ESA’s Mars Express meets NASA’s Psyche
Image: Mars Express image
Weekly digests · 13 Jul – 19 Jul 2026
Week 29, 2026
18 stories that week, most of them about comets & asteroids, telescopes & instruments, the solar system.
The week's biggest
Dating the Dawn of the Milky Way Disk
A recent study used the kinematics, chemical composition, and ages of thousands of stars to determine when the Milky Way settled into…
FLEX and Sentinel-3C arrive at Europe’s Spaceport
With liftoff scheduled for September, excitement is building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana as two cutting-edge Earth observation satellites, FLEX and…
A Study of HH 270 with the James Webb Space Telescope
A. N. Ortiz Capeles et al 2026 ApJ 1003 65 Using data from JWST, the Subaru Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…
NASA Taps SpaceX’s Starlink to Deliver Artemis III Imagery from Orion
NASA has selected SpaceX to deliver laser communications capabilities for next year’s Artemis III mission, enabling the agency to provide a front…
The Starry Night Redux
The 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam) captures a vibrant scene, filled with swirls and stars reminiscent of Van Gogh’s…
Everything else
03:09 UTC
NASA’s James Webb catches a supermassive black hole feeding
JWST has captured unusually detailed images of gas feeding the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC…
ScienceDaily
Black Holes
Black Holes
15:16 UTC
NSF NRAO EPO Team Joins Global Astronomy Communicators at CAP2026
Seven members of the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team of the U.S.
NRAO
Instruments
Instruments
14:00 UTC
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launch: What to expect
NASA’s next flagship orbital observatory will reshape what we know about planets throughout the galaxy.
The Planetary Society
Instruments
Instruments
08:00 UTC
Super-loud gravitational waves offer a new way to study black hole event horizons
Region near the "surface of no return" was previously only accessible with theoretical models
Physics World
Black Holes
Black Holes
14:14 UTC
Terraforming Mars may be more realistic than scientists once thought
Scientists say new technologies have reopened the debate over whether Mars could someday be terraformed, turning a once…
ScienceDaily
Solar System
Solar System
04:22 UTC
Scientists identify the rare meteorite that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was likely an exceptionally rare CO chondrite from a distant region…
ScienceDaily
Small Bodies
Small Bodies
16:00 UTC
Quantifying the Impact of Starspot-Crossing Events on Retrieved Parameters from Transit Lightcurves
Catriona A. Murray and Zachory Berta-Thompson 2026 AJ 171 344 An analysis of synthetic starspot-crossing events suggests that…
AAS Nova
Small Bodies
Small Bodies
10:52 UTC
Sun-like star caught after eating one of its own planets
A distant Sun-like star appears to have devoured one of its planets, leaving behind a surprising chemical fingerprint.
ScienceDaily
Stars
Stars
13:10 UTC
A tiny universe in a bottle reveals clues to the origins of life
Researchers have created cosmic dust from scratch by recreating space-like conditions inside glass tubes.
ScienceDaily
Small Bodies
Small Bodies
13:00 UTC
A shattered asteroid may have bombarded Earth 800 million years ago
A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about…
ScienceDaily
Small Bodies
Small Bodies
14:30 UTC
More than one way to make an impact
Finding craters, speaking out against anti-science policies, preventing asteroid impacts, making art — these are all great ways…
The Planetary Society
Small Bodies
Small Bodies
14:30 UTC
Astronomers express outrage after regulators approve ‘space mirror’ permit
Proposal involves the launch of a private satellite to test reflecting sunlight onto the Earth’s surface
Physics World
Orbit
Orbit