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Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is assessing damage to its launch pad after a rocket exploded during a test firing, creating a giant orange fireball seen and felt for miles around.

Image Credit: Motiv Space Systems

The Fly Foundational Robots (FFR) mission will launch a robotic arm, with seven degrees of freedom, to low Earth orbit. NASA is opening access to the robotic arm to a select group of U.S. researchers — principal investigators, post-doctoral researchers, professors, and highly qualified graduate students — who have a compelling experiment and the capability to execute it.

All participants must submit eligibility documentation at registration. Once your eligibility is reviewed and confirmed, you will receive access to the Phase 1 submission portal.

• Phase 0 — Eligibility Registration
  Begin by completing your eligibility registration. Submission documentation is required at this stage as part of federal competition requirements. Registration closes at 12:59 p.m. ET (11:59 p.m. CT) on Sept. 23.

• Phase 1 — White Paper Submission
  Submit a white paper proposing a short, focused experiment using the FFR robotic arm. Up to 15 teams advance to Phase 2. Submission closes at 12:59 p.m. ET (11:59 p.m. CT) on Oct. 2.
• Phase 2 — Simulation & Validation
  Invited participants conduct simulation and validation testing, including visits to Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Prize: Teams that pass validation will receive an offer of on-orbit experiment time on the FFR Mission

Challenge Registration Open Date: May 20, 2026

Challenge Registration Close Date: September 23, 2026

For more information, visit: https://spaceroboticistchallenge.com/

Image Credit: Motiv Space Systems

The Fly Foundational Robots (FFR) mission will launch a robotic arm, with seven degrees of freedom, to low Earth orbit. NASA is opening access to the robotic arm to a select group of U.S. researchers — principal investigators, post-doctoral researchers, professors, and highly qualified graduate students — who have a compelling experiment and the capability to execute it.

All participants must submit eligibility documentation at registration. Once your eligibility is reviewed and confirmed, you will receive access to the Phase 1 submission portal.

• Phase 0 — Eligibility Registration
  Begin by completing your eligibility registration. Submission documentation is required at this stage as part of federal competition requirements. Registration closes at 12:59 p.m. ET (11:59 p.m. CT) on Sept. 23.

• Phase 1 — White Paper Submission
  Submit a white paper proposing a short, focused experiment using the FFR robotic arm. Up to 15 teams advance to Phase 2. Submission closes at 12:59 p.m. ET (11:59 p.m. CT) on Oct. 2.
• Phase 2 — Simulation & Validation
  Invited participants conduct simulation and validation testing, including visits to Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Prize: Teams that pass validation will receive an offer of on-orbit experiment time on the FFR Mission

Challenge Registration Open Date: May 20, 2026

Challenge Registration Close Date: September 23, 2026

For more information, visit: https://spaceroboticistchallenge.com/

What is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? Today’s image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as

Galactic collisions are events of breathtaking proportions. The Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) at their centers plunge into a chaotic orbital dance that eventually coalesce into a single remnant. On their way to that point, they could eventually get “kicked” out of the center of their galaxy - and finding these “recoiling” black holes has been a challenge of cosmology for decades. A new paper, available on arXiv by an international team, used a novel idea to track down these fast-moving behemoths.

The prototype ngVLA antenna tested its systems by observing and tracking the Crab Nebula, also known as Taurus A (3C144), the remnant of an exploded star.

The transplanted pig organs functioned for 36 hours before showing signs of rejection

Microsoft’s announcement of a new quantum computing breakthrough with its Majorana 2 chip continues a trend of bold claims followed by scant evidence

It might not seem like it, but the Moon is constantly being both sandblasted and baked. Its lack of a thick atmosphere allows micrometeorites to impact the surface at speed, and the solar wind isn’t held back either, baking the regolith with a constant flow of high-energy particles. These processes drive what is called “space weathering”, and it can drastically alter the physical and chemical properties of the lunar dirt over the course of billions of years. And we’re finally getting a better sense of what that means in practice thanks to two new papers from researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University, which used advanced electron tomography and spectroscopic techniques to analyze samples returned from the Chang’e-5 mission to the near side of the Moon.

These sounds could be used to track the health of populations of the endangered Atlantic sturgeon

Ages 40 to 65 see a period of turmoil in the brain that has previously been overlooked. But identifying problems during this time can protect your cognitive health for decades to come

Ages 40 to 65 see a period of turmoil in the brain that has previously been overlooked. But identifying problems during this time can protect your cognitive health for decades to come

Our understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum goes back to Isaac Newton, but astronomers are still finding new ways to employ it. Astrophysicist Emma Chapman explores how much these invisible waves can reveal to us about the cosmos – and whether they might show us that we’re not alone

Our understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum goes back to Isaac Newton, but astronomers are still finding new ways to employ it. Astrophysicist Emma Chapman explores how much these invisible waves can reveal to us about the cosmos – and whether they might show us that we’re not alone

Though it's a toxic chemical, hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is also important for the development of life. It's a precursor to things like amino acids and nucleic acids and plays a central role in theories of the origin of life on Earth. Recently, difficult questions have been asked about how it could have formed on the early Earth. But the authors of new research in PNAS seemed to have figured it out.

This order asks artificial intelligence companies to give the U.S. government up to 30 days to assess frontier models before they are released

The search for any sign of life on Mars continues. In the latest update, a new data release from Curiosity’s Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) - essentially the rover’s portable X-ray diffraction lab - and published in a paper in Science, analyzes 20 different rock samples from various elevations of Mount Sharp, the mountain in the center of Gale Crater that Curiosity has been slowly climbing. In the paper, the researchers describe how the size of the crystals in those samples could help scientists determine where to look for evidence that life might have evolved on the Red Planet.

The most exciting popular science reads this month explore everything from symbiosis to hormones, while Alice Roberts takes on an editor-in-chief role in her latest book

The most exciting popular science reads this month explore everything from symbiosis to hormones, while Alice Roberts takes on an editor-in-chief role in her latest book

The Ocean Observatories Initiative has been collecting data on physical, chemical, geological and biological conditions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for the past decade