that can be breathed in by astronauts and that can affect hardware wear and tear," he said.

During the MEPAG gathering, Jakosky flagged the importance of returning samples prior to human missions to Mars, such as:

• Identify and characterize known hazardous chemicals to ensure astronaut safety (e.g., perchlorates and chloromethanes), and look for possible additional hazardous chemicals
• Characterize very fine dust particles that could cause respiratory issues in astronauts
• Characterize dust and regolith properties for spacesuit design and wear patterns
• Search in advance of the arrival of humans for evidence of extant life that could interact with terrestrial life
• Enhance astronaut effectiveness on the surface and science return from human missions by providing initial context and analysis
• Demonstrate successful round-trip to Mars
• Demonstrate successful round-trip travel, including entry, descent, landing and ascent from the surface of Mars.
• Demonstrate implementation of planetary protection protocols. While human missions would not use the same approaches, what we learn from doing these would make the approach for humans much easier to plan and implement.

China's program

Yet one more forcing factor for NASA in yet another relook at MSR is that China is making progress on its Tianwen-3 Mars Sample Return mission.

According to the China National Space Administration, the country's Tianwen-3 probe will have a lander, an ascender, a service capsule, an orbiter, and an Earth reentry module.

Tianwen-3 appears on track getting the trek underway around 2028 on two Long March-5 heavy-lift carrier rockets from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China's southernmost island province of Hainan.

China's Tianwen-3 mission is dedicated to bring back to Earth roughly 500 grams of Red Planet collectibles in 2031.

Fast radio bursts, flashes of energy from faraway galaxies, are invisible to our eyes. However, we can now hear their melody, thanks to a composer who has turned them into sound.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are among the most extreme events in the universe, releasing as much energy in a millisecond as the sun puts out in three days and briefly outshining entire galaxies. Since the first FRB was discovered in 2007, astronomers have detected thousands of them; however, exactly how these cosmic flares are launched remains poorly understood. Recent evidence points to at least one burst coming from the environment around a rotating neutron star.

Despite their power, FRBs last only a few thousandths of a second before vanishing into space. Catching one takes luck, as a telescope has to be pointed at the right patch of sky at the right moment. That changed with CHIME (the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) in British Columbia. With a very wide field of view and a supercomputer to process its data, CHIME more than quadrupled the number of known FRBs in its first year of operation alone. Between 2018 and 2023, CHIME recorded 4,539 bursts from 3,641 sources.

As pulses of radio waves, our eyes haven't evolved to see FRBs, nor can we hear them as they aren't sound waves. Well, not until now.

"Artist and composer Andrew Melchior turned all of the CHIME bursts into sound for "The Logos," an installation that has played daily at Oulu Cathedral in Finland since early April and is scheduled to run through the end of the year. Melchior and Kiyoshi Masui, an associate professor of physics at MIT, "sonified" the bursts, translating data into acoustics so that human ears can hear them.

The structure of each real signal is mapped to varying musical pitches and played through 12 loudspeakers spread throughout the cathedral. The result is a range of tones, with distant FRBs humming, rumbling, popping, and whistling.

The signals are old by any human measure. According to a description on Melchior's website, the youngest in the work are about 50 million years old, and the oldest are about 8 to 9 billion years old.

Physics also plays a role in what is heard. Each burst arrives with its high frequencies first and sweeps downward, stretched by its journey through intergalactic gas, "and you can hear that dispersion as it falls from the dome," Melchior told Space.com by email.

Since their discovery in 2007, the bursts are also still yielding discoveries. Last month, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope pinpointed the host galaxy of the most distant FRB yet, one that went off when the universe was only about 3 billion years old.

The galaxy, a small, young, star-forming dwarf, was far smaller than expected. That makes it harder to square with the theory that FRBs come from merging neutron stars, researchers say, which would take billions of years to occur.

This fits better with a second theory, in which a young, highly magnetic neutron star called a magnetar produces the burst soon after a massive star explodes, according to NASA.

Back on Earth, an upcoming event at Oulu Cathedral offers a more immediate encounter with the bursts. On Nov. 21, 30 singers will stand among the audience and "sing back to the sky in Finnish" while Melchior plays the bursts live from a keyboard, he told Space.com by email.

"The fast flashes will echo as snare-like beats bouncing through the cathedral," Masui said in a previous MIT statement.

"It should feel rich and layered, while also revealing something real about how these signals travel across billions of years of cosmic space before reaching Earth."

On Nov. 11, 1966, the Gemini 12 mission launched an astronaut crew into orbit and set the stage for NASA's Apollo program to land humans on the moon.

Gemini 12 was the last mission of the Gemini program. It had two astronauts on board: Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. NASA wanted to send humans to the moon. But first, it needed to make sure crews had the right skills, like docking vehicles in space and taking spacewalks.

Before Gemini 12, astronauts struggled with spacewalks because there weren't enough handholds on their spacecraft. NASA made some spacewalk changes for Gemini 12. Aldrin performed three spacewalks and spent more than five hours working in space with no major problems. Gemini 12 also successfully docked to an unpiloted Agena booster that launched the same day.

The astronauts returned to Earth after four days in space. Both Aldrin and Lovell went on to join the Apollo program. Aldrin became the second person to walk on the moon during Apollo 11, and Lovell became the commander of Apollo 13.

Why it mattered

Gemini 12 may have closed out NASA's Gemini program of two-person space missions, but it established the mission also established the fundamentals of spacewalking that Apollo astronauts would use when they walked on the moon.

It's fitting that Aldrin was the primary spacewalker of the mission. A rookie astronaut (and the first to earn a Ph.D.), Aldrin set a precedent by training for his spacewalk in a neutral buoyancy pool in Maryland to better simulate working in weightlessness. Then he did it again as the second person to walk on the moon on Apollo 11.

"This approach became so successful, underwater training has become the primary spacewalk training method used by the United State, Russia and China," NASA officials said in a mission overview. "Today, NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston is large enough to include mockups of major sections of the International Space Station. As such, it is the largest indoor body of water in the world, with 6.2 million gallons of water."

The Agena docking target for Gemini 12 launched into orbit just over 90 minutes ahead of Lovell (the mission commander) and Aldrin. Aldrin ended up using a sextant to help Lovell rendevous with the agena after they lost radar lock within 74 miles of the vehicle.

During his spacewalks, Aldrin installed handrails, used foot restraints and other tools that have since become routine on spacewalks in orbit. They also tested tools and techniques that Aldrin and other moonwalks would use on the moon.

Gemini 12 also tested a computer-controlled reentry technique when it returned to Earth on Nov. 15, landing Lovell and Aldrin just 3 miles from their target near their recovery ship the USS Wasp in the Atlantic Ocean, about 600 miles east of Cape Canaveral.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

Imagine you’ve crash-landed on an alien planet. Your ship is destroyed, your oxygen supply is dangerously low, and the landscape around you is completely unknown. Where would you begin looking for clues to your survival? Surprisingly, the best place to start could be the star overhead.

This is the predicament that three crew members of the Wild Blue Yonder face in Audible’s new sci-fi thriller, "Exoplanet." This sci-fi thriller is written by acclaimed comic writer Benjamin Percy, executive produced by Andy Weir (Project Hail Mary, The Martian), and features an all-star voice cast including Anthony Mackie, Ariana DeBose, and John Leguizamo.

Stranded on an unfamiliar planet, they encounter volcanic wastelands, unknown skies, and environments that seem to defy reason. But behind the extraordinary events of this audio drama is a very real scientific question: what makes a planet habitable?

Learning from the stars

In “Exoplanet”, the crew view skies that are not only unfamiliar but also seemingly different from one another. One character sees a sun as so dim that he can look directly at it, while another suffers under a blazing heat, surrounded by stretches of sun-scorched red rock.

For astronomers, the light emitted by a star is one of the most crucial tools for understanding planets orbiting it.

Using a technique called spectroscopy, astronomers split starlight into its constituent wavelengths, producing a spectrum much like a rainbow. By studying this spectrum, they can investigate the temperature, composition, and other physical properties of the star.

However, stellar temperature is only part of the picture. The amount of energy a planet receives depends on both the luminosity of the star and its orbital distance.

Astronomers use these measurements to determine whether a world lies in the habitable zone of a star, where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist on the surface given a suitable atmosphere.

A planet orbiting a cool red dwarf would need to be much closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun to be in this habitable zone. Unfortunately, being in this zone is no guarantee of a planetary paradise.

Hostile stars

A planet that sits comfortably in the habitable zone is ultimately still at the mercy of its star. Stars emit more than just the light we see. Ultraviolet radiation and X-rays can interact with planetary atmospheres, altering chemistry and even contributing to the loss of the atmosphere.

Violent stellar flares can produce bursts of high-energy radiation. A planet could offer a wonderfully balmy temperature, only to be bombarded with radiation from the host star.

The age of a star matters too. Young stars tend to be more active, with radiation that could erode a planet’s atmosphere over time. Meanwhile, as stars age and evolve, their changing luminosities can drastically alter the conditions a planet experiences.

For the stranded crew in “Exoplanet”, understanding the star overhead may therefore be as important as knowing the landscape beneath their feet.

Is the air breathable?

Even if a planet has survived all the complications we’ve just thrown at it, there’s still a rather important question: could we actually breathe the air?

In "Exoplanet", one crew member discovers that the planet’s atmosphere contains enough oxygen for him to breathe without his spacesuit. On Earth, oxygen makes up around 21% of our atmosphere. However, finding a similar percentage on another planet wouldn’t automatically mean the air is safe to breathe.

Atmospheric pressure matters just as much. At high altitudes on Earth, the oxygen percentage remains the same, but the lower pressure means less oxygen is available to our lungs.

Oxygen isn’t the only concern, either. The fictional planet’s volcanic landscape releases gases such as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, both of which are hazardous at high concentrations. Even an oxygen-rich atmosphere could still be lethal.

Searching for life

But what if you don't just need to know if a planet is habitable? What if you need to know if something already lives there?

Before the Wild Blue Yonder arrived at the planet, probes detected dimethyl sulfide, a molecule we associate with biological activity on Earth. This is a beautifully timely detail, as this very molecule has been at the heart of a scientific debate about one of the most intriguing exoplanets discovered so far.

Astronomers have investigated possible signs of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of K2-18 b, an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf. However, both the detection itself and the biological interpretation remain heavily disputed.

The challenge is that detecting a single molecule isn’t definitive evidence of life. Its presence can be influenced by factors other than biology, like atmospheric chemistry and stellar radiation.

Understanding whether such a molecule could actually indicate life means studying not just the planet’s atmosphere, but also the radiation it receives from its star.

More than Earth Mark 2

Astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets. Understanding whether any could support life is, however, an extraordinary challenge.

The distance between the planet and the star might give us a good clue, but its atmosphere, geology, and stellar environment are all interconnected in determining whether life could survive. For the unfortunate crew of the Wild Blue Yonder, those distinctions could mean the difference between survival and utter disaster.

We might one day identify a planet with Earth-like temperatures, liquid water, and abundant oxygen. But even then, there’s still a huge gap dividing a potentially habitable planet from one where we could safely remove our helmets.

"Exoplanet" is available now exclusively from Audible. It is free for members of its subscription tiers or available to purchase separately.

The origin of life on Earth remains a mystery. New research shows that comets almost certainly did not bring the chemical building blocks of life to our planet.

Life as we know it is based around carbon chemistry, also known as organic chemistry. Complex organic molecules are the fundamental building blocks of biochemical compounds such as nucleobases, amino acids, sugars and so on that act as the machinery for biochemistry on Earth.

Two big questions are where did this complex chemistry originate? Did these complex organic molecules form on Earth, or were they delivered here from space?

New research led by planetary scientist Richard Anslow of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Cambridge has now seemingly ruled out comets as the origin of complex organic molecules on Earth.

"Historically, scientists thought that comets were important for the origin of life on Earth, because they carried carbon and nitrogen-bearing molecules, so these giant space snowballs were almost like a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' that brought all the molecules a planet would need to seed life," said Anslow in a statement.

Stripping the romance from the Earth's turbulent past

Comet impacts on Earth were much more frequent in the first half-billion years of the solar system’s existence, when there were still lots of debris leftover from the formation of the planets.

For over a century comet impacts had been considered a prime suspect in the search for what brought the building blocks of life to Earth. However, while comets bringing the building blocks of life to Earth is "kind of a romantic idea," according to Anslow, the University of Cambridge researcher added that the team's results suggest that is highly unlikely.

Anslow and colleagues arrived at this conclusion based upon computer modeling by using the very latest simulations depicting the origin and evolution of comets and their orbits, their interactions with Earth's atmosphere as they enter it, and of the hypervelocity comet impacts themselves.

In particular, they used the fate of hydrogen cyanide as a proxy for what happens to complex organic molecules in comet impacts. Hydrogen cyanide is frequently found in comets and was even detected in the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

The problem is that comets are generally moving at too great a velocity. For organic molecules to survive impact, the impact velocity would have to be below 33,500 miles per hour (15 kilometers per second).

Anslow and his colleagues found that, in general, comets travel too fast and enter Earth’s atmosphere at too sharp an angle for complex organic molecules to survive. Instead, they are mostly vaporized on impact. Even on the rare occasions that the complex organic molecules survived, they were usually not in great enough abundance to provide any meaningful prebiotic chemistry.

"It would really have to be a one-in-a-million occurrence, because not only would you need an impact at just the right speed and just the right angle, you would also need everything to happen after that point, in terms of the concentration and the speed at which the chemical origins of life got going," said Anslow. "We can’t rule out for certain that it happened that way, but it seems to be a really rare occurrence – at best, a one-off fluke."

Maybe life on Earth is a fluke

It is not yet known if the origin of life on Earth was a fluke, or whether life is plentiful in the universe, so a fluke occurrence could still have been a trigger for life on our planet.

However, researchers are coming around to alternatives, either that all the pre-biotic chemistry that resulted in life took place on Earth without requiring material from space, or asteroids instead brought those important molecules to Earth.

Scientists have found asteroids to be rich in those molecules – for example, the sample of material brought back by the OSIRIS-REx mission from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu contained all the building blocks of RNA.

However, other planets could have plausibly benefitted from comet impacts. The simulations showed that complex organic molecules in comets would stand a slightly better chance of surviving impacts on Mars, because of the Red Planet’s thinner atmosphere and lower gravity.

"This is not to say it definitely happened on Mars, of course, but it suggests it would be unlikely if it happened on Earth and didn’t happen on Mars," said Anslow. "Or the other, perhaps more likely, alternative is that it didn’t happen on either planet."

More intriguing are the possibilities on exoplanets, specifically the peas-in-a-pod multi-planet systems around red dwarf stars such as TRAPPIST-1, where all the planets are bunched up close.

In 2023 Anslow wrote a research paper describing how comets could gravitationally bounce from one planet to the next, losing velocity in the process so that when they crash into one of the planets, they impact is not so severe and complex organic molecules might have a chance to survive.

The team's research was published on 28 October in Scientific Reports.

The coming launch bottleneck has ramped up demand for a rocket that has yet to leave the ground.

Rocket Lab announced on Monday (Nov. 9) that it recently raised the price of a Neutron launch from $55 million to $70 million — an increase of more than 25%, for a ride on a rocket that's set to debut in 2027.

"Launch is extremely constrained, and that is exactly the situation we predicted," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said on Monday during the company's third-quarter earnings call. "We saw a pent-up launch market on the horizon, and rather than provide early discounted launches, we set out to deliver a rocket into an environment with extreme demand at full price or higher."

Rocket Lab is best known for Electron, a workhorse small-satellite launcher that debuted in 2017 and now has 90 orbital missions under its belt. The 59-foot-tall (18 meters) expendable rocket and can haul 660 pounds (300 kilograms) to low Earth orbit (LEO).

Neutron is the company's entry into the medium-lift market. It features a reusable first stage, stands 141 feet (43 m) tall and can carry 14.3 tons (13 metric tons) of payload to LEO.

Rocket Lab announced Neutron back in 2021 and first targeted a 2024 debut for the vehicle. But various problems have cropped up over the years, pushing things back. Last month, for example, Rocket Lab announced that it was delaying the first Neutron flight from late 2026 into 2027 due to a manufacturing issue (which it says is now under control).

Such setbacks have not dampened demand for Neutron's services, however. During Monday's call, Beck revealed that Rocket Lab booked eight Neutron launches during the third quarter of 2026, which ran from July 1 through Sept. 30.

The contracts for those eight flights are worth "a total of roughly 515 million, including multiple missions on a new escalated base price of $70 million," Beck said. Neutron's first 16 launches are now sold out, he added, and bookings from here on will be for flights in the 2030s.

"The demand is a function of both a tightening global launch supply and our customers' confidence that Rocket Lab is the right partner to break the world's launch bottleneck," Beck said.

That bottleneck is coming in 2028 or so, when SpaceX plans to retire its Falcon 9 rocket. For some perspective, and comparison with Neutron: SpaceX currently charges $74 million for each Falcon 9 launch. The rocket has a reusable first stage and can carry about 25 tons (22.7 metric tons) to LEO.

The medium lifter has been the world's most prolific rocket for the past few years. In 2025, for example, it flew 165 times — roughly the same number of orbital missions as all other launchers in the world combined. And all 165 of those flights were successful.

But SpaceX is phasing out the Falcon 9 — and its heavy-lift cousin, the Falcon Heavy — nonetheless, shifting all launch work over to its fully reusable Starship megarocket, which can haul more than 100 tons to LEO.

There's a real worry among folks in the space community that this massive payload capacity won't be available to them for a while. SpaceX has made it pretty clear that early Starship operations will be geared toward internal priorities — specifically, the buildout of SpaceX's Starlink V3 broadband network and its Starmind AI data-center constellation.

These will be very big jobs, even for the most powerful rocket ever built. For example, the Starlink V3 megaconstellation will consist of about 100,000 satellites, according to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. Starship can carry about 60 of these spacecraft to LEO per launch, so just building out the constellation will require about 1,700 liftoffs.

The numbers for Starmind will be even more mind-boggling, for SpaceX wants that constellation to eventually harbor a million satellites.

The coming launch bottleneck should increase demand for Electron as well as Neutron, Beck said during Monday's call. After all, many small-satellite operators have launched with SpaceX over the years, booking spots on Falcon 9 "rideshare" flights. And those opportunities are now drying up.

"The next logical alternative is of course an Electron, so we see tremendous traction there," Beck said.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a breathtaking view of thousands of stars glittering like cosmic jewels in a dazzling display of blue, gold and orange.

But this spectacular scene is far more than just a pretty picture. Some of these stars are almost as old as the universe itself and could hold clues to how our Milky Way formed.

What is it?

The exquisite image released by ESA on Nov. 5 shows Messier 30 (M30), a densely packed collection of stars located approximately 27,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Capricornus.

M30 is a globular cluster, a roughly spherical collection of tens of thousands to millions of stars held together by gravity.

Our Milky Way is home to at least 150 of these ancient stellar gatherings, some of which are estimated to be between 11.5 billion and 13.5 billion years old. For comparison, the universe itself is approximately 13.8 billion years old!

Why is it amazing

Besides looking like a vast cosmic treasure trove glittering across the universe, M30 also has a fascinating story to tell.

Globular clusters are essentially cosmic time capsules. Their ancient stars preserve chemical clues about the conditions that existed when they formed, helping astronomers piece together the Milky Way's early history.

Astronomers have also discovered that M30, along with several other globular clusters, traverses the Milky Way in the opposite direction to the galaxy's rotation. This unusual motion raises the intriguing possibility that M30 may not have formed in our galaxy at all. It could have simply been captured by the Milky Way billions of years ago.

I’ve used several smart telescopes over the last few years, but I'd recommend the ZWO Seestar S30 Plus to almost anyone wanting to get started in astrophotography. At $499/€499, it’s a complete imaging system that can photograph galaxies, nebulae and star clusters automatically, even from a light-polluted city. Better still, it’s so small that it can live on a bookshelf.

I recently captured images of the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), the North America Nebula (NGC 7000), the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Pleiades (M45) with the S30 Plus. All were remarkably easy to capture, and none of the images accompanying this review required external processing. It’s basically point-and-shoot astrophotography — if you live under light-polluted skies, that’s a game-changer.

I also think the S30 Plus makes an ideal companion to a conventional optical telescope. I can set it to photograph a nebula I have no hope of seeing under light pollution while I try to find brighter objects through the eyepiece of another telescope. It will then get on with collecting photons while I enjoy observing.

For anyone who already owns a telescope but doesn’t want the expense and complexity of conventional astrophotography, that’s a compelling proposition.

I photographed nebulas despite light pollution

One problem with buying a cheap optical telescope is that deep-sky objects rarely resemble the colorful photographs you see online. The moon, planets and bright star clusters can look wonderful through an eyepiece, but faint galaxies and nebulas are much harder to appreciate, particularly from a town or city.

Like all smart telescopes, the S30 Plus gets around that problem by photographing objects rather than showing them directly. Its camera takes repeated exposures, which the telescope automatically stacks to reduce noise and gradually reveal faint detail. The longer you leave it working, the better the resulting image tends to become.

Being able to photograph colorful nebulas without traveling to a remote observing site is one of the biggest attractions of the S30 Plus. For beginners living in cities, it could transform their experience of astronomy.

It’s the perfect companion to my optical telescope

I’ve always preferred spending my nights looking at the sky rather than fiddling with equipment, which is one reason I enjoy smart telescopes. Traditional astrophotography can involve a camera, tracking mount, adapters, cables, alignment, a laptop and considerable patience before the first useful exposure begins. The S30 Plus removes almost all of that.

I can put it outside, connect the Seestar app and choose a target from its built-in sky atlas. The telescope then moves to the correct position, identifies the star field, centers the object, focuses and begins imaging. Within minutes, a photograph starts appearing on my smartphone. That leaves me free to use an optical telescope alongside it — or stay inside and do something else.

The longer I leave it alone, the better the images get

Using the S30 Plus’s built-in UV/IR cut filter — which blocks ultraviolet and infrared light — I captured the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), a popular deep-sky object. As the hours went by, the dust lanes on its outskirts appeared in ever more detail. That’s how smart telescopes work — they collect and combine dozens or hundreds of short exposures, gradually revealing fainter structure while reducing noise.

So impressive is the image after only about five or six exposures that it’s tempting to stop after a few minutes — but patience makes an enormous difference. Fortunately, you don’t have to stand beside the S30 Plus. You can leave it collecting light — even overnight, thanks to its scheduling option (though it’s not waterproof, so check the weather forecast!).

Using the dual-band anti-light pollution filter, the Pleiades open cluster (M45) provided another interesting test. The S30 Plus has a mosaic mode that photographs overlapping sections of sky to create a larger image than its main camera can capture in a single frame. It’s ideal for expansive targets such as the Pleiades and Andromeda, although gathering enough exposures takes time. The app shows how much of the mosaic has been completed, and if needs be, you can continue collecting data on subsequent nights.

I also photographed the Double Cluster in Perseus (NGC 869 and NGC 884) and the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (M13), both relatively swift targets, but as anyone who’s used a smart telescope knows, it’s the faint nebulas that are the real prize. For those, dark skies mean better data — and that’s exactly why a smart telescope needs to be portable.

It’s small enough to fit in my camera bag

The S30 Plus weighs just 3.64 lbs (1.65 kg) and measures 8.25 x 5.5 x 3.15 inches (210 x 140 x 80 mm) when switched off. That’s small enough to fit into a camera bag in place of another lens or camera body, which is a major advantage because I travel to remote locations quite frequently. That fact that it sits on such a tiny tripod is also a boon.

I’ve recently used the much larger Seestar S50 Pro, which weighs 6.17 lbs (2.8 kg). It’s a more capable imaging instrument with a 50mm aperture and a larger 8.3-megapixel sensor, but its heavier, bulkier chassis is harder to get into carry-on luggage. The S30 Plus and the higher-spec S30 Pro also differ from the S50 Pro in that they come with a padded carry case. This has a useful carrying handle, although there’s no shoulder strap or dedicated storage for the tripod and magnetic solar filter.

It’s also worth taking along a portable battery and USB-C cable to recharge its built-in 6,000mAh battery during long sessions, though it lasts about six hours, which will suit most observing sessions.

It’s much more advanced than the original S30

The original, now-discontinued S30 was already impressive, but the S30 Plus is a substantial upgrade. It has improved four-element apochromatic optics with ED glass and two 3.7-megapixel cameras, each producing 1,440x2,560-pixel images. That’s almost 80% more pixels than the original S30’s main camera.

The main camera’s field of view has increased slightly to about three degrees, while the wide-angle camera now covers 43.5 degrees of sky. The latter can be used for star trails, though I suspect it’s something most people will experiment with occasionally.

There’s also an EQ mode. This will align the telescope with Earth’s rotation to allow longer exposures and sharper edges, which I found worked really well. It requires an appropriately angled mount or wedge (such as the Seestar TH10 Fluid Tripod Head) and a small tripod.

I tested it at 51 degrees north, which randomly appears to be the cut-off point for ease of use because of the tilt it puts on the telescope. It’s when a tripod begins to topple with the weight, meaning you need a tripod whose legs can be set at a low angle (Seestar’s TC20 tripod would be ideal, and is very compact).

The app makes it all very easy to set up, and advanced imaging possibilities like this are welcome. So, too, is the option of outputting images as lossless FITS files for anyone wanting to process their images using specialist software.

That’s what makes the Seestar S30 Plus such a good beginner’s telescope. It’s easy to use immediately, but there’s plenty of scope to develop more sophisticated astrophotography skills without buying another instrument.

I photographed the moon and sun during the day

The S30 Plus isn’t limited to deep-sky photography. I photographed a near-full moon against a blue daytime sky, something I particularly enjoy doing with smart telescopes because they’re so quick to set up.

It also comes with a magnetic white-light solar filter, allowing safe photographs of the sun when the filter is securely fitted. This must always be installed before pointing the telescope towards the sun. I did have to manually guide the S30 Plus to the sun and moon on a few occasions, but it’s easy enough to do, and I actually like the option to manually take control — few other smart telescopes allow it. Once you’ve found the sun or moon, the scope centers it and keeps it in view (unless you’re on a moving ship, by the way, where tracking generally fails — something for eclipse chasers to think about).

Planetary photography is less impressive. The 30mm aperture and short focal length aren’t ideal for detailed views of Jupiter or Saturn, so for anyone primarily interested in observing and imaging planets, I’d recommend a conventional optical telescope instead.

I could spend years exploring the sky with this telescope

The S30 Plus occupies an interesting position in ZWO’s increasingly crowded Seestar range. With dual 8.3MP cameras and wider fields of view, the S30 Pro is a worthy upgrade from the original S30. Meanwhile, the $999 S50 Pro has a larger 50mm aperture that collects almost three times as much light, although it’s also significantly bulkier and more expensive.

Alternatives exist outside ZWO’s range. DwarfLab’s Dwarf Mini is exceptionally portable, but its lower resolution and more limited capabilities make it less versatile. At the other extreme, Unistellar’s Odyssey has an 85mm aperture, an electronic eyepiece and opportunities to contribute to citizen science projects, but it sits in a different price bracket.

The S30 Plus will hit the sweet spot for many. It offers almost everything a beginner needs to explore deep-sky astrophotography, with built-in filters, mosaic mode and EQ tracking giving plenty of advanced features to grow into. Crucially, it’s small enough to travel with easily. Yes, you can spend more and get slightly better image data, but most beginners don’t need to.

The Seestar S30 Plus is one of the most affordable smart telescopes available, but it’s also one of the best-value offerings in its class.

A new NASA space telescope will study the universe in ultraviolet light to reveal the violent and turbulent events that bubble under what appears to be a cosmic sea of tranquility.

The Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX) mission, developed by NASA in conjunction with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), will be the first mission to create deep all-sky maps in ultraviolet light. Thus, when it launches in 2031, UVEX will join new sky-mapping surveys like NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), which scans the cosmos in infrared, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which does the same over the southern hemisphere in visible light, in creating deep-sky maps across a broad swathe of the electromagnetic spectrum.

UVEX's ultraviolet views will reveal explosive events such as the collisions between ultra-dense stellar corpses called neutron stars and the supernova explosions that mark the deaths of massive stars and the births of neutron stars and black holes. Additionally, the NASA ultraviolet telescope should be able to detect a multitude of low-mass galaxies much closer to the Milky Way than similar galaxies that are currently being observed millions and even billions of light-years away by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The $590 million UVEX mission will "advance fundamental frontiers in astrophysics, from understanding the smallest galaxies to diagnosing the aftermath of neutron-star mergers and other cosmic explosions," the mission's principal investigator, Caltech physics professor Fiona Harrison, said in an Oct. 27 statement.

"The first major ultraviolet space mission in two decades, UVEX is a bold leap forward in our exploration of the ultraviolet universe," Caltech President Ray Jayawardhana said in the same statement.

UVEX will paint a picture of cosmic life, death and afterlife

UVEX will benefit from a major leap forward in UV sensitivity thanks to its Caltech-built sensors, which are based on complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) imaging technology. This will help the spacecraft tap into what Harrison described as "the untapped opportunity in the UV."

UVEX will be uniquely poised to spot millions of nearby, small, and faint galaxies that are teeming with infant stars that emit bright UV light.

"In optical light, it's very hard to distinguish these nearby galaxies from faraway ones that look similar," Harrison said. "UV light will make them easier to find."

UVEX won't just be investigating the infancy of stars, however. It will also examine the deaths of ancient stars in the form of supernovas.

Supernovas occur when a massive star runs out of fuel for nuclear fusion and can no longer support itself against the inward push of its own gravity. As the core of the star collapses, its outer layers are blasted outward in cosmic explosions we call supernovas.

This is a process that scientists are keen to understand, as these explosions fling the heavy elements forged during the stars' lifetimes into surrounding galaxies. This material becomes the building blocks of the next generation of stars, planets, and possibly even life.

UVEX will also investigate what happens to the end products of some supernovas, neutron stars, when they meet and merge.

Neutron stars contain between one and two times the mass of the sun crammed into a width of around 12 miles (20 kilometers). That means they are composed of matter so dense that, if a teaspoon of it were brought to Earth, it would weigh over 1 billion tons. That's equivalent to stacking around 9 million adult blue whales on a spoon.

So, when neutron stars in binary systems spiral together and merge, they create an environment so violent that it's the only place in the universe where scientists are sure that elements heavier than lead, like gold, silver, and platinum, are able to be forged.

Currently, neutron star mergers are detected via ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. Scientists can then follow up on the aftermath of the mergers by observing them in electromagnetic light, from high-energy gamma rays to low-energy radio waves. Thus, UVEX will add another aspect to the investigation of neutron star collisions and our understanding of where heavy elements originate.

The new space telescope's maneuverability will allow it to observe these explosive events very shortly after they happen, giving it an advantage over other instruments, including NASA's long-serving Hubble Space Telescope.

"With UVEX, we will now be able to follow up on gravitational-wave events in ultraviolet light," UVEX team member and Caltech scientist Mansi Kasliwal said in the same statement. "I can count on two hands how many spectra we have of transient events in their infancy phase with the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is, of course, amazing and does have some ultraviolet capabilities, but it cannot rapidly pivot to observe real-time events."

UVEX will also be revolutionary in the study of blue stars that have had their outer layers of hydrogen stripped away by companion stars. These stars offer researchers a unique opportunity to study the interior of stars, which is usually obscured by their outer layers.

"We will be able to see what's inside the stars," Kareem El-Badry, an associate professor of astronomy at Caltech and a member of the UVEX team, said in the same statement. "We only know of a small number of stripped stars of this type now. UVEX will find hundreds."

All of the above elements discussed are the expected discoveries and investigations that UVEX will be involved with. Perhaps even more exciting, however, are the unexpected elements of the universe it will uncover.

"Every time you look at the skies in a new wavelength, you learn something new and unexpected," El-Badry said.

Update for 6:25 p.m. ET: SpaceX has launched the Starship Flight 15 mission, but did skip the first stage Super Heavy booster landing. See launch video and our full Starship Flight 15 liftoff wrap.

SpaceX is counting down to what might be its most ambitious test flight yet of the company's massive Starship megarocket, the largest launch vehicle ever built.

Today (Nov. 13), SpaceX will launch its next Starship test flight on a mission that, if successful, will return both its Super Heavy first-stage booster and Ship upper stage to Earth for back-to-back landings at their launch pad. It will be the first full recovery of an orbital rocket in history. And if you want to watch it live, you'll need to know what time and where to tune in.

In our guide below, we'll explain exactly when and how to watch SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 mission. It is the 15th test flight of the giant stainless-steel reusable rocket, which SpaceX wants to use for everything from Starlink internet satellite launches to landing NASA Artemis astronauts on the moon in 2028, and even for a crewed flight to Mars. But first, SpaceX has to successfully recover and refly both stages, something it's never done before — and that's where Flight 15 comes in. It's the first time the company will try to land an entire Starship rocket. Here's when to tune in.

What time is SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 launch (and landing)?

The Starship Flight 15 test mission is currently scheduled to launch no earlier than Friday, Nov. 13, at 5:45 p.m. EST (2245 GMT), from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas. But there is a chance of a later liftoff time.

SpaceX has said it has a 75-minute window in which to launch Starship Flight 15 to add some flexibility into its preflight countdown. That means the launch could take place anytime between 5:45 p.m. and 7 p.m. EST (2245-0000 Nov. 14). The local time for the launch window will be 4:45 p.m. to 6 p.m. CST.

SpaceX has not formally announced if it has backup days for the launch, but if the company does have those options, liftoff would likely occur at the same time, based on past Starship missions that saw delays.

One thing that separates Starship Flight 15 from past Starship test flights is its length. The mission, if it runs its full duration, will last just over 22.5 hours until Ship lands back at Starbase. That landing would occur on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 4:17 p.m. EST (2117 GMT). If SpaceX launches at the end of its window on Friday, at 7 p.m. EST, the Ship landing would occur on Saturday at 5:32 p.m. EST (2232 GMT).

Meanwhile, the Super Heavy, known as Booster 22, will land about 6.5 minutes after liftoff.

Related: Read our SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy guide for a detailed look at the megarocket.

Can I watch SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 launch?

Yes, you'll be able to watch SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 launch online, and you have many ways to do so.

Space.com will host a livestream simulcast of Starship Flight 15 on this page, as well as on our homepage and our YouTube channel VideoFromSpace. That webcast will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, at 5:15 p.m. EST (2215 GMT). However, it may start earlier at 4:58 p.m. EST (2158 GMT), based on a new start time on SpaceX's X account.

SpaceX, of course, will offer its own Starship Flight 15 livestream on its Flight 15 mission page, as well as on its X account. That livestream will also begin 30 minutes before launch, at 5:15 p.m. EST (it's the same one as on Space.com).

A prelaunch show

If you need your Starship launch preparations fix before the Nov. 13 launch, good news: You can see SpaceX's prep work live online.

NASASpaceflight's YouTube channel offers live views of SpaceX's Starship pads at Starbase 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

On Wednesday (Nov. 11), the channel will stream live views of the Starship Flight 15 rocket stacking, starting at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT).

The NASASpaceflight Flight 15 launch webcast will begin on Nov. 13 at 11:45 a.m. EDT (1645 GMT), about six hours before launch. NASASpaceflight typically offers live commentary and constantly changing views of the Starship launch pad via remote cameras positioned around Starbase.

In-person launch options

If there was ever a SpaceX Starship test flight to see in person, this just might be it.

In addition to watching the world's largest rocket launch into space, Starship Flight 15 offers the chance to see both parts of that megarocket return to Earth and be caught in mid-air, 22.5 hours apart.

If you've read our past Starship launch viewing guides, you'll know that SpaceX doesn't have an official viewing site for Starship launches. But you can see the spectacle from several public beaches (as well as private campgrounds).

Cameron County Amphitheater at Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island is always my first recommendation (I watched the first Starship launch from there in April 2023). The park offers a clear view of the Starship launch site across the bay and includes views of boats on the water. There are also bathrooms close by for your convenience. It's 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the launch site as the crow flies. But plan to head out early as traffic can be heavy, especially if you have to cross the bridge from Port Isabel.

Speaking of Port Isabel, there are stretches along Highway 48 between Port Isabel and Brownsville, Texas where you can pull over to the shoulder to watch the launch from 6 to 8 miles (10 to 13 km) away. But it's just the side of a highway, so don't expect bathrooms there. The website SpaceLaunchSchedule.com does report that there are "open pull-offs" to park, from which you can get "wide wetland views." And, of course, it's free. I've driven along Highway 48 during two Starbase visits but have not pulled over to the shoulder to test this site.

If you're on the Mexico side of the border, you may be able to watch Starship Flight 15 from Playa Bagdad, a public beach with a "head-on view of the launch tower and a festive vibe," according to SpaceLaunchSchedule.com.

Finally, there is the Rocket Ranch campground, where you can get a closer view of Starship launches — but you have to pay $200 a ticket (kids under age 17 are $40). The ranch is 3.8 miles (6.1 km) from the Starbase launch site, and your ticket allows you to camp there for one day and one night. Longer four-day stay packages are available.

The Rocket Ranch has two primary viewing locations: The "Outpost" offers the closest view and "unmatched media service," so you can stay connected. The second location is a bit farther away on the campground itself. Please note: Tickets include bus transportation from the ranch campground to a viewing site and back, but it is for one launch attempt only. Be sure to read the full Rocket Ranch FAQ for details on the site.

How long is SpaceX's Starship Flight 15?

If everything goes to plan, SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 orbital launch and landing test could last up to 22.5 hours and orbit the Earth 14 times.

"If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket," SpaceX wrote in a mission overview.

But the test flight could end early. That's what happened on SpaceX's first orbital Starship test mission, Flight 14 on Sept. 28, which was expected to last nearly 10 hours and orbit Earth six times. Instead, SpaceX ended the mission after three hours and two orbits of Earth as a safety precaution.

"Starship’s initial return to launch site mission is expected to orbit the Earth at an altitude of ~275 km and complete approximately 14 orbits around the planet over the course of a more than 22-hour flight," SpaceX wrote in the mission description. "Similar to Starship’s first orbital mission, the flight profile has been designed with the opportunity to insert into a passively safe suborbital trajectory or safely deorbit at multiple pre-determined areas over the ocean after raising to an orbital altitude."

If SpaceX has to end the Starship Flight 15 test flight early, it has three primary splashdown zones to land the Ship upper stage in the ocean.

The company could drop the Ship vehicle in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii in early and late stages of the mission, according to a reentry overview. A mid-mission splashdown window off the coast of Chile is available if needed at that time. A late-mission splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico is also available.

The Gulf is also a wave-off splashdown zone for SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy Booster 22 in case it is unable to land shortly after liftoff.

As with Starship Flight 14, SpaceX is loading Flight 15 with 26 operational Starlink V3 internet satellites. They will be deployed in orbit within the first 90 minutes of the flight.

"The Starship upper stage’s primary objectives include the deployment of 26 Starlink V3 satellites and the first return to launch site and catch at Starbase," SpaceX wrote in its overview. "Starship will only execute a return to launch site if the flight control team has ensured that the vehicle systems critical for reentry maneuvers and final landing burn and tower approach are healthy."

What if Starship Flight 15 can't launch on Nov. 13?

While SpaceX is hoping to launch Starship Flight 15 on time, there is a chance that a technical issue or bad weather could prevent liftoff on Nov. 13.

SpaceX has not announced any official backup days for the Starship Flight 15 launch, but it is likely that the company has at least one if not two additional opportunities to try again, based on past Starship launches. Any backup launch attempts will depend greatly on the nature of a launch delay.

A good website to watch is the official Starbase page for Boca Chica Beach and Highway 4 closure alerts here. Those beach closures can be a good indicator of SpaceX's available flight windows.

You'll be able to follow SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 mission on Space.com as it happens. Be sure to come back on launch day for complete Starship Flight 15 coverage.

SpaceX is one big step closer to the 15th test flight of its Starship megarocket.

The company announced today (Nov. 10) that it had moved its latest Starship first stage, known as Super Heavy Booster 22, to the launch mount at its Starbase facility in South Texas ahead of Flight 15, which is scheduled to lift off this Friday (Nov. 13).

During the upcoming launch test, SpaceX plans to catch both Booster 22 and Starship's Ship upper stage with its launch tower's "chopstick" arms in a double landing catch — something the private spaceflight company has never tried before. It will be the first full recovery of an orbital rocket in history.

Booster 22 therefore "was used for final catch testing upon arrival [at the pad], including a suspended squeeze test at catch height," SpaceX said in an X post today (Nov. 10).

That post shared four photos of the giant booster, which is powered by 33 of SpaceX's next-gen Raptor engines. The first shot showed Super Heavy in one of Starbase's "Mega Bay" assembly buildings before rollout, while the other three depicted it grasped by the tower's arms, held high in the South Texas sky.

SpaceX has used the chopstick arms during Starship flights before; it has successfully caught Super Heavy on three separate occasions. But the company has never attempted a catch of Ship, which flies higher and farther than the booster and is therefore a more challenging target. And SpaceX only reached orbit with Starship for the first time on Flight 14, which launched on Sept. 28.

So Flight 15 will break new ground. And, if all goes to plan, it will give us a look at the future: SpaceX plans to catch Super Heavy and Ship on all operational Starship missions, as this recovery strategy will allow the company to boost the megarocket's launch cadence.

And SpaceX wants to fly Starship incredibly often, so that it can build out its Starlink V3 broadband constellation and even bigger Starmind AI data-center network. Indeed, Elon Musk has said the company is eyeing 10,000 Starship flights per year by 2030.

If all goes to plan, Flight 15 will launch from Starbase on Friday during a 75-minute window that opens at 5:45 p.m. EST (2245 GMT; 4:45 p.m. local Texas time).

Super Heavy will return to Starbase for its catch about 6.5 minutes after liftoff. Ship will follow suit much later — about 22 hours later, in fact, after it has deployed 26 Starlink V3 spacecraft into LEO and completed 14 circuits of our planet.

You can watch all the action live here at Space.com and get updates about the mission here.

In any respectable audiobook project, finding the names of Andy Weir ("The Martian," "Project Hail Mary") and Benjamin Percy ("The Ninth Metal," "Wolverine") attached would elicit intense fan interest, but add the superstar vocal talents of Anthony Mackie ("Avengers: Infinity War," "Avengers: Doomsday"), Ariana DeBose ("West Side Story"), and John Leguizamo ("Ice Age"), and it catapults this sonic odyssey into the stratosphere.

Such is the case with "Exoplanet," Audible Original’s new 7-episode science fiction audio drama executive produced by Weir and penned by Percy. Its planet-hopping space disaster narrative sees the crew of the starship Wild Blue Yonder hit a quantum anomaly, forcing their ship to crash-land onto a deadly exoplanet. All is not as it seems, though, as each crew member arrives in a different era on the same world.

We hooked up with Mackie, DeBose, and Lequizamo to learn more about this renaissance of audio dramas and what attracted them to board Weir's sci-fi thriller.

Mackie voices Chief Engineer Jeff Shaw. His attraction to the imaginative genre began at an early age thanks to some cool family friends while growing up in the Big Easy.

"My brother went to college at Morehouse," he tells SPACE. "I was like 8, and he was 18. He’d always bring friends home, because New Orleans is a party city, so they'd come over and get drunk. But one of his friends gave me a book by Walter Mosley and one by Octavia Butler, and I got hooked into sci-fi and the future."

"From 'Back to the Future' to 'Aliens,' the future was such an idea of what was going to be out there. Now we’re living it," reveals Mackie. "It’s very important to me as a human being to have that construct as a part of my career. The only thing more arrogant than wanting to be president is standing up and saying, 'Yeah, I can go to space.' That sounds crazy to me."

Leguizamo's New York City childhood was influenced by absorbing classic radio dramas of the past, which primed him for this special Audible project.

“It was Anthony and Ariana being in it that really pumped me up, and of course Andy Weir," he recalls regarding his portrayal of Science Officer Logan Bowers. "Then when I got the theme, that it was something relevant today and makes you think about computers and technology taking over and making us obsolete. It just hit me in that right zeitgeist, at that right little point."

"As a poor kid, there was no YouTube or cell phones, and we didn’t have computers," reminisces Leguizamo. "I used to go to the Broadcast Museum on 53rd Street and listen to old radio plays like The Shadow and these incredible detective radio plays. It's a different art form. With no visuals, your voice has to create the world. I thought that was an incredible challenge."

DeBose portrays the Wild Blue Yonder's confident First Officer Becca Bang, who’s stranded in a temporal mystery that might engulf her at any moment.

"I've yet to do anything like this, which is always exciting," she adds. "I was a little afraid of it, which told me I should do it. These gents are so talented. It's great company. It’s coming from brilliant minds who build worlds so impeccably. And it's about real stuff we’re dealing with today. I liked the idea that we could tell this story and make people listen and create a space for them to imagine themselves in it and see how they problem-solve to make the world a bit better."

Recording your character's lines is far more difficult than just stepping up to the microphone to read a script, and our ace "Exoplanet" trio delivered in every session.

"I just go in and throw myself at something," DeBose recalls. "I don’t really have a method. But I can tell you this: it is a full-body workout. I use everything at my disposal, whether it’s a chair or a pillow or running in place. I just do what the character does and end up sweating. And after three days, I have to go sit in silence. It's great. I love the idea of bringing back the radio play. The art of listening is such a thing. I don’t think people listen enough. Even for myself."

Likewise, Leguizamo embraced his booth sessions with exuberance and authenticity.

"You have to cancel the rest of your day, especially if you've got to talk, because your vocal chords are fried," he admits. "And if they're not fried you're not doing your job. You really have to do the physicality. If you run you have to run like a maniac and be out of breath. If I'm getting hit I start punching myself. Then there’s a sexiness to doing these things. Your voice has to have a little mystery, a little naughtiness. It’s an interesting intersection where you pull it back a little and invite the audience in.”

For Mackie, who’s used to athleticism needed to play MCU superheroes like The Falcon and Captain America, recording dialogue offered a different type of opportunity.

“I look for reasons not to talk to people, so I love doing these," he jokes. "Once I’m out of the studio, I’m not talking to anybody for two days. At a certain point for me, I find mentally I get tired of hearing myself talk. I just have to come home at cut off. I’ve said enough words for the next month.”

"Exoplanet" is available now exclusively from Audible.

On Nov. 10, 2013, Europe's GOCE satellite fell to Earth after four years in orbit mapping the planet's gravitational field.

GOCE, its name was short for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, launched in 2009 on a mission to map Earth's gravity like never before. But despite that successful mission, it was doomed in 2013 when it ran out of fuel.

At the time, controllers weren't sure where GOCE would fall back to Earth. Some people worried that it might crash into a populated area. However, the small spacecraft broke up in the atmosphere and didn't cause any property damage.

It disintegrated about 50 miles above the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The European Space Agency called the mission a success. GOCE lasted far longer than expected. It showed small variations in Earth's gravity, mapped the structure of Earth's crust and mantle, and tracked ocean currents.

Why it mattered

The GOCE satellite was a sleek spacecraft, with fins covered in solar panels that gave it a futuristic design. In fact, its look earned it a pretty cool nickname.

"GOCE's sleek, elegant aerodynamic design — responsible for it being dubbed the 'Ferrari of space' — immediately set it apart from most other satellites,." ESA officials said in a description.

There was more than looks behind GOCE's design. In order to generate the best map ever of Earth's gravitational field, GOCE had to fly in an orbit so low — just 139 miles (224 kilometers) — it needed to counteract the drag from the gossamer thin atmosphere of Earth at that altitude. The International Space Station orbits Earth at nearly twice that altitude.

GOCE was powered by an xenon ion engine that allowed to maintain its low orbit for four years. Once it ran out of fuel, the 1-ton satellite could not maintain its position in space, leading to a fiery plunge to Earth.

The large size of GOCE — it weighed 2,425 pounds (1,100 kilograms) and was 17 feet (5.3 meters) long and 3.2 feet (1 m) wide — made its reentry stand out, particularly since at least 25% of the satellite was expected to reach the Earth's surface.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

Astronomers have solved the mystery of an extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, that "disappeared" after seven years of observations. New research suggests that the planet hasn't vanished at all, but has been dragged off its orbit by an unseen planet.

The exoplanet, designated TOI-2535 b, is located around 1,000 light-years away. TOI-2535 b was routinely observed with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope for seven years between April 2019 and March 2026 as it completed its 8.25-Earth day orbit of its parent star. That's 10 times quicker than the orbit of Mercury around the sun and means this blisteringly hot planet is classed as a "hot Jupiter."

However, something strange happened started to happen as astronomers observed the distant world. The orbits of the planet weren't regular like those of other planets, with TOI-2535 b often arriving six hours early or six hours later than when astronomers expected. Then, in March this year, TESS was no longer spotting the characteristic drops in starlight that TOI-2535 b caused as it crossed, or "transited," the face of its parent star. It seemed to have vanished.

This team used TESS data to determine that TOI-2535 b is being pulled on by an unseen neighbor and is, in turn, pulling on that planet as well. This is causing the orbits of both worlds in the TOI-2535 system to "wobble." TOI-2535 b disappeared when that wobble tilted it out of alignment with its star.

"We think of the universe as resembling clockwork, where everything is regular, but that's not true. If there are multiple planets in a system, they can affect each other's orbits. We know of a few systems that are like this," team member Samuel Yee of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement. "This is the most extreme example we've seen because the two planets are interacting so strongly. The planet's orbit is tilting so quickly that its transit disappeared while we were watching."

TOI-2535 b isn't expected to transit its parent star for at least 30 years, but the hidden neighbor tugging on it may cross the face of the star sooner than that.

In the meantime, scientists will attempt to decode what this extreme wobbling exoplanet system says about how it formed.

Hot Jupiters should be cool customers

There is currently a lot of speculation about how hot Jupiter planets like TOI-2535 b form. That is because current routes of planet formation suggest planets like this would need to form around a great deal of ice. Obviously, ice isn't likely to be abundant as close to a star as TOI-2535 b is currently.

This means that hot Jupiters likely form far from their stars and then migrate inwards. There are two ways that this could happen. The planet could be excited into an elliptical orbit by violent events like a near-collision with another planetary object, and then interactions with the star pull the planet inwards.

Alternatively, the hot Jupiter may be pulled inwards along with the other planets while sitting in a flattened cloud of gas and dust around the infant star called a protoplanetary disk.

If this second, less turbulent route occurs to bring hot Jupiters close to their stars, then the resultant system should be very flat. In other words, there shouldn't be extreme tilts between the orbits of the planets in that system.

However, the tilt caused to TOI-2535 b by its unseen companion indicates that flattened systems can be twisted by more tilted orbits later in their existence. This makes the slower migration possible despite the orbital tilt.

"Because TOI-2535 b has a close neighbor, it probably migrated by slowly spiraling in instead of getting flung in," Yee said. "We may be seeing a formation channel that doesn’t happen very often but is very interesting."

The team's research was published on Monday (Nov. 9) in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Humanity's first 239,000-mile voyage to the moon may have taken place more than five decades ago, but the drama of this endeavor, and stories of the individuals who made it happen, still capture our imaginations to this day.

While television screens may have shown countless factual and dramatic retellings of the space race, "We Chose to Go to the Moon" takes the stories to the stage of New York City's renowned Carnegie Hall for an 'immersive performance' that combines music, archival film, and storytelling that puts a fresh spin on one of America's greatest feats.

Below, we explain where you can watch "We Chose to Go to the Moon" online — potentially for free — and from anywhere.

When Is The "We Chose to Go to the Moon" Release Date?

"We Chose to Go to the Moon" is set to be broadcast at 8 p.m. ET and PT on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026, on PBS in the United States.

The live show was originally filmed at Carnegie Hall in April 2026, just as NASA's Artemis II was blasting off to send a crew of four astronauts on their mission around the Moon.

How To Watch "We Chose to Go to the Moon"

"We Chose to Go to the Moon" will be broadcast on PBS in the United States.

That means it can also be streamed simultaneously online via the PBS.org website and via the PBS app for compatible devices, including iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android/Google TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Comcast, Samsung Smart TV, VIZIO, and LG Smart TVs.

Watching "We Chose to Go to the Moon" outside of the US

Unfortunately, PBS streaming and broadcasts are geo-blocked for those trying to access them from outside the United States.

If you want to stream "We Chose to Go to the Moon" or anything else on PBS while you're overseas, Surfshark VPN will let you access the platform from anywhere in the world.

What Is "We Chose to Go to the Moon"?

In September 1962, the incumbent United States President, John F. Kennedy, gave an address to Houston's Rice University that became the symbolic starting pistol to the USA's participation in the so-called 'space race'.

"We choose to go to the moon," he said. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

That's the jumping off point for historian John Monsky's so-called 'living documentary' that brings together archival footage, spoken word remembrances, and music from the time, to bring America's participation in the space race to a Carnegie Hall — and now television — audience.

It brings together perspectives from the individuals who were at the heart of the action, including the Apollo 11 astronauts astronauts — Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Ed White — their families, and those unsung heroes of Mission Control.

The narrative is backdropped by a live orchestra and some of Broadway's best theatrical stars, with a rousing soundtrack that features David Bowie's "Space Oddity", Elton John's "Rocket Man" and Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".

Are There Any "We Chose to Go to the Moon" Teasers and Trailers?

There are no trailers available for "We Chose to Go to the Moon" on YouTube, but there is a 30-second preview for the show at Carnegie Hall on the PBS website.

Who Are The "We Chose to Go to the Moon" Cast and Creators?

"We Chose to Go to the Moon" was created, written, and narrated by John Monsky. He's the cultural historian behind the popular "American History Unbound" series that tells stories from the country's past on the famous boards of New York City's Carnegie Hall.

Music for this show is played live by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, conducted by Kimberly Grigsby. A quartet of vocalists includes Shonica Gooden, Adam Kantor, Elena Shaddow, and David St. Louis, all of whom are experienced musical theater singers on Broadway.

There will be an introduction from actor and "Apollo 13" director Ron Howard, together with spoken word vignettes from performers Skylar Astin, Brent Comer, Claybourne Elder, Elizabeth Gillies, Taylor Louderman, and Joy Woods.

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