Science & Technology — August 29, 2026

NASA's Roman Space Telescope launches Sunday. The $4.3 billion observatory, designed to capture Hubble-level detail across 100 times the sky, lifts off Sunday morning atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

Space.com · Read more →

Astronomers spot Betelgeuse's hidden companion. The clearest image yet of a long-suspected companion star orbiting the red supergiant Betelgeuse could end a century-long search.

Science Daily · Read more →

Coral record ties stronger El Niños to warming. A 1,000-year reconstruction of Pacific temperatures from Galápagos coral adds evidence that human-caused warming boosts El Niño events, as a potentially record-strength one builds in 2026.

Nature · Read more →

Judge strikes down Pentagon's Anthropic blacklist. A federal judge ruled the Pentagon's supply-chain-risk designation of the AI company was unlawful, arbitrary, and a First Amendment violation. Anthropic's second Pentagon lawsuit continues.

The ruling amounts to a decisive resolution of the blacklisting dispute itself, closing out one of two legal fights between the AI developer and the Defense Department while the separate case remains pending. According to Axios, the court rejected the government's designation on both procedural and constitutional grounds, finding it had violated the company's rights.

Axios · Read more →