What to know about this weekend’s total eclipse blood moon,

A spectacular lunar event will take place this weekend, but it unfortunately won’t be visible from Canada.

Between Sept. 7 and Sept. 8, a blood moon total lunar eclipse will be underway during daytime hours in Canada. It will be best viewed from certain parts of China, Russia, India and Australia.

Dr. Ilana MacDonald is the public outreach, communications, and events strategist at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. She told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview Thursday that a lunar eclipse happens when the Earth’s shadow covers up the full moon.

“The Earth is going between the sun and the moon, and the Earth’s shadow is being cast onto the moon,” she said. “You gradually see the moon disappear … like a circular shadow going over the moon’s surface."

The phenomenon resembles a bite missing from the moon, which gradually gets smaller until only a little crescent is left.

“Then when the Earth’s shadow completely covers the moon … that’s when you have a total lunar eclipse,” MacDonald says.
Why is it called a Blood Moon?

The blood moon refers to the colour, which MacDonald said comes from sunlight refracting through the edges of the Earth’s atmosphere, scattering onto the moon’s surface.

“Because the Earth’s atmosphere scatters out blue light more than red light, then the surface of the moon tends to have this sort of reddish hue, which can range from a dark orange to a really dark reddish brown,” she says.

There’s a possibility of a lunar eclipse every six month, when tilts of the orbits of the earth and moon perfectly align with the sun.

MacDonald said a lunar eclipse isn’t always visible from the same location because sometimes it’s below the horizon when it’s happening, like this weekend in Canada.

The next lunar eclipse will be in March 2026, but MacDonald said that will be only visible in Northwestern Canada. The one after that will take place on Dec. 31, 2028.

#Lego reveals most expensive set ever .

Lego introduced its most expensive set this week, announcing the release of the Lego Ultimate Collection Series Star Wars Death Star. Priced at US$1,000, or C$1,299.99, the 9,000-plus piece set is Lego’s first-ever item to cost four figures.

The new Death Star set is an intricate piece that’s more than two feet tall and two feet wide. The set, which is not spherical like its earlier Death Star model, but instead is a vertical diorama set, has more than 15 rooms that depict many iconic scenes from the original Star Wars film, “A New Hope,” and “Return of the Jedi,” according to the company’s website.

The set also contains 38 mini figures, including Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, as well as Galen Erso from “Rogue One” and the Hot Tub Stormtrooper from the Lego Star Wars video games, the company said on its website.

Lego’s previous set that was its most expensive was the Star Wars Millennium Falcon, a 7,541-piece set which broke all records, costing US$800 eight years ago.

This set isn’t the first Death Star to be released by the company, although it is the largest model Lego has ever created. In the last 25 years, Lego has released several models of Star Wars sets in different sizes.

Lego’s World Map is the record holder for having the highest number of pieces, boasting 11,695 .

According to Fortune, roughly 15 per cent of Lego’s sets are marketed for adults.

“Lego bricks have won over adults, growing its $10 billion toy market foothold,” Fortune wrote.

The Lego UCS Star Wars Death Star will officially hit the market Oct. 4

#Spaceflight activates ‘dark genome’ in human cells, researcher says

#China’s Guangdong province lays out ambitious commercial space objectives

MANCHESTER, United Kingdom — Chinese commercial rocket company #Orienspace has raised tens of millions of dollars in Series B+ financing as it moves towards a key test flight. #spacenews

#Spacedust from asteroid Bennu provides glimpse into celestial past. MONTREAL — #New research on a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu — a small portion of which should arrive in Canada soon — is offering a glimpse into how it came to be.

Studies published in Nature Astronomy and Nature Geoscience last week offer some insight into the granules that were collected and brought to Earth in September 2023 as part of NASA-led OSIRIS-REx mission.

The three studies, which include Canadian scholars, found that Bennu is a near-Earth asteroid, but its composition suggests the parent asteroid it split from contains materials from throughout the solar system.

“What they’ve done is they’ve looked at the origin and the formation and evolution of the Bennu sample to understand its history,” said Dr. Patrick Hill, program scientist at the Canadian Space Agency.

The new research comes as Canada is preparing to receive its own portion for scientific research. Due to its contribution to the mission to retrieve the sample, the Canadian Space Agency will get a cut of the celestial bounty, but no earlier than 2026.

“The CSA is building its capacity to curate its first sample collected in space,” Hill said. Construction of a clean room south of Montreal began in January 2025. The sample would arrive in a carefully co-ordinated transfer with NASA, Hill said.

When it does, it would make Canada the fifth country in the world to curate samples that have been collected in space.

Canada’s will host about four per cent of the total 122 grams of dust and pebbles — just under five grams.

“This area is quite niche because of the astral materials and there’s a lot of requirements that we have to make sure are implemented to ensure that we are not contaminating the sample,” Hill said, which means protecting it from water, organic molecules or plastics.

“The goal of these missions is not to modify the material while it’s here on Earth,” Hill said.

The NASA-led mission launched OSIRIS-REx into space in 2016 to collect from the surface of an asteroid material that scientists hope will offer them insight into the formation of the solar system.

The spacecraft began orbiting the asteroid — called Bennu — in 2018 and grabbed a sample in 2020.

It began a return to Earth in 2021, and a capsule with the rocks and space dust landed in the Utah desert finally arriving in September 2023.

Canada’s contribution to the mission was a laster altimeter tool, known as OLA, which measures altitude and distance. As a result, Bennu was heavily surveyed, with billions of measurements of the asteroid over two years.

The tool helped pinpoint the best place to get a sample, with the craft landing briefly to collect the material.

The most recent studies found that Bennu was formed from a larger parent asteroid destroyed by a collision in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. That parent asteroid formed in the outer solar system with material from a variety of locations including beyond our own solar system.

It was formed from dust from our solar system and organic matter from interstellar space. The analysis of the sample thus far have shown the presence of stardust grains that have compositions that predate the solar system, Hill said.

“We have a lot of meteorites that provide a lot of information about this sort of area of research, but these missions are great because you go and get the sample and you bring it back,” Hill said.

“So it’s not altered by travelling through the atmosphere and modification on the Earth’s surface, so it allows us to really look at the pristine material in detail.”

Another study found that the asteroid was dramatically transformed over time by interactions with water and exposure to the harsh space environment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2025.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press

#BEIJING, August 26. During a recent working visit to China from August 21 to 26, Science and Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov shared Russia’s aspirations for enhanced scientific collaboration, highlighting the potential for a Chinese experimental station at the Siberian Ring Photon Source (SKIF Collective Use Center). Speaking to TASS, Falkov emphasized the mutual benefits of such partnerships, noting that they enrich the scientific capabilities of both nations.

"We recognize and support the keen interest of our Chinese partners in collaborating on Russia’s megascience infrastructure," Falkov stated. "Such cooperation not only advances our scientific objectives but also fosters shared progress. We anticipate that a Chinese experimental station could be integrated into the SKIF Collective Use Center, which is currently under construction in Koltsovo. Additionally, we have extended invitations for our partners to participate in the International Center for Neutron Research, based on the PIK high-flux reactor in the Leningrad Region, as well as in initiatives to develop a network of modern synchrotron radiation sources, overseen by the Kurchatov Institute National Research Center."

Falkov underscored the importance of expanding China’s role in building international scientific information repositories. "In today’s landscape of scientific discovery, the volume and integration of data directly influence our ability to make new breakthroughs. Enhancing China’s participation in these data-sharing efforts is therefore highly promising."

He also stressed the necessity of coordinated international efforts in big science projects. "Large-scale collaborations are vital for advancing global scientific frontiers. During our visit, we toured several Chinese megascience facilities, including the EAST tokamak. The dedication of Chinese partners to developing cutting-edge scientific technologies, especially in controlled thermonuclear fusion, is truly commendable. The Chinese fusion program received a significant boost when the Kurchatov Institute transferred the Tokamak T-7 facility to China. Today, China stands at the forefront of this field, and I am confident that continued joint efforts will benefit not only our nations but humanity as a whole."

Recalling recent developments, Falkov highlighted a quadripartite protocol signed in May 2023 between Russian and Chinese authorities, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. "This agreement outlines priority areas such as joint experiments in heavy ion physics, neutron research, and theoretical physics, alongside work on medical accelerators within the BESIII and JUNO projects, as well as research utilizing the NICA collider in Dubna. Importantly, these agreements are already yielding tangible results - eight scientific projects have been selected and are underway.".

#SpaceX’s Starship megarocket launches on latest test flight

SpaceX postpones Starship test flight over ground system issue.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Sunday called off the launch of Starship’s tenth mission from Texas over an issue at its launch site, delaying an attempt to achieve several long-sought development milestones missed due to past tests ending in early failures.

The 232-foot(70.7-metre)-tall Super Heavy booster and its 171-foot(52-metre)-tall Starship upper half sat stacked on a launch mount at SpaceX’s Starbase rocket facilities as it was being filled with propellant ahead of a liftoff time of 7:35 p.m. ET (2335 GMT).

But roughly 30 minutes from liftoff, SpaceX said on X it was “standing down from today’s tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems.”

Musk had been poised to provide an update on Starship’s development progress prior to the rocket’s launch on Sunday, but a placeholder live stream indicated it had been canceled.

SpaceX did not say when it would make another launch attempt. Similar scrubs in the past have been resolved in a matter of days.

Development of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket, the center of the company’s powerful launch business future and Musk’s Mars ambitions, has faced repeated hiccups this year as NASA hopes to use the rocket as soon as 2027 for its first crewed moon landing since the Apollo program.

This year, two Starship testing failures early in flight, another failure in space on its ninth flight, and a massive test stand explosion in June that sent debris flying into nearby Mexican territory have tested SpaceX’s test-to-failure development approach. Still, the company has continued to swiftly produce new Starships for test flights at its sprawling Starbase production facilities.

Those setbacks underscore the technical complexities of Starship’s latest iteration, packed with far more capabilities such as increased thrust, a potentially more resilient heat shield and stronger steering flaps crucial to nailing its atmospheric reentry - key traits for Starship’s rapid reusability that Musk has long pushed for.

The stacked system had been expected to blast off from Texas around sunset on Sunday before its Starship upper stage separated from the Super Heavy booster dozens of miles in altitude. Super Heavy, which has returned for a landing at its launch pad in giant mechanical arms in past tests, would have instead targeted the Gulf of Mexico for a soft water landing in order to test a backup engine configuration.

Starship was to briefly ignite its own engines to blast further into space, where it would have attempted to release its first batch of mock Starlink satellites and reignite an engine while on a suborbital path around the planet.

After that phase, the ship targets an atmospheric reentry over the Indian Ocean, a crucial flight phase that tests a variety of prototypical heat shield tiles and engine flaps designed to endure a barrage of blazing heat that has largely shredded the rocket’s exterior during past flights.

“Starship’s reentry profile is designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the upper stage’s rear flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure,” SpaceX said on its website.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Richard Chang, Diane Craft and Sandra Maler)

An ‘existential gamble’: Why some experts are worried as SpaceX gears up for next Starship test.

The most powerful rocket system ever constructed is headed for its next test — using a version of the vehicle that has been at the center of a series of explosive missteps and failures.

SpaceX said it is aiming to launch its Starship megarocket on an hour-long test flight as soon as 7:30 p.m. ET Sunday, though the liftoff time is subject to change. A webcast of the event is expected to begin about 30 minutes earlier, according to the company.

The uncrewed Starship prototype will follow a similar flight plan to the last three missions and aim to complete test objectives left untried during those tests, all of which ended prematurely. SpaceX debuted the current generation of Starship vehicles in January, following a clean run of test missions with a slightly scaled-down version of the rocket in 2024.

But since that debut, the vehicle has twice exploded over populated islands east of Florida, creating debris that hit roadways in Turks and Caicos and washed up onto the shores of Bahamian islands. The spacecraft also spun out of control as it headed toward its landing site in the Indian Ocean on its last test flight in May.

Then, in June, a Starship spacecraft that had been strapped to an engine testing stand at the company’s launch and development facilities in South Texas abruptly exploded — spewing shrapnel and causing damage to SpaceX infrastructure.

These setbacks roused long-standing SpaceX critics and attracted new ones, including the Mexican government, which has threatened legal action against the company over reported debris on and around its shores. The UK government also said in a statement Thursday that it’s been “working closely with U.S. Government partners to protect the safety” of its overseas territories, including Turks and Caicos.

The string of mishaps this year has also raised concerns among spaceflight experts and stakeholders who have emphasized that the United States has a lot riding on Starship’s eventual success, including its plans to return humans to the moon as soon as 2027.

And that success is not guaranteed.

“It’s very, very difficult to predict how this is going to end up,” said Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut and SpaceX consultant who is a professor of astronautical engineering at the University of Southern California.

“I think it could end up never working, or it could end up revolutionizing our entire future of activities in space — and geopolitics,” he added, referring to the U.S. goal of displaying technical superiority to China in a new space race.
Why SpaceX is allowed to fly again

SpaceX said it implemented changes to the Starship system slated to fly this weekend in response to the last in-flight failure in May.

Those alterations include adjustments to a component called a fuel diffuser, which the company believes malfunctioned during the last flight, causing higher-than-expected pressure to build up in Starship’s nose cone. It is likely what caused the vehicle to spiral out of control, according to a technical overview SpaceX published last week.

Despite the series of recent problems, the Federal Aviation Administration — which licenses commercial rocket launches — said last week it had closed its investigation into SpaceX’s latest mishap and approved the company’s plans to fly Sunday’s mission.

Under current laws and regulations, the FAA is tasked solely with ensuring that commercial rocket companies do not pose a risk to public property or bystanders’ safety.

“There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property. The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation,” the agency said in an August 15 statement. “SpaceX identified corrective actions to prevent a reoccurrence of the event.”

A long road ahead

In its update, SpaceX also made clear that the version of Starship that has experienced so many issues will soon be retired.

“Two flights remain with the current generation, each with test objectives designed to expand the envelope on vehicle capabilities,” according to a company blog post.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has already been teasing plans for larger, more ambitious iterations of the vehicle that would stretch even taller and carry more propellant.

Now it appears clear that SpaceX will pursue that scaled-up version of Starship — which is already more than twice as powerful as the NASA rockets that powered the Apollo moon landings — whether or not the current line of Starship prototypes ever pulls off a successful test flight.

“It’s very possible that a bigger upgrade might solve the current problem,” Reisman said. “It also could introduce new problems — you never know.”

Notably, the U.S. government has taken several steps that could aide SpaceX in its efforts to expedite Starship testing.

In May, the FAA approved the company’s plans to launch Starship as many as 25 times per year from Texas, up from the five it had been previously authorized to conduct.

And earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump — despite a public and vitriolic falling out with Musk in June — issued an executive order that appears designed to scale back roadblocks and regulatory oversight for private-sector rocket operations, including environmental reviews.

Meanwhile, the stakes appear to be growing with each Starship test flight, as SpaceX is racing against the clock.

Not only does Musk want to send one of the vehicles on an uncrewed flight to Mars when the next opportunity arises in 2026, but NASA also plans to send its astronauts to the lunar surface aboard one of the vehicles as soon as mid-2027 as part of a $2.9 billion contract.

“We made this bet” on Starship, said Janet Petro, who served as acting NASA administrator until July. “They have had a rough year, but SpaceX is a pretty intense and motivated company.”

Petro added she had “full confidence” that SpaceX will refine Starship’s design and get the vehicle working.

Reisman, the former SpaceX adviser, said he is also hopeful but less certain.

“SpaceX has made an existential gamble on Starship,” Reisman said, adding that he is concerned about the rate of progress SpaceX has been making with Starship. “They’re pouring a tremendous amount of money and resources into its development … but at some point, the laws of financial physics still apply.”
What SpaceX hopes to achieve with Flight 10

If all goes according to plan with Starship’s next flight, referred to as Flight 10, the 400-foot-tall Starship launch system will take off from SpaceX’s facilities in South Texas and soar out over the waters off the coast.

The bottom portion of the rocket system that gives the initial burst of power at liftoff, called Super Heavy, will attempt to make a controlled splashdown off the Texas coast, according to SpaceX.

For this mission, the company will not attempt to repeat its dramatic Super Heavy “chopsticks” landing in which the rocket booster steers itself back into the arms of the tower from which it launched. SpaceX said it will instead put the booster through a series of tests designed to push the vehicle to its limits “to gather real-world performance data” that could mimic a future mission that does not go as planned.

Meanwhile, the upper Starship spacecraft, which is designed to one day carry cargo or convoys of astronauts but will haul only dummy satellites for this mission, will continue flying through space.

During the flight, Starship will attempt to deploy the eight satellite “simulators” as well as relight one of the spacecraft’s rocket engines in space. SpaceX has failed to hit both of those milestones in its last three test missions.

Even if this V2 Starship prototype meets a similarly ill fate, SpaceX is likely once again to frame the test flight as a success.

The company employs an engineering philosophy called “rapid iterative development,” which emphasizes a pursuit of launching relatively cheap prototypes on frequent test missions over extensive ground testing or other less risky simulations.

Because of its unique development approach, SpaceX has been known to embrace fiery mishaps. The company has said that even failed test flights help engineers improve Starship’s design — quicker than if SpaceX employed alternative engineering approaches.

“Every lesson learned, through both flight and ground testing, continues to feed directly into designs for the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX’s August 15 statement reads. “Two flights remain with the current generation, each with test objectives designed to expand the envelope on vehicle capabilities as we iterate towards fully and rapidly reusable, reliable rockets.”

SpaceX’s development approach, while often seen as risky and brazen, has served the company well in the past.

Rarely has one of the company’s rockets malfunctioned once it leaves the development stage and becomes operational. The company’s human spaceflight track record, using Falcon 9 rockets, has been spotless.

And if Starship does eventually work, Reisman said, it won’t only be SpaceX — or even NASA — that benefits.

“The entire space industry is hoping and betting on Starship working, because if it achieves its promise, it’ll also be a revolution in affordability,” Reisman said. “I think there’s causes for optimism and pessimism — and I think it’s very, very difficult to predict how this is going to end up.”

By Jackie Wattles, CNN