
NASA's October Sky Guide Highlights Algol and the Witch Head Nebula
NASA's night sky column for October 2026 points observers toward the eclipsing star Algol in Perseus and the Witch Head Nebula, a reflection nebula about 900 light-years from Earth.
Stories in Science

NASA's night sky column for October 2026 points observers toward the eclipsing star Algol in Perseus and the Witch Head Nebula, a reflection nebula about 900 light-years from Earth.

Landsat 8 images compare Lubbock County farmland in September 2025 with September 2026, when dry fields and empty playa lakes reflected a drought that farmers say has killed cotton and drained wells.

A NASA Glenn team mixed a biodegradable plastic with simulated Moon and Mars dust, finding the resulting material stronger and easier to process. The work is funded through the center's 2026 Center Innovation Fund.

NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov prepared their SpaceX spacesuits at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Crew-13 launch to the International Space Station.

Ahead of NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission, a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft stood vertical at Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida in a Sept. 27, 2026, photo. Four crew members were scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Oct. 1.

NASA has moved forward on an all-glass telescope for the LISA gravitational-wave mission, with L3Harris Technologies set to design, assemble and integrate an Engineering Test Unit as a final step before flight hardware production.

NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 flight crew reached Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida, where a Falcon 9 and Dragon stood ready, NASA reported on Oct. 1, 2026.

NASA's 2027 Human Lander Challenge invites U.S. college teams to propose lunar communications solutions, with a notice of intent due Oct. 15 and proposals due March 4, 2027.

A long-duration photograph taken from the International Space Station shows star trails above Earth, with fishing-boat lights and Indonesian city lights visible below during an orbit 258 miles above the Banda Sea on Sept. 20, 2026.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed the host galaxy of the most distant fast radio burst yet seen, a small dwarf galaxy whose youthful stars hint that magnetars, not neutron-star mergers, may produce these flashes.

NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission was scheduled to lift off at 11:10 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, with a timeline of crew preparations and post-liftoff events.

NASA announced a metascience push expanding dual anonymous peer review and a fellowship program for 10 doctoral students, presented alongside the White House science summit in Washington.