Psyche was the Greek goddess of the soul, born a mere mortal and later married to Eros, the God of love. Who knows why the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis gave her name to a celestial object he observed one night in 1852?

Psyche was only the 16th "asteroid" ever discovered: inhabitants of the solar system that were neither the familiar planets nor the occasional visitors known as comets. Today we know the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter contains millions of space rocks, ranging in size from the dwarf planet Ceres down to tiny pebbles and grains of dust.

Among all these, Psyche is still special. With an average diameter of around 226km, the potato-shaped planetoid is the largest "M-type" asteroid, made largely of iron and nickel, much like Earth's core.

Last week NASA launched a spacecraft to rendezvous with Psyche. The mission will take a six-year, 3.6 billion kilometer journey to gather clues that Earth scientists like me will interrogate for information about the inaccessible interior of our own world.

If life exists elsewhere in the solar system, it may well reside in the ocean of Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

The mysterious world appears to have the necessary ingredients for life as we know it. Beneath its frozen exterior is a single body of water that's so deep it may hold more liquid than all of the oceans on Earth. Europa is believed to have enough carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and other key elements to form the building blocks of living organisms. And scientists suspect the heat generated as the moon is stretched and squeezed by Jupiter's gravity would provide enough energy to sustain any creatures that might be there.

That's why NASA is building Europa Clipper.

The spacecraft will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a year from now and reach its destination in 2030.

A small team of political scientists and astronomers at the University of British Columbia has conducted a study of the number of filings to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) by entities wishing to send satellites into low orbit and has found the numbers growing so fast that soon there will not be room for new satellite deployments. In their paper is published in the journal Science.

Satellites designed for use in communications systems must be put into low Earth orbit—most of them are used for internet services. But those wishing to deploy them must file for orbital space with the ITU, a United Nations entity that has been tasked with regulating Earth orbital space.

In recent years, large entities such as Starlink have filed for multiple orbital space slots in large bunches; such slots are used by multiple small satellites that together comprise a constellation. These are needed because the satellites are deployed in a geosynchronous orbit, which means multiple satellites are needed to create networks over large geographical areas, such as countries.

Prior research has shown that as more satellites are launched into low orbit, the belt around the planet becomes more crowded—eventually, there will no longer be room for any new satellites.

A SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday night marked the Space Coast's 57th launch of the year, equaling the record total seen in 2022.

A Falcon 9 with 22 of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites lifted off from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:36 p.m. This was the first-stage booster's 16th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.

For SpaceX it was its 53rd mission from either Canaveral or Kennedy Space Center this year while United Launch Alliance has flown three times and Relativity Space has flown once. SpaceX is the lone launch provider this year from KSC having flown 11 times while ULA, SpaceX and Relativity combined for 46 launches from Canaveral.

The majority of SpaceX launches have been for its growing Starlink constellation. This marks the 31st Starlink launch from the Space Coast.

But SpaceX has also flown all three U.S.-based crewed missions this year with Crew-6, Axiom 2 and Crew-7 all having launched from KSC. KSC has also hosted four of the Falcon Heavy launches including last week's Psyche launch, the first time NASA has used the powerhouse rocket.