1. A picture of Mars taken from 8 million miles away is the first recorded photo of the Red Planet by a Cubesat. The Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory released the photo on Monday that was captured by one of two twin CubeSats on Oct. 2. A wide angle camera atop the MarCO-B, which is the size of a brief-case, was launched in May as a part of NASA's Mars InSight mission and have traveled approximately 248 million miles so far. "Finally seeing the planet is definitely a big win for the team," Cody Colley, mission manager said. -- CNET

2. If federal financing to the International Space Station ended, would space real estate really become a capitalistic free-for-all? Assuming the answer is yes, the New York Times details what a future space station could look like with the Olympus model -- a compartmentalized habitat that can be stored in a rocket and inflated in space. "While Axiom, Bigelow and NanoRacks aim to one day replace the International Space Station, in the short run all three companies hope to become a bigger part of the current station," according to the news report. -- NEWYORKTIMES

3. A Southwest Research Institute scientist has discovered a new way to measure the thermodynamics of solar flares. According to Dr. George Livadiotis, Maxwellian distribution -- the predictable ratio of heat transferred into gas particles -- does not hold true in space as it does on Earth. "The Kappa equation calculates the distribution of particle velocities at thermal equilibrium when streams of fast-moving particles are moving en masse. That is the typical situation for particle systems such as space plasmas," he said. -- PHYS.org

1. What China and Russia hears and sees in space is a greater threat than the missiles they are developing. Senior Intelligence Engineer Jeffrey Gossel told officials on Capitol Hill that U.S. adversaries's space infrastructure programs pose a real threat to U.S. satellite systems. "The order of battle for space is greatly increasing, it has tremendously increased over the last decade," Gossel said of secret sensors that could be observing U.S. military actions from space. "That's what's important. We want to keep them from having that data." -- SPACE.com

2. NASA's OSIRIS-REx drops its speed in its second Asteroid Approach Maneuver (AAM-2). Since the AAM-1 on Oct. 1, the asteroid-seeking spacecraft will once again attempt to collect data this week from the B-type asteroid Bennu, which orbits the sun every 436 days and is potentially heading toward Earth. The OSIRIS-REx dropped its speed from 7,580 to 280 miles per day in the second maneuver and will do the same during the AAM-3 on Oct. 29 and AAM-4 on Nov. 12. By the beginning of December, the spacecraft will adjust its trajectory and perform flybys 12 miles from Bennu. -- SPACEDAILY

4. A NASA historic property audit confirms the space agency has misplaced a significant amount of material in the last six decades. Heritage assets -- real and personal space agency property -- help the space agency further study space exploration. But it can't when it's gone. "Past efforts to recover historic personal property have been thwarted by NASA’s poor record keeping and a lack of established processes for timely coordination of recovery efforts," according to the audit that details the loss of three Apollo 11 command module hand controls, 128 pieces of artwork and a lunar test rover. -- OIG.NASA.GOV

5. SpaceX has announced its launch schedule for the remainder of what will be a record-breaking 2018 for the company. SpaceX will perform five more launches before the new year, bringing its total to 22 for the year, besting the previous high of 18. Three launches are set for November, including one to bring much needed cargo to the International Space Station. Cargo includes a Qatari satellite on Nov. 14, followed five days later by a series of 70 payloads in one trip, which will be the first time a Falcon 9 booster has flown three times. -- NASASPACEFLIGHT.com

6. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope gyroscope that failed Oct. 5 will be awakened soon from sleep mode if successful operation system tests continue. The rotation rates of the gyro -- the device that controls the Hubble's ability to point -- has returned to normal, according to a Hubble update.  

7. Pulsar discoverer Jocelyn Bell Burnell will discuss her 1967 award-winning find live on Thursday. The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario will share Burnell's talk with the rest of the world, giving everyone a chance to hear about her remarkable discovery of pulsars. A pulsar is a magnetized neutron star or white dwarf that emits electromagnetic radiation.. 

8. BepiColombo has returned its first images from space on its mission to investigate Mercury. The satellite sent a space selfie with the vastness of space in the background. 

9. Hong Kong and China are coming together to search for dark matter clusters 300 million light years away. Using technology inspired by the reflective structure of a lobster eye, the two countries believe they can find dark matter while searching for solar winds and observing comets. 

10. NASA tests the Space Launch System's Orion splashdown exercises for the first time since 2011. Rafting equipment and beacon systems were some of the tests completed to prepare for the 2020 mission of a powerful NASA rocket that is still under construction.   

3. A prior Blue Origin rocket propulsion engineer and ex-Space X employee have created a company that is advancing 3-D printers to build complex rocket parts. Relativity Space co-founder Tim Ellis is using laser sintering to manufacture rocket equipment far faster than any man can. "They're only printing parts here and there and cannibalizing launch systems from the bottom-up," Ellis said of spaceflight companies manufacturing spaceships. "The problem with that approach is that there are close to 100,000 parts in a rocket." -- BUSINESSINSIDER

4. The European Space Agency's Gaia Mission confirms a near collision between the Milky Way and the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. "I was a bit shocked and I thought there could be a problem with the data because the shapes are so clear," Teresa Antoja, lead researcher, said of the near miss with the dwarf galaxy that occurred between 300 to 900 million years ago. The Gaia mission, which began in 2013, could not confirm the near-collision until recently due to the lack of technology, she said. -- EARTHSKY

6. MIT scientists at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science break down how Earth's temperature heats up and cools down space by water vapor feedback. “It means we’re still good for now, but if the Earth becomes much hotter, then we could be in for a nonlinear world, where stuff could get much more complicated,” Daniel Koll, co-author of the study, said. 

7. NASA is celebrating 10 years of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope by naming some of the constellations it has found. Hulk, Godzilla and TARDIS are names of just three of the 21 unofficial constellations, invisible to the naked eye.

8. A group of Chilean astronomers have detected the largest galaxy cluster ever recorded by scientists. Hyperion -- named after a Greek mythology titan -- is reported to have a mass "one million billion" times of the sun.  

9. A central California walnut farmer finds a huge piece of space debris in his orchard. “We were a little reluctant at the beginning to issue a press release saying that it actually came from outer space, for fear it could have been a hoax,” Mark Bevins, with the Kings County Sheriff, said. The Hanford law enforcement officers admit it was the most exciting case they ever solved.  

10. America must stay ahead of other countries by building the Space Launch System, according to officials. With so many countries vying to be the best in space, America needs to be the maker of the most powerful rocket to date.  

1. NASA's HAZMAT program spotted a superflare that suggests any survival of alien life in its atmosphere is bleak.  J02365 -- a red dwarf star 130 light-years from Earth -- has emitted a superflare stronger than any recorded flare from the sun. The sighting of the outburst called "Hazflare" is consistent with the theory that planets orbiting red dwarf stars are not inhabitable, making the region less attractive for alien real estate. "I sat looking at my computer screen for quite some time just thinking, 'Whoa,'" Parke Loyd, lead study author, said. -- SPACE.com

3. A gaming titan has already been to space despite all the hype that billionaires are the first ones to make possible private passenger trips into orbit. In 2008, Space Adventures founder Richard Garriott spent 12 days in space for the cost of $30 million. Unlike SpaceX's founder Elon Musk or Blue Origin creator Jeff Bezos, Garriott is now poor. "I literally spent the vast majority of my net worth in order to go into space," Garriott said. But from the sound of his Earth overview experience, it was worth every last penny. -- CNBC

4. NASA has issued an open call for instruments and technology for use in moon experiments. The "Lunar Surface Instrument and Technology Payloads” solicitation is looking for payloads that could be ready to fly by 2020. “On early missions, science instruments will likely gather data related to heat flow within the Moon’s interior, solar wind and atmosphere,” a NASA statement reads. Scientists have expressed concerns due to the lack of detail provided and whether the lunar lander -- still in development -- will be compatible with their experiments. -- SPACE NEWS

5. Dmitry Rogozin has accused Americans of sabotaging a Russian part of the International Space Station, but the U.S. will still welcome him into the country. The White House has lifted a temporary sanction on the head of the Russian space agency, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who informed the country Friday morning. “Whatever areas of disagreement the two countries have, we don’t want that to spill over into space,” Bridenstine said. The announcement comes after the Soyuz rocket failure last Thursday and emergency landing of a Russian cosmonaut and NASA astronaut. -- THEMOSCOWTIMES

6. Stephen Hawking's posthumously released book reveals his final thoughts on a variety of issues. Brief Answers to the Big Questions touches on alien life, the big bang, and the progress man will make in science over the next 50 years.

7. The 2018 International Space Apps Challenge kicked off this morning with over 200 events taking place across the globe. Huntsville, Ala., will serve as the Mainstage for the event, which seeks to find answers to problems in space and on Earth.

8. Time-lapse video shot from the International Space Station shows a beautiful aurora as it flies over Northern Canada. The video, just released, was shot in September by the Expedition 56 crew.

9. Boeing and ISS National Lab are assisting three projects aimed at cancer research in space with $500,000 in grants. Massachusetts-based Kernal Biologics development of immunotherapies is one of the three recipients in the charity campaign, which is in its fifth year.   

10. The Fisher Space Pen, the first to go where no pen has gone before, is celebrating 50 years in orbit. Fisher is offering a limited edition set commemorating the trip aboard Apollo 7.