Eclipses may be wondrous, but nothing beats seeing the northern and southern lights from space. That's the word from a pair of NASA astronauts living aboard the International Space Station for the past six months. Astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway told The Associated Press from orbit on Wednesday that the space station's position prevented them from seeing totality during last week's solar eclipse, but they still enjoyed a partial eclipse. They'll try to catch next week's lunar eclipse, too. Meir says the best cosmic shows are auroras. The two will return to Earth once their replacements arrive next month.

A telescope has spotted the fastest known star in the Milky Way. It's zipping around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Scientists say it harnesses the power of the black hole's gravity to fly faster without falling in. There are several hundred stars that closely orbit this black hole and are sensitive to its pull, but the newfound star also feels the effects of the black hole's rotation. Studying how it moves could help clue scientists into the black hole's mysterious properties, including its spin rate. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.