The Weekend Wrap: NASA's Bold Swift Rescue, Cosmic Demolition Derby Unfolds
Weekend Space & Astronomy News Wrap | Saturday, June 27, 2026 It's our Saturday wrap — and what a week it's been for space and astronomy! Join Anna and Avery for two brand-new stories plus the four biggest headlines from the past five days. THIS WEEK'S STORIES 🚀 NASA's Daring Swift Rescue Mission Launches Today NASA's Swift Boost mission launched this morning, sending the LINK robotic servicing spacecraft to rescue the 22-year-old Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from orbital decay. Built in under a year by startup Katalyst Space Technologies, LINK will rendezvous with Swift, grab it with robotic arms, and boost it to a safer orbit — a historic first for commercial spacecraft servicing. 🌌 JWST Catches Six Galaxies Merging Into One of the Universe's Largest The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a 'cosmic demolition derby' — at least six galaxies in the process of merging, seen as they were 12 billion years ago. The system TGSSJ1530+1049 hosts hundreds of billions of solar masses of stars and a growing supermassive black hole, offering a rare front-row seat to galaxy and black hole formation happening simultaneously. ☄️ WEEKLY WRAP: Lucy's Peanut-Shaped Wobbling Asteroid NASA's Lucy mission has revealed that asteroid Donaldjohanson tumbles on two axes simultaneously — an unexpected discovery published in Science this week. Lucy also found evidence of ancient water interaction and traced the asteroid's violent origin to a collision 155 million years ago. A preview of what Lucy will reveal at Jupiter's Trojans. 🪨 WEEKLY WRAP: Asteroid 1997 NC1 Passes Earth Today A 1-kilometre-wide asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth today — at 1.5 million miles (about 7 times the Earth-Moon distance). Completely safe and well-tracked, it's a great telescope target for Southern Hemisphere observers this evening, drifting visibly against the background stars. 🌠 WEEKLY WRAP: Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS — Alien Chemistry Confirmed by JWST New JWST analysis confirms that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains methane — the first detection of methane on any interstellar object. The comet's chemical fingerprint is radically different from anything in our solar system, pointing to an extremely cold birthplace in another star system. These are our last close observations as 3I/ATLAS heads out of the solar system forever. 💫 WEEKLY WRAP: The Jellyfish Nebula's Hidden Sibling Astrophysicists have identified what appears to be the first-ever pair of sibling supernova remnants — the famous Jellyfish Nebula and a previously hidden companion concealed in its glare. The two remnants are connected by a filament of gas, suggesting they share a common stellar origin.
