6:13Video · Cosmic Impacts and Planetary Defense
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10:09Video · Cosmic Impacts and Planetary Defense
The Asteroid That Made Earth’s Richest Gold Mine
Published October 13, 2026
Featured story · Advice and News
Swift telescope plunges back to Earth
The U.S. Space Force confirmed Swift reentered Earth's atmosphere on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, over Indonesia.
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Chandra found 84 strange soft X-ray sources hiding in six galaxies — and they may be future supernovae
Mining 18 years of Chandra archive data, astronomers found 84 "hypersoft" X-ray sources across six galaxies — a new class of object that may be the long-sought stars that become Type Ia supernovae.
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Hubble finally sees the Cat's Tail in visible light — and it is made of almost pure dark carbon
Hubble has confirmed Webb's Cat's Tail in visible light, showing the 1,000-AU dust plume is almost entirely tar-like carbon from a collision between two dwarf-planet-sized worlds about a century ago.
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Webb counts 104 flickering stars in the Dragon galaxy — and the pattern may say something about dark matter
Webb found 104 magnified stellar events in the lensed Dragon galaxy, more than double the old record — a sample big enough to test what dark matter is made of.
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Leonid meteors return — and this year the Moon gets out of the way
The Leonids peak on the night of November 17–18, 2026, with about 15 meteors an hour under dark skies — and the Moon sets before midnight, leaving the best hours properly dark.
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Apophis will pass closer than many satellites in 2029 — and miss us completely
On April 13, 2029, the asteroid Apophis will pass about 20,000 miles above Earth, inside the altitude of geosynchronous satellites. NASA is confident there is no impact risk for at least 100 years.
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Falcon 9 launches a secret Space Force payload — and lands the booster again
USSF-432 lifted off from Vandenberg on November 6 with a classified payload, while booster B1095 flew for the eighth time and came home to a droneship.
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Webb zooms into the Helix Nebula's comet-like knots
Webb's infrared camera reveals the knots inside the Helix Nebula in new detail — a preview of what will happen to our own Sun in about five billion years.
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Pa 30's filaments are chains of pearl-like knots
Gemini North's sharpest view yet of the remnant of the supernova seen in 1181 shows its filaments are not smooth streaks, but strings of knots each bigger than our solar system.
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