🚀 Space Pulse · 2026-06-24 22:01 UTC
SPACE PULSE
Wednesday, June 25, 2026 — 22:00 UTC Edition
⚡ TL;DR
ESA's Euclid telescope has delivered a sweeping new image of the Milky Way's crowded galactic bulge, revealing stellar structure at the galaxy's heart in unprecedented detail. [1]
A busy edition: geomagnetic activity is elevated tonight, Webb and Hubble dropped major galaxy results, and a dense wave of SKA-era science papers sets the research agenda. [2] [3] [4]
🚀 LAUNCHES
STARLINK GROUP 17-46 — SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 carrying 24 Starlink satellites is "Go for Launch" targeting July 2, 2026 at 02:00 UTC. [5]
STARLINK GROUP 10-50 — A second SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 mission, carrying 29 Starlink satellites, is "Go for Launch" and targeted for July 3, 2026 at 11:20 UTC. [6]
SOYUZ MS-29 — Roscosmos Soyuz 2.1a will fly cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina plus one additional astronaut to the ISS from Baikonur, currently To Be Confirmed for July 14, 2026 at 14:43 UTC. [7]
LOXSAT 1 — Rocket Lab Electron will carry Eta Space's LOXSAT 1 demonstration satellite, testing a cryogenic oxygen fluid management system on a Photon-LEO bus under NASA's Tipping Point program; targeted window opens July 17, 2026. [8]
🔭 DISCOVERIES
EUCLID IMAGES THE GALACTIC BULGE — ESA's Euclid space telescope has released a new image capturing the Milky Way's densely packed central bulge, showcasing millions of stars in the galaxy's heart. [1]
WEBB RESOLVES CIGAR GALAXY STARS — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has individually pinpointed millions of stars within Messier 82 (the Cigar Galaxy), located 12 million light-years away and undergoing intense starburst activity thought to be driven by gravitational interaction. [3]
HUBBLE CATCHES EARLY GALAXY REIONIZING ITS NEIGHBORHOOD — NASA's Hubble Space Telescope detected unexpected ultraviolet light from a galaxy that existed just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, suggesting the galaxy was actively transforming its surrounding intergalactic medium. [4]
CURIOSITY NAVIGATES TEXTURED TERRAIN — NASA's Curiosity rover (sols 4927-4933) drove toward a smooth surface patch identified in orbital imagery, as the science team mapped areas with contrasting surface textures in the region currently under exploration on Mars. [9]
ARTEMIS II MOON PHOTO — The Artemis II crew captured an image of a half-illuminated Moon on flight day 6, showing the stark terminator line dividing light and shadow across the lunar near side's rocky surface. [10]
🛰️ MISSIONS
ISS EXPEDITION 74 SPACEWALK PREP — Expedition 74 crew members reviewed robotics procedures and configured tools on Wednesday in ongoing preparations for an upcoming spacewalk focused on external robotic arm repair work.
ISS SPACEWALKERS NAMED — NASA has formally announced the two astronauts who will conduct next week's spacewalk to perform repair work on the ISS robotic arm system; CubeSat maintenance and crew eye checks also took place June 23.
CURIOSITY ROVER — Curiosity's science team is using orbital images to guide the rover toward a smooth-textured surface area of interest as part of its ongoing mineralogical survey on Mars, with Earth planning dated June 18, 2026.
JAXA H3 F9 / MICHIBIKI NO. 7 — JAXA rescheduled the launch of its QZS-7 quasi-zenith navigation satellite aboard H3 Launch Vehicle Flight No. 9 following an earlier postponement; revised date to be confirmed.
NASA CSDA COMMERCIAL DATA CONTRACTS — NASA's Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition program selected eight commercial satellite data providers under its On-Ramp 2 contract to supply Earth observation data supporting NASA science priorities.
NASA NAMES NEW CIO — Sean Gallagher has been permanently appointed as NASA's Chief Information Officer, having served in an acting capacity since January 2026, overseeing the agency's full IT portfolio.
WALLOPS SOUNDING ROCKET — NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, is scheduled to support launch of a suborbital sounding rocket for the Department of War during a window from June 26 to July 2, 2026; the rocket may be visible from the Chesapeake Bay region.
☀️ SPACE WEATHER
GEOMAGNETIC K-INDEX 4 ALERT — NOAA SWPC issued a K-index of 4 (minor storm threshold, G1-level) warning today, with onset confirmed at 17:46 UTC June 24; the warning is valid through June 25, 2026 at 23:59 UTC.
ELEVATED RADIATION BELT ELECTRONS — A continued NOAA ALTEF3 alert remains in effect: 2 MeV electron integral flux has exceeded 1,000 pfu since June 13, 2026, with a daily maximum of 1,489 pfu recorded as of June 16 — a multi-day elevated radiation belt electron event affecting satellites in high-Earth orbit.
📄 RESEARCH
BARNARD'S STAR FOUR-PLANET SYSTEM CHARACTERIZED — Researchers modeled the composition and stability of the four recently-confirmed sub-Earth planets orbiting Barnard's Star (1.8 pc away, the nearest single star to the Sun), finding the planets likely inherited rock-forming element ratios (Fe, Mg, Si) from the host star.
XRISM PROBES BLACK HOLE ECHO IN NGC 4151 — A new study using JAXA/NASA's XRISM X-ray telescope found reverberation (echo) signals in the narrow iron K-alpha emission line of Seyfert-1.5 galaxy NGC 4151, providing direct constraints on the geometry of material very close to the central black hole.
ACTINIDES DETECTED IN METAL-POOR STARS — Astronomers detected actinide elements (the heaviest r-process products) in carbon-enhanced metal-poor CEMP-rs stars, deepening the puzzle of how these objects acquired their unusual mixture of slow- and rapid-neutron-capture element signatures.
MARS SHALLOW SUBSURFACE HABITABILITY — A paper examined the "radiolytic habitable zone" hypothesis for Mars, arguing galactic cosmic rays penetrating the shallow subsurface could drive chemistry supporting life, with direct implications for the depth targets of ESA's ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover and China's Tianwen-3 mission.
DESI MEASURES PRIMORDIAL NON-GAUSSIANITY — Using DESI DR1 Luminous Red Galaxies and quasars, researchers report the first configuration-space two-point correlation function measurement of primordial non-Gaussianity (parameterized as fNL), applying novel imaging-systematics mitigation via simulation-based modeling.
LITTLE RED DOTS EXPLAINED VIA FIRE SIMULATIONS — Using FIRE cosmological simulations with 3D dust radiative transfer, a study tested whether ultra-compact early galaxies can reproduce the broad Balmer lines, Balmer breaks, and red continua of JWST's mysterious "Little Red Dot" sources, probing their uncertain formation origin.
HIP 41378 f LONG-PERIOD TRANSIT OBSERVED — Astronomers report a 2025 transit of HIP 41378 f, a giant exoplanet with a 542-day orbital period and large transit-timing variations, providing new constraints on the outer architecture of this multi-planet system and opportunities to search for exomoons.
📎 Sources
- ESA’s Euclid captures the Milky Way’s crowded heart — ESA Top News
- Space Weather Message Code: WARK04 — NOAA SWPC Alerts
- NASA’s Webb Pinpoints Millions of Stars Within Cigar Galaxy — NASA News Releases
- Hubble Details Early Galaxy Transforming Neighborhood — NASA News Releases
- Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-46 — Launch Library 2
- Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-50 — Launch Library 2
- Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-29 — Launch Library 2
- Electron | LOXSAT 1 — Launch Library 2
- Curiosity Blog, Sols 4927–4933: Let’s Drive to That Smooth Area — NASA Science
- Hanging in the Balance — NASA News Releases
Curated from official sources — NASA/ESA/JAXA/ESO/NOAA/arXiv/Launch Library. Informational only.
Serial 20260624-22-v11 · 2026-06-24 22:01 UTC