Boeing’s Starliner set for potential 2026 cargo run to ISS
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has noted redesign work on the company’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is… The post Boeing’s Starliner set for potential…
Weekly digests · 27 Jul – 2 Aug 2026
Week 31, 2026
41 stories that week, most of them about the solar system, black holes, telescopes & instruments.
The week's biggest
MaiaSpace Ditches Suborbital Test Flight Plans
MaiaSpace has scrapped plans to conduct a suborbital test flight of its Maia rocket, opting instead to proceed straight to a full…
ArianeGroup Completes Themis Wet Dress Rehearsal
ArianeGroup has completed a wet dress rehearsal of the Themis reusable booster demonstrator at the Esrange Space Centre in Sweden, providing the…
Spain Offers €1 Billion in Bid to Host Thirty Meter Telescope
Spain has offered a package worth up to €1 billion to support the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on La…
SMOS salinity could offer early indicator of El Niño
As the Pacific Ocean moves into an El Niño phase, scientists are monitoring changes in sea-surface temperature, but also sea-surface salinity –…
HydroGNSS data open for new insights into Earth’s water
The European Space Agency's two-satellite HydroGNSS Scout mission has completed commissioning and is now in full scientific operations.
Frames from that week
Buck Moon and Belt of Venus
APOD · Branko Nadj ·
NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad
APOD · Alessandro Cipolat Bares ·
Red Sun through Wildfire Smoke
APOD · Debra Ceravolo ·
Everything else
08:00 UTC
France’s postal service, La Poste, honours Ariane 6
To mark Europe’s newest generation heavy‑lift launcher, La Poste, France’s national postal service, has issued a collector set…
ESA Space Transportation
Launch
Launch
15:00 UTC
Wildfires near Cebreros ground station, Spain
Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 26 July, shows a zoomed-in view over ESA's Cebreros ground station…
ESA Earth Observation
Orbit
Orbit
12:00 UTC
Astronomers find strongest evidence yet that Betelgeuse has a companion
At long last, astronomers have firm evidence that Betelgeuse, one of the most famous stars in the night…
ESO
Stars
Stars
16:00 UTC
Monthly Roundup: The Fourth Catalog of Gravitational Wave Events from LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA
A recent Focus Issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters introduces the fourth version of the gravitational wave transient…
AAS Nova
Black Holes
Black Holes
16:00 UTC
The “Rhythm” of the Interstellar Medium
Astrobites reports on the interplay between the interstellar medium and star formation in simulated galaxies.
AAS Nova
Stars
Stars
13:47 UTC
NASA’s Curiosity rover finds a mysterious honeycomb landscape on Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover has entered a Martian valley covered by an astonishing “sea” of tiny polygon-shaped fractures.
ScienceDaily
Solar System
Solar System
08:18 UTC
Black holes may spit out nearly as much matter as they swallow
A black hole observed during a dramatic 2023 eruption did not simply devour gas from its nearby companion…
ScienceDaily
Black Holes
Black Holes
16:00 UTC
Spying on a Split Comet
A recent study investigated the possible mechanisms that caused a known Jupiter-family comet to split in two.
AAS Nova
Small Bodies
Small Bodies
08:06 UTC
After 241 days in orbit this NASA astronaut is finally home
NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Roscosmos cosmonauts are back on Earth after spending 241 days aboard the…
ScienceDaily
Crewed
Crewed
13:50 UTC
Fires rage near Bordeaux, France
Image: These images by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, captured on 26 July, show the area to the west…
ESA Earth Observation
Orbit
Orbit
20:20 UTC
NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory Opens Deep Window on Famous Cosmic Field
A new image from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory offers a spectacularly deep view into a famous region…
NOIRLab
Cosmology
Cosmology
16:00 UTC
Trends in the Population of Binary Black Holes Following the Fourth Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog: A Data-Driven Analysis
Nir Guttman et al 2026 ApJ 996 144 An analysis of the fourth gravitational wave catalog supports the…
AAS Nova
Black Holes
Black Holes
10:24 UTC
Why Jupiter has several giant moons but Saturn has only Titan
Young Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field may have created a safe zone where several large moons could survive.
ScienceDaily
Solar System
Solar System
16:00 UTC
First-Generation Stars Provide Better Fit than a Black Hole for Early-Universe Gas Clump
What powers the prominent helium emission from Hebe, a gas clump seen just 450 million years after the…
AAS Nova
Black Holes
Black Holes
05:54 UTC
Blazing like 10 billion suns: NASA’s Swift sees a wandering black hole devouring a star
NASA’s Swift Observatory observed a supermassive black hole ripping apart a star more than 30,000 light-years from the…
ScienceDaily
Black Holes
Black Holes
05:06 UTC
The search for life on Jupiter's icy moon Europa just got more complicated
Europa’s hidden ocean has made the icy moon one of the solar system’s most promising places to search…
ScienceDaily
Solar System
Solar System
08:05 UTC
Meet space startups at ESA’s Industry Space Days
Startup companies which have come up with brilliant ideas for using space will join the European Space Agency’s…
ESA Space Transportation
Launch
Launch
08:00 UTC
Earth from Space: New Orleans and the mighty Mississippi
Image: This colourful radar image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission features New Orleans and the delta of…
ESA Earth Observation
Orbit
Orbit
13:26 UTC
Dark matter’s secret force does the opposite of what scientists expected
Dark matter particles may exert a hidden force on one another, but its effects are stranger than expected.
ScienceDaily
Cosmology
Cosmology
06:21 UTC
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aces Mars flyby capturing stunning timelapse video
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aced its Mars flyby, using the planet’s gravity to speed toward its 2029 encounter with…
ScienceDaily
Solar System
Solar System
05:09 UTC
Alien signals may be hiding where we rarely listen
Astronomers may have been listening for alien civilizations in only a small slice of the radio spectrum while…
ScienceDaily
Instruments
Instruments
14:30 UTC
Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars
Mars has two small, rocky, irregular moons. Exploring them could solve long-standing mysteries about the Solar System's history.
The Planetary Society
Solar System
Solar System
13:33 UTC
Tiny black holes may be secretly exploding stars across the Milky Way
Primordial black holes may occasionally pass through white dwarf stars and trigger enormous Type Ia supernova explosions.
ScienceDaily
Black Holes
Black Holes
05:15 UTC
Strange gamma rays could reveal how stars forge heavy elements
Scientists traced a mysterious surge of low-energy gamma rays from zinc-70 to magnetic changes occurring inside its nucleus.
ScienceDaily
Stars
Stars