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An alert pops up in your email: The latest spacecraft observations are ready. You now have 24 hours to scour 84 hours-worth of data, selecting the most promising split-second moments you can find. The data points you choose, depending on how you rank them, will download from the spacecraft in the hi...

New observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the unexpected dimming of the supergiant star Betelgeuse was most likely caused by an immense amount of hot material ejected into space, forming a dust cloud that blocked starlight coming from Betelgeuse’s surface. Betelgeuse is an...

National Science Foundation awards proposal for space weather modeling. On a moonless night on August 28, 1859, the sky began to bleed. The phenomenon behind the northern lights had gone global: an aurora stretching luminous, rainbow fingers across time zones and continents illuminated the night sky...

The Expedition 63 crew continues preparing for Sunday’s scheduled space delivery of nearly 8,000 pounds of supplies and gear aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter. As usual, advanced space science rounded out the day’s activities inside the International Space Station. The crew also conti...

Imagine being able to look down at a storm from orbit in space, and provide data that lets scientists calculate the rate in which rain is falling throughout it. That is what a NASA satellite rainfall product does as it incorporates data from satellites and observations. NASA found very heavy rainfal...

Space technologies and satellite applications are poised to power green economic development in Europe in the coming years, creating jobs and boosting prosperity. ESA has several green initiatives to foster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic while promoting clean living and digital tran...

Scientists using an instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, spacecraft have discovered that water vapor near the surface of the Red Planet is lofted higher into the atmosphere than anyone expected was possible. There, it is easily destroyed by electrically charged ...

The observatory will map the entire sky to study the rapid expansion of the universe after the Big Bang, the composition of young planetary systems, and the history of galaxies. NASA’s upcoming space telescope, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and I...

An international team of scientists may be close to detecting faint ripples in space-time that fill the universe. Pairs of black holes billions of times more massive than the Sun may be circling one another, generating ripples in space itself. The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitation...

Cameras and sensors on the International Space Station have been helping scientists to characterize the natural light shows produced at the tops of thunderstorms. What is blue, witnessed by few human eyes, and zips across the sky in less than a second? The answer, “blue jet,” might sound like some k...

Roman Telescope will probe cosmic expansion to help solve the Hubble constant mystery. Discrepancies in the Hubble constant, which describes how fast the universe is expanding, have vexed astronomers for years. Values predicted from observations of the early universe simply don’t match up to measure...

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will use microlensing and transits to find thousands of planets, including distant and rogue worlds. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will create enormous cosmic panoramas, helping us answer questions about the evolution of our universe. Astronomers also...

Paraguay’s first satellite tracks disease, builds space skills, and connects students to cutting-edge global science through the BIRDS-4 program. On March 14, the Paraguayan Space Agency (AEP) deployed a satellite from the International Space Station to help track a tiny parasite that causes Chagas ...

Researchers have repurposed adaptive optics to track and redirect space junk, safeguarding satellites from potential collisions. Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have harnessed a technique that helps telescopes see objects in the night sky more clearly to fight against dangero...

University of Michigan researchers use Frontera supercomputer to improve space weather forecasting system, avoid worst effects of extreme events. “There are only two natural disasters that could impact the entire U.S.,” according to Gabor Toth, professor of Climate and Space Sciences and...

NASA data helps California growers adapt to drought and farm smarter. Every day – up to thirty times a day, in fact – one of Mark Mason’s employees at Nature’s Reward Farms in Monterey County, California brings him the results of a soil test for discussion. Mason supervises fertilizer and irri...

Iris, a new ESA–Inmarsat satellite system, will optimize European flight paths to cut fuel use and emissions. Air passengers will soon be able to cut their carbon footprint when traveling on flights that are routed using satellites. An agreement signed today between satellite company Inmarsat and th...

The Flame Nebula or NGC 2024 is a large star-forming region in the constellation Orion that lies about 1,400 light-years from Earth. Hubble studied this nebula to look for protoplanetary disks, or “proplyds” – disks of gas and dust around stars that may one day form new solar systems. Hubble found f...

We don’t yet know what the James Webb Space Telescope will uncover. Will we get answers? Will we have more questions? One thing’s certain: The story of us is a never-ending quest for knowledge. The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-me...

Interview with Oliver Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy about the James Webb Space Telescope. It will be the largest observatory ever stationed in space. On December 25, the six-and-a-half-ton James Webb Space Telescope set off on its mission from the European Kourou Cosmodrome in F...

From its unique vantage point above Earth, Hubble Space Telescope supports critical missions by observing distant galaxies, aiding planetary missions, and preparing for the James Webb Space Telescope’s deep space exploration. Far above rain clouds, light pollution, and atmospheric distortion, ...

Set to explore deep space, the James Webb Space Telescope will also assist in studying Venus-like exoplanets to predict Earth’s climatic future. The James Webb Space Telescope, the most complex and expensive space laboratory ever created, is less than two weeks away from its ultimate destination a m...

As the Webb telescope nears operational status, simulations are helping plan galaxy surveys. By using models of dark matter and galaxy formation, scientists are paving the way for Webb’s exploration of the earliest galaxies. As the Webb team continues to make progress in aligning the telescope, othe...

A mathematical analysis helps illuminate the puzzle over how information escapes from a black hole. A RIKEN physicist and two colleagues have found that a wormhole—a bridge connecting distant regions of the Universe—helps to shed light on the mystery of what happens to information about matter consu...

NASA researchers developed transgenic lettuce that produces a bone-stimulating hormone to help prevent bone loss in astronauts on long space missions. This could also aid those on Earth lacking access to osteoporosis treatments. NASA is preparing to send humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s. The 3-y...

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai eruption sent hurricane-speed winds to the ionosphere, reversing the equatorial electrojet. When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on January 15, 2022, it sent atmospheric shock waves, sonic booms, and tsunami waves around the world. Now, scientists are find...

Hubble Determines Mass of Black Hole Isolated Black Hole Supermassive black holes, such as Sagittarius A* — the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy — lie at the center of virtually all galaxies. However, a small stellar mass black hole, which is sometimes left behind when massive stars ...

Scientists found shaded lunar pits with stable temperatures around 63 °F, ideal for future lunar exploration. Scientists have discovered shaded locations within pits on the Moon that always hover around a comfortable 63 °F (about 17 °C). The NASA-funded researchers used data from NASA’s Lunar Reconn...