SpaceX is due to launch the space station's last two new solar arrays today, to give more power to a station whose first solar wings are wearing out

The rest of the day

8 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

1. 02

   NASA offers $150,000 to stop Moon static shocks

   NASA has opened a $150,000 contest, the Lunar Grounding Challenge, for ways to stop static electricity building up on astronauts on the Moon. [4] Its computer models suggest charge can build up on spacesuits when they rub against things and from charged gas around them. [4] The problem gets much worse in craters the Sun never reaches. [4] A charged astronaut touching the lander could make a spark that damages a suit or starts a fire in the cabin's oxygen. [4] Entries are due on 15 January. [4]

   Why it matters — NASA hopes to land astronauts near the Moon's south pole in 2028, on its fourth or fifth Artemis Moon mission. [4] The fix has to be small and light, and work through four moonwalks over ten days. [4]

2. 03

   A black hole's jets came 300 days after it fed

   Astronomers led by Sarah Ketchum of the University of Michigan found that a giant black hole flared in X-rays in February 2023, its strongest flare on record. [5] The black hole sits at the centre of the galaxy NGC 1275, the brightest in the Perseus cluster of thousands of galaxies. [5] The team pulled its X-ray light out of 18 years of readings from NASA's Swift satellite. [5] They found signs that its radio jets brightened about 300 days after the flare. [5]

   Why it matters — The delay would be the time hot charged gas takes to travel out along the jet, and that helps show how black holes affect star-making in their galaxies. [5] Ketchum calls the evidence tentative, because Swift checked this galaxy only now and then. [5]

3. 04

   Water clings more in Moon gravity

   A team led by Karl Hasenstein of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette has published how water behaves in Moon-strength gravity, in the journal Microgravity Science and Technology. [6] Their test flew in February 2025 on an uncrewed New Shepard capsule from Blue Origin, a US rocket company, which spun itself to make Moon gravity for about two minutes. [6] In 18 small chambers, water, salty water and a glycerol mix climbed higher up the walls than they would on Earth. [6] The glycerol mix spread best, so it might help wet dry Moon soil. [6]

   Why it matters — Moon soil pushes water away at the top and drains it away lower down, which can leave plant roots either dry or sitting in stale water. [6] The researchers estimate a crew of six would need 650 square metres of crops. [6]

4. 05

   Grinding Moon rock works worse in Moon gravity

   A Canadian student team flew three small grinding machines on parabolic flights, plane flights that give about 20 seconds of Moon-strength gravity at a time. [7] The flights were on a National Research Council of Canada jet, and the results were published on 9 October in npj Space Exploration. [7] Two of the machines ground a Moon-like test soil into finer powder, but did less of it in Moon gravity than on the ground. [7] The third, a blade mill, made no real difference in either. [7]

   Why it matters — Fine powder is needed to pull oxygen and metal out of Moon soil and to build with it, so a Moon base must plan for slower grinding. [7] The authors say it is the first such test, with only two samples per machine and a test soil, not real Moon soil. [7]

5. 06

   A new count of the Big Bang's helium

   The LBT YP Project, a team using the Large Binocular Telescope, has published a new count of the helium made in the Big Bang. [8] It measured gas in 54 galaxies with very few heavy elements, because stars add helium over time and these galaxies show little sign of that. [8] It found helium was 24.58% of the first matter by weight. [8] Measurements of the Big Bang's leftover glow by the Planck satellite gave 24.67%. [8]

   24.58%Gas in 54 galaxies

   vsvs

   24.67%Big Bang glow

   Why it matters — Two different ways of measuring giving almost the same answer is strong support for the Big Bang model. [8] The team also worked out that about 90% of the helium around today is from the Big Bang and 10% was made later in stars. [8]

6. 07

   Indian lawmaker defends Starlink security review

   Nishikant Dubey, a member of India's ruling BJP who chairs a parliamentary committee, said on 11 October that his committee had studied the security challenges Starlink poses. [9] He said India does not change its security policy under pressure from social media, after Elon Musk attacked the delay. [9] Dubey did not say what the risks were. [9] Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet service, got its Indian licences in 2025 but still cannot start selling. [9]

   Why it matters — India's communications ministry says security checks on all three licensed satellite operators are still under way. [9] Reliance Jio, an Indian phone company that signed a deal to sell Starlink, says it is also building its own satellite internet system. [9]

7. 08

   A booster flies for the 20th time

   SpaceX launched 27 Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg in California on Monday evening, US time, at 00:28 UTC on Tuesday. [10] The rocket's first stage, booster B1088, was flying for the 20th time. [10] It landed on a ship at sea about eight and a half minutes after launch. [10] The satellites were to be released into an orbit about 266 km up. [10]

   20 of 20

   flights of booster B1088

   Why it matters — By NASASpaceflight's count, today's cargo flight will be the 113th Falcon 9 launch of 2026. [3] Its booster is on its eighth flight. [2]

8. 09

   Taurid meteors peak this week

   The Southern Taurids, a meteor shower, are due to peak around 14 October, with about five meteors an hour in a dark sky. [11] A second branch, the Northern Taurids, starts on 20 October. [11] Both come from dust and rock around Comet Encke, a comet about 4.8 km wide that circles the Sun every 3.25 years. [11] Their meteors are slow and sometimes very bright, which is why they are called the Halloween fireballs. [11]

   Why it matters — The best chance of a fireball is the night of 4 to 5 November, when the Moon will barely be in the sky. [11] Years with many fireballs came in 2008, 2015 and 2022, and the next one is not expected until 2032. [11]