NASA

NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain); Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

Pismis 24, the star cluster seen here in an image released on Dec. 11, 2006, lies within the much larger emission nebula called NGC 6357, located about 8,000 light-years from Earth. The brightest object in the picture was once thought to be a single star with an incredibly large mass of 200 to 300 solar masses. That would have made it by far the most massive known star in the galaxy and would have put it considerably above the currently believed upper mass limit of about 150 solar masses for individual stars. Measurements from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, however, discovered that Pismis 24-1 is actually two separate stars, and, in doing so, “halved” their mass to around 100-150 solar masses each.

Image credit: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain); Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain); Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

Pismis 24, the star cluster seen here in an image released on Dec. 11, 2006, lies within the much larger emission nebula called NGC 6357, located about 8,000 light-years from Earth. The brightest object in the picture was once thought to be a single star with an incredibly large mass of 200 to 300 solar masses. That would have made it by far the most massive known star in the galaxy and would have put it considerably above the currently believed upper mass limit of about 150 solar masses for individual stars. Measurements from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, however, discovered that Pismis 24-1 is actually two separate stars, and, in doing so, “halved” their mass to around 100-150 solar masses each.

Image credit: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain); Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

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12 Min Read NASA’s Hurricane Science, Tech, Data Help American Communities

Hurricane Milton swirls over the ocean in this view from the International Space Station.

Credits:
ISS Astronaut/Earth Observatory

• NASA supports hurricane preparedness and response by providing satellite data and science before, during, and after storms.
• During hurricane season, NASA delivers timely flood maps, power outage insights, landslide risk assessments, and more to state and federal partners.
• NASA tests innovative technologies, from AI models to mini satellites, to enhance how we monitor hurricanes and their impacts.
• NASA’s long-term tracking of wind, ocean heat, and atmospheric moisture improves understanding of where hurricanes might form and intensify.

With the Atlantic hurricane season underway, NASA is again gearing up to produce cutting-edge research that strengthens the nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to severe weather. From satellite imagery of our planet to improved storm modeling, the agency’s work supports communities in anticipating and reducing the impacts of hurricanes.

In 2024, hurricanes including Helene and Milton showed NASA’s wide-ranging capabilities. As the storms approached the United States, the agency’s network of satellites and scientists swung into action. Within hours of landfall, NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System was supplying emergency managers and others with flood maps, power outage assessments, and other crucial data.

“People might be surprised how deeply NASA is involved in hurricane science,” said Scott Braun, a research meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We are not the agencies issuing forecasts or warnings, but our technologies and science are making fundamental contributions to how we understand, predict, and respond to these storms.”

Disaster Response Powered by NASA

When hurricanes strike, NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System aids state and federal agencies, producing and sharing imagery and data, including the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal, which offers tools to assess storm damage.

One crucial tool is NASA’s Black Marble product suite, produced and maintained by NASA Goddard. Using data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), researchers and others can map nighttime lights and detect power outages.

Unlike traditional outage maps, which often show only county-level data, NASA’s Black Marble can provide a more detailed view. It offers calibrated, daily observations, enabling high-confidence tracking of neighborhood-level impacts. Emergency response teams in Florida, for instance, have used this imagery to assess conditions near hazardous waste sites before heading into the field after a hurricane.

before after

The state faced widespread power outages after winds from Hurricane Helene snapped trees, tore off roofs, and toppled power lines. View the full story NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin beforeafter

The state faced widespread power outages after winds from Hurricane Helene snapped trees, tore off roofs, and toppled power lines. View the full story NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

before
after

Scientists with NASA’s Black Marble processed data from VIIRS on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite to show how power outages darkened Augusta, Georgia, before and after Hurricane Helene. View the full story

CurtainToggle2-Up

Image Details

Other NASA technologies map flooding. Scientists at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama used the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar data and other data from the NASA/U.S. Geological Survey Landsat satellites and ESA’s Sentinel-2 to track flooding after multiple hurricanes in 2024, including Helene and Milton.

These maps were shared through the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal with state and federal emergency managers responding to storms’ impacts in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and elsewhere.

“The ability to see floodwaters and landscape changes gives communities a critical edge during response and recovery,” said Shanna McClain, disasters program manager for NASA’s Earth Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington. “It helps decision-makers act faster when every minute counts.”

Hurricanes don’t just knock out power or trigger flooding — they can also loosen mountains. After Hurricane Helene, NASA scientists partnered with USGS to tackle a different threat: landslides throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains. NASA’s Landslide Hazard Assessment for Situational Awareness tool, developed at NASA Goddard, can help spot landslide-prone areas by combining different troves of satellite data.

“The landslide model brings together a wide range of Earth science,” said Thomas Stanley, a research scientist at NASA Goddard. “It’s a real convergence of satellite observations — soil moisture, precipitation, elevation — each one adding a key piece to the puzzle.”

NASA and USGS used rainfall data and modeling to estimate landslide hazards in the Appalachians following Hurricane Helene, highlighting high-risk zones across western North Carolina. NASA/USGS

In the days during and after Helene, a NASA-USGS team adapted this model to incorporate ground-based rainfall measurements. “This collaboration proved crucial during the critical first days when lingering clouds prevented direct satellite imaging of landslides,” said Kate Allstadt, a research geophysicist at USGS. “Combining NASA and USGS landslide models guided aerial reconnaissance over four states and helped prioritize areas for detailed mapping.”

NASA Disasters Response coordinators also partnered with USGS to manually map likely landslide areas in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, using high-resolution satellite imagery. This partnership enabled early warnings to agencies such as the North Carolina Geological Survey about potential landslide zones before visual confirmation was possible.

Tracking Hurricanes in Near Real Time

As hurricanes gather strength over warm ocean waters, NASA’s satellites begin tracking them. One effort providing essential data on hurricanes is the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Passing over storms once or twice per day, the GPM core satellite captures high-resolution data on rainfall intensity and distribution.

“The GPM mission gives us an inside look at where a storm is dropping the most rain and how intense it is,” said George Huffman, GPM project scientist at NASA Goddard. “That kind of information helps forecasters make better predictions and gives communities more time to prepare for flooding and dangerous conditions.”

Huffman’s team leads NASA’s IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM) product, which combines GPM Core Observatory data with observations from other satellites to generate near real-time, global rainfall estimates every 30 minutes. For example, IMERG tracked the record-breaking rainfall that fell during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when parts of Texas saw more than 50 inches of rain.

Satellite-based rainfall data can be especially vital when a big storm like Harvey or Helene knocks out ground-based rain measurements, Huffman said.

Watch Hurricane Harvey as it makes landfall in Texas and Louisiana in 2017. The visualization depicts precipitation measured by the GPM mission, highlighting record-shattering rainfall over Texas and Louisiana. Blue is frozen precipitation, while green to red is rainfall. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

NASA also is working to turn precipitation data into practical flood predictions. One such effort, led by NASA-funded hydrologist Ed Beighley at Northeastern University in Boston, merges rainfall estimates from the GPM mission with National Weather Service river discharge models and surface water mapping methods to identify areas likely to experience flooding.

During Hurricane Helene, his team provided early versions of these flood maps to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

“In some cases, like with Helene, we could see where disasters were likely to be declared just from the rainfall data — days before the disaster declarations were made official,” Beighley said. “That kind of near real-time information could really help counties and health departments prepare and coordinate response efforts.”

That same focus on improving early flood prediction was at the heart of NASA’s response to Hurricane Debby when it made landfall in Florida in August 2024. At NASA Marshall, the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) team used its Land Information System to track soil moisture levels, crucial for understanding the potential for flooding.

The team’s Streamflow-AI model — a machine learning tool trained to predict how rivers respond to rainfall — also forecasted rising waters in small streams and creeks in Florida and the Carolinas.

“The streamflow tool is used pretty heavily by the National Weather Service now to help inform flood forecasts, which then filters down to evacuation orders,” said Patrick Duran, a NASA Marshall research scientist with SPoRT.

NASA SPoRT’s Streamflow-AI model shows the flooding potential for the Swannanoa River in Asheville, North Carolina, during and after Hurricane Helene. NASA SPoRT Reinventing the Tech That Sees Into Storms

NASA doesn’t just collect data on hurricanes or aid in their aftermath — it is redefining the technology we use to observe and understand them. This work is not only improving forecasts and warnings but also helping to fuel the growth of America’s commercial satellite industry.

Take NASA’s TROPICS mission. Short for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats, TROPICS represents a fundamental shift in how we might monitor hurricanes from space. Rather than relying solely on intermittent passes by larger satellites, TROPICS uses a group of small, lower-cost satellites working in concert to provide more frequent observations of tropical storm systems — offering a complementary approach to storm monitoring.

During Hurricane Helene, the TROPICS satellites tracked the storm through nearly its entire life cycle, capturing data on its rapid intensification from a tropical depression to a powerful category 4 hurricane before landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region.

Each TROPICS satellite carries a microwave radiometer. Unlike optical sensors, this instrument can see through clouds, making it ideal for tracking storms. The TROPICS’ radiometers are tuned to detect temperature, moisture, and precipitation patterns inside hurricanes.

“The TROPICS mission is really good at providing images of the structure of a storm, showing how well defined the eye is, which is key for improving forecasting,” said William Blackwell, TROPICS principal investigator at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Massachusetts.

NASA’s TROPICS mission monitored Hurricane Helene throughout its life cycle. This visualization shows how the tropical depression rapidly intensified into a category 4 hurricane before hitting Florida and then moving inland. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

Tomorrow.io, an American weather company, is using radiometer technology derived from TROPICS as it develops tools for commercial weather forecasting. The company also is working to adapt radar technology first tested on NASA’s RainCube mission.

RainCube, a small satellite about the size of a shoebox developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, operated from 2018 to 2020. It used radar to study precipitation, sending signals toward Earth and analyzing how long they took to bounce back, and how strong they were after reflecting off raindrops, snowflakes, and cloud ice.

Full-scale satellites have been using radar technology to make that kind of measurement for years. “The key thing with RainCube wasn’t bringing in new science,” said Simone Tanelli, RainCube principal scientist at JPL. “Instead, it was showing that we could give you similar data with a box that’s roughly 100 times smaller in volume than a full-size satellite.”

NASA also tests how other small, lower-cost instruments could transform how we monitor tropical storms. Two such tools — COWVR, short for Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer measures ocean surface winds, and TEMPEST, short for Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems tracks atmospheric water vapor — were launched to the International Space Station in 2021.

Using technology and designs from JPL and other NASA teams, TEMPEST and COWVR already are proving their value. Their data has been used by the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center to help track and forecast powerful storms, such as Tropical Cyclone Mandous in December 2022.

Data from the COWVR and TEMPEST instruments aboard the ISS was used to create this image of Tropical Cyclone Mandous, which forecasters used to understand the December 2022 storm’s intensity and predict its path toward southern India. U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center/U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

NASA researchers also are investigating lightning, which has emerged as a key clue in predicting rapid storm intensification, a dangerous phase of the hurricane life cycle that is one of the most difficult aspects of hurricane forecasting. Spikes in lightning activity, especially in the eyewall, can be an early sign that a storm is about to strengthen quickly.

The agency’s SPoRT project is researching how lightning data from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper can improve hurricane forecasting. This sensor provides a nearly continuous view of lightning activity over oceans and in remote land regions that have fewer weather observations. The instrument rides aboard NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) GOES weather satellites.

“By studying the size and energy of lightning flashes inside hurricanes, we’re learning how they might signal whether a storm is about to intensify or weaken,” said Duran. “It’s an evolving area of research with a lot of potential.”

During Hurricane Helene, SPoRT’s lightning analyses revealed a burst of strong, frequent flashes in the eyewall just before the storm surged from category 2 to category 4 intensity. That’s exactly the kind of signal researchers hope to detect more reliably in the future.

Bright, large lightning flashes seen in Hurricane Helene’s eyewall, captured by NASA SPoRT’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper viewer, indicate the storm’s rapid intensification from category 2 to 4 just hours before landfall. NASA SPoRT

NASA frequently uses its airplanes to test new hurricane tech, too. In one recent example, scientists from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, flew a cutting-edge 3-D Doppler wind lidar system across the United States, including making passes through the edges of Hurricane Helene. The instrument is designed to capture high-resolution wind data that can improve predictions of rapidly evolving storms, such as hurricanes and severe thunderstorms, where accurate wind observations are essential, but often lacking.

Braun compared these multiple data streams — from TROPICS, GPM, and other instruments — to medical imaging. “Think about how doctors use different types of scans like X-rays, MRIs, and ultrasound to understand what’s happening inside a patient’s body,” he said. “We’re doing something similar with hurricanes. Each system gives us a different view of the storm’s internal structure and environment, with the goal of improving forecasts.”

Watching For Hurricane Warning Signs

Long before a hurricane takes shape, NASA satellites are already scanning the global ocean and atmosphere, closely tracking the conditions that give rise to powerful storms. One of the most important indicators is sea surface temperature.

NASA combines data from multiple satellites and sensors — such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and VIIRS — to produce sea surface temperature maps like JPL’s Multi-scale Ultra-high Resolution Sea Surface Temperature product and SPoRT’s Sea Surface Temperature Composite product. These global maps, updated daily, support users such as the National Weather Service.

“Having high-resolution, reliable sources of sea surface temperature data is extremely useful,” said Brian McNoldy of the University of Miami, who studies hurricanes. “From one day to the next, these datasets help identify which parts of the tropical Atlantic are above or below average. That information lets forecasters anticipate where storms might strengthen or weaken.”

Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified to category 5 strength over warm gulf waters. View the full story NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang

Ocean surface temperatures are only part of the story. NASA also monitors sea surface height with missions such as Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography), using these measurements as indicators for deeper ocean heat content, a key source of energy fueling hurricanes.

Other NASA-built satellites and sensors measure atmospheric moisture, ocean surface winds, and atmospheric stability, all essential factors influencing whether a storm strengthens or dissipates.

NASA also uses its aircraft to study early storm development up close. In 2022, the agency’s Convective Processes Experiment-Cabo Verde  airborne campaign flew off the northwest coast of Africa to study weather systems that can give rise to hurricanes.

The team focused in part on African easterly waves — swirling disturbances in the atmosphere that often become the seeds of Atlantic storms. One of the waves they observed later developed into Tropical Storm Hermine. The mission also gathered data that same year just before hurricanes Fiona and Ian formed.

“The strength of NASA’s pre-storm monitoring lies in both the breadth of measurements we take and the decades-long consistency behind them,” said Will McCarty, manager of weather programs at NASA Headquarters.

“By combining data on sea surface temperature, ocean heat content, wind patterns, and more, we can see early on when conditions align dangerously — often before a storm visibly forms,” McCarty said. “It’s how we turn early warning into early action.”

About the Author Emily DeMarco

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Jun 13, 2025

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12 Min Read NASA’s Hurricane Science, Tech, Data Help American Communities

Hurricane Milton swirls over the ocean in this view from the International Space Station.

Credits:
ISS Astronaut/Earth Observatory

• NASA supports hurricane preparedness and response by providing satellite data and science before, during, and after storms.
• During hurricane season, NASA delivers timely flood maps, power outage insights, landslide risk assessments, and more to state and federal partners.
• NASA tests innovative technologies, from AI models to mini satellites, to enhance how we monitor hurricanes and their impacts.
• NASA’s long-term tracking of wind, ocean heat, and atmospheric moisture improves understanding of where hurricanes might form and intensify.

With the Atlantic hurricane season underway, NASA is again gearing up to produce cutting-edge research that strengthens the nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to severe weather. From satellite imagery of our planet to improved storm modeling, the agency’s work supports communities in anticipating and reducing the impacts of hurricanes.

In 2024, hurricanes including Helene and Milton showed NASA’s wide-ranging capabilities. As the storms approached the United States, the agency’s network of satellites and scientists swung into action. Within hours of landfall, NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System was supplying emergency managers and others with flood maps, power outage assessments, and other crucial data.

“People might be surprised how deeply NASA is involved in hurricane science,” said Scott Braun, a research meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We are not the agencies issuing forecasts or warnings, but our technologies and science are making fundamental contributions to how we understand, predict, and respond to these storms.”

Disaster Response Powered by NASA

When hurricanes strike, NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System aids state and federal agencies, producing and sharing imagery and data, including the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal, which offers tools to assess storm damage.

One crucial tool is NASA’s Black Marble product suite, produced and maintained by NASA Goddard. Using data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), researchers and others can map nighttime lights and detect power outages.

Unlike traditional outage maps, which often show only county-level data, NASA’s Black Marble can provide a more detailed view. It offers calibrated, daily observations, enabling high-confidence tracking of neighborhood-level impacts. Emergency response teams in Florida, for instance, have used this imagery to assess conditions near hazardous waste sites before heading into the field after a hurricane.

before after

The state faced widespread power outages after winds from Hurricane Helene snapped trees, tore off roofs, and toppled power lines. View the full story NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin beforeafter

The state faced widespread power outages after winds from Hurricane Helene snapped trees, tore off roofs, and toppled power lines. View the full story NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

before
after

Scientists with NASA’s Black Marble processed data from VIIRS on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite to show how power outages darkened Augusta, Georgia, before and after Hurricane Helene. View the full story

CurtainToggle2-Up

Image Details

Other NASA technologies map flooding. Scientists at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama used the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar data and other data from the NASA/U.S. Geological Survey Landsat satellites and ESA’s Sentinel-2 to track flooding after multiple hurricanes in 2024, including Helene and Milton.

These maps were shared through the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal with state and federal emergency managers responding to storms’ impacts in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and elsewhere.

“The ability to see floodwaters and landscape changes gives communities a critical edge during response and recovery,” said Shanna McClain, disasters program manager for NASA’s Earth Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington. “It helps decision-makers act faster when every minute counts.”

Hurricanes don’t just knock out power or trigger flooding — they can also loosen mountains. After Hurricane Helene, NASA scientists partnered with USGS to tackle a different threat: landslides throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains. NASA’s Landslide Hazard Assessment for Situational Awareness tool, developed at NASA Goddard, can help spot landslide-prone areas by combining different troves of satellite data.

“The landslide model brings together a wide range of Earth science,” said Thomas Stanley, a research scientist at NASA Goddard. “It’s a real convergence of satellite observations — soil moisture, precipitation, elevation — each one adding a key piece to the puzzle.”

NASA and USGS used rainfall data and modeling to estimate landslide hazards in the Appalachians following Hurricane Helene, highlighting high-risk zones across western North Carolina. NASA/USGS

In the days during and after Helene, a NASA-USGS team adapted this model to incorporate ground-based rainfall measurements. “This collaboration proved crucial during the critical first days when lingering clouds prevented direct satellite imaging of landslides,” said Kate Allstadt, a research geophysicist at USGS. “Combining NASA and USGS landslide models guided aerial reconnaissance over four states and helped prioritize areas for detailed mapping.”

NASA Disasters Response coordinators also partnered with USGS to manually map likely landslide areas in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, using high-resolution satellite imagery. This partnership enabled early warnings to agencies such as the North Carolina Geological Survey about potential landslide zones before visual confirmation was possible.

Tracking Hurricanes in Near Real Time

As hurricanes gather strength over warm ocean waters, NASA’s satellites begin tracking them. One effort providing essential data on hurricanes is the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Passing over storms once or twice per day, the GPM core satellite captures high-resolution data on rainfall intensity and distribution.

“The GPM mission gives us an inside look at where a storm is dropping the most rain and how intense it is,” said George Huffman, GPM project scientist at NASA Goddard. “That kind of information helps forecasters make better predictions and gives communities more time to prepare for flooding and dangerous conditions.”

Huffman’s team leads NASA’s IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM) product, which combines GPM Core Observatory data with observations from other satellites to generate near real-time, global rainfall estimates every 30 minutes. For example, IMERG tracked the record-breaking rainfall that fell during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when parts of Texas saw more than 50 inches of rain.

Satellite-based rainfall data can be especially vital when a big storm like Harvey or Helene knocks out ground-based rain measurements, Huffman said.

Watch Hurricane Harvey as it makes landfall in Texas and Louisiana in 2017. The visualization depicts precipitation measured by the GPM mission, highlighting record-shattering rainfall over Texas and Louisiana. Blue is frozen precipitation, while green to red is rainfall. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

NASA also is working to turn precipitation data into practical flood predictions. One such effort, led by NASA-funded hydrologist Ed Beighley at Northeastern University in Boston, merges rainfall estimates from the GPM mission with National Weather Service river discharge models and surface water mapping methods to identify areas likely to experience flooding.

During Hurricane Helene, his team provided early versions of these flood maps to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

“In some cases, like with Helene, we could see where disasters were likely to be declared just from the rainfall data — days before the disaster declarations were made official,” Beighley said. “That kind of near real-time information could really help counties and health departments prepare and coordinate response efforts.”

That same focus on improving early flood prediction was at the heart of NASA’s response to Hurricane Debby when it made landfall in Florida in August 2024. At NASA Marshall, the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) team used its Land Information System to track soil moisture levels, crucial for understanding the potential for flooding.

The team’s Streamflow-AI model — a machine learning tool trained to predict how rivers respond to rainfall — also forecasted rising waters in small streams and creeks in Florida and the Carolinas.

“The streamflow tool is used pretty heavily by the National Weather Service now to help inform flood forecasts, which then filters down to evacuation orders,” said Patrick Duran, a NASA Marshall research scientist with SPoRT.

NASA SPoRT’s Streamflow-AI model shows the flooding potential for the Swannanoa River in Asheville, North Carolina, during and after Hurricane Helene. NASA SPoRT Reinventing the Tech That Sees Into Storms

NASA doesn’t just collect data on hurricanes or aid in their aftermath — it is redefining the technology we use to observe and understand them. This work is not only improving forecasts and warnings but also helping to fuel the growth of America’s commercial satellite industry.

Take NASA’s TROPICS mission. Short for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats, TROPICS represents a fundamental shift in how we might monitor hurricanes from space. Rather than relying solely on intermittent passes by larger satellites, TROPICS uses a group of small, lower-cost satellites working in concert to provide more frequent observations of tropical storm systems — offering a complementary approach to storm monitoring.

During Hurricane Helene, the TROPICS satellites tracked the storm through nearly its entire life cycle, capturing data on its rapid intensification from a tropical depression to a powerful category 4 hurricane before landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region.

Each TROPICS satellite carries a microwave radiometer. Unlike optical sensors, this instrument can see through clouds, making it ideal for tracking storms. The TROPICS’ radiometers are tuned to detect temperature, moisture, and precipitation patterns inside hurricanes.

“The TROPICS mission is really good at providing images of the structure of a storm, showing how well defined the eye is, which is key for improving forecasting,” said William Blackwell, TROPICS principal investigator at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Massachusetts.

NASA’s TROPICS mission monitored Hurricane Helene throughout its life cycle. This visualization shows how the tropical depression rapidly intensified into a category 4 hurricane before hitting Florida and then moving inland. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

Tomorrow.io, an American weather company, is using radiometer technology derived from TROPICS as it develops tools for commercial weather forecasting. The company also is working to adapt radar technology first tested on NASA’s RainCube mission.

RainCube, a small satellite about the size of a shoebox developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, operated from 2018 to 2020. It used radar to study precipitation, sending signals toward Earth and analyzing how long they took to bounce back, and how strong they were after reflecting off raindrops, snowflakes, and cloud ice.

Full-scale satellites have been using radar technology to make that kind of measurement for years. “The key thing with RainCube wasn’t bringing in new science,” said Simone Tanelli, RainCube principal scientist at JPL. “Instead, it was showing that we could give you similar data with a box that’s roughly 100 times smaller in volume than a full-size satellite.”

NASA also tests how other small, lower-cost instruments could transform how we monitor tropical storms. Two such tools — COWVR, short for Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer measures ocean surface winds, and TEMPEST, short for Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems tracks atmospheric water vapor — were launched to the International Space Station in 2021.

Using technology and designs from JPL and other NASA teams, TEMPEST and COWVR already are proving their value. Their data has been used by the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center to help track and forecast powerful storms, such as Tropical Cyclone Mandous in December 2022.

Data from the COWVR and TEMPEST instruments aboard the ISS was used to create this image of Tropical Cyclone Mandous, which forecasters used to understand the December 2022 storm’s intensity and predict its path toward southern India. U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center/U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

NASA researchers also are investigating lightning, which has emerged as a key clue in predicting rapid storm intensification, a dangerous phase of the hurricane life cycle that is one of the most difficult aspects of hurricane forecasting. Spikes in lightning activity, especially in the eyewall, can be an early sign that a storm is about to strengthen quickly.

The agency’s SPoRT project is researching how lightning data from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper can improve hurricane forecasting. This sensor provides a nearly continuous view of lightning activity over oceans and in remote land regions that have fewer weather observations. The instrument rides aboard NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) GOES weather satellites.

“By studying the size and energy of lightning flashes inside hurricanes, we’re learning how they might signal whether a storm is about to intensify or weaken,” said Duran. “It’s an evolving area of research with a lot of potential.”

During Hurricane Helene, SPoRT’s lightning analyses revealed a burst of strong, frequent flashes in the eyewall just before the storm surged from category 2 to category 4 intensity. That’s exactly the kind of signal researchers hope to detect more reliably in the future.

Bright, large lightning flashes seen in Hurricane Helene’s eyewall, captured by NASA SPoRT’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper viewer, indicate the storm’s rapid intensification from category 2 to 4 just hours before landfall. NASA SPoRT

NASA frequently uses its airplanes to test new hurricane tech, too. In one recent example, scientists from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, flew a cutting-edge 3-D Doppler wind lidar system across the United States, including making passes through the edges of Hurricane Helene. The instrument is designed to capture high-resolution wind data that can improve predictions of rapidly evolving storms, such as hurricanes and severe thunderstorms, where accurate wind observations are essential, but often lacking.

Braun compared these multiple data streams — from TROPICS, GPM, and other instruments — to medical imaging. “Think about how doctors use different types of scans like X-rays, MRIs, and ultrasound to understand what’s happening inside a patient’s body,” he said. “We’re doing something similar with hurricanes. Each system gives us a different view of the storm’s internal structure and environment, with the goal of improving forecasts.”

Watching For Hurricane Warning Signs

Long before a hurricane takes shape, NASA satellites are already scanning the global ocean and atmosphere, closely tracking the conditions that give rise to powerful storms. One of the most important indicators is sea surface temperature.

NASA combines data from multiple satellites and sensors — such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and VIIRS — to produce sea surface temperature maps like JPL’s Multi-scale Ultra-high Resolution Sea Surface Temperature product and SPoRT’s Sea Surface Temperature Composite product. These global maps, updated daily, support users such as the National Weather Service.

“Having high-resolution, reliable sources of sea surface temperature data is extremely useful,” said Brian McNoldy of the University of Miami, who studies hurricanes. “From one day to the next, these datasets help identify which parts of the tropical Atlantic are above or below average. That information lets forecasters anticipate where storms might strengthen or weaken.”

Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified to category 5 strength over warm gulf waters. View the full story NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang

Ocean surface temperatures are only part of the story. NASA also monitors sea surface height with missions such as Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography), using these measurements as indicators for deeper ocean heat content, a key source of energy fueling hurricanes.

Other NASA-built satellites and sensors measure atmospheric moisture, ocean surface winds, and atmospheric stability, all essential factors influencing whether a storm strengthens or dissipates.

NASA also uses its aircraft to study early storm development up close. In 2022, the agency’s Convective Processes Experiment-Cabo Verde  airborne campaign flew off the northwest coast of Africa to study weather systems that can give rise to hurricanes.

The team focused in part on African easterly waves — swirling disturbances in the atmosphere that often become the seeds of Atlantic storms. One of the waves they observed later developed into Tropical Storm Hermine. The mission also gathered data that same year just before hurricanes Fiona and Ian formed.

“The strength of NASA’s pre-storm monitoring lies in both the breadth of measurements we take and the decades-long consistency behind them,” said Will McCarty, manager of weather programs at NASA Headquarters.

“By combining data on sea surface temperature, ocean heat content, wind patterns, and more, we can see early on when conditions align dangerously — often before a storm visibly forms,” McCarty said. “It’s how we turn early warning into early action.”

About the Author Emily DeMarco

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• Hurricanes & Typhoons

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4 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Instruments in space are helping scientists map wastewater plumes flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the heavily polluted Tijuana River, seen here with the San Diego sky-line to the north. NOAA

Proof-of-concept results from the mouth of the Tijuana River in San Diego County show how an instrument called EMIT could aid wastewater detection.

An instrument built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory  to map minerals on Earth is now revealing clues about water quality. A recent study found that EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) was able to identify signs of sewage in the water at a Southern California beach.

The authors of the study examined a large wastewater plume at the mouth of the Tijuana River, south of Imperial Beach near San Diego. Every year, millions of gallons of treated and untreated sewage enter the river, which carries pollutants through communities and a national reserve on the U.S.-Mexico border before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. Contaminated coastal waters have been known to impact human health — from beachgoers to U.S. Navy trainees — and harm marine ecosystems, fisheries, and wildlife.

For decades scientists have tracked water quality issues like harmful algal blooms using satellite instruments that analyze ocean color. Shades that range from vibrant red to bright green can reveal the presence of algae and phytoplankton. But other pollutants and harmful bacteria are more difficult to monitor because they’re harder to distinguish with traditional satellite sensors.

A plume spreads out to sea in this image captured off San Diego by the Sentinel-2 satellite on March 24, 2023. Both a spectroradiometer used to analyze water samples (yellow star) and NASA’s EMIT identified in the plume signs of a type of bacterium that can sicken humans and animals.SDSU/Eva Scrivner

That’s where EMIT comes in. NASA’s hyperspectral instrument orbits Earth aboard the International Space Station, observing sunlight reflecting off the planet below. Its advanced optical components split the visible and infrared wavelengths into hundreds of color bands. By analyzing each satellite scene pixel by pixel at finer spatial resolution, scientists can discern what molecules are present based on their unique spectral “fingerprint.”

Scientists compared EMIT’s observations of the Tijuana River plume with water samples they tested on the ground. Both EMIT and the ground-based instruments detected a spectral fingerprint pointing to phycocyanin, a pigment in cyanobacteria, an organism that can sicken humans and animals that ingest or inhale it.

‘Smoking Gun’

Many beachgoers are already familiar with online water-quality dashboards, which often rely on samples collected in the field, said Christine Lee, a scientist at JPL in Southern California and a coauthor of the study. She noted the potential for EMIT to complement these efforts.

“From orbit you are able to look down and see that a wastewater plume is extending into places you haven’t sampled,” Lee said. “It’s like a diagnostic at the doctor’s office that tells you, ‘Hey, let’s take a closer look at this.’”

Lead author Eva Scrivner, a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut, said that the findings “show a ‘smoking gun’ of sorts for wastewater in the Tijuana River plume.” Scrivner, who led the study while at San Diego State University, added that EMIT could be useful for filling data gaps around intensely polluted sites where traditional water sampling takes a lot of time and money.

EMIT’s Many Uses

The technology behind EMIT is called imaging spectroscopy, which was pioneered at JPL in the 1980s. Imaging spectrometers developed at JPL over the decades have been used to support areas ranging from agriculture to forest health and firefighting.

When EMIT was launched in July 2022, it was solely aimed at mapping minerals and dust in Earth’s desert regions. That same sensitivity enabled it to spot the phycocyanin pigments off the California coast.

Scrivner hadn’t anticipated that an instrument initially devoted to exploring land could reveal insights about water. “The fact that EMIT’s findings over the coast are consistent with measurements in the field is compelling to water scientists,” she said. “It’s really exciting.”

To learn more about EMIT, visit:

https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/

News Media Contacts

Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov 

Written by Sally Younger

2025-078

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Details Last Updated Jun 12, 2025 Related Terms

• EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation)
• Earth
• Earth Science Technology Office
• Human Dimensions
• International Space Station (ISS)
• Oceans
• Water on Earth

Explore More 12 min read NASA’s Hurricane Science, Tech, Data Help American Communities

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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Instruments in space are helping scientists map wastewater plumes flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the heavily polluted Tijuana River, seen here with the San Diego sky-line to the north. NOAA

Proof-of-concept results from the mouth of the Tijuana River in San Diego County show how an instrument called EMIT could aid wastewater detection.

An instrument built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory  to map minerals on Earth is now revealing clues about water quality. A recent study found that EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) was able to identify signs of sewage in the water at a Southern California beach.

The authors of the study examined a large wastewater plume at the mouth of the Tijuana River, south of Imperial Beach near San Diego. Every year, millions of gallons of treated and untreated sewage enter the river, which carries pollutants through communities and a national reserve on the U.S.-Mexico border before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. Contaminated coastal waters have been known to impact human health — from beachgoers to U.S. Navy trainees — and harm marine ecosystems, fisheries, and wildlife.

For decades scientists have tracked water quality issues like harmful algal blooms using satellite instruments that analyze ocean color. Shades that range from vibrant red to bright green can reveal the presence of algae and phytoplankton. But other pollutants and harmful bacteria are more difficult to monitor because they’re harder to distinguish with traditional satellite sensors.

A plume spreads out to sea in this image captured off San Diego by the Sentinel-2 satellite on March 24, 2023. Both a spectroradiometer used to analyze water samples (yellow star) and NASA’s EMIT identified in the plume signs of a type of bacterium that can sicken humans and animals.SDSU/Eva Scrivner

That’s where EMIT comes in. NASA’s hyperspectral instrument orbits Earth aboard the International Space Station, observing sunlight reflecting off the planet below. Its advanced optical components split the visible and infrared wavelengths into hundreds of color bands. By analyzing each satellite scene pixel by pixel at finer spatial resolution, scientists can discern what molecules are present based on their unique spectral “fingerprint.”

Scientists compared EMIT’s observations of the Tijuana River plume with water samples they tested on the ground. Both EMIT and the ground-based instruments detected a spectral fingerprint pointing to phycocyanin, a pigment in cyanobacteria, an organism that can sicken humans and animals that ingest or inhale it.

‘Smoking Gun’

Many beachgoers are already familiar with online water-quality dashboards, which often rely on samples collected in the field, said Christine Lee, a scientist at JPL in Southern California and a coauthor of the study. She noted the potential for EMIT to complement these efforts.

“From orbit you are able to look down and see that a wastewater plume is extending into places you haven’t sampled,” Lee said. “It’s like a diagnostic at the doctor’s office that tells you, ‘Hey, let’s take a closer look at this.’”

Lead author Eva Scrivner, a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut, said that the findings “show a ‘smoking gun’ of sorts for wastewater in the Tijuana River plume.” Scrivner, who led the study while at San Diego State University, added that EMIT could be useful for filling data gaps around intensely polluted sites where traditional water sampling takes a lot of time and money.

EMIT’s Many Uses

The technology behind EMIT is called imaging spectroscopy, which was pioneered at JPL in the 1980s. Imaging spectrometers developed at JPL over the decades have been used to support areas ranging from agriculture to forest health and firefighting.

When EMIT was launched in July 2022, it was solely aimed at mapping minerals and dust in Earth’s desert regions. That same sensitivity enabled it to spot the phycocyanin pigments off the California coast.

Scrivner hadn’t anticipated that an instrument initially devoted to exploring land could reveal insights about water. “The fact that EMIT’s findings over the coast are consistent with measurements in the field is compelling to water scientists,” she said. “It’s really exciting.”

To learn more about EMIT, visit:

https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/

News Media Contacts

Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov 

Written by Sally Younger

2025-078

Share

Details Last Updated Jun 12, 2025 Related Terms

• EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation)
• Earth
• Earth Science Technology Office
• Human Dimensions
• International Space Station (ISS)
• Oceans
• Water on Earth

Explore More 12 min read NASA’s Hurricane Science, Tech, Data Help American Communities

With hurricane season underway, NASA is gearing up to produce cutting-edge research to bolster the…

Article 1 day ago 3 min read Studying Storms from Space Station Article 1 day ago 4 min read Welcome Home, Expedition 72 Crew!  Article 2 days ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics

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Humans in Space

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3 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Students from Tropico Middle School in Rosamond, California, build their own paper planes as part of a project during NASA Aero Fair on April 9, 2025.NASA/Genaro Vavuris

A new generation of aerospace explorers will soon embark on a hands-on summer experience focusing on careers in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (STEM). This month, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and the Flight Test Museum Foundation will launch the 2025 Junior Test Pilot School.

Held at Blackbird Airpark and Joe Davies Heritage Airpark in Palmdale, California, this six-week program invites elementary-aged students to step into the shoes of test pilots and engineers from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, June 16 through July 25. Registration is free through participating school districts and the Flight Test Museum. Students will have direct access to legendary aircraft such as A-12, SR-71, U-2, F-86 Sabre, and NASA Boeing 747 Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

The Junior Test Pilot School combines authentic NASA-designed curriculum, immersive aerospace activities, and direct engagement with engineers, test pilots, and scientists to inspire future aerospace professionals in the Antelope Valley – home to one of the nation’s highest concentrations of STEM careers.

“This program offers more than a glimpse into aerospace, it provides students a hands-on opportunity to solve real-world problems and see themselves in future STEM roles,” said Dr. Amira Flores, program integration manager for NASA’s California Office of STEM Engagement.

Daily lessons cover eight core modules: flight principles, stealth engineering, altitude effects, speed and g-force, payload impact, maneuverability, reconnaissance design, and jet engine systems.

Additionally, in collaboration with NASA Armstrong’s Aero Fair program, students will be guided through the program’s Wildfire Design Challenge by a NASA volunteer. Following the engineering design process, students will collaborate to design and build a prototype of an aerial vehicle that suppresses wildfires.

“Our junior test pilots learn to analyze the aircraft to figure out why they were designed the way they are and think like an engineer,” said Lisa Sheldon Brown, director of education at the Flight Test Museum. “Research shows that academic trajectory is set by fifth grade, making this the critical window to inspire STEM interest and career awareness.”

The program is delivered in partnership with the City of Palmdale and is supported by industry sponsors, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. These partners not only provide funding and volunteers but also elevate career exposure by introducing students to diverse aerospace professionals within the region. 

NASA Armstrong is a hub of aeronautical innovation and STEM workforce development in the Antelope Valley. Through programs like Aero Fair and partnerships like Junior Test Pilots School, Armstrong inspires and equips the next generation of engineers, pilots, and scientists. 

The Flight Test Museum Foundation preserves the legacy and promotes the future of aerospace through education programs and historical preservation at the Blackbird Airpark and forthcoming Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base in Edwards, California.

For more about NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/armstrong

– end –

Elena Aguirre
Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
(661) 276-7004
elena.aguirre@nasa.gov

Dede Dinius
Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
(661) 276-5701
darin.l.dinius@nasa.gov

Explore More 5 min read NASA F-15s Validate Tools for Quesst Mission Article 3 days ago 4 min read NASA Student Challenge Prepares Future Designers for Lunar Missions Article 3 days ago 2 min read From Garment Industry to NASA: Meet Systems Engineer Daniel Eng Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA

Armstrong Flight Research Center

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3 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Students from Tropico Middle School in Rosamond, California, build their own paper planes as part of a project during NASA Aero Fair on April 9, 2025.NASA/Genaro Vavuris

A new generation of aerospace explorers will soon embark on a hands-on summer experience focusing on careers in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (STEM). This month, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and the Flight Test Museum Foundation will launch the 2025 Junior Test Pilot School.

Held at Blackbird Airpark and Joe Davies Heritage Airpark in Palmdale, California, this six-week program invites elementary-aged students to step into the shoes of test pilots and engineers from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, June 16 through July 25. Registration is free through participating school districts and the Flight Test Museum. Students will have direct access to legendary aircraft such as A-12, SR-71, U-2, F-86 Sabre, and NASA Boeing 747 Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

The Junior Test Pilot School combines authentic NASA-designed curriculum, immersive aerospace activities, and direct engagement with engineers, test pilots, and scientists to inspire future aerospace professionals in the Antelope Valley – home to one of the nation’s highest concentrations of STEM careers.

“This program offers more than a glimpse into aerospace, it provides students a hands-on opportunity to solve real-world problems and see themselves in future STEM roles,” said Dr. Amira Flores, program integration manager for NASA’s California Office of STEM Engagement.

Daily lessons cover eight core modules: flight principles, stealth engineering, altitude effects, speed and g-force, payload impact, maneuverability, reconnaissance design, and jet engine systems.

Additionally, in collaboration with NASA Armstrong’s Aero Fair program, students will be guided through the program’s Wildfire Design Challenge by a NASA volunteer. Following the engineering design process, students will collaborate to design and build a prototype of an aerial vehicle that suppresses wildfires.

“Our junior test pilots learn to analyze the aircraft to figure out why they were designed the way they are and think like an engineer,” said Lisa Sheldon Brown, director of education at the Flight Test Museum. “Research shows that academic trajectory is set by fifth grade, making this the critical window to inspire STEM interest and career awareness.”

The program is delivered in partnership with the City of Palmdale and is supported by industry sponsors, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. These partners not only provide funding and volunteers but also elevate career exposure by introducing students to diverse aerospace professionals within the region. 

NASA Armstrong is a hub of aeronautical innovation and STEM workforce development in the Antelope Valley. Through programs like Aero Fair and partnerships like Junior Test Pilots School, Armstrong inspires and equips the next generation of engineers, pilots, and scientists. 

The Flight Test Museum Foundation preserves the legacy and promotes the future of aerospace through education programs and historical preservation at the Blackbird Airpark and forthcoming Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base in Edwards, California.

For more about NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/armstrong

– end –

Elena Aguirre
Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
(661) 276-7004
elena.aguirre@nasa.gov

Dede Dinius
Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
(661) 276-5701
darin.l.dinius@nasa.gov

Explore More 5 min read NASA F-15s Validate Tools for Quesst Mission Article 3 days ago 4 min read NASA Student Challenge Prepares Future Designers for Lunar Missions Article 3 days ago 2 min read From Garment Industry to NASA: Meet Systems Engineer Daniel Eng Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA

Armstrong Flight Research Center

Humans in Space

Climate Change

Solar System

5 min read

NASA Launching Rockets Into Radio-Disrupting Clouds

NASA is launching rockets from a remote Pacific island to study mysterious, high-altitude cloud-like structures that can disrupt critical communication systems. The mission, called Sporadic-E ElectroDynamics, or SEED, opens its three-week launch window from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Friday, June 13.

The atmospheric features SEED is studying are known as Sporadic-E layers, and they create a host of problems for radio communications. When they are present, air traffic controllers and marine radio users may pick up signals from unusually distant regions, mistaking them for nearby sources. Military operators using radar to see beyond the horizon may detect false targets — nicknamed “ghosts” — or receive garbled signals that are tricky to decipher. Sporadic-E layers are constantly forming, moving, and dissipating, so these disruptions can be difficult to anticipate.

An animated illustration depicts Sporadic-E layers forming in the lower portions of the ionosphere, causing radio signals to reflect back to Earth before reaching higher layers of the ionosphere. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab

Sporadic-E layers form in the ionosphere, a layer of Earth’s atmosphere that stretches from about 40 to 600 miles (60 to 1,000 kilometers) above sea level. Home to the International Space Station and most Earth-orbiting satellites, the ionosphere is also where we see the greatest impacts of space weather. Primarily driven by the Sun, space weather causes myriad problems for our communications with satellites and between ground systems. A better understanding of the ionosphere is key to keeping critical infrastructure running smoothly.

The ionosphere is named for the charged particles, or ions, that reside there. Some of these ions come from meteors, which burn up in the atmosphere and leave traces of ionized iron, magnesium, calcium, sodium, and potassium suspended in the sky. These “heavy metals” are more massive than the ionosphere’s typical residents and tend to sink to lower altitudes, below 90 miles (140 kilometers). Occasionally, they clump together to create dense clusters known as Sporadic-E layers.

The Perseids meteor shower peaks in mid-August. Meteors like these can deposit metals into Earth’s ionosphere that can help create cloud-like structures called Sporadic-E layers. NASA/Preston Dyches

“These Sporadic-E layers are not visible to naked eye, and can only be seen by radars. In the radar plots, some layers appear like patchy and puffy clouds, while others spread out, similar to an overcast sky, which we call blanketing Sporadic-E layer” said Aroh Barjatya, the SEED mission’s principal investigator and a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The SEED team includes scientists from Embry-Riddle, Boston College in Massachusetts, and Clemson University in South Carolina.

“There’s a lot of interest in predicting these layers and understanding their dynamics because of how they interfere with communications,” Barjatya said.

A Mystery at the Equator

Scientists can explain Sporadic-E layers when they form at midlatitudes but not when they appear close to Earth’s equator — such as near Kwajalein Atoll, where the SEED mission will launch.

In the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Sporadic-E layers can be thought of as particle traffic jams.

Think of ions in the atmosphere as miniature cars traveling single file in lanes defined by Earth’s magnetic field lines. These lanes connect Earth end to end — emerging near the South Pole, bowing around the equator, and plunging back into the North Pole.

A conceptual animation shows Earth’s magnetic field. The blue lines radiating from Earth represent the magnetic field lines that charged particles travel along. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab

At Earth’s midlatitudes, the field lines angle toward the ground, descending through atmospheric layers with varying wind speeds and directions. As the ions pass through these layers, they experience wind shear — turbulent gusts that cause their orderly line to clump together. These particle pileups form Sporadic-E layers.

But near the magnetic equator, this explanation doesn’t work. There, Earth’s magnetic field lines run parallel to the surface and do not intersect atmospheric layers with differing winds, so Sporadic-E layers shouldn’t form. Yet, they do — though less frequently.

“We’re launching from the closest place NASA can to the magnetic equator,” Barjatya said, “to study the physics that existing theory doesn’t fully explain.”

Taking to the Skies

To investigate, Barjatya developed SEED to study low-latitude Sporadic-E layers from the inside. The mission relies on sounding rockets — uncrewed suborbital spacecraft carrying scientific instruments. Their flights last only a few minutes but can be launched precisely at fleeting targets.

Beginning the night of June 13, Barjatya and his team will monitor ALTAIR (ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar), a high-powered, ground-based radar system at the launch site, for signs of developing Sporadic-E layers. When conditions are right, Barjatya will give the launch command. A few minutes later, the rocket will be in flight.

The SEED science team and mission management team in front of the ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR). The SEED team will use ALTAIR to monitor the ionosphere for signs of Sporadic-E layers and time the launch. U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command

On ascent, the rocket will release colorful vapor tracers. Ground-based cameras will track the tracers to measure wind patterns in three dimensions. Once inside the Sporadic-E layer, the rocket will deploy four subpayloads — miniature detectors that will measure particle density and magnetic field strength at multiple points. The data will be transmitted back to the ground as the rocket descends.

On another night during the launch window, the team will launch a second, nearly identical rocket to collect additional data under potentially different conditions.

Barjatya and his team will use the data to improve computer models of the ionosphere, aiming to explain how Sporadic-E layers form so close to the equator.

“Sporadic-E layers are part of a much larger, more complicated physical system that is home to space-based assets we rely on every day,” Barjatya said. “This launch gets us closer to understanding another key piece of Earth’s interface to space.”

By Miles Hatfield

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Jun 12, 2025

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• Heliophysics
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Heliophysics Division
• Ionosphere
• Missions
• NASA Centers & Facilities
• NASA Directorates
• Science & Research
• Science Mission Directorate
• Sounding Rockets
• Sounding Rockets Program
• The Solar System
• The Sun
• Uncategorized
• Wallops Flight Facility
• Weather and Atmospheric Dynamics

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NASA Launching Rockets Into Radio-Disrupting Clouds

NASA is launching rockets from a remote Pacific island to study mysterious, high-altitude cloud-like structures that can disrupt critical communication systems. The mission, called Sporadic-E ElectroDynamics, or SEED, opens its three-week launch window from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Friday, June 13.

The atmospheric features SEED is studying are known as Sporadic-E layers, and they create a host of problems for radio communications. When they are present, air traffic controllers and marine radio users may pick up signals from unusually distant regions, mistaking them for nearby sources. Military operators using radar to see beyond the horizon may detect false targets — nicknamed “ghosts” — or receive garbled signals that are tricky to decipher. Sporadic-E layers are constantly forming, moving, and dissipating, so these disruptions can be difficult to anticipate.

An animated illustration depicts Sporadic-E layers forming in the lower portions of the ionosphere, causing radio signals to reflect back to Earth before reaching higher layers of the ionosphere. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab

Sporadic-E layers form in the ionosphere, a layer of Earth’s atmosphere that stretches from about 40 to 600 miles (60 to 1,000 kilometers) above sea level. Home to the International Space Station and most Earth-orbiting satellites, the ionosphere is also where we see the greatest impacts of space weather. Primarily driven by the Sun, space weather causes myriad problems for our communications with satellites and between ground systems. A better understanding of the ionosphere is key to keeping critical infrastructure running smoothly.

The ionosphere is named for the charged particles, or ions, that reside there. Some of these ions come from meteors, which burn up in the atmosphere and leave traces of ionized iron, magnesium, calcium, sodium, and potassium suspended in the sky. These “heavy metals” are more massive than the ionosphere’s typical residents and tend to sink to lower altitudes, below 90 miles (140 kilometers). Occasionally, they clump together to create dense clusters known as Sporadic-E layers.

The Perseids meteor shower peaks in mid-August. Meteors like these can deposit metals into Earth’s ionosphere that can help create cloud-like structures called Sporadic-E layers. NASA/Preston Dyches

“These Sporadic-E layers are not visible to naked eye, and can only be seen by radars. In the radar plots, some layers appear like patchy and puffy clouds, while others spread out, similar to an overcast sky, which we call blanketing Sporadic-E layer” said Aroh Barjatya, the SEED mission’s principal investigator and a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The SEED team includes scientists from Embry-Riddle, Boston College in Massachusetts, and Clemson University in South Carolina.

“There’s a lot of interest in predicting these layers and understanding their dynamics because of how they interfere with communications,” Barjatya said.

A Mystery at the Equator

Scientists can explain Sporadic-E layers when they form at midlatitudes but not when they appear close to Earth’s equator — such as near Kwajalein Atoll, where the SEED mission will launch.

In the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Sporadic-E layers can be thought of as particle traffic jams.

Think of ions in the atmosphere as miniature cars traveling single file in lanes defined by Earth’s magnetic field lines. These lanes connect Earth end to end — emerging near the South Pole, bowing around the equator, and plunging back into the North Pole.

A conceptual animation shows Earth’s magnetic field. The blue lines radiating from Earth represent the magnetic field lines that charged particles travel along. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab

At Earth’s midlatitudes, the field lines angle toward the ground, descending through atmospheric layers with varying wind speeds and directions. As the ions pass through these layers, they experience wind shear — turbulent gusts that cause their orderly line to clump together. These particle pileups form Sporadic-E layers.

But near the magnetic equator, this explanation doesn’t work. There, Earth’s magnetic field lines run parallel to the surface and do not intersect atmospheric layers with differing winds, so Sporadic-E layers shouldn’t form. Yet, they do — though less frequently.

“We’re launching from the closest place NASA can to the magnetic equator,” Barjatya said, “to study the physics that existing theory doesn’t fully explain.”

Taking to the Skies

To investigate, Barjatya developed SEED to study low-latitude Sporadic-E layers from the inside. The mission relies on sounding rockets — uncrewed suborbital spacecraft carrying scientific instruments. Their flights last only a few minutes but can be launched precisely at fleeting targets.

Beginning the night of June 13, Barjatya and his team will monitor ALTAIR (ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar), a high-powered, ground-based radar system at the launch site, for signs of developing Sporadic-E layers. When conditions are right, Barjatya will give the launch command. A few minutes later, the rocket will be in flight.

The SEED science team and mission management team in front of the ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR). The SEED team will use ALTAIR to monitor the ionosphere for signs of Sporadic-E layers and time the launch. U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command

On ascent, the rocket will release colorful vapor tracers. Ground-based cameras will track the tracers to measure wind patterns in three dimensions. Once inside the Sporadic-E layer, the rocket will deploy four subpayloads — miniature detectors that will measure particle density and magnetic field strength at multiple points. The data will be transmitted back to the ground as the rocket descends.

On another night during the launch window, the team will launch a second, nearly identical rocket to collect additional data under potentially different conditions.

Barjatya and his team will use the data to improve computer models of the ionosphere, aiming to explain how Sporadic-E layers form so close to the equator.

“Sporadic-E layers are part of a much larger, more complicated physical system that is home to space-based assets we rely on every day,” Barjatya said. “This launch gets us closer to understanding another key piece of Earth’s interface to space.”

By Miles Hatfield

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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A funky effect Einstein predicted, known as gravitational lensing — when a foreground galaxy magnifies more distant galaxies behind it — will soon become common when NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope begins science operations in 2027 and produces vast surveys of the cosmos.

This image shows a simulated observation from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope with an overlay of its Wide Field Instrument’s field of view. More than 20 gravitational lenses, with examples shown at left and right, are expected to pop out in every one of Roman’s vast observations. A journal paper led by Bryce Wedig, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, estimates that of those Roman detects, about 500 from the telescope’s High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey will be suitable for dark matter studies. By examining such a large population of gravitational lenses, the researchers hope to learn a lot more about the mysterious nature of dark matter.Credit: NASA, Bryce Wedig (Washington University), Tansu Daylan (Washington University), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

A particular subset of gravitational lenses, known as strong lenses, is the focus of a new paper published in the Astrophysical Journal led by Bryce Wedig, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. The research team has calculated that over 160,000 gravitational lenses, including hundreds suitable for this study, are expected to pop up in Roman’s vast images. Each Roman image will be 200 times larger than infrared snapshots from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, and its upcoming “wealth” of lenses will vastly outpace the hundreds studied by Hubble to date.

Roman will conduct three core surveys, providing expansive views of the universe. This science team’s work is based on a previous version of Roman’s now fully defined High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey. The researchers are working on a follow-up paper that will align with the final survey’s specifications to fully support the research community.

“The current sample size of these objects from other telescopes is fairly small because we’re relying on two galaxies to be lined up nearly perfectly along our line of sight,” Wedig said. “Other telescopes are either limited to a smaller field of view or less precise observations, making gravitational lenses harder to detect.”

Gravitational lenses are made up of at least two cosmic objects. In some cases, a single foreground galaxy has enough mass to act like a lens, magnifying a galaxy that is almost perfectly behind it. Light from the background galaxy curves around the foreground galaxy along more than one path, appearing in observations as warped arcs and crescents. Of the 160,000 lensed galaxies Roman may identify, the team expects to narrow that down to about 500 that are suitable for studying the structure of dark matter at scales smaller than those galaxies.

“Roman will not only significantly increase our sample size — its sharp, high-resolution images will also allow us to discover gravitational lenses that appear smaller on the sky,” said Tansu Daylan, the principal investigator of the science team conducting this research program. Daylan is an assistant professor and a faculty fellow at the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Ultimately, both the alignment and the brightness of the background galaxies need to meet a certain threshold so we can characterize the dark matter within the foreground galaxies.”

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

This video shows how a background galaxy’s light is lensed or magnified by a massive foreground galaxy, seen at center, before reaching NASA’s Roman Space Telescope. Light from the background galaxy is distorted, curving around the foreground galaxy and appearing more than once as warped arcs and crescents. Researchers studying these objects, known as gravitational lenses, can better characterize the mass of the foreground galaxy, which offers clues about the particle nature of dark matter.Credit: NASA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) What Is Dark Matter?

Not all mass in galaxies is made up of objects we can see, like star clusters. A significant fraction of a galaxy’s mass is made up of dark matter, so called because it doesn’t emit, reflect, or absorb light. Dark matter does, however, possess mass, and like anything else with mass, it can cause gravitational lensing.

When the gravity of a foreground galaxy bends the path of a background galaxy’s light, its light is routed onto multiple paths. “This effect produces multiple images of the background galaxy that are magnified and distorted differently,” Daylan said. These “duplicates” are a huge advantage for researchers — they allow multiple measurements of the lensing galaxy’s mass distribution, ensuring that the resulting measurement is far more precise.

Roman’s 300-megapixel camera, known as its Wide Field Instrument, will allow researchers to accurately determine the bending of the background galaxies’ light by as little as 50 milliarcseconds, which is like measuring the diameter of a human hair from the distance of more than two and a half American football fields or soccer pitches.

The amount of gravitational lensing that the background light experiences depends on the intervening mass. Less massive clumps of dark matter cause smaller distortions. As a result, if researchers are able to measure tinier amounts of bending, they can detect and characterize smaller, less massive dark matter structures — the types of structures that gradually merged over time to build up the galaxies we see today.

With Roman, the team will accumulate overwhelming statistics about the size and structures of early galaxies. “Finding gravitational lenses and being able to detect clumps of dark matter in them is a game of tiny odds. With Roman, we can cast a wide net and expect to get lucky often,” Wedig said. “We won’t see dark matter in the images — it’s invisible — but we can measure its effects.”

“Ultimately, the question we’re trying to address is: What particle or particles constitute dark matter?” Daylan added. “While some properties of dark matter are known, we essentially have no idea what makes up dark matter. Roman will help us to distinguish how dark matter is distributed on small scales and, hence, its particle nature.”

Preparations Continue

Before Roman launches, the team will also search for more candidates in observations from ESA’s (the European Space Agency’s) Euclid mission and the upcoming ground-based Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which will begin its full-scale operations in a few weeks. Once Roman’s infrared images are in hand, the researchers will combine them with complementary visible light images from Euclid, Rubin, and Hubble to maximize what’s known about these galaxies.

“We will push the limits of what we can observe, and use every gravitational lens we detect with Roman to pin down the particle nature of dark matter,” Daylan said.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

By Claire Blome
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

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Details Last Updated Jun 12, 2025 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms

• Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
• Astrophysics
• Dark Matter
• Galaxies
• Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes
• Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research
• The Universe

Explore More 6 min read NASA’s Roman Mission Shares Detailed Plans to Scour Skies Article 2 months ago 5 min read Millions of Galaxies Emerge in New Simulated Images From NASA’s Roman Article 2 years ago 6 min read Team Preps to Study Dark Energy via Exploding Stars With NASA’s Roman Article 3 months ago

A funky effect Einstein predicted, known as gravitational lensing — when a foreground galaxy magnifies more distant galaxies behind it — will soon become common when NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope begins science operations in 2027 and produces vast surveys of the cosmos.

This image shows a simulated observation from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope with an overlay of its Wide Field Instrument’s field of view. More than 20 gravitational lenses, with examples shown at left and right, are expected to pop out in every one of Roman’s vast observations. A journal paper led by Bryce Wedig, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, estimates that of those Roman detects, about 500 from the telescope’s High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey will be suitable for dark matter studies. By examining such a large population of gravitational lenses, the researchers hope to learn a lot more about the mysterious nature of dark matter.Credit: NASA, Bryce Wedig (Washington University), Tansu Daylan (Washington University), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

A particular subset of gravitational lenses, known as strong lenses, is the focus of a new paper published in the Astrophysical Journal led by Bryce Wedig, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. The research team has calculated that over 160,000 gravitational lenses, including hundreds suitable for this study, are expected to pop up in Roman’s vast images. Each Roman image will be 200 times larger than infrared snapshots from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, and its upcoming “wealth” of lenses will vastly outpace the hundreds studied by Hubble to date.

Roman will conduct three core surveys, providing expansive views of the universe. This science team’s work is based on a previous version of Roman’s now fully defined High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey. The researchers are working on a follow-up paper that will align with the final survey’s specifications to fully support the research community.

“The current sample size of these objects from other telescopes is fairly small because we’re relying on two galaxies to be lined up nearly perfectly along our line of sight,” Wedig said. “Other telescopes are either limited to a smaller field of view or less precise observations, making gravitational lenses harder to detect.”

Gravitational lenses are made up of at least two cosmic objects. In some cases, a single foreground galaxy has enough mass to act like a lens, magnifying a galaxy that is almost perfectly behind it. Light from the background galaxy curves around the foreground galaxy along more than one path, appearing in observations as warped arcs and crescents. Of the 160,000 lensed galaxies Roman may identify, the team expects to narrow that down to about 500 that are suitable for studying the structure of dark matter at scales smaller than those galaxies.

“Roman will not only significantly increase our sample size — its sharp, high-resolution images will also allow us to discover gravitational lenses that appear smaller on the sky,” said Tansu Daylan, the principal investigator of the science team conducting this research program. Daylan is an assistant professor and a faculty fellow at the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Ultimately, both the alignment and the brightness of the background galaxies need to meet a certain threshold so we can characterize the dark matter within the foreground galaxies.”

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

This video shows how a background galaxy’s light is lensed or magnified by a massive foreground galaxy, seen at center, before reaching NASA’s Roman Space Telescope. Light from the background galaxy is distorted, curving around the foreground galaxy and appearing more than once as warped arcs and crescents. Researchers studying these objects, known as gravitational lenses, can better characterize the mass of the foreground galaxy, which offers clues about the particle nature of dark matter.Credit: NASA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) What Is Dark Matter?

Not all mass in galaxies is made up of objects we can see, like star clusters. A significant fraction of a galaxy’s mass is made up of dark matter, so called because it doesn’t emit, reflect, or absorb light. Dark matter does, however, possess mass, and like anything else with mass, it can cause gravitational lensing.

When the gravity of a foreground galaxy bends the path of a background galaxy’s light, its light is routed onto multiple paths. “This effect produces multiple images of the background galaxy that are magnified and distorted differently,” Daylan said. These “duplicates” are a huge advantage for researchers — they allow multiple measurements of the lensing galaxy’s mass distribution, ensuring that the resulting measurement is far more precise.

Roman’s 300-megapixel camera, known as its Wide Field Instrument, will allow researchers to accurately determine the bending of the background galaxies’ light by as little as 50 milliarcseconds, which is like measuring the diameter of a human hair from the distance of more than two and a half American football fields or soccer pitches.

The amount of gravitational lensing that the background light experiences depends on the intervening mass. Less massive clumps of dark matter cause smaller distortions. As a result, if researchers are able to measure tinier amounts of bending, they can detect and characterize smaller, less massive dark matter structures — the types of structures that gradually merged over time to build up the galaxies we see today.

With Roman, the team will accumulate overwhelming statistics about the size and structures of early galaxies. “Finding gravitational lenses and being able to detect clumps of dark matter in them is a game of tiny odds. With Roman, we can cast a wide net and expect to get lucky often,” Wedig said. “We won’t see dark matter in the images — it’s invisible — but we can measure its effects.”

“Ultimately, the question we’re trying to address is: What particle or particles constitute dark matter?” Daylan added. “While some properties of dark matter are known, we essentially have no idea what makes up dark matter. Roman will help us to distinguish how dark matter is distributed on small scales and, hence, its particle nature.”

Preparations Continue

Before Roman launches, the team will also search for more candidates in observations from ESA’s (the European Space Agency’s) Euclid mission and the upcoming ground-based Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which will begin its full-scale operations in a few weeks. Once Roman’s infrared images are in hand, the researchers will combine them with complementary visible light images from Euclid, Rubin, and Hubble to maximize what’s known about these galaxies.

“We will push the limits of what we can observe, and use every gravitational lens we detect with Roman to pin down the particle nature of dark matter,” Daylan said.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

By Claire Blome
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Share

Details Last Updated Jun 12, 2025 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms

• Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
• Astrophysics
• Dark Matter
• Galaxies
• Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes
• Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research
• The Universe

Explore More 6 min read NASA’s Roman Mission Shares Detailed Plans to Scour Skies Article 2 months ago 5 min read Millions of Galaxies Emerge in New Simulated Images From NASA’s Roman Article 2 years ago 6 min read Team Preps to Study Dark Energy via Exploding Stars With NASA’s Roman Article 3 months ago

3 Min Read Studying Storms from Space Station An artist’s impression of a blue jet as observed from the space station. Credits: Mount Visual/University of Bergen/DTU Science in Space June 2025

Scientists use instruments on the International Space Station to study phenomena in Earth’s ionosphere or upper atmosphere including thunderstorms, lightning, and transient luminous events (TLEs). TLEs take many forms, including blue jets, discharges that grow upward into the stratosphere from cloud tops, and colorful bursts of energy above storms called Stratospheric/Mesospheric Perturbations Resulting from Intense Thunderstorm Electrification or SPRITES.

Red SPRITES are visible above a line of thunderstorms off the coast of South Africa.NASA

TLEs can disrupt communication systems on the ground and pose a threat to aircraft and spacecraft. Understanding these phenomena also could improve atmospheric models and weather predictions. Because these events occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning and storm clouds, they are difficult to observe from the ground. ASIM, an investigation from ESA (European Space Agency), uses a monitor on the exterior of the space station to collect data on TLEs. These data are providing insights into how thunderstorms affect Earth’s atmosphere and helping to improve atmospheric models used for weather and climate predictions.

ELVES and coronas

A study based on ASIM data confirmed that lightning-like discharges at the tops of thunderstorms can create another type of TLE, massive glowing rings in the upper atmosphere known as Emissions of Light and VLF Perturbations from EMP events, or ELVES. This experiment showed that these discharges influence the ionosphere and helped scientists learn more about Earth and space weather.

ASIM-based research also described the physical properties of different types of corona discharges in thunderstorm clouds. Corona discharges are linked to powerful but short-lived electrical bursts near the tops of clouds. The data provide a reference to support further investigation into the mechanisms behind these discharges and their role in the initiation of lightning, an important problem in lightning physics.

Other researchers used ASIM measurements along with ground-based electric field measurements to determine the height of a blue discharge from a thundercloud.

Cloud close-ups

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Lightning on Earth as captured from the space station.NASA

Another ESA investigation, Thor-Davis, evaluated use of a special camera to photograph high-altitude thunderstorms through the windows of the space station’s cupola. The camera can observe thunderstorm electrical activity at up to 100,000 frames per second and could be a useful tool for space-based observation of severe electrical storms and other applications.

Seeing storms from satellites Deployment of the Light-1 CubeSat from the space station.NASA

The JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) investigation Light-1 CubeSat used detectors integrated into a compact satellite to observe terrestrial gamma-ray flashes in the upper atmosphere. These high intensity, energetic events can expose aircraft, aircraft electronics, and passengers to excessive radiation. Researchers are planning to compare data collected from the mission with ground-based observations to provide more comprehensive maps of lightning and thunderstorms in the atmosphere. Small satellite detectors could cost less and be manufactured in less time than other approaches.

Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA

Space Station Research and Technology

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Station Researcher’s Guide Series

3 Min Read Studying Storms from Space Station An artist’s impression of a blue jet as observed from the space station. Credits: Mount Visual/University of Bergen/DTU Science in Space June 2025

Scientists use instruments on the International Space Station to study phenomena in Earth’s ionosphere or upper atmosphere including thunderstorms, lightning, and transient luminous events (TLEs). TLEs take many forms, including blue jets, discharges that grow upward into the stratosphere from cloud tops, and colorful bursts of energy above storms called Stratospheric/Mesospheric Perturbations Resulting from Intense Thunderstorm Electrification or SPRITES.

Red SPRITES are visible above a line of thunderstorms off the coast of South Africa.NASA

TLEs can disrupt communication systems on the ground and pose a threat to aircraft and spacecraft. Understanding these phenomena also could improve atmospheric models and weather predictions. Because these events occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning and storm clouds, they are difficult to observe from the ground. ASIM, an investigation from ESA (European Space Agency), uses a monitor on the exterior of the space station to collect data on TLEs. These data are providing insights into how thunderstorms affect Earth’s atmosphere and helping to improve atmospheric models used for weather and climate predictions.

ELVES and coronas

A study based on ASIM data confirmed that lightning-like discharges at the tops of thunderstorms can create another type of TLE, massive glowing rings in the upper atmosphere known as Emissions of Light and VLF Perturbations from EMP events, or ELVES. This experiment showed that these discharges influence the ionosphere and helped scientists learn more about Earth and space weather.

ASIM-based research also described the physical properties of different types of corona discharges in thunderstorm clouds. Corona discharges are linked to powerful but short-lived electrical bursts near the tops of clouds. The data provide a reference to support further investigation into the mechanisms behind these discharges and their role in the initiation of lightning, an important problem in lightning physics.

Other researchers used ASIM measurements along with ground-based electric field measurements to determine the height of a blue discharge from a thundercloud.

Cloud close-ups

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Lightning on Earth as captured from the space station.NASA

Another ESA investigation, Thor-Davis, evaluated use of a special camera to photograph high-altitude thunderstorms through the windows of the space station’s cupola. The camera can observe thunderstorm electrical activity at up to 100,000 frames per second and could be a useful tool for space-based observation of severe electrical storms and other applications.

Seeing storms from satellites Deployment of the Light-1 CubeSat from the space station.NASA

The JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) investigation Light-1 CubeSat used detectors integrated into a compact satellite to observe terrestrial gamma-ray flashes in the upper atmosphere. These high intensity, energetic events can expose aircraft, aircraft electronics, and passengers to excessive radiation. Researchers are planning to compare data collected from the mission with ground-based observations to provide more comprehensive maps of lightning and thunderstorms in the atmosphere. Small satellite detectors could cost less and be manufactured in less time than other approaches.

Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA

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This image was taken by Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4564 NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Michelle Minitti, Planetary Geologist at Framework

Earth planning date: Monday, June 9, 2025

The image above shows the drill poised on the surface of Mars at the start of our attempt to collect sample at “Altadena” over the weekend. Now we know, from subsequent imaging and telemetry, that the drill activity was successful, allowing planning today to focus on delivering sample powder to CheMin and SAM. CheMin and SAM will give us their distinct and valuable insights into the mineralogy (CheMin) and volatiles and organic compounds (SAM) within Altadena, which are key to our continued unravelling the history of Mt. Sharp. It is always exciting to find out what each of these instruments uncovers from Martian samples.

In addition to those sample deliveries, we had three other Altadena-focused activities. We acquired ChemCam RMI of the drill hole which helps ChemCam refine their laser targeting for future LIBS analyses of the drill hole. We planned a ChemCam passive spectroscopy observation of the cuttings around the drill hole for more insight into the mineralogy of the sample. We also included a single Mastcam M100 image of the drill hole which helps us track the wind activity at the drill site and thus the stability of the cuttings ahead of planned observations with APXS and MAHLI.

The weekend activities ran faster and more efficiently than modeled so that we had power to add additional science observations into the plan. We gathered more ChemCam data from the bedrock near Altadena at the target “Bolsa Chica,” and planned two ChemCam RMI long distance mosaics on sedimentary structures within “Texoli” butte and nearby boxwork structures. We kept track of the environment around us with yet more Mastcam imaging for wind-induced changes in the “Camp Williams” area, regular RAD and REMS measurements, two DAN measurements, and Navcam dust devil imaging and cloud movies.

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This image was taken by Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4564 NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Michelle Minitti, Planetary Geologist at Framework

Earth planning date: Monday, June 9, 2025

The image above shows the drill poised on the surface of Mars at the start of our attempt to collect sample at “Altadena” over the weekend. Now we know, from subsequent imaging and telemetry, that the drill activity was successful, allowing planning today to focus on delivering sample powder to CheMin and SAM. CheMin and SAM will give us their distinct and valuable insights into the mineralogy (CheMin) and volatiles and organic compounds (SAM) within Altadena, which are key to our continued unravelling the history of Mt. Sharp. It is always exciting to find out what each of these instruments uncovers from Martian samples.

In addition to those sample deliveries, we had three other Altadena-focused activities. We acquired ChemCam RMI of the drill hole which helps ChemCam refine their laser targeting for future LIBS analyses of the drill hole. We planned a ChemCam passive spectroscopy observation of the cuttings around the drill hole for more insight into the mineralogy of the sample. We also included a single Mastcam M100 image of the drill hole which helps us track the wind activity at the drill site and thus the stability of the cuttings ahead of planned observations with APXS and MAHLI.

The weekend activities ran faster and more efficiently than modeled so that we had power to add additional science observations into the plan. We gathered more ChemCam data from the bedrock near Altadena at the target “Bolsa Chica,” and planned two ChemCam RMI long distance mosaics on sedimentary structures within “Texoli” butte and nearby boxwork structures. We kept track of the environment around us with yet more Mastcam imaging for wind-induced changes in the “Camp Williams” area, regular RAD and REMS measurements, two DAN measurements, and Navcam dust devil imaging and cloud movies.

Explore More

4 min read Sols 4561-4562: Prepping to Drill at Altadena

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2 min read Searching for Ancient Rocks in the ‘Forlandet’ Flats

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3 min read Sols 4559-4560: Drill Campaign — Searching for a Boxwork Bedrock Drill Site

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The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

On May 22, 2025, NASA hosted an Expedition 72 crew debrief and awards ceremony at Space Center Houston, where more than 1,000 attendees gathered to celebrate. The event recognized the achievements of the crew as well as NASA employees and partners whose dedication and support contributed to the expedition’s success. Crew members from Expedition 72 shared reflections and anecdotes from their time on the International Space Station and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to contribute to scientific research aboard the orbiting laboratory. 

A group photo of participants from the Expedition 72 crew debrief and awards ceremony on May 22, 2025, at Space Center Houston’s IMAX theater. NASA/James Blair

The event included four NASA astronauts: 

• Nick Hague, Crew-9 commander and Expedition 72 flight engineer 

• Butch Wilmore, Boeing Starliner commander and Expedition 72 flight engineer 

• Suni Williams, Boeing Starliner pilot and Expedition 72 commander 

• Don Pettit, Soyuz MS-26 and Expedition 72 flight engineer 

The Expedition 72 crew also included Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Aleksey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, who were not in attendance. The cosmonauts served as Crew-9 mission specialist, Soyuz-MS commander, and Soyuz-MS flight engineer, respectively. 

NASA astronaut Matt Dominick kicked off the event by striking the ceremonial bell, a tradition symbolizing the end of the mission for the crew and those that support them.  

Johnson Space Center Acting Director Stephen Koerner recognized the crew’s commitment to the mission and their role in the advancement of human spaceflight. “These brave men and women make the tough yet rewarding choice to embark on long-duration missions away from their family and friends,” he said. “They do this to conduct groundbreaking research and inspire generations. Spaceflight is hard, but through togetherness we make giant leaps, going further than ever before.” 

NASA astronauts (from left) Don Pettit and Butch Wilmore, Expedition 72 flight engineers, pack external research hardware which housed a variety of samples exposed to the vacuum of space such as polymers, photovoltaic devices, and more. The samples were returned to Earth to be examined to understand how space radiation, the extreme thermal environment, micrometeoroids, and more affect materials possibly benefitting the space industry. NASA NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Suni Williams, Expedition 72 Flight Engineer and Commander respectively, discuss orbital lab maintenance procedures aboard the International Space Station.NASA

The Expedition 72 crew dedicated more than 1,000 combined hours to scientific research and technology demonstrations aboard the International Space Station. Their work included enhancing metal 3D printing capabilities in orbit, exploring the potential of stem cell technology for treating diseases, preparing the first wooden satellite for deployment, and collecting samples from the station’s exterior to examine whether microorganisms can survive in the harsh environment of space. They also conducted studies on plant growth and quality, investigated how fire behaves in microgravity, and advanced life support systems, all aimed at improving the health, safety, and sustainability of future space missions.  

Pettit also used his spare time and surroundings aboard the station to conduct unique experiments and captivate the public with his photography. Expedition 72 captured a record 1 million photos during the mission, showcasing the unique research and views aboard the orbiting laboratory through astronauts’ eyes. 

The expedition was a historic venture, with Williams and Wilmore launching aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test before being integrated with the Expedition 71/72 crew and returning on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9. While working aboard the orbiting laboratory, Williams established a new record for the most cumulative spacewalking time by a woman — 62 hours and 6 minutes — placing her fourth among the most experienced spacewalkers in history. Additionally, Expedition 72 saw the first reboost of the International Space Station by a Dragon spacecraft.  

The crew participated in a panel discussion, sharing further details about the expedition including experiments conducted, favorite foods, and experiencing the Aurora Borealis. The conversation closed with a special patch presentation from Wilmore to Williams to highlight her achievement of exceeding Mach 25 in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.  

Following the panel, an award ceremony recognized team members for their efforts in supporting the mission, with recipients including the crew, NASA employees, and commercial partners.  

The Expedition 72 crew poses for a portrait inside the International Space Station’s Harmony module with a cake commemorating a total of 3,000 cumulative days in space gained between the individual crew members. Front row (from left): Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Back row (from left): NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Don Pettit, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, and NASA astronaut Suni Williams.NASA

Flight Operations Directorate Acting Director Kjell Lindgren discussed the impact of collaboration with commercial and international partners. “Your collaboration is vital not just to mission success but to the very identity of this program,” he said. “Together, we can demonstrate what global collaboration can achieve in pursuit of excellence and exploration.” 

Watch below to recap the Expedition 72 crew members’ journey aboard the International Space Station and to celebrate those who helped make the mission a success.    

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What does it take to gaze through time to our universe’s very first stars and galaxies?  

NASA answers this question in its new documentary, “Cosmic Dawn: The Untold Story of the James Webb Space Telescope.” The agency’s original documentary, which chronicles the story of the most powerful telescope ever deployed in space, was released Wednesday, June 11.

Cosmic Dawn offers an unprecedented glimpse into the delicate assembly, rigorous testing, and triumphant launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The documentary showcases the complexity involved in creating a telescope capable of peering billions of years into the past.  

Cosmic Dawn is now available for streaming on NASA’s YouTube, NASA+, and select local theaters. The trailer is available on NASA+ and YouTube.

Relive the pitfalls and the triumphs of the world’s most powerful space telescope—from developing the idea of an impossible machine to watching with bated breath as it unfolded, hurtling through space a million miles away from Earth. Watch the Documentary on YouTube

The film features never-before-seen footage captured by the Webb film crew, offering intimate access to the challenges and triumphs faced by the team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland — the birthplace of Webb.

“At NASA, we’re thrilled to share the untold story of our James Webb Space Telescope in our new film ‘Cosmic Dawn,’ celebrating not just the discoveries, but the extraordinary people who made it all happen, for the benefit of humanity,” said Rebecca Sirmons, head of NASA+ at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.

From its vantage point more than a million miles from Earth and a massive sunshield to block the light of our star, Webb’s First Deep Field  the deepest and sharpest infrared images of the universe that the world had seen.

Webb’s images have dazzled people around the globe, capturing the very faint light of the first stars and galaxies that formed more than 13.5 billion years ago. These are baby pictures from an ancient past when the first objects were turning on and emitting light after the Big Bang. Webb has also given us new insights into black holes, planets both inside and outside of our own solar system, and many other cosmic phenomena.

Webb was a mission that was going to be spectacular whether that was good or bad — if it failed or was successful. It was always going to make history

Sophia roberts

NASA Video Producer

NASA’s biggest and most powerful space telescope was also its most technically complicated to build. It was harder still to deploy, with more than 300 critical components that had to deploy perfectly. The risks were high in this complicated dance of engineering, but the rewards were so much higher.

“Webb was a mission that was going to be spectacular whether that was good or bad — if it failed or was successful,” said video producer Sophia Roberts, who chronicled the five years preceding Webb’s launch. “It was always going to make history.”

NASA scientists like Nobel Laureate Dr. John Mather conceived Webb to look farther and deeper into origins of our universe using cutting edge infrared technology and massive mirrors to collect incredibly rich information about our universe, from the light of the first galaxies to detailed images of planets in our own solar system.

To achieve this goal, NASA and its partners faced unprecedented hurdles.

Webb’s development introduced questions that no one had asked before. How do you fit a telescope with the footprint of a tennis court into a rocket? How do you clean 18 sensitive mirrors when a single scratch could render them inoperable? How do you maintain critical testing while hurricane stormwater pours through ceilings?

A technician inspects the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirrors at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.NASA/Sophia Roberts

Cosmic Dawn captures 25 years of formidable design constraints, high-stake assessments, devastating natural disasters, a global pandemic and determined individuals who would let none of that get in the way of getting this monumental observatory to its rightful place in the cosmos.

“There was nothing easy about Webb at all,” said Webb project manager Bill Ochs. “I don’t care what aspect of the mission you looked at.”

Viewers will experience a one-of-a-kind journey as NASA and its partners tackle these dilemmas — and more — through ingenuity, teamwork, and unbreakable determination.

“The inspiration of trying to discover something — to build something that’s never been built before, to discover something that’s never been known before — it keeps us going,” Mather said. “We are pleased and privileged in our position here at NASA to be able to carry out this [purpose] on behalf of the country and the world.”

Bound by NASA’s 66-year commitment to document and share its work with the public, Cosmic Dawn details every step toward Webb’s launch and science results.

Learn more at nasa.gov/cosmicdawn

By Laine Havens,
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Media Contact:
Katie Konans,
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Details Last Updated Jun 11, 2025 Related Terms

• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• NASA+

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a bobcat wades through one of the waterways near Launch Pad 39B.