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NASA Jets Turn Red, White, and Blue

Tue, 07/14/2026 - 1:13pm

A NASA F-15 aircraft flies above Washington on Saturday, July 4, 2026, as part of a flyover to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. This aircraft is from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and it joined other NASA aircraft for the flyover.NASA/Jim Ross

In honor of America’s 250th birthday, two of NASA’s most iconic aircraft got a fresh coat of red, white, and blue paint ahead of a flyover in Washington on July 4, 2026, with other NASA aircraft.

An F-15 and an F/A-18 from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, recently were repainted in patriotic colors as a tribute to the past and a salute to the future.

The red, white, and blue commemorative paint and Freedom 250 logo will remain on these aircraft for at least the next year, so be sure to catch these at local air shows and events.

Follow along on social media and at https://www.nasa.gov/freedom250/ to learn more about where to spot the aircraft (dependent upon availability and flying schedules):

July 23-24: EAA AirVenture, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Oct. 3-4: Pacific Airshow, Huntington Beach, California
And more…

Check out more images here: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/freedom-250/

NASA’s F-15, right, and F/A-18 aircraft are shown at International Aerospace Coatings Inc.’s facility in Spokane, Washington, on Thursday, July 2, 2026, with new red, white, and blue paint to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. The aircraft, from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, participated in the Freedom 250 flyover in Washington on Saturday, July 4, 2026, with other NASA and military aircraft. NASA/Jim RossNASA/Jim Ross NASA’s F-15 aircraft is shown at International Aerospace Coatings Inc.’s facility in Spokane, Washington, on Thursday, July 2, 2026, with new red, white, and blue paint to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. The aircraft, from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, participated in the Freedom 250 flyover in Washington on Saturday, July 4, 2026, with other NASA and military aircraft. NASA/Jim Ross NASA/Jim Ross NASA’s F-18 aircraft is shown at International Aerospace Coatings Inc.’s facility in Spokane, Washington, on Thursday, July 2, 2026, with new red, white, and blue paint to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. The aircraft, from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, participated in the Freedom 250 flyover in Washington on Saturday, July 4, 2026, with other NASA and military aircraft. NASA/Jim RossNASA/Jim Ross Share Details Last Updated Jul 14, 2026 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.gov Related Terms

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NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Spot Distant Black Holes That Shred Stars

Tue, 07/14/2026 - 10:00am

Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí.

How do black holes at the center of galaxies form and grow over time? To answer this question, scientists need to detect and study supermassive black holes at great distances, which existed much earlier in the universe’s history. New research suggests NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is on track to launch Aug. 30, 2026, will be able to detect these distant, ancient black holes that existed up to 11 billion years ago.

This artist’s concept portrays a Sun-like star being shredded by a supermassive black hole — a phenomenon known as a tidal disruption event. During these events, the region around a black hole can brighten and become visible across great distances. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be able to spot and study tidal disruption events that occurred early in the universe’s history. By characterizing an earlier population of supermassive black holes, astronomers can learn about their origins.NASA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

Black holes are best studied by looking for the light emitted from their accretion disk — the matter that swirls around them before being consumed. Lighter supermassive black holes are challenging to observe because they tend to be less luminous due to less accretion. But occasionally, they shred and consume an entire star, brightening to outshine their entire host galaxy — known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). By characterizing that population of early supermassive black holes and how they evolve and grow for billions of years, Roman will provide clues to the ultimate origin of these behemoths.

“The Roman Space Telescope is going to be transformative for transient science,” said lead author Mitchell Karmen of the Johns Hopkins University, a graduate student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. “Thanks to Roman’s high sensitivity, we can find multiple tidal disruption events out to greater distances and earlier cosmic times than ever before.”

A paper about this research published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal.

Shredding Stars

Roman’s High-Latitude Time-Doman Survey, one of three core community surveys, is particularly well suited to find and study TDEs in the early universe. This survey will cover about 18 square degrees on the sky, an area equivalent to 90 full moons, at a regular cadence. By revisiting the same regions repeatedly, astronomers can find large numbers of transient events like TDEs.

Tidal disruption events are phenomena unique to lighter supermassive black holes. Heftier black holes weighing more than 1 billion Suns will swallow incoming stars whole. But lighter black holes of about 100,000 to 100 million Suns can shred a star before consuming it, creating a beacon that brightens over a couple of weeks before gradually fading away.

The rate of TDEs fluctuates over cosmic time. Previous work predicted that the rate of TDEs would decrease with increasing distance because most young black holes were too light to generate a TDE. However, this new research takes into account numerous factors that evolve over time, like the frequency of galaxy (and hence black hole) mergers as well as the number of stars within the core of each galaxy and how closely packed they are.

Karmen and his colleagues modeled these and other effects to predict how many tidal disruption events Roman could observe, as well as other observatories like the ground-based National Science Foundation-Department of Energy Vera C. Rubin Observatory and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The team forecasts that astronomers will see the rate of TDEs increase as Roman probes greater distances and earlier times until “cosmic noon,” about 11 to 12 billion years ago when star formation peaked throughout the universe, before decreasing again.

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This visualization shows the average number of tidal disruption events NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is predicted to detect in a year, based on simulations. Roman is expected to record about 100 such events in a year.Video: NASA, STScI. Visualization: Christian Nieves (STScI). Sound: Christian Nieves (STScI). Designer: Dani Player (STScI). Animation: Greg Bacon (STScI) Complementary Observations

Roman will observe near-infrared wavelengths of light. Light from distant TDEs becomes stretched to longer wavelengths by the expansion of the universe, a phenomenon known as cosmological redshift. As a result, Roman is inherently optimized to detect TDEs whose light traveled anywhere from 8 billion to 11 billion years to reach us.

The Rubin Observatory also will scan large swaths of the sky and pick up many new TDEs. However, it will observe visible light, which limits it to closer TDEs than Roman.

The research by Karmen’s team finds that Rubin will detect thousands to tens of thousands of TDEs per year. While Roman is expected to find up to 100 TDEs per year, those black holes will be much more distant, within the realm of cosmic history that is most important for distinguishing among black hole origin scenarios.

“Just by counting the number of TDEs as a function of redshift, you can put meaningful constraints on the population of million-solar-mass black holes,” said co-author Suvi Gezari, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland. “Roman will be transformative in that it can probe tidal disruption events out to greater distances, so you can look at how the rate of TDEs evolves over time.”

Origins of supermassive black holes

Astronomers have observed truly gargantuan black holes very early in the history of the universe — so early that theories struggle to explain how they could have become so large, so quickly. They must have started smaller and grown over time, but how much smaller?

One theory, known as “light seeds,” begins with black holes that are created from the deaths of massive stars. Such black holes might weigh up to a few hundred times our Sun. These black holes then would merge over time, as well as consume surrounding gas at an astonishing rate. In this scenario, every young galaxy would be expected to have a massive black hole at its center.

A second theory, known as “heavy seeds,” suggests that a black hole could be born with a much higher mass, up to a million times our Sun, through a process such as the direct collapse of a gas cloud. This process should be less common, though, which would result in supermassive black holes being much rarer in early galaxies.

“Tidal disruption events help us probe the population of light supermassive black holes, which can help us discriminate between these models,” Karmen said.

Ultimately, Roman’s tally of tidal disruption events will help researchers trace global effects that impact the black hole population over time.

Once Roman and Rubin begin regular science operations, the team looks forward to comparing their forecasts to the actual detections those observatories make.

“Just like Webb has transformed our understanding of distant, high-redshift galaxies, Roman is poised to transform our understanding of high-redshift transients,” Gezari 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 Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Share Details Last Updated Jul 14, 2026 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms

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Fans of the Arctic

Tue, 07/14/2026 - 12:01am

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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4941-4947: (Pin)Stripes on the Fourth of July

Mon, 07/13/2026 - 9:04pm

Curiosity Navigation

4 min read

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4941-4947: (Pin)Stripes on the Fourth of July NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of the “Cerro Castillo” bedrock outcrop with target “Hornillos” at the bottom center. Curiosity used its Left Navigation Camera on July 1, 2026 — Sol 4942, or Martian day 4,942 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 23:50:44 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Deborah Padgett, MSL Operations Product Ground System Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Earth planning date: Thursday, July 2, 2026

Curiosity spent the week leading up to the Fourth of July holiday approaching a geologic boundary between a very smooth but somewhat sandy region and a rougher bedrock unit.

Leaving the polygonal terrain behind, the rover arrived at the first location of the week on Sol 4939 and, on the following sol, 4940, looked for dust devils with Navcam and performed an AEGIS ChemCam laser-spectroscopy observation and Mastcam imaging of a target selected onboard the rover. Unfortunately, there were no large rocks appropriate for brushing with the DRT at this rover stop.

On Sol 4941, the MAHLI camera imaged “Malpartida” and “Pico del Tunari,” which are both light-colored rock fragments, and APXS performed X-ray spectroscopy on them to determine their composition. ChemCam used active laser spectroscopy to zap the “Kunturiri” light-colored bedrock fragment, while “Mecoyita,” a dark-toned “float” rock, which appears to have been transported into this area from elsewhere, was observed passively. ChemCam also used its telescopic RMI camera to study sedimentary layers at the base of the Cordillera butte. Mastcam obtained several image mosaics on a ridge of sand and rock fragments dubbed “Sitajana.”

On the following sol, 4942, Mastcam continued its study of “Sitajana,” and ChemCam RMI obtained more views of Cordillera butte. Navcam took a suprahorizon cloud movie and dust-devil movie. Finally, ChemCam obtained laser spectroscopy of the dark bedrock fragment “Toconce” with documentation imagery from Mastcam. Mastcam also imaged “Sierra Vicuña Mackenna” to study a partially uncovered rock shedding sand in an area of small dune ripples.

On the afternoon of Sol 4942, Curiosity drove about 36 feet (about 11 meters) to the edge of the geologic contact and took post-drive panoramic mosaics with Navcam and Mastcam. These images revealed a field of exposed bedrock outcrops with beautiful pinstriped layers. A Navcam AEGIS observation was taken for onboard selection of a ChemCam laser spectroscopy target. This soil and rock target was observed by ChemCam with Mastcam documentation on Sol 4943. In addition, Navcam performed a dust-devil movie, and Mastcam took an atmospheric dust observation.

For Sol 4944, two adjacent light bedrock targets “Laguna Fea” and “Laguna Lejia” were selected for DRT brushing, MAHLI imaging, and APXS X-ray spectroscopy to determine composition. ChemCam laser spectroscopy will target the darker ledge of bedrock “Hornillos,” with accompanying Mastcam documentation. The investigation of “Hornillos” will include detailed imaging by MAHLI, but it was determined to be too rough for DRT brushing. Mastcam will take a large mosaic of images on the field of striped bedrock outcrop “Cerro Castillo,” as well as a smaller mosaic of a nearby trough. The ChemCam telescopic RMI camera will target a dark layer on butte Cordillera, which appears to be shedding dark boulders. Navcam will take a dust-devil movie and suprahorizon cloud movie.

On Sol 4945, ChemCham will do laser spectroscopy of “Laguna Lejia” with Mastcam image documentation, and the ChemCam RMI telescopic camera will study another area at the base of butte Cordillera where the location of large stones on the slope suggests that ice processes may have played a role. A Navcam dust-devil survey and Mastcam dust-imaging study will also be done. In the afternoon, there will be a Navcam dust-devil survey, zenith observation, and suprahorizon cloud movie, as well as a Mastcam dust observation and 20×4 mosaic image of butte Mishe Mokwa. Overnight, there will be an APXS atmospheric observation lasting many hours.

During Sol 4945, ChemCam will perform laser spectroscopy of target “La Puntilla” with accompanying Mastcam imaging, followed by a ChemCam passive-sky observation. Curiosity will then drive about 56 feet (17 meters) towards a large, dark boulder in the distance, which may be a meteorite, and do post-drive imaging and Navcam sky flats.

On the following morning, there will be an atmospheric observation including a Navcam zenith movie, suprahorizon cloud movie, and line-of-sight dust observation, as well as a Mastcam dust “tau” observation.

Want to read more posts from the Curiosity team?

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Want to learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments?

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NASA’s Curiosity rover at the base of Mount Sharp NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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NASA Study Points to Smoother Air Taxi Rides

Mon, 07/13/2026 - 5:46pm

3 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Matt Kamlet, an employee at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, sits atop the virtual reality passenger ride quality simulator during a study of air taxi motion Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. NASA recently completed a multi-year study to understand how large, sudden air taxi motion affects ride comfort.NASA/Christopher LC Clark

No one wants to get into an uncomfortable aircraft. NASA research could help the emerging industry of air taxis —small, vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft meant for short trips — understand the relationship between comfort and willingness to fly.

That’s where NASA comes in, with data that can help identify how to plan air taxi rides that can keep travelers feeling good.

NASA was able to gather that data by putting its own employees through some rough virtual flights. At the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, volunteers have been strapping into a virtual reality motion simulator to experience the sudden shifts and tilts that tomorrow’s air taxis could encounter, showing researchers those moments feel from a passenger’s point of view.

Their reactions are giving NASA new insight into how aircraft motion influences comfort and confidence in flight — for instance, that certain kinds of large, sudden motions can be especially bothersome. Using that data, the team developed new models linking those sudden motions to passengers’ willingness to fly. The models can help guide future aircraft design and flight operations, letting producers know what maneuvers will be too jarring for future air taxi riders.

Large, sudden movements can also come from gusting winds or landings. The NASA data allows researchers to estimate when passengers may begin to feel uncomfortable as motion increases, giving them the ability to shape aircraft designs and operations to minimize the impact of those situations.

“Through this study and others, we are starting to identify passenger comfort thresholds for aggressive flight motion,” said Curtis Hanson, NASA Armstrong lead researcher for this effort. “We can begin to make predictions about how air taxis should fly so that most passengers will find the experience enjoyable and want to ride again, which will benefit the public and the industry.”

In the simulator, each participant experienced four levels of their aircraft pitching up and down, tilting from side-to-side, rotating, or accelerating quickly into a climb or a dive during flights from downtown San Francisco to Alcatraz Island in California. Even moderate changes in these motions reduced comfort for some participants, while others remained comfortable at higher levels. Participants rated each flight on a five-point scale and identified which motions felt uncomfortable.

Participants were asked whether they would take a real air taxi flight with motion they find uncomfortable. Their answers suggested that today’s travelers may be less tolerant of rough motion than airline passengers 50 years ago, based on comparisons with earlier NASA ride-quality research.

This latest feedback builds on a multiyear NASA study to better understand air taxi passenger comfort. The overall research effort found clear relationships between specific aircraft motions and how comfortable people feel during flight.

This work is currently led under the Subsonic Vehicle Technologies and Tools project in NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate and contributes to the agency’s advanced air mobility research.

Share Details Last Updated Jul 13, 2026 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms

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NASA Astronaut Anil Menon

Mon, 07/13/2026 - 11:11am

NASA/Robert Markowitz

NASA astronaut Anil Menon poses in a spacesuit for a portrait at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on Jan. 8, 2026. Menon will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft to the International Space Station on Tuesday, July 14, accompanied by cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, where they will join the Expedition 74 crew advancing scientific research. During his stay on the station, Menon will conduct scientific research and technology demonstrations aimed at advancing human space exploration and benefiting life on Earth.

Learn more about the launch, including where and when to watch.

Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz

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NASA’s Hubble Discovers First of Star Cluster’s Missing Black Holes

Mon, 07/13/2026 - 10:00am

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5 Min Read NASA’s Hubble Discovers First of Star Cluster’s Missing Black Holes

An image of the globular cluster Omega Centauri, a collection of myriad stars colored red, white, and blue on the black background of space.

Credits:
Science: Maximilian Häberle (MPIA)

The massive globular star cluster Omega Centauri has puzzled astronomers for decades. It should be filled with black holes left behind by exploding stars, yet evidence for them is scarce. Now, astronomers using archival data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and supportive observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have finally located their first stellar-mass black hole in this cluster. Discovering the first of this missing black hole population will help refine current theories on black hole formation within environments such as Omega Centauri. The team’s findings published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Omega Centauri is composed of 10 million gravitationally bound stars. Though the astronomical community previously found evidence with Hubble that an intermediate-mass black hole lurks at its center, models suggest this star cluster should also contain about 10,000 smaller, stellar-mass black holes. This notable population of black holes evaded detection in previous observational studies, which used the radial velocity method or looked for radio and X-ray emission from material falling onto black holes.

This new discovery features a different approach, known as astrometry, to measure very small movements of stars over time. By sifting through more than 20 years of Hubble archival data and pulling in recent Webb data to further refine their astrometric measurements, the team located a star orbiting an invisible object so hefty that it has to be a black hole. Dubbed oMEGACat BH-2, it is the first stellar-mass black hole detected in Omega Centauri, and it has some surprising qualities. oMEGACat BH-2 has a lower-than-expected mass and, with its visible star companion, the black hole-star duo has the longest orbital period of any black hole binary system known to date.

“With Hubble and Webb data, we were able to see the motion of the visible main sequence star that is part of this binary, which is about 18,000 light-years away in the dense environment of Omega Centauri,” said Matthew Whitaker of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, lead author of the paper. “The precision of these measurements is incredible, down to a fraction of a pixel on Hubble and Webb’s detectors. It would not have been possible to find this black hole without these two space telescopes.”

Astronomers found Omega Centauri’s first stellar-mass black hole, which has a visible star companion that is shown in greater detail. They used 20-plus years of data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and recent data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to make the discovery. Image: ESA, NASA, Maximilian Häberle (MPIA), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

The team’s findings refine a past study by a different group of scientists that suggested this binary system included a neutron star. By expanding Hubble data from the earlier investigation with archival Hubble astrometric measurements from 2002 to 2023, and pulling in Webb near-infrared data to improve precision, the University of Utah-led team was able to better constrain the mass of the visible star’s dark companion, ruling out the neutron star possibility.

“While we already knew that the star was 0.78 solar masses, we can now calculate the black hole’s mass, which is 4.46 solar masses and therefore too heavy to be a neutron star. However, its mass is much lower than would be expected in a metal-poor environment like Omega Centauri. This is surprising and exciting,” said Anil Seth of the University of Utah, a coauthor of the study. “We now know that a metal-poor star is able to form a black hole like this, and we need to figure out how that happens. This detection is providing some data to those who do that kind of modeling.”

Long time coming

Based on the precise data from Hubble and Webb, the team could chart the star’s path over 20-plus years, during its closest approach to its black hole companion when it moved the fastest across the sky. From the extensive data, the team determined that the visible star orbits oMEGACat BH-2 once every 94 years, making it the longest-period black hole binary ever known.

Its long orbital period also gives a clue to the origin of this binary system. It was probably dynamically formed, meaning the star and its black hole companion did not start out together but rather found each other in this cluster. The researchers calculated that a system like oMEGACat BH-2 will survive for less than a billion years before it is torn apart by encounters with nearby stars, a much shorter span than the age of the cluster (approximately 12 billion years old).

“It’s important to understand black hole populations in globular clusters because there’s uncertainty about their physics and formation,” said Seth. “More specifically, understanding the process of forming black holes and then dynamically forming binaries is vital, because it affects our ability to interpret and understand gravitational wave events. Environments like Omega Centauri are the primary places where we think binaries are merging and creating these waves.”

The team’s discovery of stellar-mass black hole oMEGACat BH-2 with the Hubble-Webb dataset is just the start of finding these evasive black hole populations in globular star clusters.

“With Hubble and Webb, we can continue to look at Omega Centauri and expand our search for similar systems within other clusters,” said Whitaker. “We’re also very excited for the launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope because it will image the crowded galactic bulge, including the galactic center, very regularly with Hubble-like resolution and with a much wider field of view. We’re hoping we’ll be able to find black hole binary systems like this one because of the regular cadence of Roman’s observations.”

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

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Mon, 07/13/2026 - 12:01am

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Early Career Faculty (ECF) 2025 Awards

Fri, 07/10/2026 - 3:23pm

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NASA Volunteers Help Zooniverse Reach 1 Billion Classifications

Fri, 07/10/2026 - 3:00pm

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The Zooniverse, a NASA grantee that runs the world’s largest platform for online people-powered research, has reached an extraordinary milestone: 1 billion classifications contributed by volunteers around the world. This milestone is a celebration of everyone who has marked a dip in a light curve, confirmed the presence of a moving object in a short video, or identified species in a camera trap image. Each of these small contributions collectively advances our understanding of the universe.

A total of 31 NASA-sponsored citizen science projects have been hosted on Zooniverse, accounting for 120 million classifications by 324 thousand volunteers since 2020. Through projects like Planet Hunters TESS, Daily Minor Planet, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, Space Umbrella, and Snapshot Wisconsin, volunteers help discover exoplanets, identify near-Earth objects and asteroids, search for brown dwarfs and planetary systems, analyze effects of the solar wind, and inform wildlife management decisions. These projects have led to 96 scientific publications, and 56 of these articles feature NASA citizen scientists as co-authors to recognize the significance of their research contributions. These efforts demonstrate how public participation can accelerate discovery by combining human curiosity and pattern recognition with data from NASA missions and observatories. Collaboration between volunteers, scientists, and computing technology will be even more important in the future as we tackle enormous and complex datasets, like those from NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

“One billion classifications represent far more than a number; it’s one billion moments of curiosity transformed into meaningful contributions to research,” said Laura Trouille, principal investigator of Zooniverse and vice president of Science Engagement at the Adler Planetarium. “Every classification on Zooniverse brings us one step closer to new discoveries and a deeper understanding of our universe, our world, and ourselves.”

Zooniverse is the world’s largest platform for people-powered research. Co-founded by the Adler Planetarium and the University of Oxford, with the University of Minnesota serving as a key institutional partner, Zooniverse enables anyone, anywhere to contribute directly to real scientific research. Through its six-year collaboration with NASA, Zooniverse provides science-enabling infrastructure to NASA researchers through tools and a community of more than 3 million registered volunteers.

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NASA Photographer Captures Images from F-18 Over Washington

Fri, 07/10/2026 - 12:36pm

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA photographer Jim Ross flies above the Washington Monument in Washington on Saturday, July 4, 2026, in an F-18 aircraft, as part of a flyover to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. This aircraft is from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and it joined other NASA aircraft for the flyover.NASA/Jim Ross

NASA flight photographers capture history from a perspective few ever experience, getting a rare bird’s-eye view of the agency’s missions in action. Their photos document key NASA research and give the public a front-row seat to the work happening behind the scenes.

Jim Ross, a photographer at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, flew over Washington during the Fourth of July celebration to document a NASA flyover commemorating America’s 250th birthday. He’s captured some of the agency’s most exhilarating milestones, like early SR-71 flights, the delivery flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour to Los Angeles, and first flights of NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft.

“I grew up in Bozeman, Montana, when it was still considered a small town, so if someone told that little kid that he would be flying in a F-18 over the National Mall, he would have never believed it,” Ross said. “I love documenting history, and having the opportunity to capture flights and launches has kept me doing it for almost 37 years.”

Ross began his aviation photography career in 1989 when he joined the staff at NASA Armstrong (then Dryden). He became the photo lead in 1997, a title he retains.

Check out his images from the flyover here: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/freedom-250/

NASA photographer Jim Ross takes a selfie from the rear seat of a NASA F/A‑18 during a cross‑country flight from Spokane, Washington, to Washington, D.C., on Thursday, July 2, 2026. The agency’s F‑15, flying alongside the aircraft, is visible through the window. Both aircraft, from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, participated in the Freedom 250 flyover with other NASA and military aircraft on Saturday, July 4, 2026.NASA/Jim Ross NASA photographer Jim Ross flies above Washington on Saturday, July 4, 2026, in an F-18 aircraft, as part of a flyover to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. This aircraft is from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and it joined other NASA aircraft for the flyover. A NASA F-15 is seen flying to the side of the NASA F-18.NASA/Jim Ross Share Details Last Updated Jul 10, 2026 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.gov Related Terms

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Waxing Gibbous Moon

Fri, 07/10/2026 - 11:08am

NASA

The waxing gibbous moon is nestled in the darkness of space in this June 26, 2026, image from the International Space Station. The space station was 264 miles above the Indian Ocean southeast of Madagascar at the time.

The waxing gibbous phase comes before the full moon phase. During this time, the Moon appears brighter in the night sky to viewers on Earth.

Image credit: NASA

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Where Venezuela’s Earthquakes Shifted the Ground

Fri, 07/10/2026 - 12:00am

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NASA Sets Coverage for Astronaut Anil Menon Launch to Space Station

Thu, 07/09/2026 - 6:09pm

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, Soyuz MS-29 prime crew members, pose for a portrait at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia. Credit: GCTC

NASA astronaut Anil Menon will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft to the International Space Station on Tuesday, July 14, accompanied by cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, where they will join the Expedition 74 crew advancing scientific research.

Menon, Dubrov, and Kikina will lift off at 10:47 a.m. EDT (7:47 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Live launch and docking coverage is available on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.

After a two-orbit, three-hour trip to the station, the spacecraft will automatically dock at 1:56 p.m. to the Prichal module. Shortly afterward, hatches will open between the Soyuz and the orbiting laboratory.

Once aboard, the trio will join NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, and Chris Williams, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev, and Andrey Fedyaev.

NASA’s coverage schedule is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):

Tuesday, July 14

9:45 a.m. – Launch coverage begins on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and YouTube.

10:47 a.m. – Launch

1:10 p.m. – Rendezvous and docking coverage begins on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and YouTube.

1:56 p.m. – Docking

3:30 p.m. – Hatch opening and welcome coverage begins on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and YouTube.

3:55 p.m. – Hatch opening

Menon, Dubrov, and Kikina will spend about eight months aboard the orbital complex as International Space Station Expedition 74/75 crew members before returning to Earth in April 2027. This will be Menon’s first spaceflight and the second for both Dubrov and Kikina.

During his stay on the station, Menon will conduct scientific research and technology demonstrations aimed at advancing human space exploration and benefiting life on Earth. He will continue research to refine in-space production of semiconductor crystals to enable the large-scale manufacturing of components needed for high-performance computers, artificial intelligence, and improved medical devices. Menon also will perform ultrasound using augmented reality and artificial intelligence methods that could eliminate the need for medical support from Earth on future space missions. He will be a test subject helping researchers understand how blood flow is affected in space to protect future astronauts. He also will test bioprinting vascular constructs in microgravity to improve understanding of the aging process to advance therapeutic developments.

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit:

www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
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202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Sandra Jones
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281-483-5111
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NASA Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of ‘Lighthouse’ Pulsar

Thu, 07/09/2026 - 4:08pm

4 Min Read NASA Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of ‘Lighthouse’ Pulsar

For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) to directly measure the magnetic fields of PSR J1101−6101, a pulsar located within what is often referred to as the Lighthouse Nebula. The results provide new insight into the structure of some of the most extreme objects in the cosmos, as NASA continues to explore the secrets of how the universe works. A paper describing the results published Thursday in the Astrophysical Journal.

Scientists have successfully measured the magnetic field of the Lighthouse pulsar’s nebula using NASA’s IXPE. Their measurements confirm the theory that high-energy particles escape along the galaxy’s magnetic field lines. This composite image contains X-ray data from IXPE in blue (highlighted in the inset), the Chandra X-ray Observatory in purple, and radio data from CSIRO in green. The starfield is optical data from the 2MASS optical survey. X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./J.T. Dinsmore et al.; IXPE: NASA/MSFC/J.T. Dinsmore et al., Radio: CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA; Optical: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare Fast facts

A pulsar is a type of neutron star with a strong magnetic field that spins incredibly fast. The pulsar at the center of the Lighthouse Nebula is rotating 16 times per second.
Neutron stars are the leftover cores of massive stars, formed at the end of their life cycles, that possess more mass than the Sun. They are condensed down to the size of a city, making them natural laboratories for studying extreme physics.

Polarization is a property of light that describes the direction of its electric field vibrations. The polarization degree is a measurement of how aligned those vibrations are with each other.

In June 2025, IXPE spent nearly 18 days focused on the Lighthouse Nebula.

Astronomers studied two narrow X-ray offshoots extending from the pulsar to better understand how electrons at nearly the speed of light interact with this energetic system. The longer offshoot is known as the “filament,” and the shorter one is the “trail.”

When high-energy particles from the pulsar collide with the gas of interstellar space, they form a bow shock, like the bow wave formed at the front of a speeding boat. Most particles become trapped behind this bow shock, forming the turbulent trail behind the pulsar.

Researchers have suspected since 2008 that the highest-energy particles escape through this bow shock into interstellar space, flowing along the galaxy’s magnetic field lines to create the nebula’s long, thin filament.

“We wanted to test that theory,” said Jack Dinsmore, undergraduate student at Stanford University, who led the study. “The ‘smoking gun’ would come by measuring the polarization of the light, which indicates the magnetic field direction. If the magnetic field points along the filament, that confirms that the filament’s particles are flowing along the field.”

One challenge with these measurements is that the Lighthouse Nebula is relatively faint. To address this, IXPE scientists developed advanced analysis methods that use every bit of data, avoiding simplifying steps that could limit information. With these new tools and the new observations of the Lighthouse, the science team successfully measured the filament’s polarization. These techniques also gave a polarization measurement of the trail, and the pulsar’s emission signal.

Their analysis confirmed with more than 99% confidence that the magnetic field does indeed align with the particles’ flow.

While the parallel direction confirms models for the particle’s motion, the polarization degree was high enough to raise new questions.

“Many of the models for filaments assume strong magnetic turbulence,” said Roger Romani, a Stanford University professor who co-authored this paper. “The high polarization degree we measured indicates lower turbulence than such models require.”

The IXPE observations also showed that the magnetic field responsible for X-ray emission had to be parallel to the trail. However, the authors collected radio frequency observations showing a magnetic field pointing almost exactly perpendicular.

“The striking divergence in magnetic field orientations observed between radio and X-ray wavelengths provides compelling evidence for the highly structured nature of these objects,” said Niccolò Bucciantini of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics and co-author of the study. “This marks the first clear indication that particles of different energies occupy distinct regions within the system, hinting at the presence of multiple, and potentially very different, acceleration mechanisms at work.”

More about IXPE

The IXPE mission, which continues to provide unprecedented data enabling groundbreaking discoveries about celestial objects across the universe, is a joint NASA and Italian Space Agency mission with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. It is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and BAE Systems, Inc. manages spacecraft operations together with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder.

Learn more about IXPE’s ongoing mission here:

https://www.nasa.gov/ixpe

About the Author Michael Allen

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Principal Investigator and Quality Assessment Reports Evaluate Umbra Synthetic Aperture Radar Data

Thu, 07/09/2026 - 2:14pm

Two new reports from NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program evaluate data from the Umbra X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation for the NASA Earth science research and applications community. The results of these evaluations help to inform NASA program management and the user community about the quality of these commercial data for use in NASA science.

NASA’s CSDA program released the Umbra SAR Principal Investigator Evaluation Summary and Umbra SAR Quality Assessment Reports in May 2026. (The cover of the Quality Assessment Report is shown at left.) The results of these evaluations help inform NASA program management about the quality of this commercial data for use in NASA science. At right, a collage of synthetic aperture radar images from Umbra. Credit: NASA CSDA program / © Umbra Lab Inc., 2026. All Rights Reserved

The CSDA Umbra Synthetic Aperture Radar SAR Principal Investigator Evaluation Summary documents the findings of evaluation teams. The teams were given access to the Umbra archive as well as the ability to task the Umbra constellation for new acquisitions. The tasking capability allowed evaluation teams to test the utility of Umbra data in time-sensitive workflows and to monitor areas experiencing rapid change and/or emergent environmental conditions, such as harmful algal blooms.

Although the Principal Investigator Evaluation Summary supports the use of Umbra SAR data for NASA Earth science research and applications overall, it noted several strengths and weaknesses of the Umbra X-band data. Strengths included access to a very high spatial resolution X-band SAR satellite constellation; taskable access to high temporal repeat opportunities with quick turnaround; imaging flexibility with a range of azimuth and incidence angles; and the company’s Open Data Program. Conversely, the PI teams reported weaknesses, including issues with Umbra geolocation (noting large and small geolocation errors), limited software compatibility, metadata, and some missing technical documentation.

Additionally, the CSDA Umbra Synthetic Aperture Radar SAR Quality Assessment Report documents the results of radiometric and geometric analyses performed by NASA subject matter experts (SMEs) enlisted to evaluate the fundamental quality of the Umbra data following the Joint NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) assessment guidelines (ESA-NASA, 2024).

Performed mainly on the single-look complex (SLC) Level 1 data products in Sensor Independent Complex Data (SICD) format, along with some additional Level 2 products used in science usability assessments by the evaluation team, the CSDA SMEs found the spatial resolution of the data agreed with Umbra’s specifications. However, the quality analysis results for geolocation accuracy did not universally align with the company’s specifications. Given these results, the SME’s concluded that “the overall positioning performance of the Umbra data did not meet the expected accuracy.

Regarding the radiometric performance of the data, which was assessed in terms of absolute accuracy, stability, and sensitivity, the SMEs found the data “underperform[ed] relative to that of well-calibrated reference SAR systems.”

About the CSDA Program

The CSDA program was established to identify, evaluate, and acquire data from commercial sources that support the NASA Earth science research and application goals. NASA’s Earth Science Division recognizes the potential impact commercial satellite constellations may have in encouraging/enabling efficient approaches to advancing Earth System Science and applications development for societal benefit. Commercially acquired data may also provide a cost-effective means to augment and/or complement the suite of Earth observations acquired by NASA, other U.S. government agencies, and international partners.

To read the reports in full, see the links under “Evaluation” heading on the CSDA’s Umbra commercial vendor webpage.

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Curiosity Sees Martian Sulfur Up Close

Thu, 07/09/2026 - 12:33pm

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

This close-up view shows fragments of sulfur crystals — the first ever seen on the Red Planet. The crystals were found after NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover happened to drive over a rock and crush it on May 30, 2024. Several days later, Curiosity used a camera on the end of its robotic arm to take this image.

A recent paper in Science suggests that the sulfur formed when magma deep below the surface released fluids or gases that deposited sulfur on the Red Planet’s surface about 3 billion years ago.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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NASA Scientists Take to Air and Space to Study Arctic Sea Ice

Thu, 07/09/2026 - 11:42am

5 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) These four views were captured from a World War II-era aircraft in April 2026, when scientists used instruments aboard the plane to study Arctic sea ice. Their flights were timed to coincide with satellites passing overhead so the airborne and orbital data could be combined.NASA/JPL-Caltech

This month, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California are testing a spacecraft sensor that will help measure how quickly Arctic sea ice is disappearing. And while that instrument won’t launch for another year, scientists started preparing for its use during a recent field campaign in the Canadian wilderness.

Researchers spent two weeks in April flying above the Arctic Ocean, often watching sunrise from an altitude of 1,500 feet (457 meters) in a World War II-era plane. A variety of cutting-edge sensors used to measure the thickness of sea ice and snow were aboard the plane, including a stand-in for the microwave radiometer now undergoing testing at JPL. Measuring sea ice thickness is tricky, requiring a number of precise figures, including how high the sea ice rises above water, the depth of snow on top of that ice, and microwave emissions from the surface.

Flights were timed to the passage of satellites overhead so coordinated observations could be taken of the same features. Combining the airborne and satellite data will improve scientists’ ability to measure sea ice and understand how climate conditions are evolving across the Arctic.

In recent decades, the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice have changed. Improving measurements of those changes helps scientists better understand the Arctic system while supporting navigation, weather and ocean research, and future satellite observations. As Arctic shipping activity increases, the region is also becoming strategically and economically more significant.

According to Sahra Kacimi of JPL, who served as the field campaign’s science lead, ongoing warming in the Arctic could potentially impact public safety and economic interests.

Find out what Arctic sea ice looked like as scientists studied it from the air — and using space-based instruments — during a field campaign this past April.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Frequent flyers

Kacimi has spent years studying sea ice using satellite data, but the top-down view she gets from space is different than peering out a plane’s window.

The bewildering diversity of sea ice creates otherworldly landscapes. The ice can be attached to land or adrift in the ocean; it can be rough or smooth. Driven by winds and ocean currents, the ice is constantly shifting, breaking apart, and deforming. Cracks can open into long stretches of exposed ocean, and collisions between floes can push ice rubble into massive ridges that extend for miles.

Some sea ice lasts only one season, while thicker ice can survive for several years (though multiyear sea ice is becoming less common in many parts of the Arctic). Entire ecosystems are affected by these changes, down to the arctic foxes and hares the scientists spotted throughout the trip.

Improving estimates of sea ice thickness helps scientists better understand how the region is changing and supports long-term observations of the Arctic environment. The NASA team logged about 50 hours in the air over the two-week campaign, conducting flights over drifting ice near the town of Inuvik before studying ice fixed to the shore of another location, a hamlet called Cambridge Bay.

For the Inuvik portion of the campaign, the team coordinated with the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, a satellite jointly developed by NASA and the French space agency, CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), with JPL leading the United States component of the mission. Though it was designed to map the height of the globe’s sea and fresh water, SWOT can also measure the amount of sea ice above the waterline.

In Cambridge Bay, the NASA team joined researchers from ESA (European Space Agency), Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute, and Canada’s University of Calgary. During this part of the campaign, coordinated flights soared over a field camp and under the tracks of satellite missions such as NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) and ESA’s CryoSat-2.

To improve sea ice thickness estimates, ESA is developing, with cooperation from NASA, a new polar mission called Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter (CRISTAL). During the April airborne campaign, scientists flew instruments similar to what CRISTAL will carry, including the microwave radiometer now being tested at JPL.

“Combining observations from space, air, and ground surface instruments is essential for developing and validating algorithms for current and future missions,” Kacimi said.

For the scientists, it was also a chance to meet locals who see the Arctic’s changes up close. Kacimi spoke to community leaders and students at a STEM camp about how disappearing ice is affecting their communities.

“I’m used to looking at sea ice from space and thinking about its role in the global climate, but for people living in the Arctic, it carries a much deeper meaning,” Kacimi said.

Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

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NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov

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Super Typhoon Bavi

Thu, 07/09/2026 - 12:01am

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Students Connect NASA Science With Indigenous Knowledge to Study Coastal Erosion

Wed, 07/08/2026 - 5:04pm

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3 min read

Students Connect NASA Science With Indigenous Knowledge to Study Coastal Erosion Students return from fieldwork and sit together in the classroom, examining NASA satellite images to learn about the changes to their community’s coastline.

Story by Keri Moskowitz, Gulf of Maine Research Institute

For the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, or Sipayik, the ocean has always been a teacher. Situated in what is known as Downeast Maine, along the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay, generations of Indigenous people have lived along the coast, learning from the tides, the land, and their elders. But today, the shoreline is changing more rapidly. Coastal erosion is slowly taking land away. Land that already holds a history of loss.

In the summer of 2023, inspired by a trip to Fairbanks, AK to attend Climate Change in My Community – a workshop organized by the NASA Science Activation (SciAct) program’s Arctic and Earth Signs project – SciAct’s Learning Ecosystems Northeast (LENE) team began working with partners, including Indigenous leaders and scientists, to ask an important question: What does coastal erosion mean to people who have already lost land?

By November 2024, planning was underway at Sipayik Elementary School. The goal was to bring together Western science and Indigenous knowledge so students could understand the changes happening in their own community.

The lessons began in March 2025. For five weeks, nine 5th-grade students explored erosion in many ways. They visited local field sites and listened to elders share stories about how the coastline used to look. Learners used these accounts to measure the changes, both on the coast and via maps back in the classroom. They built erosion trays from simple materials to test how waves shape the land. They measured current high tide lines and compared them to historical ones. They studied old photographs and aerial images from 1942 to 2023 to see how much the shoreline had moved. They even compared 300-year-old tribal maps with future flood projections.

Students learned that science does not only live in textbooks. As one observer shared, “Our people were scientists without having to go to school.”

The students were curious, engaged, and proud. They saw that resilience is part of who they are. They have always adapted while holding on to culture.

In June of 2026, the students were invited to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute to present their work to scientists, staff, and REU (Research Experience for Undergraduate) interns. They traveled 3.5 hours for this opportunity, and the journey proved worthwhile. During the Q&A portion following their slideshow, someone asked whether learning to read the various maps was difficult. One student responded with a reminder: these were not merely maps but NASA satellite images.

Future goals for the project include inviting more elders and adding more field sites in the work, strengthening language and cultural connections, sharing student learning with other Native youth, and planning resilience strategies like marsh restoration in coordination with tribal leadership. When the students were asked if they planned to continue their studies and work on this cause after their time in the classroom ended, they all resoundingly stated “YES”.

In Sipayik, the story of erosion is not just about land washing away. It is about memory, knowledge, identity, and the strength of a community that continues to learn from the shore.

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