September 29, 2026

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed to survey the Milky Way in far greater depth than earlier missions. Its galaxy-wide surveys are meant to map stars and how they move across our home galaxy.

Webb's Picture of the Month shows galaxy cluster MACS J0454.1-0300, whose gravity warps and multiplies the galaxies behind it. The orange galaxies concentrated on one side are much farther away than the cluster, which is itself seen as it was when the universe was about 8 billion years old. No backyard telescope can show this gravitational lensing, but it explains why Webb keeps pointing at galaxy clusters.

A Cold War era U.S. surveillance satellite, USA 32, broke apart in low Earth orbit around 21:13 UTC on Sept. 13, the U.S. Space Force confirmed. The object, catalogued as 19460, was an electronic and signals intelligence satellite, and officials said all tracked debris is being added to routine collision screening with no immediate threats identified. For satellite watchers, it is a reminder that old hardware in orbit does not stay in one piece forever.

The Shrimp Nebula, Sh2-188, spans about half the diameter of the Moon, making it one of the larger planetary nebulas in the sky. Its white dwarf core is moving unusually fast, creating a bow shock like a boat plowing through water. The image was taken in hydrogen, sulfur and oxygen light with a backyard telescope in Krakow, Poland, so even a faint target like this is within reach of amateur gear.