Celebration of Space - June 19, 2026
Reported by Scott MacNeill's Columns
On Sunday, June 21, 2026 at 4:25 am ET, Earth will arrive at the point in its orbit where the Northern Hemisphere is at maximum tilt (23.4°) towards the Sun. This is the Summer Solstice and marks the first day of the summer season in the Northern Hemisphe...
- By: Scott MacNeill
- On: Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:30:27 EDT
Millions of Stars in Cigar Galaxy
Reported by NASA
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently observed edge-on starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82), nicknamed the Cigar Galaxy. Webb’s new view of M82, added to archival data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, gives us a more complete picture of this...
- By: NASA
- On: Thu, 25 Jun 2026 16:24 +0000
The Universe's First Stars Were Shaped By Turbulence and Were Not As Massive as Thought
Reported by Universe Today
For a long time, astrophysicists thought that the Universe's first stars, called Population III stars, were uniformly massive. It seemed like the conditions they formed in were calm and serene, which favoured massive stars. But new research based on high-r...
- By: Evan Gough (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/ion23drive)
- On: Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:41 +0000
NASA to save Swift spacecraft from plunging back to Earth
Reported by Space | EarthSky
The Swift spacecraft is rapidly falling back to Earth. But NASA has a plan to boost the telescope back into orbit, beginning this week.
The post NASA to save Swift spacecraft from plunging back to Earth first appeared on EarthSky....
- By: Space | EarthSky
- On: Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:18 +0000
Peanut-shaped asteroid wobbles in 2 directions
Reported by Space | EarthSky
New analysis shows that a peanut-shaped asteroid wobbles in space in 2 directions. Lucy spacecraft now continues its journey toward Jupiter’s Trojans.
The post Peanut-shaped asteroid wobbles in 2 directions first appeared on EarthSky....
- By: Space | EarthSky
- On: Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:50 +0000
A Star Dying by the Wrong Rules
Reported by Universe Today
Half the stars in the universe live in pairs and when one of them dies it can feed hungrily off the other in a slow, violent dance. Now a Korean team has caught a couple of stars breaking the rules, locked in an orbit so impossibly fast that our best theor...
- By: Mark Thompson (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/mark)
- On: Thu, 25 Jun 2026 06:14 +0000