NASA(Page 2)

The latest on the US space agency's crafts, missions, and discoveries—from low-Earth orbit to deep space.

Latest in NASA

Silhouette of moon
Moons

There really are moon lava tunnels—and humans may live in them one day

By Andrew Paul

Starship test launch in 2021
NASA

SpaceX’s Starship may mess up the lunar surface

By Andrew Paul

NASA's Orion Capsule is drawn into the well deck of the USS Portland during recovery operations after it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, on December 11, 2022. - Orion was launched November 16 on the Artemis rocket for a 25-day mission to the Moon. The main goal of this mission was to test Orion's heat shield -- for the day when it is humans and not test mannequins riding inside. (Photo by Mario Tama / POOL / AFP) (Photo by MARIO TAMA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Science

How NASA and SpaceX get spacecraft safely back on Earth

By Marcos Fernandez Tous / The Conversation

International Space Station orbiting above Earth
International Space Station

NASA is paying SpaceX to destroy the International Space Station

By Andrew Paul

NASA astronaut and Expedition 71 Flight Engineer Tracy C. Dyson is pictured in her spacesuit prior to the start of a science and maintenance spacewalk that ended early after her suit experienced a water leak in the service and cooling umbilical unit.
International Space Station

NASA is having one rough summer

By Andrew Paul

Concept art of asteroid entering planet's atmosphere
NASA

What would we do if an asteroid slammed Earth on July 12, 2038?

By Andrew Paul

Artist concept art of Voyager 1
Deep Space

Voyager 1 defies the odds yet again and is back online

By Andrew Paul

NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg rides the Canadarm2 robotic arm while maneuvering a roll-out solar array toward the International Space Station's truss structure 257 miles above the Pacific Ocean. In the rear, is the SpaceX Dragon crew vehicle that docked to the Harmony module's forward port on March 3 carrying four SpaceX Crew-6 crew members.
Science

‘Check his pulse one more time’: NASA accidentally airs ISS emergency test

By Andrew Paul

Astronaut conducting spacewalk outside ISS
Science

NASA astronauts will scrape microorganisms off ISS during upcoming spacewalk

By Andrew Paul

Starship fourth liftoff
Science

SpaceX’s fourth Starship launches

By Andrew Paul

Boeing Starliner launch
Science

Boeing Starliner launches first crewed mission for NASA

By Andrew Paul

Image of June 3, 2024, solar flare
Science

Watch a wild ‘failed eruption’ solar flare

By Andrew Paul

Panels A, B, and C each show stereographic image pairs of the asteroid Dinkinesh taken by the L’LORRI Instrument aboard NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft. The images were taken in the minutes around closest approach on November 1, 2023. The yellow and rose dots indicate the trough and ridge features, respectively. These images have been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast. Panel D shows a side view of Dinkinesh and its satellite Selam taken a few minutes after closest approach.
NASA

The odd moon orbiting a ‘Dinky’ asteroid is actually two moons fused together

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression of ESA’s ExoMars rover, Rosalind Franklin.
Energy

Europe’s first Mars rover will use nuclear-powered heaters

By Andrew Paul

NASA and Boeing’s Starliner delays expose the challenges of space travel
Science

NASA and Boeing’s Starliner delays expose the challenges of space travel

By Briley Lewis

Concept art of lunar base with floating train path alongside astronauts
Engineering

Wild NASA proposal envisions magnetic hover trains on the moon

By Andrew Paul

a small asteroid orbits around a larger one
Science

‘Lucy’s baby’ asteroid is only about 2 to 3 million years old

By Laura Baisas

Artist rendering of exoplanet WASP-43b
Science

JWST measures ‘Hot Jupiter,’ a distant exoplanet hot enough to forge iron

By Andrew Paul

Image of sun highlighting four solar events
Science

Rare quadruple solar flare event captured by NASA

By Andrew Paul

ACS3 solar sail concept art above Earth
Science

NASA will unfurl a 860-square-foot solar sail from within a microwave-sized cube

By Andrew Paul

An artist’s concept of NASA’s Voyager 1 traveling through interstellar space–or the space between stars.
Science

Greetings, Earth! NASA can understand Voyager 1 again

By Laura Baisas

an artist's illustration of a lava lake on one of jupiter's moons. it is primarily black as the magma has cooled with orange lava encircling it
Science

Smooth lava lake on Jupiter’s moon sizzles in NASA aerial animations

By Laura Baisas

a galaxy that looks like an hourglass pinched at the center with a shining protostar
Science

Plunge into an immersive IMAX movie featuring the James Webb Space Telescope

By Laura Baisas

Moon surface
Science

NASA wants to measure moonquakes with laser-powered fiber optic cables

By Andrew Paul

Astronaut Andreas Mogensen aboard the ISS
Science

Let this astronaut show you around the International Space Station

By Andrew Paul

Toyota concept art for lunar RV
Science

Japan and NASA plan a historic lunar RV roadtrip together

By Andrew Paul

NASA Lunar Terrain Vehicle concept art
Science

It’s on! Three finalists will design a lunar rover for Artemis

By Andrew Paul

Buzz Aldrin on the moon next to American flag.
Science

NASA is designing a time zone just for the moon

By Andrew Paul

the ring of the sun during a solar eclipse
Science

How to photograph solar eclipse: The only guide you need

By Stan Horaczek

2017 Total Solar Eclipse timelapse
Science

How to photograph the eclipse, according to NASA

By Andrew Paul

Timelapse of total solar eclipse showcasing Baily's beads
Science

NASA needs your smartphone during April’s solar eclipse

By Andrew Paul

A circular asteroid with a smaller rock orbiting it. The asteroid Dimorphos was captured by NASA’s DART mission just two seconds before the spacecraft struck its surface on September 26, 2022.
Science

NASA’s asteroid blaster turned a space rock into an ‘oblong watermelon’

By Laura Baisas

NASA astronaut Scott Tingle is pictured during a 2018 spacewalk to swap out a degraded robotic hand on the Canadarm2.
Science

‘Space headaches’ could be a real pain for astronauts

By Laura Baisas

NASA astronaut training
Science

NASA’s astronaut applications are open again. Do you have what it takes?

By Andrew Paul

M74 aka the Phantom Galaxy shown in a combined optical/mid-infrared image, featuring data from both the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. It is one of the celestial objects featured
Science

Listen to three breathtaking NASA images

By Laura Baisas

Odie the lunar lander is not dead yet
Science

Odie the lunar lander is not dead yet

By Andrew Paul

Tiger walking across snow
Environment

NASA and Google Earth Engine team up with researchers to help save tigers

By Andrew Paul

Colorful cricket on green leaf
Science

NASA wants you to record crickets during April’s solar eclipse

By Andrew Paul

A combination of a Hubble Space Telescope image of SN 1987A and the compact argon source. The faint blue source in the center is the emission from the compact source detected with the James Webb Space Telescope. Outside this is the stellar debris, which contains most of the mass. The inner bright “string of pearls” is the gas from the outer layers of the star that was expelled about 20,000 years before the final explosion. The fast debris is now colliding with the ring, explaining the bright spots. Outside of the inner ring are two outer rings, presumably produced by the same process as forming the inner ring. The bright stars to the left and right of the inner ring are unrelated to the supernova.
Science

JWST detects evidence of a neutron star in fiery supernova remains

By Laura Baisas

Odysseus passes over the near side of the moon. The photo was taken while the spacecraft was orbiting the moon.
Science

‘Odie’ makes space history with successful moon landing

By Laura Baisas

Concept art of NASA Mars habitat
Science

How to apply for NASA’s next Mars habitat simulation

By Andrew Paul

A graphic rendering of an asteroid in space, with a close up on where water molecules are on the surface.
Science

Water molecules detected on the surface of an asteroid in space for the first time

By Laura Baisas

Surgeon using spaceMIRA remote surgery tool on ISS
Technology

First remote, zero-gravity surgery performed on the ISS from Earth (on rubber)

By Andrew Paul

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida a
Science

‘Odie’ is en route for its potentially historic moon landing

By Laura Baisas

Phobos creating partial solar eclipse on Mars, image taken by Perseverance rover
Science

A Martian solar eclipse turns the sun into a giant googly eye

By Andrew Paul

Galaxy AM 1054-325 has been distorted into an S-shape from a normal pancake-like spiral shape by the gravitational pull of a neighboring galaxy, seen in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. A consequence of this is that newborn clusters of stars form along a stretched-out tidal tail for thousands of light-years, resembling a string of pearls. They form when knots of gas gravitationally collapse to create about one million newborn stars per cluster.
Science

NASA’s Hubble space telescope reveals a galactic ‘string of pearls’

By Laura Baisas

NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite launches aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Fire and smoke are below the spacecraft as it lifts off from the launch pad.
Science

NASA’s PACE satellite takes off to monitor phytoplankton—from space

By Laura Baisas

The Ingenuity helicopter sits on the surface of Mars on February 4, 2024.
Science

NASA’s Perseverance Rover spots damaged, lonely Ingenuity helicopter in the ‘bland’ part of Mars

By Laura Baisas

Face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 628, is split diagonally in this image: The James Webb Space Telescope’s observations appear at top left, and the Hubble Space Telescope’s on bottom right. JWST’s observations combine near- and mid-infrared light and Hubble’s showcase visible light. Dust absorbs ultraviolet and visible light, and then re-emits it in the infrared. In JWST’s images, we see dust glowing in infrared light. In Hubble’s images, dark regions are where starlight is absorbed by dust.
Science

JWST images show off the swirling arms of 19 spiral galaxies

By Laura Baisas

The full moon rises, with clouds below and behind it.
Science

The moon is shrinking (very slowly)

By Laura Baisas

Ingenuity rotocopter on Mars
Science

RIP Mars Ingenuity, the ‘little helicopter that could’

By Andrew Paul

A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. The picture was taken using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about 0.4 inch in size.
Science

This is what’s inside NASA’s previously stuck asteroid sampler

By Laura Baisas

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter concept art above moon
Technology

NASA bounced a laser off a cookie-sized device on the moon

By Andrew Paul

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx curation engineer, Neftali Hernandez, attaches one of the tools developed to help remove two final fasteners that prohibited complete disassembly of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism head that holds the remainder of material collected from asteroid Bennu. Engineers on the team, based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, developed new tools that freed the fasteners on January 10.
Science

NASA finally pries open stuck Bennu asteroid sampler

By Laura Baisas

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft atop launches the agency’s Artemis I flight test on November 16, 2022. The Artemis I mission was the first integrated test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems.
Science

NASA delays two crewed Artemis moon missions

By Laura Baisas

NASA plans to unveil experimental X-59 supersonic jet on January 12
Technology

NASA plans to unveil experimental X-59 supersonic jet on January 12

By Andrew Paul

Smoke billows out of two engines as United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41d at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 8, 2024. The new rocket is carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander.
Science

Peregrine lunar lander experiences ‘critical loss of propellant’ following successful launch

By Laura Baisas

Rendering of Astrobotic Peregrin lunar lander on moon's surface
Science

NASA is headed for the moon next week, and it’s bringing lots of weird stuff

By Andrew Paul

A reddish moon on a black background, dotted with several gray marks that are volcanoes. Jupiter's moon Io is one of Jupiter’s several moons. This image was taken on December 30, 2023 during the Juno spacecraft’s flyby of this volcanic Jupiterian moon.
Science

See the most volcanic world in our solar system in new NASA images

By Laura Baisas

Black and white aerial shot of Mars Ingenuity helicopter in flight
Science

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter set a new flight distance record on Mars

By Andrew Paul

Screenshot of cat video sent from Psyche spacecraft to NASA
Technology

Taters the cat stars in first ‘ultra-HD’ video sent from deep space

By Andrew Paul

This image from the Near-Infrared Camera instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the star cluster IC 348. The wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material reflecting the light from the cluster’s stars. The bright star closest to the center of the frame is actually a pair of type B stars in a binary system, which are the most massive stars in the cluster. Winds from these stars may help sculpt the large loop seen on the right side of the field of view.
Science

Record-breaking ‘failed star’ spotted by JWST

By Laura Baisas

Artist art of Voyager space probe against purple cosmic background
Science

Voyager 1 is sending back bad data, but NASA is on it

By Andrew Paul

Apollo 16 lunar landing mission commander John W. Young leaps from the lunar surface as he salutes the United States flag. The flag is located at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity.
Science

Why scientists think it’s time to declare a new lunar epoch

By Laura Baisas