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A termination letter obtained by New Scientist reveals that the Trump administration has gutted the office that runs the country’s only nationwide survey on drug use and mental health

The Trump Administration has fired four leaders and thousands of employees at the National Institutes of Health in “one of the darkest days”

NASA's new infrared telescope named "SPHEREx" has officially opened its eyes to the cosmos.

The privately funded Fram2 mission is the first ever to take astronauts into polar orbit—and the latest sign of a “new normal” for human spaceflight

Check out this peek at new alien abduction thriller "Watch the Skies" coming to theaters May 9.

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore both say they'd ride on Boeing's Starliner again, despite the issues the capsule had on its first crewed flight.

The concept of nothing once sparked a 1000-year-long war, today it might explain dark energy and nothingness even has the potential to destroy the universe, explains physicist Antonio Padilla

The concept of nothing once sparked a 1000-year-long war, today it might explain dark energy and nothingness even has the potential to destroy the universe, explains physicist Antonio Padilla

Cloud-dodging eclipse chasers in New Brunswick and Québec, Canada, captured the solar horns, reflections and all kinds of weird views as the sun rose partially eclipsed.

President Trump has nominated space policy expert Greg Autry to be NASA's chief financial officer, as he did back in 2020 to no avail.

Many health problems are faced by astronauts who spend significant amounts of time in space. But perhaps one of the most insidious is the danger to their mental health. In particular, a prolonged sense of loneliness that could crop up as part of a long-term deep space mission could have dire consequences. A recent paper from Matthieu Guitton, the editor-in-chief of the journal Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans and a researcher at the CERVO Brain Research Center in Quebec, proposes one potential solution to that risk - social robots.

Under pressure from Elon Musk’s DOGE task force, NASA is cancelling grants and contracts for everything from lunar dust research to educational programmes

Under pressure from Elon Musk’s DOGE task force, NASA is cancelling grants and contracts for everything from lunar dust research to educational programmes

One of the common misconceptions about black holes is that they devour not only matter, but also the history of that matter. So when a black hole forms, you can only guess how it came to be. That isn't entirely true. Informational history is only lost when matter crosses the event horizon, and perhaps not even then. The material surrounding a black hole still has a rich history. In a recent study, astronomers have used that history to uncover the origins of a black hole system.

Though wildly different in so many ways, Earth and Saturn's moon Titan have something important in common. Among all the objects in the Solar System, they're the only two with liquids on their surfaces. There are parallels in how the liquids move in cycles on both worlds and a new mission proposal outlines how we can understand Titan better by studying these parallel processes.

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This ultra high-definition video featuring an orange tabby cat named Taters, was streamed from nearly 19 million miles away via laser by NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment, marking a historic milestone for space communications.Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Since it began in 1958, NASA has been charged by law with spreading the word about its work to the widest extent practicable. From typewritten press releases to analog photos and film, the agency has effectively moved into social media and other online communications. NASA’s broad reach across digital platforms has been recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), with 10 nominations across multiple categories for the academy’s 29th annual Webby Awards.

The 2025 Webby nominations demonstrate NASA's dedication to sharing the wonders of space through digital platforms. We believe in the power of digital storytelling to inspire the next generation of explorers.

Michelle R. Jones

Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications

Public Voting Opportunities

Voting for the Webby People’s Voice Awards—chosen by the public—is open now through Thursday, April 17. Voting links for each category are listed below.

29th Annual Webby Award Nominees AI, Immersive & Games

NASA’s Snap It! An Eclipse Photo Adventure
NASA
Kids and Family

Social

NASA Instagram
NASA
Education and Science

Matt Dominick’s X Account: A Visual Journey from Space
NASA
Best Photography & Design

NASA’s 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Campaign
NASA
Events and Livestreams

NASA’s Webb Telescope: Unfolding a Universe of Wonders
NASA Goddard
Education and Science

Video & Film

2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA
NASA
Events and Live

NASA Streams Historic Cat Video From Deep Space
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Events and Livestreams

Websites & Mobile Sites

NASA Website
NASA
Government & Associations

NASA+ Streaming Service
NASA
Television, Film & Streaming

NASA Newsletter
NASA
Business, News and Technology

About the Webby Awards

Established in 1996 during the web’s infancy, The Webbys is presented by the IADAS—a 3000+ member judging body. The Academy is comprised of Executive Members—leading Internet experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries, and creative celebrities—and associate members who are former Webby winners, nominees and other internet professionals.

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category—the Webby Award and the Webby People’s Voice Award. Members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards. In the spirit of the open web, the Webby People’s Voice is chosen by the voting public, and garners millions of votes from all over the world.

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This ultra high-definition video featuring an orange tabby cat named Taters, was streamed from nearly 19 million miles away via laser by NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment, marking a historic milestone for space communications.Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Since it began in 1958, NASA has been charged by law with spreading the word about its work to the widest extent practicable. From typewritten press releases to analog photos and film, the agency has effectively moved into social media and other online communications. NASA’s broad reach across digital platforms has been recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), with 10 nominations across multiple categories for the academy’s 29th annual Webby Awards.

The 2025 Webby nominations demonstrate NASA's dedication to sharing the wonders of space through digital platforms. We believe in the power of digital storytelling to inspire the next generation of explorers.

Michelle R. Jones

Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications

Public Voting Opportunities

Voting for the Webby People’s Voice Awards—chosen by the public—is open now through Thursday, April 17. Voting links for each category are listed below.

29th Annual Webby Award Nominees AI, Immersive & Games

NASA’s Snap It! An Eclipse Photo Adventure
NASA
Kids and Family

Social

NASA Instagram
NASA
Education and Science

Matt Dominick’s X Account: A Visual Journey from Space
NASA
Best Photography & Design

NASA’s 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Campaign
NASA
Events and Livestreams

NASA’s Webb Telescope: Unfolding a Universe of Wonders
NASA Goddard
Education and Science

Video & Film

2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA
NASA
Events and Live

NASA Streams Historic Cat Video From Deep Space
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Events and Livestreams

Websites & Mobile Sites

NASA Website
NASA
Government & Associations

NASA+ Streaming Service
NASA
Television, Film & Streaming

NASA Newsletter
NASA
Business, News and Technology

About the Webby Awards

Established in 1996 during the web’s infancy, The Webbys is presented by the IADAS—a 3000+ member judging body. The Academy is comprised of Executive Members—leading Internet experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries, and creative celebrities—and associate members who are former Webby winners, nominees and other internet professionals.

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category—the Webby Award and the Webby People’s Voice Award. Members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards. In the spirit of the open web, the Webby People’s Voice is chosen by the voting public, and garners millions of votes from all over the world.

Cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang and his Fram2 private astronaut crew got a two-for-one deal when they watched a rocket launch ahead of their own launch on March 31.

Researchers with the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have successfully used Earth's atmosphere as a sensor to detect a distant disturbance.

5 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s SPHEREx, which will map millions of galaxies across the entire sky, captured one of its first exposures March 27. The observatory’s six detectors each captured one of these uncalibrated images, to which visible-light colors have been added to represent infrared wavelengths. SPHEREx’s complete field of view spans the top three images; the same area of the sky is also captured in the bottom three images. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Processed with rainbow hues to represent a range of infrared wavelengths, the new pictures indicate the astrophysics space observatory is working as expected.

NASA’s SPHEREx (short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) has turned on its detectors for the first time in space. Initial images from the observatory, which launched March 11, confirm that all systems are working as expected.

Although the new images are uncalibrated and not yet ready to use for science, they give a tantalizing look at SPHEREx’s wide view of the sky. Each bright spot is a source of light, like a star or galaxy, and each image is expected to contain more than 100,000 detected sources.

There are six images in every SPHEREx exposure — one for each detector. The top three images show the same area of sky as the bottom three images. This is the observatory’s full field of view, a rectangular area about 20 times wider than the full Moon. When SPHEREx begins routine science operations in late April, it will take approximately 600 exposures every day.

Each image in this uncalibrated SPHEREx exposure contains about 100,000 light sources, including stars and galaxies. The two insets at right zoom in on sections of one image, showcasing the telescope’s ability to capture faint, distant galaxies. These sections are processed in grayscale rather than visible-light color for ease of viewing.NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Our spacecraft has opened its eyes on the universe,” said Olivier Doré, SPHEREx project scientist at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Southern California. “It’s performing just as it was designed to.”

The SPHEREx observatory detects infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. To make these first images, science team members assigned a visible color to every infrared wavelength captured by the observatory. Each of the six SPHEREx detectors has 17 unique wavelength bands, for a total of 102 hues in every six-image exposure.

Breaking down color this way can reveal the composition of an object or the distance to a galaxy. With that data, scientists can study topics ranging from the physics that governed the universe less than a second after its birth to the origins of water in our galaxy.

“This is the high point of spacecraft checkout; it’s the thing we wait for,” said Beth Fabinsky, SPHEREx deputy project manager at JPL. “There’s still work to do, but this is the big payoff. And wow! Just wow!”

During the past two weeks, scientists and engineers at JPL, which manages the mission for NASA, have executed a series of spacecraft checks that show all is well so far. In addition, SPHEREx’s detectors and other hardware have been cooling down to their final temperature of around minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 210 degrees Celsius). This is necessary because heat can overwhelm the telescope’s ability to detect infrared light, which is sometimes called heat radiation. The new images also show that the telescope is focused correctly. Focusing is done entirely before launch and cannot be adjusted in space.

“Based on the images we are seeing, we can now say that the instrument team nailed it,” said Jamie Bock, SPHEREx’s principal investigator at Caltech and JPL.

How It Works

Where telescopes like NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes were designed to target small areas of space in detail, SPHEREx is a survey telescope and takes a broad view. Combining its results with those of targeted telescopes will give scientists a more robust understanding of our universe.

The observatory will map the entire celestial sky four times during its two-year prime mission. Using a technique called spectroscopy, SPHEREx will collect the light from hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies in more wavelengths any other all-sky survey telescope.

Track SPHEREx with NASA's Eyes on the Solar System

When light enters SPHEREx’s telescope, it’s directed down two paths that each lead to a row of three detectors. The observatory’s detectors are like eyes, and set on top of them are color filters, which are like color-tinted glasses. While a standard color filter blocks all wavelengths but one, like yellow- or rose-tinted glasses, the SPHEREx filters are more like rainbow-tinted glasses: The wavelengths they block change gradually from the top of the filter to the bottom.

“I’m rendered speechless,” said Jim Fanson, SPHEREx project manager at JPL. “There was an incredible human effort to make this possible, and our engineering team did an amazing job getting us to this point.”

More About SPHEREx

The SPHEREx mission is managed by JPL for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Caltech managed and integrated the instrument. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more about SPHEREx, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/spherex/

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

2025-045

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Details Last Updated Apr 01, 2025 Related Terms

• SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe and Ices Explorer)
• Astrophysics
• Galaxies
• Origin & Evolution of the Universe
• The Search for Life
• The Universe

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