Image (Credit): Space shuttle Endeavour being carried by NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft as it arrives at the Los Angeles International Airport in California, on Friday, September21, 2012. (collectSPACE/Robert Z. Pearlman)
On this day in 2012, NASA’s Space Shuttle Endeavour arrived at the California Space Center after a 12-mile journey from the Los Angeles International Airport. Officially called the Space Transportation System (STS), the Endeavor was one of four fully-capable space shuttles operated by NASA (Space Shuttle Enterprise, the fifth space shuttle, was a prototype).
The first space shuttle to be delivered to NASA was the Columbia, delivered in 1979. Space Shuttle Endeavor was the last space shuttle to be delivered, arriving at NASA in 1991.
The space shuttles were the first orbital spacecraft designed for reuse. All of the shuttles had important mission from launching and maintaining satellites to transporting astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.
Here are a few more facts about Space Shuttle Endeavour:
Number of space missions: 25 from May 1992 to May 2011
Total miles traveled: 122,883,151
Total Time in space: 299 days
Key Mission: Repairing the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1993
Image (Credit): Space Shuttle Endeavour’s final mission patch. (California Science Center)
Image (Credit): Cast of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy in the series second season. (Paramount+)
“Season 1 is about letting go of who you were in the past to start again at Starfleet Academy…Season 2 is about thinking you knew who you were, only to realize that as you grow older that your life is going to go in directions you didn’t expect and you’re going to have to shift your perception of yourself.”
-Statement by Noga Landaux, co-showrunner ofthe television series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, during the 2026 New York Comic-Con Star Trek Universe panel. The second and last season returns in March 2027. It is not clear why it is taking so long for the second season to drop given that filming wrapped up back in February. Could it mean that it still has a chance to be picked up again for a third season, or is that just wishful thinking?
NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than Tuesday, Oct. 13 to launch scientific investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. Loaded with more than 6,300 pounds of supplies, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will lift off aboard the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Following its arrival to the orbital complex, Dragon will autonomously dock to the space-facing port of the space station’s Harmony module.
Scientists at NASA Glenn in Cleveland are rushing to meet a two-year deadline for launching a small nuclear reactor to power the next Mars mission — the first time the U.S. has launched a nuclear reactor into space in 60 years. The mission to send three mini-helicopters to Mars will use a new nuclear electric propulsion system. NASA Glenn is designing both the reactor and the propulsion system. NASA Glenn nuclear engineer Lindsay Kaldon feels confident both will be ready in time for a federally imposed deadline of 2028. “It’s accomplishable — if that’s a word,” Kaldon said. “It’s something we can do.”
Astronomers have discovered an unusual star system about 300 light-years from Earth where a small star is gradually consuming a nearby brown dwarf. Instead of swallowing its companion in one dramatic event, the star is steadily pulling material from it, creating a cosmic feeding process that could continue for billions of years…The system, designated ZTF J0440+2325, lies within our Milky Way galaxy approximately 300 light-years away. It is the first observed example of a low-mass star steadily drawing material from another low-mass object.
Volatile depletion in rocky planets relative to their host stars is commonplace in both the Solar System and exoplanetary systems, yet the connections between planet formation and composition remain elusive. Here we model devolatilization during pebble accretion in combination with collisional growth from volatile-depleted planetesimals to explore the formation pathways of Earth and Mars. Using Bayesian inference, we found that bulk silicate Earth is best reproduced by ≳75% contribution from two protoplanets formed via pebble accretion, supplemented by up to ~25% material from planetesimals that are compositionally akin to the asteroid Vesta. Using instead a planetesimal volatile-depletion curve that is not observed among known meteorite parent bodies would allow the planetesimal contribution to reach %. In comparison, bulk silicate Mars reflects 27 ± 5% pebble-accreted material and 73 ± 5% Vesta-like planetesimals. We identified volatile depletion as a chemical fingerprint of hybrid accretion, in which both pebble accretion and collisional assembly contribute to terrestrial planet growth. By quantitatively linking formation pathways to volatile budgets, our findings demonstrate how planetary accretion histories can be inferred from elemental signatures, with broad implications for interpreting the chemical diversity of rocky exoplanets.
Citation: Wang, H.S., Johansen, A., Xu, Z. et al. Volatile depletion in rocky planets as a chemical fingerprint of hybrid accretion. Nat Astron (2026).
Image (Credit): Zoomed-in crop of a broader panorama captured by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on August 11, 2026. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
With all the craziness in the world, it is worth taking a moment away from all of it to look at something different. NASA’s recently released image of a new morning on Mars, taken by the Curiosity rover at 8:30am local Mars time, is just what we need.
You can read more about this image here, once you have a moment to take it in and enjoy it.
Image (Credit): Full panorama shot captured by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on August 11, 2026. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
