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  Tonight: SpaceX will take another shot at launching Starship on Flight 13 from Boca Chica, Texas. The 1 hour 30 minute launch window opens at 6:45 PM EDT/22:45 UT for a sub-orbital flight over the Gulf of Mexico, and an Indian Ocean splashdown. https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/8279/ Watch for a boost back and landing burn over the Gulf, a single Raptor engine relight in space, and testing of key modifications on tonight’s Starship launch. This launch also includes the deployment of...

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  Space is hard... and rescuing satellites is harder: https://theconversation.com/rescuing-satellites-is-harder-than-it-looks-a-growing-space-junk-problem-will-make-doing-so-more-important-286737

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  Battle of the space stations… the two human-crewed outposts in low Earth orbit sync up over the next few days, as China’s Tiangong Space Station laps the International Space Station. Both are in ~92 minute orbits, and Tiangong is slightly lower and ~50 seconds faster. This all means that about once every two weeks, the two human outposts meet up, and it’s possible to see all 10 of the humans in space, at once. If you have a pass of either, check ‘em out… the U.S. eastern seaboard has a good pas...

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  Here's another great capture of Comet C/2025 R3 Pan-STARRS from earlier this month, courtesy of Dan Bartlett: https://www.astrobin.com/7eucvg/D/

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  One of NASA’s continuously longest running interplanetary missions had one more instrument turned off last month, in an effort to keep the Voyager 1 mission operational. The switch off occurred on April 17th, When controllers opted to turn off the Low-Energy Charged Particle Experiment (LECP) instrument which had been operating near continuously for 49 years. The LECP records low-energy charged particles in the interstellar medium, and is vital to measuring particle density in the region beyon...

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  Happy ‘mirror day’ today (and tomorrow)… the Sun traces the same declination path (+14º 30’-45’) as this year’s August 12th, 2026 total solar eclipse, offering viewers a good test run to scout out potential observing sites. Basically, if you can see the Sun from your site at the same time of day as totality on eclipse day (minus ~8 minutes, for the difference in the Equation of Time), you’ll have an obstruction-free view of the eclipse. This is especially crucial for regions where the eclipse is...

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  Comet C/2025 R3 Pan-STARRS is developing nicely as it crosses the field of view of SOHO’s LASCO C3 imager this weekend; currently approaching 0 magnitude, the comet is now a week past perihelion, and passes 4 degrees from the Sun as seen from Earth today, and makes its closest pass 0.523 AU from the Earth tomorrow. The Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-1) aboard NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite in GEO is also providing some amazing images of Comet R3 Pan-STARRS and the recent CME as well. The periodic blackout...

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  The comet of the hour, C/2025 R Pan-STARRS reached perihelion today at ~7:00 UT/3:00AM EDT, 0.499 AU(46.4 million miles) from the Sun , just exterior to the orbit of Mercury. Currently shining at magnitude +4, dedicated astros are still managing to nab the comet before it’s engulfed in the Sun’s glare. Comet R3 Pan-STARRS enters SOHO’s field of view later this week on Thursday, April 23rd. The comet will get ejected from the solar system on its outbound leg, destined to become someone else’s ‘i...

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  The Moon reached New Phase today at 11:53 UT/7:53 AM EDT, marking the start of Brown Lunation Number 1278. U.S. East Coast observers have a shot at spotting an ultra-thin waxing crescent Moon, at just 12 hours past New. This is a tough catch, as the record stands at 11 hours and 40 minutes past New: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/ultra-thin-young-crescent-moon-sighted-from-u-s-southwest This also means this coming weekend is an ideal time for northern hemisphere observers to complete a...

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  Massive sunspot chain AR 4366 is one for the record books. In just the span of a few days, the group has grown from near obscurity to a monster, more than 200,000 miles in length. For context, the chain would nearly stretch from the Earth to the Moon...though placing it there would fry us all in the process. You can currently safely see the sunspot group with eclipse glasses… no magnification needed. It’s also crackling with potential energy in a ‘beta-gamma-delta’ configuration aimed Earthwar...