New Scientist - Space

1. Asteroid 2024 YR4 will now almost certainly miss Earth in 2032
   New observations have dramatically reduced the chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in 2032, lowering the risk to minimal levels, but its extraordinarily close approach will offer astronomers the chance to examine it in detail
2. Gigantic star has gone through a rapid transformation and may explode
   A red supergiant star appears to have changed in just a few years – an astronomical blink of an eye – which suggests it may be getting ready to explode in a supernova
3. Jonathan McDowell is the archivist of world spaceflight knowledge
   For more than 40 years, Jonathan McDowell has tirelessly catalogued the space industry. But today, tracking commercial companies' space operations is more difficult than spy organisations.
4. Astronomers uncover the topsy-turvy atmosphere of a distant planet
   The gas giant WASP-121b, also known as Tylos, has an atmospheric structure unlike any we have ever seen, and the fastest winds on any planet
5. When did the first galaxies form? Earlier than we thought possible
   By looking ever further back in time, the James Webb Space Telescope is at last revealing the first galaxies – and a very strange young cosmos
6. Odds of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in 2032 have fallen again
   Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a small chance of hitting Earth in 2032, but as astronomers make more observations about its trajectory, the odds of a collision are being refined
7. When did time begin? Hint: It wasn’t at the big bang
   You may think that time started 13.8 billion years ago at the birth of the universe, but physicists with alternative definitions of time have other ideas
8. Meet the man who single-handedly tracks every spaceflight mission ever
   For more than 40 years, Jonathan McDowell has tirelessly catalogued the space industry. Now he is planning to retire, and looking to pass on his extensive collection of knowledge
9. Tiny dwarf galaxy might house a supermassive black hole
   Fast-moving stars zooming through our galaxy might have been slingshotted from a black hole inside the neighbouring Large Magellanic Cloud
10. Maybe NASA’s SLS should be cancelled – but not by Elon Musk
    Critics have been calling for NASA to cancel its extremely pricey Space Launch System rocket for ages, but now that it seems to be facing the axe from Elon Musk’s government efficiency task force, it may be time to think again