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 Is the Farthest Human Object Ever — and It Still Calls Home Daily
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.
74 hidden facts to explore
15 launches on the horizon
6 asteroids passing this week
Daily updates, with no humans involved
Right now in space
The Space Station LIVE
A football-field-sized lab, falling around Earth at 8 km every second.
- Speed
- —
- Altitude
- —
- Position
- —
Humans off Earth right now
12
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
Next rocket leaves in
–days
–hrs
–min
–sec
Closest space rock this week
2018 SP2
The cosmos right now
NASA Picture of the Day
Sh2-188: The Shrimp Nebula
What causes the swirl in the Shrimp Nebula? Its high speed is likely. What is sure is that Sh2-188 is one of the larger planetary nebulas on the night sky, by angular size, spanning about half the diameter of the Moon. Moreover, the white-dwarf core -- lefto…
Upcoming Rocket Launches
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Crew-13
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Transporter 18 (Dedicated SSO Rideshare)
Falcon Heavy | NROL-97
SR75 | Flight 2
Falcon 9 Block 5 | SDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer A
Nuri | NeonSat-2 to 6
Long March 12 | Unknown Payload
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-25
GSLV Mk II | IRNSS-1L (NVS-03)
H3-24 | Martian Moon eXplorer (MMX)
Ariane 64 Block 2 | Amazon Leo (LE-04)
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Bandwagon 5 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare)
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dragon CRS-2 SpX-35
Long March 12A | Flight 2
SSLV | AayulSAT-1A & others
Asteroids Passing Earth This Week
2018 SP2
2013 HO11
2007 UW1
2019 SW5
2014 QJ33
2010 TW54
Latest space news
ESA · today
Science begins for Smile
On 23 September, the European-Chinese Smile mission was declared ready to start revealing how Earth responds to the wind of charged particles from the Sun. This follows a busy in-s…
NASA · today
APOD: 2026 September 30 – Arp 78: Peculiar Galaxy in Aries
NASA · today
Powerful Storms Continue to Prowl the Pacific
NASASpaceflight · today
Launch Preview: Crew-13 to launch to ISS, Falcon Heavy to launch mission for the NRO
NASA · today
NASA Opens 2027 Human Lander Challenge for Lunar Communications
NASA · today
NASA Awards Orbital Safety Analysis Support Services Contract
NASA · today
NASA Features Exploration, Science at International Space Conference
Don't just read the universe — play with it
The Journey
Scroll from your rooftop to the edge of the observable universe. Every stop is real.
Begin the voyage →Live Orrery
The real solar system, computed from orbital mechanics. Scrub time and watch the maths.
Run the simulation →Daily Quiz
Five questions, one round a day, same for the whole planet. Build your streak.
Play today's round →How Big Is It?
Put Earth next to the Sun. Then next to a black hole. Watch your brain give up.
Compare anything →Speak Universe
Black hole, light-year, quasar — every space term, explained like a human.
Learn the language →More facts to fall into
We Can Now Hear the Universe — by Detecting Ripples in Spacetime Itself
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.
In 1859 a Solar Storm Set Telegraph Offices on Fire — the Next One Could Cost Trillions
The Carrington Event made auroras glow over the tropics and shocked telegraph operators. A repeat today could cripple power grids and satellites worldwide.