Universe Explorer
To see the world with new eyes — Live data from space, curated links and cosmic discoveries. Since 2001.
NASA Picture of the Day
APOD
Turtle Rock on Mars
2026-07-21
Is this a fossilized turtle on Mars? No. Although resembling a large Earth tortoise, this is a layered rock outcrop on Mars that is estimated to span about 15 meters, making it much larger than turt…
Space News
NASA
ESA
ESO
UT
- Universe Today 800 Million Years Ago, a Catastrophic Asteroid Breakup Rained Fire on the Inner Solar System 2026-07-21 16:13
- Universe Today Catch Comet 10P Tempel While You Can 2026-07-21 16:01
- Universe Today Chandrasekhar and the Limits of Physics, Part 2: Humiliation 2026-07-21 15:39
- NASA Precision Astrometry Using Optically Independent Spacecraft for Graviational Wave Detection 2026-07-21 15:23
- NASA Mapping Alien Continents: Achieving Optical VLBI for Exoplanet Imaging 2026-07-21 15:23
- NASA Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys 2026-07-21 15:23
- NASA Actively Steerable Femtosat Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere 2026-07-21 15:23
- NASA PRAXIS: Planetary Rings Autonomous EXploration with In-situ Sampling 2026-07-21 15:23
- NASA ECLIPSE – Efficient variable Conductivity Lunar Insulator for Passive Surveyor Environmental control 2026-07-21 15:23
- NASA Psyche Approaches Mars 2026-07-21 15:02
Rocket Launches
LL2-
LaunchedFalcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-39Success
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2h 18minFalcon 9 Block 5 | MRV-1Go
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7h 53minGravity-1 | Unknown PayloadGo
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1d 17hLong March 3B/E | Unknown PayloadGo
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2d 3hStarship | Flight 13Go
Space Weather
NOAA
AIA 193 A (Corona) (SDO)
Earth (EPIC/DSCOVR) — 2026-07-19
Moon Phase
☾🌒
Waxing Crescent
44.5% illuminated
Next Full Moon
29. Jul (8d)
Next New Moon
13. Aug (23d)
Meteor Showers
IMO-
Delta Aquariids 8dPeak: 30. Jul 2026 ZHR: ~25 41 km/s96P/Machholz
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Perseids 21dPeak: 12. Aug 2026 ZHR: ~100 59 km/s109P/Swift-Tuttle
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Draconids 78dPeak: 8. Oct 2026 ZHR: ~10 20 km/s21P/Giacobini-Zinner
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Orionids 91dPeak: 21. Oct 2026 ZHR: ~20 66 km/s1P/Halley
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Leonids 118dPeak: 17. Nov 2026 ZHR: ~15 71 km/s55P/Tempel-Tuttle
Near-Earth Asteroids
CNEOSNext 14 days, < 0.1 AU
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2026 OB12026-Jul-25 17:1 2.2 LD 863.657 km 22.3 km/s
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2026 OS2026-Aug-01 20:0 3.1 LD 1.178.435 km 5.8 km/s
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2026 OD2026-Jul-25 09:3 4.6 LD 1.774.943 km 9.5 km/s
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2026 KU32026-Jul-24 01:3 7.7 LD 2.950.338 km 8.6 km/s
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2020 OM2026-Jul-21 06:1 9.1 LD 3.488.749 km 9.5 km/s
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2026 OU2026-Jul-23 06:1 9.5 LD 3.669.927 km 6.3 km/s
LD = Lunar Distances (384.400 km)
New Papers
arXiv- Rolling Galileons: Evolving Braiding Strength for Viable Dark Energy
- Superorbital variability in the quiescent black hole X-ray transient A0620-00
- Planet-moon ejections in close stellar encounters
- Cosmological simulations of the high-redshift galaxy population adopting a variable stellar initial mass function
- The Goldstone Awakens: Unimodular dark energy in scale-invariant $R^2$ gravity
- Case Study of a Super-eccentric Warm Jupiter Migrating via Equilibrium and Dynamical Tides
Astronomer's Telegrams
ATel- #17918 Solar activity of the dominant region AR 4493: duration and flares frequency
- #17917 Erratum to ATel #17910
- #17916 Enhanced optical activity of the flat-spectrum radio quasar 4C 10.45
- #17915 Detection and Monitoring of Fragments of Comet C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS)
- #17914 Independent Discovery of a Probable Nova in M31, AT 2026vdo
- #17913 Cancellation of the planned NuSTAR high-cadence monitoring campaign of EP J223759.5+531421
Current Comets
Heavens-Above| Comet | Mag | Constellation | Alt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10P Tempel 2 | 10.0 | Capricornus | -18.7° |
| C/2025 R3 PANSTARRS | 12.3 | Canis Major | -28.2° |
| 88P Howell | 13.5 | Aries | -26.5° |
| C/2023 R1 PANSTARRS | 13.9 | Scorpius | 26.5° |
| 78P Gehrels | 14.0 | Taurus | -14.9° |
| C/2024 T5 ATLAS | 14.4 | Eridanus | -46.5° |
| 169P NEAT | 14.9 | Hercules | 44.3° |
| C/2024 J3 ATLAS | 15.3 | Lyra | 46.6° |
Live Services
Latest Publications (peer-reviewed)
- ApJ A Pilot Study of Mildly Recycled Pulsars: A Case Study of PSR J2338+4818 Yujie Chen, Yujie Lian, Yujie Wang, Liyun Zhang, Lei Qian, Z
- ApJ Spiral Arms across Cosmic Time: JWST Measurements of the Pitch Angles of Spiral Galaxies at z < 3.5 Vicki Kuhn, Yicheng Guo, Sophie Rentschler, Maxmillian Casti
- ApJ Detection of Variability in Seyfert 2 Galaxies and Measurement of the Optical Scattering Region Size Natalie Kovacevic, Xinyu Dai, Heechan Yuk, Emilia Jaervelae,
- ApJ Dust-embedded Star Formation: Bridging Magellanic Cloud Studies of Massive Young Stellar Objects to Nearby Spiral Galaxies M. Jimena Rodríguez, Rémy Indebetouw, Janice C. Lee, Bradley
- ApJ Correlation between the Two-armed V R Spiral in the Z–V Z Plane and Moving Groups Yan Xu, Chao Liu, Cheng Dong Li, Heidi Newberg, Hao Tian, Hu
- ApJ Next-generation Atmosphere Models for Giant Planets with Application to Coupled Interior Composition and Spectral Evolution. I. Cloudless Models with Equilibrium Chemistry Yi-Xian Chen, Roberto Tejada Arevalo, Adam Burrows and Ankan
- ApJ Stellar Winds of O-type Stars Traced by High- ionization Fine-structure Emission Lines with JWST/MIRI Calum Hawcroft, David R. Law, Linda J. Smith, Alexander W. F
- ApJ Galactic Cosmic Rays Modeling in Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection Events Compared with Observations G. Qin, 刚 秦, X.-N. Wang and 晓男 王
- ApJL Suprathermal Electron Spectra at the Earth’s Bow Shock Xinnian Guo, Liu Yang, Linghua Wang and Qianyi Ma
- ApJL Discovery of a Strong-lens Galaxy Pair with the Smallest Projected Separation Zizhao He, Limeng Deng, Qihang Chen, Yiping Shu, Nan Li and
- ApJL Gamma-Ray Bursts Reveal the History and Faint Contributors of Cosmic Reionization Jing-Meng Hao, Paolo Cassata, Zhen-Ya Zheng, Andrea Grazian,
- ApJL The Recent Anomalously Weak Polar Field Does Not Imply a Weak Field at Solar Cycle 25 Minimum Zi-Fan Wang, Jie Jiang, Yukun Luo, Ruihui Wang, Xinchun Ma a
Data from: NASA (APOD, News, CNEOS, SDO), ESA, ESO, NOAA SWPC, Launch Library 2, Universe Today, arXiv.org, ApJ, ApJL, AJ, A&A, MNRAS, Nature Astronomy, SILSO, ATel, COBS, IMO. Updated every 20 minutes.