NASA
NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim to Discuss Eight-Month Space Station Mission
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will recap his recent mission aboard the International Space Station during a news conference at 3:30 p.m. EST Friday, Dec. 19, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Watch the news conference live on NASA’s YouTube channel. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.
Media interested in participating in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.
Media wishing to participate by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than two hours before the start of the event. To ask questions by phone, media must dial into the news conference no later than 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
Kim returned to Earth on Dec. 9, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. He logged 245 days as an Expedition 72/73 flight engineer during his first spaceflight. The trio completed 3,920 orbits of the Earth over the course of their nearly 104-million-mile journey. They also saw the arrival of nine visiting spacecraft and the departure of six.
During his mission, Kim contributed to a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He studied the behavior of bioprinted tissues containing blood vessels in microgravity for an experiment helping advance space-based tissue production to treat patients on Earth. He also evaluated the remote command of multiple robots in space for the Surface Avatar study, which could support the development of robotic assistants for future exploration missions. Additionally, Kim worked on developing in-space manufacturing of DNA-mimicking nanomaterials, which could improve drug delivery technologies and support emerging therapeutics and regenerative medicine.
Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:
-end-
Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Shaneequa Vereen
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
shaneequa.y.vereen@nasa.gov
NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim to Discuss Eight-Month Space Station Mission
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will recap his recent mission aboard the International Space Station during a news conference at 3:30 p.m. EST Friday, Dec. 19, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Watch the news conference live on NASA’s YouTube channel. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.
Media interested in participating in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.
Media wishing to participate by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than two hours before the start of the event. To ask questions by phone, media must dial into the news conference no later than 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
Kim returned to Earth on Dec. 9, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. He logged 245 days as an Expedition 72/73 flight engineer during his first spaceflight. The trio completed 3,920 orbits of the Earth over the course of their nearly 104-million-mile journey. They also saw the arrival of nine visiting spacecraft and the departure of six.
During his mission, Kim contributed to a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He studied the behavior of bioprinted tissues containing blood vessels in microgravity for an experiment helping advance space-based tissue production to treat patients on Earth. He also evaluated the remote command of multiple robots in space for the Surface Avatar study, which could support the development of robotic assistants for future exploration missions. Additionally, Kim worked on developing in-space manufacturing of DNA-mimicking nanomaterials, which could improve drug delivery technologies and support emerging therapeutics and regenerative medicine.
Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:
-end-
Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Shaneequa Vereen
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
shaneequa.y.vereen@nasa.gov
NASA’s Webb, Curiosity Named in TIME’s Best Inventions Hall of Fame
Two icons of discovery, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Curiosity rover, have earned places in TIME’s “Best Inventions Hall of Fame,” which recognizes the 25 groundbreaking inventions of the past quarter century that have had the most global impact, since TIME began its annual Best Inventions list in 2000. The inventions are celebrated in TIME’s December print issue.
“NASA does the impossible every day, and it starts with the visionary science that propels humanity farther than ever before,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Congratulations to the teams who made the world’s great engineering feats, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Mars Curiosity Rover, a reality. Through their work, distant galaxies feel closer, and the red sands of Mars are more familiar, as they expanded and redefined the bounds of human achievement in the cosmos for the benefit of all.”
Decades in the making and operating a million miles from Earth, Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built, giving humanity breathtaking views of newborn stars, distant galaxies, and even planets orbiting other stars. The new technologies developed to enable Webb’s science goals – from optics to detectors to thermal control systems – now also touch Americans’ everyday lives, improving manufacturing for everything from high-end cameras and contact lenses to advanced semiconductors and inspections of aircraft engine components.
This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScIMeanwhile on Mars, the unstoppable Curiosity rover, NASA’s car-size science lab, has spent more than a decade uncovering clues that the Red Planet once could have supported life, transforming our understanding of our planetary neighbor. These NASA missions continue to make breakthroughs that have reshaped our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Curiosity has also paved the way for future astronauts: Its Radiation Assessment Detector has studied the Martian radiation environment for nearly 14 years, and its unforgettable landing by robotic jetpack allowed heavier spacecraft to touch down on the surface — a capability that will be needed to send cargo and humans to Mars.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used two different cameras to create this selfie in front of Mont Mercou, a rock outcrop that stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall. The panorama is made up of 60 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the rover’s robotic arm on March 26, 2021, the 3,070th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. These were combined with 11 images taken by the Mastcam on the mast, or “head,” of the rover on March 16, 2021, the 3,060th Martian day of the mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSTo compile this “Hall of Fame” list, TIME solicited nominations from TIME editors and correspondents around the world, paying special attention to high-impact fields, such as health care and technology. TIME then evaluated each contender on a number of key factors, including originality, continued efficacy, ambition, and impact.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The Curiosity rover was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
To learn more about NASA’s science missions, visit:
Share Details Last Updated Dec 12, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Explore NASA Science Activities
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Rover
Part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the time of launch, Curiosity was the largest and most capable rover…
Science Missions
NASA’s Webb, Curiosity Named in TIME’s Best Inventions Hall of Fame
Two icons of discovery, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Curiosity rover, have earned places in TIME’s “Best Inventions Hall of Fame,” which recognizes the 25 groundbreaking inventions of the past quarter century that have had the most global impact, since TIME began its annual Best Inventions list in 2000. The inventions are celebrated in TIME’s December print issue.
“NASA does the impossible every day, and it starts with the visionary science that propels humanity farther than ever before,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Congratulations to the teams who made the world’s great engineering feats, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Mars Curiosity Rover, a reality. Through their work, distant galaxies feel closer, and the red sands of Mars are more familiar, as they expanded and redefined the bounds of human achievement in the cosmos for the benefit of all.”
Decades in the making and operating a million miles from Earth, Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built, giving humanity breathtaking views of newborn stars, distant galaxies, and even planets orbiting other stars. The new technologies developed to enable Webb’s science goals – from optics to detectors to thermal control systems – now also touch Americans’ everyday lives, improving manufacturing for everything from high-end cameras and contact lenses to advanced semiconductors and inspections of aircraft engine components.
This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScIMeanwhile on Mars, the unstoppable Curiosity rover, NASA’s car-size science lab, has spent more than a decade uncovering clues that the Red Planet once could have supported life, transforming our understanding of our planetary neighbor. These NASA missions continue to make breakthroughs that have reshaped our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Curiosity has also paved the way for future astronauts: Its Radiation Assessment Detector has studied the Martian radiation environment for nearly 14 years, and its unforgettable landing by robotic jetpack allowed heavier spacecraft to touch down on the surface — a capability that will be needed to send cargo and humans to Mars.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used two different cameras to create this selfie in front of Mont Mercou, a rock outcrop that stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall. The panorama is made up of 60 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the rover’s robotic arm on March 26, 2021, the 3,070th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. These were combined with 11 images taken by the Mastcam on the mast, or “head,” of the rover on March 16, 2021, the 3,060th Martian day of the mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSTo compile this “Hall of Fame” list, TIME solicited nominations from TIME editors and correspondents around the world, paying special attention to high-impact fields, such as health care and technology. TIME then evaluated each contender on a number of key factors, including originality, continued efficacy, ambition, and impact.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The Curiosity rover was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
To learn more about NASA’s science missions, visit:
Share Details Last Updated Dec 12, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Explore NASA Science Activities
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Rover
Part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the time of launch, Curiosity was the largest and most capable rover…
Science Missions
The Calabash clash
A Rare Gourd
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an uncommon sight – the death of a low-mass star – in this image of the Calabash Nebula released on Feb. 3, 2017.
Here, we can see the star going through a rapid transformation from a red giant to a planetary nebula, during which it blows its outer layers of gas and dust out into the surrounding space. The recently ejected material is spat out in opposite directions with immense speed — the gas shown in yellow is moving close to a million kilometers an hour.
Astronomers rarely capture a star in this phase of its evolution because it occurs within the blink of an eye – in astronomical terms. Over the next thousand years the nebula is expected to evolve into a fully-fledged planetary nebula.
A Rare Gourd
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an uncommon sight – the death of a low-mass star – in this image of the Calabash Nebula released on Feb. 3, 2017.
Here, we can see the star going through a rapid transformation from a red giant to a planetary nebula, during which it blows its outer layers of gas and dust out into the surrounding space. The recently ejected material is spat out in opposite directions with immense speed — the gas shown in yellow is moving close to a million kilometers an hour.
Astronomers rarely capture a star in this phase of its evolution because it occurs within the blink of an eye – in astronomical terms. Over the next thousand years the nebula is expected to evolve into a fully-fledged planetary nebula.
NASA Announces Plan to Map Milky Way With Roman Space Telescope
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has released detailed plans for a major survey that will reveal our home galaxy, the Milky Way, in unprecedented detail. In one month of observations spread across two years, the survey will unveil tens of billions of stars and explore previously uncharted structures.
This video begins with a view of the Carina Nebula — a giant, relatively nearby star-forming region in the southern sky. Roman will view the entire nebula as well as its surroundings, including a 10,000 light-year-long swath of the spiral arm it resides in. The observation will offer an unparalleled opportunity to watch how stars grow, interact, and sculpt their environments, and it’s just one of many thousands of highlights astronomers are looking forward to from the Galactic Plane Survey NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
“The Galactic Plane Survey will revolutionize our understanding of the Milky Way,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’ll be able to explore the mysterious far side of our galaxy and its star-studded heart. Because of the survey’s breadth and depth, it will be a scientific mother lode.”
The Galactic Plane Survey is Roman’s first selected general astrophysics survey — one of many observation programs Roman will do in addition to its three core surveys and Coronagraph technology demonstration. At least 25% of Roman’s five-year primary mission is reserved for astronomers worldwide to propose more surveys beyond the core programs, fully leveraging Roman’s capabilities to conduct groundbreaking science. Roman is slated to launch by May 2027, but the team is on track for launch as early as fall 2026.
While ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) retired Gaia spacecraft mapped around 2 billion Milky Way stars in visible light, many parts of the galaxy remain hidden by dust. By surveying in infrared light, Roman will use powerful heat vision that can pierce this veil to see what lies beyond.
“It blows my mind that we will be able to see through the densest part of our galaxy and explore it properly for the first time,” said Rachel Street, a senior scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory in Santa Barbara, California, and a co-chair of the committee that selected the Galactic Plane Survey design.
This infographic describes the 29-day Galactic Plane Survey that will be conducted by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The survey’s main component will cover 691 square degrees — a region of sky as large as around 3,500 full moons — in 22.5 days. Roman will also view a smaller area — 19 square degrees, the area of 95 full moons — repeatedly for about 5.5 days total to capture things that change over time. The survey’s final component will image a smattering of even smaller areas, adding up to about 4 square degrees (the area of 20 full moons) and 31 total hours, with Roman’s full suite of filters and spectroscopic tools. The survey will reveal our home galaxy in unprecedented detail including many in regions we’ve never been able to see before because they’re blocked by dust, unveiling tens of billions of stars and other objects.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterThe survey will cover nearly 700 square degrees (a region of sky as large as about 3,500 full moons) along the glowing band of the Milky Way — our edge-on view of the disk-shaped structure containing most of our galaxy’s stars, gas, and dust. Scientists expect the survey to map up to 20 billion stars and detect tiny shifts in their positions with repeated high-resolution observations. And it will only take 29 days spread over the course of the mission’s first two years.
Cosmic CradlesStars are born from parent clouds of gas and dust. Roman will peer through the haze of these nesting grounds to see millions of stellar embryos, newborn stars still swaddled in shrouds of dust, tantrumming toddler stars that flare unpredictably, and young stars that may have planetary systems forming around them. Astronomers will study stellar birth rates across a wide range of masses and stitch together videos that show how stars change over time.
“This survey will study such a huge number of stars in so many different stellar environments that we’ll be sampling every phase of a star’s evolution,” Street said.
Observing so many stars in various stages of early development will shed light on the forces that shape them. Star formation is like a four way tug-of-war between gravity, radiation, magnetism, and turbulence. Roman will help us study how these forces influence whether gas clouds collapse into full-fledged stars, smaller brown dwarfs — in-between objects that are much heavier than planets but not massive enough to ignite like stars — or new worlds.
The Galactic Plane Survey by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the densest part of our galaxy, where most of its stars, gas, and dust reside — the most difficult region to study from our place inside the Milky Way since we have to look through so much light-blocking material. Roman’s wide field of view, crisp resolution, and infrared vision will help astronomers peer through thick bands of dust to chart new galactic territory.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Some stars are born in enormous litters called clusters. Roman will study nearly 2,000 young, loosely bound open clusters to see how the galaxy’s spiral arms trigger star formation. The survey will also map dozens of ancient, densely packed globular clusters near the center of the galaxy that could help astronomers reconstruct the Milky Way’s early history.
Comparing Roman’s snapshots of clusters scattered throughout the galaxy will enable scientists to study nature versus nurture on a cosmic scale. Because a cluster’s stars generally share the same age, origin, and chemical makeup, analyzing them allows astronomers to isolate environmental effects very precisely.
Pulse CheckWhen they run out of fuel, Sun-like stars leave behind cores called white dwarfs and heavier stars collapse to form neutron stars and black holes. Roman will find these stellar embers even when they’re alone thanks to wrinkles in space-time.
Anything that has mass warps the underlying fabric of the universe. When light from a background star passes through the gravitational well around an intervening object on its journey toward Earth, its path slightly curves around the object. This phenomenon, called microlensing, can temporarily brighten the star. By studying these signals, astronomers can learn the mass and size of otherwise invisible foreground objects.
A separate survey — Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey — will conduct deep microlensing observations over a smaller area in the heart of the Milky Way. The Galactic Plane Survey will conduct repeated observations over a shorter interval but across the whole center of the galaxy, giving us the first complete view of this complex galactic environment. An unobscured view of the galaxy’s central bar will help astronomers answer the question of its origin, and Roman’s videos of stars in this region will enable us to study some ultratight binary objects at the very ends of their lives thanks to their interactions with close companions.
“Compact binaries are particularly interesting because they’re precursors to gravitational-wave sources,” said Robert Benjamin, a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and a co-chair of the committee that selected the Galactic Plane Survey design. When neutron stars and black holes merge, the collision is so powerful that it sends ripples through the fabric of space-time. “Scientists want to know more about the pathways that lead to those mergers.”
optical infrared This colorful image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and published in 2018, celebrated the observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens. opticalinfrared This colorful image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and published in 2018, celebrated the observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens. optical infraredOptical vs infrared
Two Views CurtainToggle2-Up Image Details The Galactic Plane Survey by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the densest part of our galaxy, where most of its stars, gas, and dust reside — the most difficult region to study from our place inside the Milky Way since we have to look through so much light-blocking material. Roman’s wide field of view, crisp resolution, and infrared vision will help astronomers peer through thick bands of dust to chart new galactic territory. Credit: NASA, ESA, and STScIRoman’s repeated observations will also monitor stars that flicker. Ground-based surveys detect thousands of bright stellar outbursts, but often can’t see the faint, dust-obscured stars that produce them. Roman will pinpoint the culprits plus take high-resolution snapshots of the aftermath.
Some stars throb rhythmically, and the speed of their pulsing is directly linked to their intrinsic brightness. By comparing their true brightness to how bright they appear from Earth, astronomers can measure distances across the galaxy. Roman will find these blinking stars farther away than ever before and track them over time, helping astronomers improve their cosmic measuring sticks.
“Pairing Roman’s Galactic Plane Survey with other Milky Way observations will create the best portrait of the galaxy we’ve ever had,” Benjamin said.
Download additional images and video from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
For more information about the Roman Space Telescope, visit:
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-1940
NASA Announces Plan to Map Milky Way With Roman Space Telescope
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has released detailed plans for a major survey that will reveal our home galaxy, the Milky Way, in unprecedented detail. In one month of observations spread across two years, the survey will unveil tens of billions of stars and explore previously uncharted structures.
This video begins with a view of the Carina Nebula — a giant, relatively nearby star-forming region in the southern sky. Roman will view the entire nebula as well as its surroundings, including a 10,000 light-year-long swath of the spiral arm it resides in. The observation will offer an unparalleled opportunity to watch how stars grow, interact, and sculpt their environments, and it’s just one of many thousands of highlights astronomers are looking forward to from the Galactic Plane Survey NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
“The Galactic Plane Survey will revolutionize our understanding of the Milky Way,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’ll be able to explore the mysterious far side of our galaxy and its star-studded heart. Because of the survey’s breadth and depth, it will be a scientific mother lode.”
The Galactic Plane Survey is Roman’s first selected general astrophysics survey — one of many observation programs Roman will do in addition to its three core surveys and Coronagraph technology demonstration. At least 25% of Roman’s five-year primary mission is reserved for astronomers worldwide to propose more surveys beyond the core programs, fully leveraging Roman’s capabilities to conduct groundbreaking science. Roman is slated to launch by May 2027, but the team is on track for launch as early as fall 2026.
While ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) retired Gaia spacecraft mapped around 2 billion Milky Way stars in visible light, many parts of the galaxy remain hidden by dust. By surveying in infrared light, Roman will use powerful heat vision that can pierce this veil to see what lies beyond.
“It blows my mind that we will be able to see through the densest part of our galaxy and explore it properly for the first time,” said Rachel Street, a senior scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory in Santa Barbara, California, and a co-chair of the committee that selected the Galactic Plane Survey design.
This infographic describes the 29-day Galactic Plane Survey that will be conducted by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The survey’s main component will cover 691 square degrees — a region of sky as large as around 3,500 full moons — in 22.5 days. Roman will also view a smaller area — 19 square degrees, the area of 95 full moons — repeatedly for about 5.5 days total to capture things that change over time. The survey’s final component will image a smattering of even smaller areas, adding up to about 4 square degrees (the area of 20 full moons) and 31 total hours, with Roman’s full suite of filters and spectroscopic tools. The survey will reveal our home galaxy in unprecedented detail including many in regions we’ve never been able to see before because they’re blocked by dust, unveiling tens of billions of stars and other objects.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterThe survey will cover nearly 700 square degrees (a region of sky as large as about 3,500 full moons) along the glowing band of the Milky Way — our edge-on view of the disk-shaped structure containing most of our galaxy’s stars, gas, and dust. Scientists expect the survey to map up to 20 billion stars and detect tiny shifts in their positions with repeated high-resolution observations. And it will only take 29 days spread over the course of the mission’s first two years.
Cosmic CradlesStars are born from parent clouds of gas and dust. Roman will peer through the haze of these nesting grounds to see millions of stellar embryos, newborn stars still swaddled in shrouds of dust, tantrumming toddler stars that flare unpredictably, and young stars that may have planetary systems forming around them. Astronomers will study stellar birth rates across a wide range of masses and stitch together videos that show how stars change over time.
“This survey will study such a huge number of stars in so many different stellar environments that we’ll be sampling every phase of a star’s evolution,” Street said.
Observing so many stars in various stages of early development will shed light on the forces that shape them. Star formation is like a four way tug-of-war between gravity, radiation, magnetism, and turbulence. Roman will help us study how these forces influence whether gas clouds collapse into full-fledged stars, smaller brown dwarfs — in-between objects that are much heavier than planets but not massive enough to ignite like stars — or new worlds.
The Galactic Plane Survey by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the densest part of our galaxy, where most of its stars, gas, and dust reside — the most difficult region to study from our place inside the Milky Way since we have to look through so much light-blocking material. Roman’s wide field of view, crisp resolution, and infrared vision will help astronomers peer through thick bands of dust to chart new galactic territory.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Some stars are born in enormous litters called clusters. Roman will study nearly 2,000 young, loosely bound open clusters to see how the galaxy’s spiral arms trigger star formation. The survey will also map dozens of ancient, densely packed globular clusters near the center of the galaxy that could help astronomers reconstruct the Milky Way’s early history.
Comparing Roman’s snapshots of clusters scattered throughout the galaxy will enable scientists to study nature versus nurture on a cosmic scale. Because a cluster’s stars generally share the same age, origin, and chemical makeup, analyzing them allows astronomers to isolate environmental effects very precisely.
Pulse CheckWhen they run out of fuel, Sun-like stars leave behind cores called white dwarfs and heavier stars collapse to form neutron stars and black holes. Roman will find these stellar embers even when they’re alone thanks to wrinkles in space-time.
Anything that has mass warps the underlying fabric of the universe. When light from a background star passes through the gravitational well around an intervening object on its journey toward Earth, its path slightly curves around the object. This phenomenon, called microlensing, can temporarily brighten the star. By studying these signals, astronomers can learn the mass and size of otherwise invisible foreground objects.
A separate survey — Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey — will conduct deep microlensing observations over a smaller area in the heart of the Milky Way. The Galactic Plane Survey will conduct repeated observations over a shorter interval but across the whole center of the galaxy, giving us the first complete view of this complex galactic environment. An unobscured view of the galaxy’s central bar will help astronomers answer the question of its origin, and Roman’s videos of stars in this region will enable us to study some ultratight binary objects at the very ends of their lives thanks to their interactions with close companions.
“Compact binaries are particularly interesting because they’re precursors to gravitational-wave sources,” said Robert Benjamin, a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and a co-chair of the committee that selected the Galactic Plane Survey design. When neutron stars and black holes merge, the collision is so powerful that it sends ripples through the fabric of space-time. “Scientists want to know more about the pathways that lead to those mergers.”
optical infrared This colorful image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and published in 2018, celebrated the observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens. opticalinfrared This colorful image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and published in 2018, celebrated the observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens. optical infraredOptical vs infrared
Two Views CurtainToggle2-Up Image Details The Galactic Plane Survey by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the densest part of our galaxy, where most of its stars, gas, and dust reside — the most difficult region to study from our place inside the Milky Way since we have to look through so much light-blocking material. Roman’s wide field of view, crisp resolution, and infrared vision will help astronomers peer through thick bands of dust to chart new galactic territory. Credit: NASA, ESA, and STScIRoman’s repeated observations will also monitor stars that flicker. Ground-based surveys detect thousands of bright stellar outbursts, but often can’t see the faint, dust-obscured stars that produce them. Roman will pinpoint the culprits plus take high-resolution snapshots of the aftermath.
Some stars throb rhythmically, and the speed of their pulsing is directly linked to their intrinsic brightness. By comparing their true brightness to how bright they appear from Earth, astronomers can measure distances across the galaxy. Roman will find these blinking stars farther away than ever before and track them over time, helping astronomers improve their cosmic measuring sticks.
“Pairing Roman’s Galactic Plane Survey with other Milky Way observations will create the best portrait of the galaxy we’ve ever had,” Benjamin said.
Download additional images and video from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
For more information about the Roman Space Telescope, visit:
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-1940
Massive Stars Make Their Mark in Hubble Image
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Massive Stars Make Their Mark in Hubble Image This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the blue dwarf galaxy Markarian 178 (Mrk 178) against a backdrop of distant galaxies in all shapes and sizes. Some of these distant galaxies even shine through the diffuse edges of Mrk 178. ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Annibali, S. HongThis NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a glittering blue dwarf galaxy called Markarian 178 (Mrk 178). The galaxy, which is substantially smaller than our own Milky Way, lies 13 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear).
Mrk 178 is one of more than 1,500 Markarian galaxies. These galaxies get their name from the Armenian astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian, who compiled a list of galaxies that were surprisingly bright in ultraviolet light.
While the bulk of the galaxy is blue due to an abundance of young, hot stars with little dust shrouding them, Mrk 178 gets a red hue from a collection of rare massive Wolf–Rayet stars. These stars are concentrated in the brightest, reddish region near the galaxy’s edge. Wolf–Rayet stars cast off their atmospheres through powerful winds, and the bright emission lines from their hot stellar winds are etched upon the galaxy’s spectrum. Both ionized hydrogen and oxygen lines are particularly strong and appear as a red color in this photo.
Massive stars enter the Wolf–Rayet phase of their evolution just before they collapse into black holes or neutron stars. Because Wolf–Rayet stars last for only a few million years, researchers know that something must have triggered a recent burst of star formation in Mrk 178. At first glance, it’s not clear what could be the cause — Mrk 178 doesn’t seem to have any close galactic neighbors that may have stirred up its gas to form new stars. Instead, researchers suspect that a gas cloud crashed into Mrk 178, or that the intergalactic medium disturbed its gas as the galaxy moved through space. Either disturbance could light up this tiny galaxy with a ripple of bright new stars.
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Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Massive Stars Make Their Mark in Hubble Image
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Massive Stars Make Their Mark in Hubble Image This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the blue dwarf galaxy Markarian 178 (Mrk 178) against a backdrop of distant galaxies in all shapes and sizes. Some of these distant galaxies even shine through the diffuse edges of Mrk 178. ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Annibali, S. HongThis NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a glittering blue dwarf galaxy called Markarian 178 (Mrk 178). The galaxy, which is substantially smaller than our own Milky Way, lies 13 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear).
Mrk 178 is one of more than 1,500 Markarian galaxies. These galaxies get their name from the Armenian astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian, who compiled a list of galaxies that were surprisingly bright in ultraviolet light.
While the bulk of the galaxy is blue due to an abundance of young, hot stars with little dust shrouding them, Mrk 178 gets a red hue from a collection of rare massive Wolf–Rayet stars. These stars are concentrated in the brightest, reddish region near the galaxy’s edge. Wolf–Rayet stars cast off their atmospheres through powerful winds, and the bright emission lines from their hot stellar winds are etched upon the galaxy’s spectrum. Both ionized hydrogen and oxygen lines are particularly strong and appear as a red color in this photo.
Massive stars enter the Wolf–Rayet phase of their evolution just before they collapse into black holes or neutron stars. Because Wolf–Rayet stars last for only a few million years, researchers know that something must have triggered a recent burst of star formation in Mrk 178. At first glance, it’s not clear what could be the cause — Mrk 178 doesn’t seem to have any close galactic neighbors that may have stirred up its gas to form new stars. Instead, researchers suspect that a gas cloud crashed into Mrk 178, or that the intergalactic medium disturbed its gas as the galaxy moved through space. Either disturbance could light up this tiny galaxy with a ripple of bright new stars.
@NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Linkedin logo @NASAHubbleMedia Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Galaxies
Hubble & Citizen Science
Hubble News
Pacific Moisture Drenches the U.S. Northwest
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Waves of heavy rainfall in early December 2025 spurred landslides and flooding in parts of the Pacific Northwest. The deluge was the result of a potent atmospheric river that took aim at the region starting around December 7.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moisture that move like rivers in the sky, transporting water vapor from the tropics toward the poles. They occur around the planet, most often in autumn and winter, with the U.S. West Coast typically affected by moist air that originates near Hawaii. In this event, however, some of the moisture arrived from even farther away, originating roughly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) across the Pacific from near the Philippines.
This map shows the total precipitable water vapor in the atmosphere at 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time on December 10. It is derived from NASA’s GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) and uses satellite data and models of physical processes to approximate what is happening in the atmosphere.
Precipitable water vapor represents the amount of water contained in a column of air, assuming all the water vapor condensed into liquid. The map’s green areas indicate the highest amounts of moisture. Note that not all precipitable water vapor falls as rain; at least some remains in the atmosphere. Nor is it a cap on how much rain can fall, since rainfall can increase as more moisture flows into a column of air. Still, it serves as a useful indicator of areas where excessive rainfall is likely.
According to the National Weather Service, preliminary ground-based measurements showed that several locations in western Washington received more than 10 inches (250 millimeters) of rain over a 72-hour period ending on the morning of December 11. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport set a daily rainfall record on December 10, with 1.6 inches (40 millimeters).
River flooding was ongoing on December 11, with the Skagit River and Snohomish River seeing record or near-record flood levels that day. Floodwater and mudslides have closed numerous roadways, including the eastbound lanes of I-90 out of western Washington.
NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System has been activated to support the ongoing response efforts by the Washington State Emergency Operations Center. The team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using GEOS data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Story by Kathryn Hansen.
References & Resources- Cliff Mass Weather Blog (2025, December 8) The Torrent Has Begun: The Philippine Connection. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- National Water Center, via X (2025, December 10) Key Messages for Pacific Northwest Flooding. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- National Weather Service (2025, December 11) Miscellaneous Hydrological Data. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- NOAA (2025, February 21) What are atmospheric rivers? Accessed December 11, 2025.
- USA Today (2025, December 11) Catastrophic flooding sparks evacuations in Washington state. See forecast. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- The Washington Post (2025, December 8) A 7,000-mile atmospheric river is stretching from Philippines to the U.S. Accessed December 11, 2025.
JPEG (1.55 MB)
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Pacific Moisture Drenches the U.S. Northwest
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Waves of heavy rainfall in early December 2025 spurred landslides and flooding in parts of the Pacific Northwest. The deluge was the result of a potent atmospheric river that took aim at the region starting around December 7.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moisture that move like rivers in the sky, transporting water vapor from the tropics toward the poles. They occur around the planet, most often in autumn and winter, with the U.S. West Coast typically affected by moist air that originates near Hawaii. In this event, however, some of the moisture arrived from even farther away, originating roughly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) across the Pacific from near the Philippines.
This map shows the total precipitable water vapor in the atmosphere at 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time on December 10. It is derived from NASA’s GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) and uses satellite data and models of physical processes to approximate what is happening in the atmosphere.
Precipitable water vapor represents the amount of water contained in a column of air, assuming all the water vapor condensed into liquid. The map’s green areas indicate the highest amounts of moisture. Note that not all precipitable water vapor falls as rain; at least some remains in the atmosphere. Nor is it a cap on how much rain can fall, since rainfall can increase as more moisture flows into a column of air. Still, it serves as a useful indicator of areas where excessive rainfall is likely.
According to the National Weather Service, preliminary ground-based measurements showed that several locations in western Washington received more than 10 inches (250 millimeters) of rain over a 72-hour period ending on the morning of December 11. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport set a daily rainfall record on December 10, with 1.6 inches (40 millimeters).
River flooding was ongoing on December 11, with the Skagit River and Snohomish River seeing record or near-record flood levels that day. Floodwater and mudslides have closed numerous roadways, including the eastbound lanes of I-90 out of western Washington.
NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System has been activated to support the ongoing response efforts by the Washington State Emergency Operations Center. The team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using GEOS data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Story by Kathryn Hansen.
References & Resources- Cliff Mass Weather Blog (2025, December 8) The Torrent Has Begun: The Philippine Connection. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- National Water Center, via X (2025, December 10) Key Messages for Pacific Northwest Flooding. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- National Weather Service (2025, December 11) Miscellaneous Hydrological Data. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- NOAA (2025, February 21) What are atmospheric rivers? Accessed December 11, 2025.
- USA Today (2025, December 11) Catastrophic flooding sparks evacuations in Washington state. See forecast. Accessed December 11, 2025.
- The Washington Post (2025, December 8) A 7,000-mile atmospheric river is stretching from Philippines to the U.S. Accessed December 11, 2025.
JPEG (1.55 MB)
You may also be interested in:
Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.
Iraq Reservoirs Plunge to Low Levels
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A multi-year drought has put extra strain on farmers and water managers in the Middle Eastern country.
ArticleDrought Parches the Yakima River Basin
4 min read
Farmers are facing the burden of dwindling reservoir water in this productive agricultural region of Washington state.
ArticleReservoirs Dwindle in South Texas
3 min read
Drought in the Nueces River basin is reducing reservoir levels, leaving residents and industry in the Corpus Christi area facing…
Article1
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4
Next
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