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This was a good year for the

This total solar eclipse appeared not only poetically beautiful but scientifically interesting.

The Milky Way was not created by an evaporating lake.

Known for its bright and fast meteors, the annual

The waxing Moon is on its way to a not-quite-total lunar eclipse Thursday the 27th. On Friday the 21st, it's still east of Antares in the evening sky.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, August 21 – 30 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Astrobiologists use new starting points to produce ‘organic’ models of our solar system’s formation.

Earth Observatory

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3. Europe’s Scorching Summer

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Earth Observatory

1. Science
2. Earth
3. Europe’s Scorching Summer

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A SpaceX Falcon upper stage crashed into the Moon on August 5th. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of the crash site from different viewing angles and with different sunlight angles. The images showed that the crater is about 18 meters wide and about 3 meters deep. SpaceX says the crash was an accident.

China's moon exploration program is readying an ambitious robotic mission, one composed of an orbiter, a lander, a rover, a hopper, and a wide range of international experiments including a U.S.-supported payload.

In April of this year, Chang'e-7 hardware was transported to the Wenchang launch site, targeting an Aug. 24 (Beijing time) launch atop a Long March 5 Y14 rocket. The lander's destination is the edge of Shackleton Crater in the lunar south pole region.

After launch, the Chang'e-7 orbiter will spend several months orbiting the moon before releasing its lander for an attempted touchdown near the end of the year. While Chang'e-7 will carry out ambitious, groundbreaking lunar science, it will also serve to lay the groundwork for the first Chinese human landing on the lunar surface by 2030.

James Head is a leading moon scientist at the department of geological sciences at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He says China's upcoming moon launch will set a new benchmark for lunar science voyages.

"Chang'e-7 is the most ambitious, comprehensive, and complex robotic lunar mission ever attempted by any nation or entity," Head told Space.

Likewise, Zhang Jingbo, a spokesman for the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) agency, said earlier this year that the mission will "fully leverage the technological expertise and practical experience accumulated over decades" to "spare no effort to strive for the goal of achieving the first Chinese landing on the moon by 2030."

Pockets of water ice

Once unleashed from the Chang'e-7 lander, the hopper is slated to "jump" from sunlit areas to shadowed craters in a quest to find pockets of water ice. The hopper utilizes active shock-absorption technology to safely land on slopes. The lander will also deploy China's inaugural deep-space "landmark image navigation" system.

While scientists around the globe believe there's water ice on the moon, said Ye Peijian, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, no one has definitively found and fully evaluated that resource as yet.

"Now China is going to look for it, [...] And we're using many methods, from searching the surface to exploring inside craters," Ye told China Central Television (CCTV).

The rim of Shackleton crater; the lunar south pole is located on the rim near the upper right corner of the image. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)Back-to-back duties

The Chang'e-7 mission will adopt an integrated exploration approach, added CCTV, combining orbiting, landing, roving, and hopping, to survey the environment and resources of the lunar south pole, while also carrying out international cooperation.

Moreover, a Chang'e-8 mission is set for around 2028, designed to test technologies for building habitats using lunar soil.

Taken together, the two robotic projects  — Chang'e-7 and Chang'e-8  — are assigned duties to assist in orchestrating China's planned, multi-phased, International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).

The combination of the Chang'e-7 lunar probe and the Long March-5 Y14 carrier rocket at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Aug. 19, 2026 in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China. (Image credit: VCG/VCG via Getty Images)Variety of instruments

Chang'e-7 mission hardware is outfitted with a variety of instruments from other nations and organizations, such as:

• On the lander, a Russian Academy of Sciences' PmL-Ch7 suite to detect lunar dust and a Langmuir probe to gauge the temperature and density of nearby plasma.
• An Italian laser retroreflector array on the lander is provided by the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati.
• A small, state-of-the-art, wide-field optical telescope mounted on the lander developed by the International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA Hawaii) and the Laboratory for Space Research at the University of Hong Kong (HKU-LSR).
• LunaHcam, a camera attached to the Chang'e-7 orbiter and jointly developed by the Bahrain Space Agency and the Egyptian Space Agency to churn out high-resolution hyperspectral images of the moon's surface.
• Moon Aiming Thai-Chinese Hodoscope (MATCH) onboard the orbiter and developed by the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand. It will assess high-energy particles related to space weather and cosmic radiation tossed out by the sun.
• Moon-based Dual-channel Earth Radiation Spectrometer on the orbiter has been provided by Switzerland's Physical Meteorological Observatory.

Compact lunar camera

The ILO-C instrument from ILOA Hawaii and the Laboratory for Space Research at the University of Hong Kong will be housed directly on the Chang'e-7 lunar lander, bound for the illuminated rim of Shackleton Crater.

"The HKU Lab for Space Research is proud to partner with ILOA for this historic lunar mission and we look forward to working with them to maximize the scientific return this exceptional wide field optical lunar camera will deliver," said Quentin Parker, professor emeritus of the University of Hong Kong.

Through visible color imaging, the ILO-C camera project aims to spark public interest in lunar exploration, astronomy, and space science, Parker said, thereby laying a social foundation for future lunar science missions.

Moon-based vantage point

Operating in the extreme lunar environment, the compact camera will conduct first-ever astronomical color imagery from the moon, said Elisa Perednia, President and Chair of ILOA. The camera is designed to capture unprecedented wide-field, full color imagery of the Milky Way's Galactic plane from a stable, moon-based vantage point, she said.

One sad note: The camera onboard China's moon lander was pioneered by ILOA's founding director Steve Durst who passed earlier this year. He was a visionary leader that worked with Chinese aerospace representatives since the 1980s.

The Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics & Electricity (BISME) built the camera to ILO-C team member specifications.

"We are proud to have joined the mission and to help realize Steve's wonderful vision," Parker at HKU-LSR told Space.com.

We'll have to wait a bit longer for a highly anticipated Starship milestone, it appears.

On Aug. 4, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said the company aimed to attempt the first-ever catch of Starship's upper stage on the vehicle's next test flight, which is tentatively targeted for late August.

But that doesn't seem to be in the cards anymore. "Looks like we will probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months," Musk said early this morning (Aug. 20) via X, the social media platform he bought in 2022.

Starship's Ship upper stage floats in the Indian Ocean after surviving the vehicle's Flight 13, which launched on July 24, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)

SpaceX has high hopes for Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. It consists of a giant first-stage booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or simply Ship.

Both of these elements are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Rapid reuse will be enabled by landings directly on the launch mount, with the aid of the launch tower's "chopstick" arms.

SpaceX has already pulled off such chopstick catches with Super Heavy on three of Starship's 13 suborbital test flights to date. And two of those missions featured a used Super Heavy: Flight 9 used the same booster as Flight 7, and Flight 11 employed the one from Flight 8.

SpaceX has not yet tried to catch Ship, however, because it's a tougher ask: The upper stage comes back down to Earth from much greater heights, and at much higher speeds, than Super Heavy.

But the company has made progress toward this goal recently. For example, on Flight 13, which launched on July 24, Ship survived reentry through Earth's atmosphere and splashed down in its target zone, a patch of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.

The vehicle even remained intact after toppling over, a feat none of its predecessors had pulled off. SpaceX subsequently towed Ship to Christmas Island and will study it in depth to inform future iterations of the vehicle.

This encouraging performance led to optimism about a coming tower-catch try for Ship.

"I'd say things look very good, and that's why we, assuming we receive regulatory approval to do so, will attempt to catch the Ship with the tower on the next flight, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of this month," Musk said on Aug. 4, during SpaceX's first call with investors as a public company.

As that quote indicates, however, a Ship tower catch is not entirely up to SpaceX. It also requires approval from regulators — specifically, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. It's possible that such approval has not yet been secured for Flight 14, and that's why the timeline has shifted.

After all, Musk has continued to voice confidence in Ship's abilities.

"If there had been a tower out to sea where we practiced landing the ship, it would have been caught," he added in this morning's X post. "First reflight of the ship will be either end of this year or early next. That will be a fork in the road of history for consciousness reaching the stars."

Even without a Ship catch attempt, Flight 14 should still feature some exciting action. During the earnings call, Musk said that Starship will go orbital on Flight 14, something it has never done before.

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SmallSat 2026

Join NASA in the Exhibit Hall (Booth # 635, 835, 641, and 940) for Storytelling by NASA experts. Full Agenda below.

MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 9:00 – 10:00 AM

Welcome Jose Nunez BryceTech’s Smallsats by the Numbers: 2026 Fletcher Franklin Supply Chain Observations Bruce Yost
Technology Shortfall  Rudy de Rosee SPARCS Camera and Early Science Observations Kaitlyn Ashcroft JPL: Skyfall Tim Canham SWIFT LINK Reboost Bo Naasz Flight Opportunities – Hosted Orbital Ecosystem – Fly Foundational Robos – Space Roboticist Challenge Anh Nguyen From Rideshare to Dedicated Launches: SmallSat Options with NASA LSP Caley Burke You Bring the Mission, We’ll Bring the Lab: Partnering with MSFC Rush Elkins NASA Ames Mission Design Center: Imagining the Next Generation of Spaceflight Missions Matthew Napoli Engineering Challenges and Best Practices from a Stellar Launch Cycle Brad Williams HIAD Payload Return Solution for SmallSats Joe Del Corso

3:25 – 4:10 PM

Moderating Bruce Yost RTMD NASA Greg Stover SMD HPD ADF Asal Naseri HSMD CSLI/CLPS/ Commercial Access to Space (CAtS) Pete Wilczynski CARA: Conjunction Assessment Best Practices Lauri Newman

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 9:45 – 10:45 AM

Moderating Cari Reinert SMD Panelist 1 – Solicitations Aly Mendoza-Hill STMD Panelist CATALYST – I-Corps Maggie Yancey SBIR / STTR- Launchpad for Innovation Ryszard Pisarski Agency level Tech Transfer Jose Nunez

3:15 – 4:15 PM

Moderating Aly Mendoza-Hill SMD – APD Pioneers Pablo Saz Parkinson SMD – Science as a Service: What SmallSat Providers Need to Know Beth Weinstein SMD – HPD Asal Naseri ESCAPADE (HPD) Innovating Methods for Exploration Skyler Kleinschmidt

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 9:45 – 10:45 AM

Moderator, FO Panelist Danielle McCulloch NASA CSLI, VADR Panelist Norman Phelps CLPS Panelist Angela Melito Rideshare Panelist Aly Mendoza-hill SLS David Hitt

3:15 – 4:15 PM

Welcome / Close out Presentor/Moderator Sam Pedrotty JPL Mission INCUS Benjamin (Benji) Donitz SMD – Biological & Physical Sciences Payload Concepts for Future SmallSat Missions Matthew Lera SMD APD – SWIFT Reboost highlight David Morris SMD ESD – Mission Highlight Sachidananda Babu SMD HPD – TRACERS Mission Highlight Skyler Kleinschmidt SunRISE (SMD HPD) – Maximizing Science Uptime Across the Constellation Carson Schubert STMD USTP Overview Mike Gaunce STMD Mission CAPSTONE 02 Sam Phan STMD R5 Spacecraft Series Sam Pedrotty STMD GPDM Nehemiah Williams STMD Mission DiskSat Roger Hunter

Explore This Section

• Earth
• Earth Observer
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SmallSat 2026

Join NASA in the Exhibit Hall (Booth # 635, 835, 641, and 940) for Storytelling by NASA experts. Full Agenda below.

MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 9:00 – 10:00 AM

Welcome Jose Nunez BryceTech’s Smallsats by the Numbers: 2026 Fletcher Franklin Supply Chain Observations Bruce Yost
Technology Shortfall  Rudy de Rosee SPARCS Camera and Early Science Observations Kaitlyn Ashcroft JPL: Skyfall Tim Canham SWIFT LINK Reboost Bo Naasz Flight Opportunities – Hosted Orbital Ecosystem – Fly Foundational Robos – Space Roboticist Challenge Anh Nguyen From Rideshare to Dedicated Launches: SmallSat Options with NASA LSP Caley Burke You Bring the Mission, We’ll Bring the Lab: Partnering with MSFC Rush Elkins NASA Ames Mission Design Center: Imagining the Next Generation of Spaceflight Missions Matthew Napoli Engineering Challenges and Best Practices from a Stellar Launch Cycle Brad Williams HIAD Payload Return Solution for SmallSats Joe Del Corso

3:25 – 4:10 PM

Moderating Bruce Yost RTMD NASA Greg Stover SMD HPD ADF Asal Naseri HSMD CSLI/CLPS/ Commercial Access to Space (CAtS) Pete Wilczynski CARA: Conjunction Assessment Best Practices Lauri Newman

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 9:45 – 10:45 AM

Moderating Cari Reinert SMD Panelist 1 – Solicitations Aly Mendoza-Hill STMD Panelist CATALYST – I-Corps Maggie Yancey SBIR / STTR- Launchpad for Innovation Ryszard Pisarski Agency level Tech Transfer Jose Nunez

3:15 – 4:15 PM

Moderating Aly Mendoza-Hill SMD – APD Pioneers Pablo Saz Parkinson SMD – Science as a Service: What SmallSat Providers Need to Know Beth Weinstein SMD – HPD Asal Naseri ESCAPADE (HPD) Innovating Methods for Exploration Skyler Kleinschmidt

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 9:45 – 10:45 AM

Moderator, FO Panelist Danielle McCulloch NASA CSLI, VADR Panelist Norman Phelps CLPS Panelist Angela Melito Rideshare Panelist Aly Mendoza-hill SLS David Hitt

3:15 – 4:15 PM

Welcome / Close out Presentor/Moderator Sam Pedrotty JPL Mission INCUS Benjamin (Benji) Donitz SMD – Biological & Physical Sciences Payload Concepts for Future SmallSat Missions Matthew Lera SMD APD – SWIFT Reboost highlight David Morris SMD ESD – Mission Highlight Sachidananda Babu SMD HPD – TRACERS Mission Highlight Skyler Kleinschmidt SunRISE (SMD HPD) – Maximizing Science Uptime Across the Constellation Carson Schubert STMD USTP Overview Mike Gaunce STMD Mission CAPSTONE 02 Sam Phan STMD R5 Spacecraft Series Sam Pedrotty STMD GPDM Nehemiah Williams STMD Mission DiskSat Roger Hunter

Microbes from Earth might survive the harsh surface of the moon, albeit in a state of suspended animation, a new study finds.

Previous research suggested the surface of the moon was too harsh for microbes to survive. Specifically, a 2019 study found ultraviolet rays and heat from the sun are the greatest barriers for microbial life on the lunar surface.

However, this prior work did not account for the shelter that hills and valleys might supply on the moon. These could prove especially significant at the lunar poles, where the sun never climbs high in the sky, leading to permanently shadowed regions that can host ice — and perhaps more.

In the new study, researchers analyzed three kinds of bacteria and two kinds of fungus. These are all commonly found on crewed space missions, and include microorganisms that prior work discovered were especially durable in the harsh conditions of space. Previous research found these lifeforms are resistant to vacuum, cold and high-energy particles.

The scientists compared previously compiled survivability data of these microbes with lunar maps that captured ultraviolet and heat readings on the moon's surface. They found that both lunar poles likely have areas where microbes could survive, albeit in a state of suspended animation known as cryptobiosis in which they could not move or grow unless more hospitable conditions appeared.

Microbes might not need much in the way of shelter on the moon. "Even a bootprint or a rover's tread may create a habitable area," study co-author Prabal Saxena, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told Space.com.

NASA's Artemis III mission is planned to be the first time humans will explore the lunar south pole. "Our findings show that we need to be even more thoughtful about the materials that we might unintentionally take with us when we are exploring space, and the impacts that we might have," study co-author Heather Graham, an organic geochemist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, told Space.com.

In addition to the possibility that missions to the moon might bring microorganisms there, the scientists added it might be possible that ancient cosmic impacts might have blasted rocks bearing microbes off Earth that could have landed on the moon. "The moon might be like Earth's freezer, preserving really interesting bits of evidence of Earth's past if they landed at the moon's poles," Saxena said.

Future experiments may test just how well microbes of many kinds might survive on the moon, Saxena said. "We have this great opportunity to really think about the limits of life and how resilient it is even in incredibly extreme environments," he said.

All in all, "the moon is a really diverse and interesting body, and the lunar poles are really unique regions in terms of how they can trap volatiles like water, and the ability to trap life," Saxena said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Aug. 19 in the journal Science Advances.

Mars' moon Deimos has a large crater on its southern pole. It's also covered by a layer of regolith so deep it buries many other, smaller craters. New research shows that an impact is responsible for both, and that the moon is rather fragile and porous, like a rubble pile asteroid.

LOS ANGELES – On a Saturday evening in Los Angeles, I found myself watching acclaimed actor Elizabeth Banks sing Tom Petty songs along with her fellow actors while writer/director David Wain played the drums. This incredible, bizarre performance celebrated the 25th anniversary of the raunchy, summer camp cult classic "Wet Hot American Summer." But do you remember that it's actually a space movie?

This movie — the debut feature film from co-creators David Wain and Michael Showalter — follows the events of "Camp Firewood," a sleepaway summer camp set in the summer of 1981. It has a cast chock-full of now-A-list actors, including Banks, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler and so many more. Looking back, it's almost baffling how star-studded the cast really is.

Campy in every sense of the word, the movie manages to balance vulgar jokes with some serious heart. And while the off-color comedy was infamously a box office bomb, this heart has cemented its status as a beloved cult classic, and watching it has become as time-honored a tradition as summer camp itself.

I am personally biased toward this film, as my teenage summers were spent as a camp counselor and the movie hits that perfect, nostalgic sweet spot. But when I sat down to watch the film again on Aug. 8 at an outdoor anniversary screening, I realized it had been many years since I'd actually seen it.

And while I remembered the warm, summer camp vibes, somehow I had completely forgotten something: The movie hinges on the plot that a piece of Skylab (yes, that Skylab) is falling to Earth, and a nearby, vacationing astrophysicist teams up with the nerdy kids at camp to build a homegrown device to try and stop it.

The strangest part? In 1979, Skylab did fall back to Earth, and a couple of pieces actually survived the trip (just not at Camp Firewood).

An outdoor screening of "Wet Hot American Summer" for its 25th anniversary. (Image credit: Chelsea Gohd/Space.com)

At its core, this beloved camp movie that I used to watch after camp with my fellow counselors (at our own camp, Summer Parks) is … science fiction. It might seem like a b-plot, but if you find yourself rewatching the film, you might be surprised at how much of a space movie it really is.

The first inklings of this emerge when camp director Beth (Janeane Garofalo) meets astrophysicist Professor Henry Newman (David Hyde Pierce), who is vacationing in a cabin near the camp. She asks if he might come to camp and teach some of the kids about space. And while he at first declines, he soon decides to show up at camp to spend time with some of the kids and chat about outer space.

As other camp hijinks are happening, we occasionally cut back to this group of "indoor kids" in the woods, pretending rocks are planets, having a great time. But at some point, it's revealed that the camp is in grave danger. Not only is a piece of Skylab, the first U.S. space station, falling, but it's headed right for camp! In fact, it's headed right for the talent show that's taking place on the last night of camp (of course).

A behind-the-scenes photo of some of the actors of "Wet Hot American Summer" posing with the Skylab model on set, captured by actor Zak Orth. (Image credit: Zak Orth)

Henry and his merry band of science-obsessed campers are quick to act, and they work together to cobble together a makeshift Skylab tracking device. But to transform the device so it can divert Skylab, they need to generate random numbers between one and 20. Thank goodness one of the campers just so happens to be carrying a D20 die.

In the end, Skylab does crash-land into camp, but it narrowly misses the talent show, and no one gets hurt. Did the device work? Did another camper demonstrating their wind-generating superpowers at the talent show secretly help out? Or was their Skylab tracking wrong all along?

After camp is finally over for the summer, we get to see the aftermath as campers walk out to their rides home past a giant hunk of the Skylab space station jutting out of the grass.

It's a fun easter egg to see Skylab crashing to Earth in a campy summer camp flick, and during a panel ahead of the screening, the cast and crew revealed that it was a lot of fun for them, too.

According to the panelists, which included Wain, Banks, Joe Lo Truglio (who plays Neil in the film), and Marguerite Moreau (who plays Katie), everyone on the set was taking turns getting their picture taken with Skylab. This is evident in the image above, snapped and shared with us by actor Zak Orth, who plays J.J.

Skylab orbiting above Earth. (Image credit: NASA)

While there were no reported injuries or property damage from the debris, roughly 26 tons of material fell to Earth, some of it surviving the trip and landing in Western Australia.

So in an alternate version of history where Camp Firewood is located in a remote area of Australia, this plot could have been more than science fiction.

Want to relive the sci-fi summer camp glory? To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Wet Hot American Summer is returning to select theaters from Aug. 14-21. If you miss that, you can also buy or rent it on Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.

Growing crystals “like alchemy,” researchers plotted out the ideal site within the lattice to build a nuclear clock