On 20 April, 2025, the African Space Agency (AfSA) was formally launched at an inauguration ceremony in Cairo, Egypt. The decision to create AfSA was made by the African Union (AU) in 2016 to coordinate the continent's approach to space, and enact the African Space Policy and Strategy. AfSA will coordinate African space cooperation with Europe and other international partners.

Earlier today, the Committee on Appropriations released its recommendations for discretionary funding for fiscal year 2026 (FY 2026). In addition to

Has your dinner time conversations been dragging a bit of late? Feel like raising its knowledge level to a bit higher than the usual synopsis of the most recent reality TV show? Then take the challenge presented by Sean Carroll in his book "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe – Space, Time and Motion". Using this, your conversation might soon be sparkling with grand thoughts about modern physics, time travel, going faster than light and the curvature of the universe.

The Juno spacecraft circling in Jovian space is the planetary science gift that just keeps on giving. Although it's spending a lot of time in the strong (and damaging) Jovian radiation belts, the spacecraft's instruments are hanging in there quite well. In the process, they're peering into Jupiter's cloud tops and looking beneath the surface of the volcanic moon Io.

As young stars form, they exert a powerful influence on their surroundings and create complex interactions between them and their environments. As they gobble up gas and dust, they generate a rotating disk of material. This protoplanetary disk is where planets form, and new research shows that stars can feed too quickly and end up regurgitating material back into the disk.

A team of researchers led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory examined the possibility that the jets coming from collapsing stars could be responsible for creating the heaviest elements in the Universe.

We tend to think of Extraterrestrial Intelligences (ETIs)—if they exist—as civilizations that have overcome the problems that still plague us. They're advanced, peaceful, disease-free technological societies that enjoy absolute political stability as they accomplish feats of impeccable engineering. Can that really be true in a Universe where entropy sets the stage upon which events unfold?

What methods can be employed to send a spacecraft to Uranus despite the former’s immense distance from Earth? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated ways to cut the travel time to the second most distant planet from the Sun. This study has the potential to help scientists, engineers, and mission planners develop low-cost and novel techniques for deep space travel while conducting cutting-edge science.

How can nanosatellites help advance lunar exploration and settlement? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as a team of researchers from Grahaa Space in India investigated the pros, cons, and applications for using nanosatellites on the Moon. This study has the potential to help scientists, engineers, mission planners, and future lunar astronauts develop and test new technologies for advancing lunar exploration, and possibly beyond the Moon.