#space
- SpaceX's Starship SN9 Nails the Ascent, Still Can't Stick the Landing
SN9 flew to 10 km and executed its belly flop reentry, but crashed on landing just like SN8 did in December.
- The Space Stories That Made January 2021 Worth Watching
A look back at the record-setting launches, lunar samples, and cosmic discoveries that filled out an eventful month in space and astronomy.
- SpaceX Launches Its Fourth Starlink Batch of January
SpaceX sent up another round of Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center, its fourth Starlink launch this month alone.
- SpaceX Crams 143 Satellites Onto One Rocket
SpaceX's Transporter-1 mission set a new record by deploying 143 spacecraft from a single Falcon 9 launch.
- Astronomers Find a Six-Star System Built From Three Eclipsing Pairs
Researchers have identified a rare sextuple star system made of three gravitationally bound eclipsing binaries.
- China Opens Its Moon Rocks to the World
China hosted 32 countries in Beijing to discuss joint research on the 1,731 grams of lunar material Chang'e 5 brought home in December.
- Astronomers Find the Youngest Supermassive Black Hole Yet
A newly announced supermassive black hole dating to 800 million years after the Big Bang is forcing a rethink of how these giants grow so fast.
- Meet TOI-561b, the Rocky Planet Baking at 3,140°F
A newly detailed exoplanet orbiting one of the Milky Way's oldest stars completes a year in under 12 hours and bakes at over 3,140°F.
- SpaceX's Cargo Dragon Heads Home With a Cargo Hold Full of Science
A SpaceX Cargo Dragon undocked from the ISS on the CRS-21 mission, bringing zero-gravity organ research back to Earth under NASA's new resupply contract.
- Perseverance Enters Its Final Approach to Mars
NASA's Perseverance rover is now in its final approach phase, running trajectory corrections ahead of a nail-biting February 18 landing in Jezero Crater.
- The Best Present From Space Won't Arrive for Another Three Years
OSIRIS-REx is cruising home with a sample from asteroid Bennu so large it jammed its own collector — but Earth won't see it until 2023.
- SpaceX Wraps Its Busiest Year Ever With a Satellite Nobody Will Ever See
SpaceX closed out a record 26-launch year on December 19 with the classified NROL-108 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office.
- Chang'e 5 Comes Home: China Delivers the First New Moon Rocks Since 1976
Chang'e 5's return capsule landed in Inner Mongolia with about 1,731 grams of lunar material, the first fresh Moon samples since Luna 24 in 1976.
- SpaceX Quietly Launches Another Satellite, and That's the Whole Story
A Falcon 9 carried SiriusXM's SXM-7 broadcast satellite to orbit on December 11, and the routine nature of it is the actual news.
- Hubble Catches One of the Most Perfect Einstein Rings Ever Seen
ESA/Hubble share a striking image of a near-complete Einstein ring, a gravitational-lensing effect that bends a distant galaxy's light into a circle.
- SpaceX's New Cargo Dragon Makes Its Debut on CRS-21
SpaceX launched the first of its upgraded cargo Dragon capsules to the ISS on a Falcon 9, carrying 3.2 tons of supplies on the CRS-21 mission.
- China Just Launched a Rocket From the Moon
Chang'e 5's ascent vehicle lifted off from the lunar surface with soil samples aboard, a first for China's space program.
- Arecibo Falls Silent the Same Day China Lands on the Moon
Arecibo Observatory's dish platform collapsed today, ending 57 years of service, hours after Chang'e 5 touched down at Mons Rümker.
- Chang'e 5 Closes In on the Moon Ahead of a High-Stakes Sample Return
China's Chang'e 5 spacecraft is en route to the Moon, aiming for the first fresh lunar sample return in 44 years.
- China's Chang'e 5 Is Chasing Down the First Fresh Moon Rocks in 44 Years
China launched Chang'e 5 on a Long March 5 to grab about 2 kg of lunar samples, the first attempted Moon sample return since Luna 24 in 1976.
- SpaceX Doubles Up: Another Starlink Batch and the Sentinel-6 Ocean Satellite
SpaceX flew two missions in two days last week, launching more Starlink satellites and then the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich sea-level satellite.
- NSF Pulls the Plug on Arecibo's Iconic Radio Telescope
The NSF announced it will decommission Arecibo Observatory's 900-ton receiver platform after two cable failures made repairs too dangerous.
- Crew Dragon Resilience Docks with the ISS
SpaceX's Crew Dragon 'Resilience' autonomously docked with the ISS, delivering the four Crew-1 astronauts for a roughly six-month stay.
- Crew-1 Lifts Off: Commercial Spaceflight Just Got Boring (In the Best Way)
SpaceX launched NASA's Crew-1 mission tonight, the first fully certified operational commercial crew flight to the ISS.
- A Bright Kilonova May Be Hinting at a Freshly Born Magnetar
An unusually luminous kilonova has researchers arguing that a neutron-star merger produced a magnetar rather than collapsing straight to a black hole.
- A Second Cable Snaps at Arecibo, and the Whole Dish Is Now on the Clock
A thicker auxiliary cable broke at Arecibo Observatory on Nov 6, gouging the dish and putting the 900-ton platform at serious risk of collapse.
- A Fast Radio Burst, Finally Traced to a Source We Can Point To
A Nature paper confirms FRB 200428 came from the galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154, the first fast radio burst ever traced to a source in the Milky Way.
- October 2020's Biggest Science Stories, In Review
A dense month for fundamental science: a double Nobel, NASA's first asteroid sample grab, and a new record for the shortest measured time.
- NASA Finds Water on the Sunlit Side of the Moon
SOFIA's airborne telescope confirmed molecular water in Clavius Crater, the first detection on a sunlit lunar surface rather than in shadowed polar craters.
- SpaceX Quietly Passes Its 100th Successful Flight
SpaceX's third Starlink launch of October marked mission number 100 across Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy since 2006.