Space

President Donald Trump spoke with astronauts aboard the International Space Station Friday from NASA’s Mission Control at Johnson Space Center. He congratulated the crew and praised their bravery in the first call to the station by a sitting president.

The four Artemis II astronauts who flew around the moon earlier this year received the nation’s highest space honor Friday: the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. President Donald Trump also used the occasion to announce the creation of a new U.S. Space Academy. (AP video shot: Lekan Oyekanmi)

Menon and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot conducted a spacewalk outside the ISS on Tuesday to complete repairs on a critical communications antenna - the repairs are important to maintaining reliable communications between the astronauts aboard the station and teams on Earth.

Eclipses may be wondrous, but nothing beats seeing the northern and southern lights from space. That’s the word from a pair of NASA astronauts living aboard the International Space Station for the past six months.

A NASA spacecraft circling the moon is providing the sharpest views yet of the crater carved by a crashing SpaceX rocket. The space agency on Tuesday released before-and-after photos of the impact area. (AP produced by Javier Arciga)

The Royal Observatory Greenwich in London on Wednesday caught the moment a partial solar eclipse swept across the sky. In Britain the sun was more than 90% obscured and people flocked to hilltop parks and anywhere with an open view of the sky to see the best eclipse since 1999.

Crowds of people across Europe watched with joy as the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth briefly plunged parts of the planet into darkness on Wednesday.

From beaches in Portugal and the U.K. to the French capital and a hilltop town in Spain, crowds gathered in countries across Europe to watch the solar eclipse on Wednesday.

Hopes of seeing the celestial event were low after a summer shower hit the Italian capital minutes before it began. (AP video by Paolo Santalucia)

The rare celestial event was seen in certain places in the European continent, drawing crowds of skywatchers.

Millions of people crowded cloudless cities and towns in Spain on Wednesday in search of the best views of a total solar eclipse, when the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth briefly plunged parts of the planet into darkness. In Medinaceli, a Roman-era hilltop town in northeast Spain, sky watchers secured grassy viewing points hours early and crowded restaurants and bars.(AP video shot by: Iain Sullivan)

For sky watchers hoping to peek at the solar eclipse, spare a thought for Sverre Rud. Rud, captain of the MS Spitsbergen, spent Wednesday circling the waters of Rypefjord in eastern Greenland, trying to make sure he was perfectly positioned for his 126 passengers to view the spectacle.

Spain is gearing up for a rare total solar eclipse, even as extreme heat and wildfires threaten to cast a pall over the spectacle. Across a swath of northern and central Spain, millions of people will have some of mainland Europe’s best views of the celestial spectacle (AP video shot by: Alicia Leon).

Spain is preparing to witness a total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, the first to cross the country’s mainland in more than a century. (AP Video: Iain Sullivan)

From lighthouses to lagoons and festivals, Iceland is preparing for a cosmic wonder as a total solar eclipse sweeps across its west coast on Wednesday. Authorities say they expect up to 20,000 additional overseas visitors for the celestial event, with hotels fully booked for months. (AP Video: James Brooks)

Japan’s space agency launched a navigation satellite aboard its flagship H3 rocket on Tuesday. The H3 lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center on a southwestern Japanese island, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said during a livestream of the launch.

In Iceland’s western Reykjanesbaer municipality, anticipation is high, with sun gazers expected to glimpse almost two minutes of totality.

For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse is coming to mainland Spain. Daytime darkness will descend Aug. 12 across the Iberian Peninsula close to sunset — plus slivers of Greenland and Iceland — as the sun, moon and Earth align perfectly in the sky. (AP video: Iain Sullivan; Production: Shelby Lum)

Scientists say they’re certain that a SpaceX rocket has slammed into the moon as predicted. The 5,400-mph crash has yet to be officially confirmed. But space-tracking experts say it’s inevitable that the leftover rocket segment plowed into the moon on Wednesday after drifting off course for the past year.

For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse would come to mainland Spain. Daytime darkness would descend on Aug. 12 across the Iberian Peninsula, plus slivers of Greenland and Iceland, with a partial eclipse visible in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

A total solar eclipse crosses over parts of Spain, Iceland and Greenland on Aug. 12. This animated map shows the path of totality. (AP animation: Panagiotis Mouzakis)

The UK’s largest telescope is facing an uncertain future after an announcement that funding for a network of telescopes is be withdrawn. The Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank is part of the e-Merlin array, which UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a government funded body, says will not be prioritized for further funding after its current agreement ends in March 2028.

A U.S.-Russian space crew landed safely in the steppes of Kazakhstan on Sunday after an eight-month stint on the International Space Station.

Here’s the latest for Saturday, July 25th: Troy Jackson secures Democratic nomination for Maine’s U.S. Senate race; Russian and Ukrainian attacks kill a total of 15 people; U.N. chief urges international community to support Syrian people; SpaceX launches Starship test flight.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket has blasted off on another test flight, this time carrying 20 of the most advanced Starlinks. Towering more than 400 feet, Starship soared from Texas on Friday, a week after a last-second launch abort. It’s the 13th flight of the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.

A two-armed space robot blasted off on a private salvage operation Tuesday afternoon to slap life-extending jetpacks on old satellites running low on fuel thousands of miles up.

A U.S.-Russian crew successfully blasted off on a mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday.

The space between stars in the Milky Way just got a little sweeter for Spanish researchers who’ve found evidence of a sugar which is found in raspberries and self tanning lotions. The sugar, called erythrulose, lurks in interstellar space, or the space between stars.

The RV-X rocket lifted off, hovered and moved horizontally before landing during its less than one-minute flight at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Noshiro Testing Center in northeastern Japan.

The largest digital camera ever built is starting to capture images of unseen corners of the universe. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has officially begun its decade-long cosmic survey of the southern sky snapping hundreds of images per night, helping researchers understand concepts like dark matter and dark energy.