compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

Astronomers Find What Might Be the Most Distant Galaxy Yet The Jodrell Astronomers have been leapfrogging each other into the past lately. Last week, a group using the Hubble Space Telescope announced they had discovered what could be the most distant and earliest star ever seen, nicknamed Earendel, which twinkled 12.9 billion years ago…more

UK to build software brain for giant radio telescope A group of UK institutions is going to build a prototype “brain” to control the world’s biggest radio telescope. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will initially comprise 197 dishes and 130,000 antennas spread across South Africa and Australia…more

Winchcombe meteorite gets official classification The Winchcombe meteorite is now official. The rocky material that fell to Earth in a blazing fireball over the Cotswold town of Winchcombe in February has had its classification formally accepted. Details have just been published by the international Meteoritical Society in its bulletin database…more

Make Uranus mission your priority, Nasa told The US space agency Nasa should prioritise a mission to Uranus, an influential panel of scientists says. The “ice giant” is the seventh planet in our Solar System, orbiting the Sun 19 times further out than the Earth…more

NASA Will Move Its Moon Rocket Off Launchpad for Repairs NASA’s new big moon rocket is headed back to the garage for a few small repairs, possibly pushing back its maiden launch to late summer or later. That means NASA is giving up, for now, trying to complete what it calls a wet dress rehearsal for the rocket…more

Military Memo Deepens Possible Interstellar Meteor Mystery The U.S. Space Command seemed to confirm a claim that a meteor from outside the solar system had entered Earth’s atmosphere, but other scientists and NASA are still not convinced…more

Astronomers stand up to satellite mega-constellations Astronomy is finally putting up a co-ordinated front to defend its interests as thousands of satellites are placed in the sky. Huge networks of spacecraft are being launched that are making it harder to get a clear view of the cosmos…more

James Webb telescope’s MIRI instrument goes super-cold It is perhaps the very definition of cool. The Mid-Infrared Instrument on the James Webb Space telescope is now at its super-low operating temperature. The UK-assembled instrument has reached a decidedly chilly -267C, or just six degrees above “absolute zero”…more

Nasa scientists spy ‘largest comet ever seen’ A comet with a nucleus 50 times bigger than normal is barrelling towards Earth at 22,000 miles per hour. Nasa’s Hubble telescope has determined the comet’s icy nucleus has a mass of about 500 trillion tonnes and is 85 miles (137km) wide – larger than the US state of Rhode Island…more

E-ELT: Contract to construct giant telescope A contract has been signed that will lead to the construction of one of this century’s key astronomical facilities. The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will be the biggest optical and infrared observatory ever built, with a primary mirror nearly 40m across…more

Imagine Another World. Now Imagine 5,000 More NASA recently announced that it had detected more than 5,000 exoplanets, so we asked astronomers, actors and an astronaut to share their favorite worlds orbiting distant stars. In January 1992, a pair of astronomers reported a discovery that changed the course of scientific history: They found planets outside our solar system…more