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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 24 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit from California
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 Starlink satellites lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday, June 21, 2026.
Chinese sodium battery surprised scientists by matching key Tesla benchmarks
Researchers found that a Chinese sodium-ion battery performs far better than expected, with production quality and design features comparable to Tesla’s batteries. If engineers can improve cold-weather charging and energy density, sodium could become a cheaper and more abundant alternative to lithiu
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A mysterious gamma-ray stream comes from the Milky Way's center. Could dark matter have something to do with it?
New research has failed to rule out self-annihilating dark matter as the source of a hotly debated gamma-ray emission known as the Galactic Center Excess radiating from the heart of the Milky Way.
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Happy Summer Solstice! Today marks the longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere
The summer solstice marks the longest day and the start of astronomical summer.
This simple twist could bring quantum computers closer to reality
Researchers found that twisting layered sheets of hexagonal boron nitride can dramatically change the light produced by quantum emitters embedded within the material. The technique offers an unexpected new level of control over components that could power future quantum computers, communications sys
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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 215 — Disclosure Day
On Episode 215 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and guest co-host Susan Karlin talk with bestselling sci-fi/sci-fact author Dr. David Brin.
A single cobalt shock could trigger global EV battery supply chaos
The global cobalt supply chain is more interconnected—and more vulnerable—than previously thought, with disruptions capable of triggering far-reaching cascades across multiple countries and industries. Researchers warn that protecting battery supply chains will require system-wide coordination becau
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Supermassive black holes may be surrounded by dark matter clusters, new 'echo map' technique suggests
A technique called echo mapping suggests supermassive black holes, like that at the heart of the Milky Way, are surrounded by clusters of dark matter.
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War Taught this Ukrainian Entrepreneur the Value of Resilience
Salome Mikadze-Struk is no stranger to adversity. The daughter of refugees, she built a software-development business as an undergraduate at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and kept it running despite the outbreak of war in her native Ukraine. Now, she’s drawing on her experiences to mentor tech
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Do we need a lunar building code to build moon bases safely?
As NASA pushes to build a sustained human presence on the moon, one expert says what's needed is a lunar building code.
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Late, great singer-songwriter Elliott Smith finds immortality as an asteroid
An asteroid has been named after Smith, who died in 2003 at the age of 34.
How Cypris evolved from selling patent reports to agentic R&D intelligence
Over the past year, the AI-eats-software camp, which includes sell-side strategists at Jefferies and, more cautiously, analysts at Bain, has warned that generative AI could eat into the seat-based Software as a Service (SaaS) model. In some respects, those fears have been justified. After Anthropic
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A private company will build and launch NASA's next Mars orbiter in 2028 — and it's not SpaceX
A California-based company will design, build and launch a spacecraft for NASA's Aeolus mission to orbit around Mars, where the probe will be the first to provide daily measurements of the planet's global environment.
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'This is not like life that we’ve experienced' 'Star City' cast on struggling to relate to the brutality of Soviet existence in Apple TV's For All Mankind' spin-off
"I don’t have a relatable thing. This is not like life that we’ve experienced."
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IEEE Rolls Out Large Language Models Virtual Training Course
Large language models have moved out of the research lab and into engineers’ daily workflow. LLMs serve as reasoning engines that can orchestrate complex tasks including identifying vulnerabilities in source code and transforming fragmented project discussions into rigorous technical specifications.
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The most unpredictable meteor shower of the year peaks next week. Here's what to expect
The June Bootids usually produce just a handful of meteors, but this notoriously unpredictable shower has a history of surprise outbursts.
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'No one thought it was going to be possible.' A space telescope is falling out of space. This is NASA's daring plan to save it.
NASA's Swift space observatory is falling out of orbit. Can a commercial company build a spacecraft in nine months to save it?
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Menstruation in space will be studied for 1st time with 'Operation Period'
Maybe the next Sally Ride won't be asked the "100 tampons" question.
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Annie Easley, a hero of NASA | Space photo of the day for June 19, 2026
Easley was a human computer for the agency who helped with building the Centaur upper-stage rocket.
Scientists expected a black hole but found a neutrino factory powered by stars
A distant galaxy nicknamed Shadow Blaster may have revealed a surprising source of cosmic neutrinos: extreme star formation instead of a supermassive black hole. The discovery suggests that hidden, dust-filled starburst galaxies could account for a significant fraction of the Universe’s high-energy