The week on Astrometrik in one page: 9 new stories, 5 launches, 4 asteroids passing Earth and the best night to look up from New York.
This week’s news
From around the world
Space jellyfish over Florida: why the CRS-35 rocket plume glowed before sunriseWhen SpaceX launched NASA’s CRS-35 cargo mission to the ISS at 6:35 a.m. EDT on 13 October 2026, a giant glowing “jellyfish” spread across the dark sky. The launch came 47 minutes before sunrise: our…
October 14, 2026 · NASA · Space.com
Fireballs on doorbell cameras: why they look close and are hundreds of km awayOn 6 October 2026, at about 1:03 a.m. local time, a green fireball crossed Arizona; a doorbell camera near Scottsdale and a webcam in Dragoon caught it, and the American Meteor Society thinks the rock was…
October 13, 2026 · Space.com · NASA
Red “jellyfish” over Corsica: the sprites came from a storm 600 km awayOn the night of 16–17 September 2026 photographer Florian Riou caught giant red sprites above the village of Montemaggiore near Calvi, Corsica; his pictures went viral in October. Sprites are flashes 50–90 km…
October 12, 2026 · L’essentiel · NASA
Solar storm hits Earth: G3 northern lights reach England’s south coastA coronal mass ejection from the M6.7 solar flare of 8 October reached Earth at 14:34 UTC on 10 October, and NOAA reported a strong G3 geomagnetic storm (Kp 7) from 17:58 UTC. Northern lights were photographed…
October 11, 2026 · NOAA SWPC
First radio signal from an exoplanet: β Pictoris b’s aurora “sings”Astronomers using South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope have traced radio bursts to the giant exoplanet β Pictoris b, about 64 light-years away, rather than to its star – a first. The strongly polarised bursts at…
October 10, 2026 · arXiv (Ortiz Ceballos, Berger, Cendes)
The sky over New York
The Moon is a waxing crescent (23% lit). Full moon on October 26, 2026, new moon on November 9, 2026. Planets above the horizon around 21:00: Saturn (south-east, 34°).
Best night to look up: October 18, 2026. Tonight’s sky map for wherever you are →
Next meteor shower
The Orionid peak on the night of October 21, 2026: up to 20 meteors an hour under a dark sky, 7 days from now. Meteor shower calendar →
Launches
5 launches in the last 7 days, 5 of them reached orbit.
Coming up
- October 15, 2026 at 11:44 PM UTCUSSF-481 · Falcon 9 Block 5 · Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
- October 19, 2026 at 10:30 AM UTCBandwagon 5 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare) · Falcon 9 Block 5 · Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA
- October 19, 2026 at 7:41 PM UTCMartian Moons eXploration (MMX) · H3-24 · Tanegashima Space Center, Japan
- October 20, 2026 at 10:14 PM UTCStarlink Group 15-15 · Falcon 9 Block 5 · Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
Asteroids passing Earth
Space weather
Solar wind right now: 596 km/s. Space weather and aurora →
Events near you
No events are listed for the next three weeks yet. Observatories and clubs can add theirs for free.
About these numbers
Astrometrik measures these things itself, every hour, from NOAA, NASA, CelesTrak and Launch Library data. The sky map shows tonight from wherever you are, with visible ISS passes and the best observing nights; the launch board lists every rocket like an airport departure board; space weather tracks the solar wind and the aurora. This bulletin is the week, written down.
Sources
Launches: Launch Library 2 (The Space Devs). Asteroids: NASA/JPL via NeoWs. Space weather: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. ISS orbit: CelesTrak. Cloud forecast: MET Norway. Headlines: Spaceflight News API, each linked to its original publisher.