"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." – Carl Sagan

NASA's NanoSail-D2, launched 2011, was the first solar sail in low Earth orbit. Its 10-sq-meter sail used the continuous pressure of sunlight for thrust, demonstrating a concept Kepler envisioned centuries ago. It was periodically visible to the unaided eye. Credit: Ralf Vandebergh

An auroral corona, seen over Iceland, occurs when energetic light curtains stream directly overhead during strong geomagnetic storms. Solar Cycle 25's peak in 2025-2026 brings more such spectacular displays. Credit: Roi Levi

HH-222, the Waterfall Nebula, isn't flowing gas but a 10-light-year-long bow shock. This colossal wave, caused by a jet from the V380 Orionis system, moves through space, appearing like a terrestrial waterfall 1,500 light-years away in Orion. Credit: Mike Selby

This isn't a comet tail! It's a time-lapse of Starlink satellites reflecting sunlight over Inner Mongolia. Long camera exposures blur these over 9000 low Earth orbit satellites into streaks, creating an "artificial comet" effect. Credit: Wang Chao

The Crab Nebula, a 1054 AD supernova remnant, hosts a central pulsar. This neutron star, as massive as the Sun yet the size of a town, spins 30 times per second. Credit: Alan Chen

Hubble images NGC 1898, a globular cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This stellar ball, 160,000 light-years away, shows signs its stars formed in stages. This formation may have been triggered by ancient encounters with the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way. Credit: NASA/ APOD

Apollo 17's Lunar Module Challenger ascent stage in lunar orbit. Designed for vacuum, it returned astronauts to orbit, then was intentionally crashed nearby. Its descent stage remains at the Apollo 17 landing site. Credit: NASA/ APOD

On this day, a child was born who left an indelible mark on human history, transforming our understanding of the world. Famous for his long hair, he unraveled the mysteries of the heavens and brought light to the world. Happy Birthday, Sir Isaac Newton. (Born Dec 25, 1642, Julian Calendar)

NGC 2264, 2,700 light-years away in Monoceros, is a star-forming region known as the Christmas Tree Cluster, Fox Fur, and Unicorn Nebula. Spanning 80 light-years, it features vibrant emission and reflection nebulae shaped by energetic newborn stars. Credit: Michael Kalika

Pristine samples from asteroid Bennu, collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, contain six types of sugar essential to life, including ribose and glucose.

JWST captured a stunning mid-infrared view of Wolf-Rayet Apep, showing four spiraling dust shells around a chaotic triple-star system. Two massive stars forge carbon dust in colliding winds while a third star carves holes through each layer. Credit: NASA/ ESA/ CSA/ STScI

Astronomers are grappling with a wild idea: Harvard’s Avi Loeb suggests that 3I/ATLAS might have “thrusters” strong jets pointing toward the Sun (its unusual “anti-tail”) possibly hinting at a technological, not just cometary, object. Credit: David Jewitt / Jane Luu

The Sun just erupted with the strongest solar flare of 2025, an X5.1-class blast that triggered radio blackouts over Africa and Europe and sent shockwaves through Earth’s atmosphere. Image Credit: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Centre

Astronomers have found the first gap-clearing planet, WISPIT 2b nestled inside the rings of its star’s debris disk, it could be the missing link in planetary formation. Credit: ESO/Laird Close, University of Arizona, R. F. van Capelleveen et al

Scientists suggest a “caterpillar-like” wormhole connecting two entangled black holes a bumpy tunnel in spacetime where quantum chaos shapes the geometry. A bold step toward uniting quantum physics and gravity. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The James Webb Space Telescope spotted a gargantuan ravenous black hole in the ancient universe—nicknamed BiRD (Big Red Dot) that existed just 4 billion years after the Big Bang. Image credit: F. Loiacono, NASA, ESA, CSA

3I/ATLAS, a rare interstellar comet spotted in 2025, shows vaporised nickel far from the Sun metal usually won’t evaporate there. It hints at the comet formed in a distant, cold star system, possibly older than our Sun. Image: NASA/ESA/AP

Scientists have just taken a big leap toward solving one of physics' greatest mysteries: why our universe is filled with matter instead of equal parts matter and antimatter. A groundbreaking joint study of “ghost particles” suggests these shape-shifters may tip the balance. Credit: Adis Resic

The mysterious carbon star CW Leonis glows within a web of shells and arcs — a cosmic masterpiece of carbon dust and light. Its fiery layers may hold clues to how the carbon in us once drifted through dying stars like this one. Image Credit: ESA, NASA, Hubble, T. Ueta (U. Denver), H. Kim (KASI)

Scientists have found the first evidence of a 4.5 billion year-old proto-Earth buried deep within our planet remnants of an ancient world that existed before Earth. A hidden piece of our planet’s origin story might finally be uncovered. Credit: (Artist's Illustration) Stocktrek Images/Getty Images

A galactic duet in Cepheus The Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) dazzles with 10 supernovae in just a century, while nearby open cluster NGC 6939 shines only 5,600 light-years away. A cosmic blend of beauty and distance. Image Credit & Copyright: Alberto Pisabarro

China's first REUSABLE rocket, Zhuque-3, has completed engine tests and begun final preparations before its maiden flight.

NEWS: Astronomers announce discovery of a "Super-Earth" in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star just 22 light years away

Scientists are turning pulsars rapidly spinning dead stars into cosmic detectors to uncover ripples in spacetime from supermassive black holes and the early universe. A new frontier in gravitational wave astronomy. Credit: NASA | ESA

A cosmic broom sweeping the stars, NGC 6960, the Witch’s Broom Nebula, is a glowing remnant of a star that exploded 10,000 years ago. Its stunning red and blue filaments are shockwaves of hydrogen and oxygen dancing 1,400 light-years away in Cygnus. Credit: Brian Meyers

A newborn world caught in the act. NASA’s new image shows WISPIT 2b, a baby planet forming inside a ring of gas and dust around its star. It’s the first-ever photo of its kind, offering a rare glimpse into planetary birth. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA

A tiny dark nebula floats in front of the glowing Eagle Nebula, stark in silhouette. This small Bok globule just a fraction of a light-year across lies about 7,000 light-years away, with young stars and gas glowing behind it. Credit: Peter Bresseler

NGC 6357, dubbed the “Cathedral to Massive Stars,” dazzles in JWST’s view. Once thought a single 200-solar-mass star, Pismis 24-1 is actually three giants—each near 100 Suns! Newborn stars still emerge in this cosmic cathedral. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI, JWST

Gaia’s latest 3D map reveals over 44 million stars in our Milky Way glowing nurseries up to 4,000 light-years away where new stars are born. A breathtaking cosmic vista of our galaxy’s heartbeat. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, S. Payne-Wardenaar, L. McCallum et al.

Rare asperitas clouds ripple above New Zealand, creating a surreal, wave-like sky. Recently recognized as a distinct cloud type, their origins remain a mystery, but their beauty is undeniable. Image Credit: Witta Priester

Scientists traced the invisible scaffolding of dark matter using over 100,000 Lyman-alpha galaxies in three eras after the Big Bang. These “cosmic fingerprints” reveal how galaxies like ours grew. Credit: Rutgers Sci & ODIN Survey

A surprise from the skies! While capturing the dazzling Pleiades star cluster (M45), a bright meteor streaked through, leaving a glowing green trail of vaporized metals. A cosmic photo-bomb worth keeping. Image Credit & Copyright: Yousif Alqasimi & Essa Al Jasmi

Meet the icons of Orion: the Horsehead Nebula, a shadowy dust cloud shaped by chance, and the fiery Flame Nebula, glowing with hydrogen and streaked with dark filaments. Together, they paint one of the sky’s most breathtaking scenes. Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Stern

NGC 7027, the “Pillow Nebula,” is one of the smallest yet brightest planetary nebulas we know just 600 years young! Once a calm shell of gas, it now ejects dust in striking four-cornered patterns, hinting at a mysterious central star system. Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble

Hours before its death, a massive star violently reshuffled its insides then exploded into Cassiopeia A. NASA’s Chandra data reveals this last-minute chaos, offering new clues into how stars live, die & transform the cosmos Credit: NASA/CXC/Meiji Univ./T. Sato et al.

Mars still carries scars from colossal impacts 4.5B years ago. NASA’s InSight lander reveals giant chunks of ancient debris buried in its mantle — a frozen record of its violent past. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NEWS🚨: Scientists have designed an interstellar ship that can transport up to 2.4k people one-way to Alpha Centauri. The project’s goal is to reach the potentially habitable planet Proxima Centauri b. Credit: Giacomo Infelise, Veronica Magli, Guido Sbrogio', Nevenka Martinello & Federica Serpe​

From the Big Bang to AI 13.8 billion years of cosmic history in one spiral. Stars, galaxies, Earth, life, and us all captured in a single breathtaking timeline of the universe. Illustration Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi

Meet 3I/ATLAS - a comet older than our solar system! This interstellar wanderer, possibly 7 billion years old, offers a rare glimpse into the Milky Way’s ancient past as it blazes through our cosmic neighbourhood. Image Credit: ESA

Went to the Moon twice, flew in space 4 times, commanded Apollo 13 - Jim Lovell has died at 97. A superb, humble and inspiring man. Rest in peace.

Discovery Alert! NASA’s Hubble & Chandra telescopes have spotted a rare intermediate-mass black hole, HLX-1, blazing with X-rays in galaxy NGC 6099 - a cosmic clue to how supermassive black holes may form. A mystery worth watching. Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, Yi-Chi Chang; Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

BREAKING: Webb Space Telescope may have spotted a Saturn-sized planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A — the closest Sun-like star to Earth! If confirmed, it’s the nearest planet seen orbiting in a habitable zone. A game-changer for exoplanet science! Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)

In 2016, during the Perseid Meteor Shower, a brilliant green meteor streaked across the Andromeda Galaxy in this stunning image. Likely from the Southern Delta Aquariids, its glow came from vaporizing gases as it blazed through Earth’s atmosphere. Credit: Fritz Helmut Hemmerich

Discovered in 2022, the massive blue arcs near the Andromeda Galaxy—SDSO 1 aren’t galactic neighbours, after all. They’re an entirely new class of faded planetary nebulae in our own Milky Way, dubbed Ghost Planetary Nebulae (GPN). A hauntingly beautiful find! Credit: Ogle et al.

Majestic coronal loops dance above the Sun’s surface huge arcs of hot plasma shaped by magnetic fields. These stunning loops can last for days and are often found near sunspots. Some even unleash solar storms affecting Earth’s space weather! Credit: Andrea Vanoni

In 1969, humans first walked on the Moon. Now, NASA's Artemis missions aim to return and stay. But there's a big challenge - The Sun. Solar storms can threaten astronauts with radiation and equipment damage, making space weather monitoring essential. Credit: NASA / SVS

Astronomers have found a giant planet orbiting its star backwards, defying planetary formation theories! This rare retrograde orbit could reveal dramatic past interactions with other stars or planets. Space just got weirder. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva (Spaceengine)/M. Zamani

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured striking new images of planetary nebula NGC 6072, revealing chaotic outflows and concentric rings hinting at the presence of two stars. These stunning views help astronomers study stellar death and rebirth. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

NEWS 🚨: Australia's historic first-ever orbital rocket crashes after attempting to take off It lasted about 14 seconds