You Never See the Sun Where It Actually Is — Only Where It Was 8 Minutes Ago
Light takes time to travel, so every glance into space is a glance into the past. The night sky shows stars as they were years, even millennia, ago.
Today’s hidden fact · Sunday, August 9, 2026
Voyager 1 is over 24 billion km away, so far its radio signal takes 22+ hours to arrive, sent by a transmitter weaker than a refrigerator bulb.
A football-field-sized lab, falling around Earth at 8 km every second.
ISS Oleg Kononenko · Nikolai Chub · Tracy Caldwell Dyson · Matthew Dominick · Michael Barratt · Jeanette Epps · Alexander Grebenkin · Butch Wilmore · Sunita Williams
Tiangong Li Guangsu · Li Cong · Ye Guangfu
2010 JA

A Zodiacal Night
Also known as the false dawn, a luminous band of zodiacal light is captured in this dark night skyscape. The serene view was recorded just before the beginning of astronomical twilight during September's star party at the remote Hanle Dark Sky Reserve, Ladakh,…

Long March 2D | Unknown Payload

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-27

Kinetica 1 | Unknown Payload

Long March 8A | Unknown Payload

Long March 6A | Unknown Payload

Electron | Owlright, Owlright, Owlright (StriX Launch 13)

Falcon 9 Block 5 | USSF-385

Starship | Starlink Group 31-1 (Starship Flight 14)

Long March 12A | Flight 2

Vulcan VC6L | Amazon Leo (LV-01)

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Crew-13

SR75 | Flight 2

Ariane 64 Block 2 | Amazon Leo (LE-04)

Nuri | NeonSat-2 to 6

H3-24 | Martian Moon eXplorer (MMX)
2010 JA
2012 VB37
2016 LY8
2008 ST
2018 HN
2018 MC5

ESA · today
Pikachu in the Cupola
From the ESA Blogs.…

ESA · today
ESA x TPCI - Pikachu in the Cupola

European Spaceflight · today
DLR’s Suborbital MAPHEUS-17 Mission to Launch as Early as 1 October

NASA · today
APOD: 2026 September 19 – A Zodiacal Night

ESA · today
ESA and The Pokémon Company International reveal Europe-wide exhibition and astronaut Pikachu experience

NASASpaceflight · today
China progresses plans for Mars sample return, asteroid flyby and more launch sites

NASA · today
NASA Invites Media to Albania Artemis Accords Signing Ceremony
Scroll from your rooftop to the edge of the observable universe. Every stop is real.
Begin the voyage →The real solar system, computed from orbital mechanics. Scrub time and watch the maths.
Run the simulation →Five questions, one round a day, same for the whole planet. Build your streak.
Play today's round →Put Earth next to the Sun. Then next to a black hole. Watch your brain give up.
Compare anything →Black hole, light-year, quasar — every space term, explained like a human.
Learn the language →Light takes time to travel, so every glance into space is a glance into the past. The night sky shows stars as they were years, even millennia, ago.
In 2015 we caught two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, wobbling spacetime by less than the width of a proton. Einstein predicted it a century earlier.
The Carrington Event made auroras glow over the tropics and shocked telegraph operators. A repeat today could cripple power grids and satellites worldwide.