Artemis II astronauts surpass Apollo distance record - Space News (Apr 3, 2026)

Let's start with the main event. NASA's Artemis II mission is officially underway. The crew launched on April 1st from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and as of yesterday, they completed their critical translunar injection burn. That's the maneuver that sent them on course toward the Moon. The four astronauts aboard—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency—are now traveling farther from Earth than any humans have since the Apollo era. By the time they reach their closest approach to the lunar surface on April 6th, they'll be setting a new record for human distance from our planet. This ten-day journey is testing whether NASA's Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket can safely carry humans on deep space missions. It's a crucial step before astronauts actually land on the Moon again.

Moving to some fascinating astronomy now. Researchers have made another startling discovery about how galaxies form. They've found a third ultra-diffuse galaxy that appears to be missing its dark matter entirely. The galaxy is called NGC 1052-DF9, and it joins two other similar galaxies in a mysterious trail. Dark matter is supposed to be the gravitational glue holding galaxies together, so finding galaxies without it shouldn't be possible. Yet here they are. Scientists believe this provides strong evidence for a radical theory called the 'Bullet Dwarf' collision scenario—essentially, that these galaxies were stripped of their dark matter through violent cosmic collisions. The discovery was published on April 2nd and represents a major validation of this collision theory that's been controversial for the past decade.

And finally, SpaceX continues its relentless pace of rocket launches. On April 2nd, they successfully launched another batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral, continuing their mission to blanket Earth with satellite internet. With multiple launches scheduled throughout April, SpaceX is maintaining its position as the most active space launch provider on the planet. These regular deployments are steadily expanding Starlink's global coverage, bringing connectivity to remote regions worldwide.