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NASA Awards 2026 Innovative Technology Concepts
The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program has created 18 new awards to support visionary ideas to improve aerospace technologies in areas ranging from the exploration of the solar system to understanding the universe.
The 18 NIAC Phase I awards total $3.2 million. Each award provides up to $175,000 for a nine-month initial investigation. The NIAC projects are about early-stage concept development and are not considered official NASA missions.
“NASA has outlined an ambitious vision for the future of space exploration, we’re returning the Moon to stay, advancing to Mars, and pushing to deepen our understanding of space,” said Greg Stover, director of the Advanced Research and Technology division within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Achieving that will require more than incremental technological advancement. It means we need great leaps. These awards are the kinds of innovation the world needs NASA to help foster.”
As an innovation incubator, NIAC funds early development of potential breakthrough technologies. Concepts for award consideration must have both transformative potential and possible feasibility for eventual implementation.
“Every innovation, every leap in technology, starts with a seed of an idea,” said Phillip Williams, NIAC’s acting program executive. “The NIAC program allows NASA to germinate those seeds and determine if there’s something that could be grown to benefit future space missions and our nation’s aerospace economy.”
As NASA and its partners push for sustained lunar presence, some of the 2026 awardees focused on ways to help explore the Moon and build infrastructure there. These include a system to support hovering robots to explore lava tubes under the Moon’s surface, a method to manage temperatures for small mobile exploration robots, and a way to incorporate radioisotopic heat sources into suits to help keep astronauts warm when operating in the Moon’s nearly two-week-long lunar nights.
Other concepts focus on exploring some of the solar system’s most remarkable features. Venus, with its hot atmosphere, presents an imposing challenge for research vehicles, so one NIAC awardee explores methods for hardening instruments for longer missions.
Two other concepts could help study planetary rings. One would use a swarm of 10,000 tiny satellites to map and analyze the rings of Saturn, while another would create a system for collecting samples from rings such as those circling Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Some NIAC awardees will look far beyond the solar system, exploring ways to power interstellar spacecraft, map out continents on exoplanets, observe the photon rings around black holes, and detect subtle gravitational waves to explain how galaxies formed. Others will work to answer questions directly related to life on Earth, like the potential use of spaceborne dust to reduce solar radiation, and awareness about the debris orbiting Earth.
Researchers, known as NIAC Fellows, will investigate their concepts and identify potential challenges and opportunities for further development.
The 18 selections for 2026 NIAC Phase 1 grants are:
- Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California: Dimming the Sun Using Controllable Dust Cloud to Reduce Solar Insolation (DimSun)
- David Bugby, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Combinatory Architecture offering Neomobility, on-Venus Adaptability, and Survivability (CANVAS)
- A.C. Charania, Zeno Power Systems, Inc., Washington:
Extended Astronaut Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-space Icy Landscapes (EARENDIL)
- Anish Damodaran, University of Central Florida, Orlando: PS21: Transforming Submillimeter Space Interferometry with Photonic Technologies
- Artur Davoyan, University of California, Los Angeles: Coilable Stacked Solar Sails for Very High delta-V Missions
- Daniel Drew, University of Hawaii, Honolulu: Solid-state Propulsion for Autonomous Reconnaissance of Karst (SPARK)
- Gilly Elor, Stone Aerospace, Inc., Del Valle, Texas: Power-over-Fiber to Enable a Lunar Underground eXplorer (LUX)
- Zhaoyan Liu, NASA Ames Research Center, California’s Silicon Valley: Quantum Wind Lidar Applications for Planetary and Earth Science Missions
- Jeff Nosanov, Orbital Velocity, LLC, Decatur, Georgia: OBLIVIAN: Observing Black hole LIght Via Intensity cOrrelatioN (OBLIVIAN)
- Keunhan Park, University of Utah, Salt Lake City: Plasmon-Enhanced Radioisotope Thermophotovoltaic (PRTPV) Power Generation for Interstellar Missions
- Austin Phoenix, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia: Efficient variable Conductivity Lunar Insulator for Passive Surveyor Environmental Control (ECLIPSE)
- Marco Quadrelli, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: PRAXIS: Planetary Rings Autonomous EXploration with In-situ Sampling (PRAXIS)
- Michael Rubenstein, Northwestern University, Chicago: Actively Steerable Femtosat Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere
- Benjamin Schafer, Rarefied Technologies Inc., Albuquerque, New Mexico: : Photophoretic Tracers for Near-Space Remote Sensing at 30-100 km Altitudes
- David Smith, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina: Robotically Assembled Electromagnetic Metamaterials for Long-Range Space Situational Awareness
- Pablo Sobron, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, Mountain View, California: Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys
- Paul Stankus, Brookhaven Science Associates, Upton, New York: Mapping Alien Continents: Achieving Optical VLBI for Exoplanet Imaging
- Paul Stankus, Brookhaven Science Associates, Upton, New York: Precision Astrometry Using Optically Independent Spacecraft for Gravitational Wave Detection
To learn more about NASA’s NIAC program, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/about-niac
-end-
Rob Margetta
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
robert.j.margetta@nasa.gov
NASA Sets Coverage for August Northern Hemisphere Total Solar Eclipse
On Wednesday, Aug. 12, a total solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, and a small corner of Portugal. NASA will stream the eclipse live with views across the path and interviews with subject matter experts through a variety of platforms.
Learn where to watch online:
Viewers in other places in the Northern Hemisphere also will have the chance to experience a partial solar eclipse, including parts of the U.S. (from Alaska to North Carolina), most of Canada, much of Europe, and northwestern Africa.
During the eclipse, NASA will conduct experiments in the path of totality. To investigate the dynamics of the Sun’s corona, a NASA-funded science team will chase the Moon’s shadow with a WB-57 high-altitude research aircraft. The NASA-supported Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project is sending students from several U.S. universities to Iceland and Spain to launch scientific balloons before, during, and after the eclipse to research how the temporary darkening of our skies during the eclipse affects Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA’s eclipse coverage is as follows (all times Eastern):
Wednesday, Aug. 12
- 1:15 p.m.: Eclipse broadcast begins
- 1:45 p.m.: Totality begins in Iceland
- 2:28 p.m.: Totality begins in Spain
NASA photography coverage
Photos of the eclipse, dependent on visibility, will be available shortly after the eclipse. View images on the agency’s Flickr account.
Watch, engage on social media
During the broadcast, NASA experts will answer questions submitted on social media. Send in your questions and let people know you’re watching the eclipse on X, Facebook, and Instagram by following and tagging these accounts:
X: @NASA, @NASASolarSystem, @NASAScience_
Facebook: NASA, NASASolarSystem, @NASAScience
Instagram: @NASA, @NASASolarSystem, @NASAScience_
Learn more about the eclipse at:
https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses
-end-
Abbey Interrante / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124 / 202-358-1600
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
NASA’s Curiosity Views a Sand-Capped Butte
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Photojournal Navigation Downloads NASA’s Curiosity Views a Sand-Capped Butte
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed “Miraflores,” estimated to be about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, with its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on June 11, 2026, the 4,923rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The butte was left behind as surrounding rock eroded away over time, deepening the broad valley Curiosity is climbing through.
The surrounding area includes an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons.
The panorama is made up of 11 individual images that were sent to Earth and stitched together. The color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.
Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.
To learn more about Curiosity, visit:
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
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NASA’s Curiosity Discovers a Field of Martian Polygons
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Photojournal Navigation Downloads NASA’s Curiosity Discovers a Field of Martian Polygons
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree view of an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons on June 19 and 20, 2026, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission. The rover has found polygons several times in the past, but never so many in one place. Across the center of this image, the surface is covered by shapes ranging in size from roughly 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) in diameter. The features also surround and wrap around a sand-capped butte nicknamed “Miraflores,” seen at far right in the image.
Figure AFigure A is a crop from the bottom-center of the panorama highlighting the polygons and their honeycomb-like textures.
Polygonal textures can form from a variety of conditions, including drying out of the surface (like in mud cracks), temperature cycles, compaction after being buried, or shrinkage of the sediment from loss of water or mineral changes. Scientists are measuring characteristics of these polygons to home in on which process formed them.
This panorama was captured by Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, as the rover continued its ascent of the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that it’s been climbing since 2014.
The panorama is made up of 340 individual images that were sent to Earth and stitched together. The color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.
Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.
To learn more about Curiosity, visit:
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Discovers Field of Honeycomb Textures
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s Curiosity Discovers a Field of Martian PolygonsNASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSAs NASA’s Curiosity rover recently began climbing up a Martian valley nicknamed “Valle Grande,” it sent back images that were a familiar sight to mission scientists: honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande.
In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see. They even wrap around the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed “Miraflores,” which stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall and is topped with a thick cap of sand.
“We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” said the mission’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.”
A close-up of the polygon fractures discovered by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover highlights their honeycomb-like texturesNASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSSome of the polygons that the mission has spotted in the past clearly formed as mud cracks, though a variety of processes can contribute to their honeycomb textures, including cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water out of the sediment when the surface was buried.
These newly discovered polygons are among the many surprises Curiosity has trundled across since landing on Mars 14 years ago, on Aug. 5, 2012. Besides sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and other interesting geologic features, the rover has made major discoveries about the ancient Martian environment — most importantly, that it had the water, chemistry, and nutrients to support microbial life.
Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The rover has previously uncovered chemistry left over from Mars’ watery history, including carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information. Scientists have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes — either path is possible — but their discovery reconfirmed that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed “Miraflores,” estimated to be about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, on June 11, 2026. The surrounding area includes an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSManaged by Caltech in Pasadena, JPL built Curiosity and leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of the agency’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
To learn more about Curiosity, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 202-672-4780
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
2026-051
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APOD: 2026 July 29 – Psyche Receives Gravity Assist from Mars
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Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Psyche Receives Gravity Assist from MarsExplanation: Solar System bodies make deep space exploration more fuel efficient! Today’s video shows the Psyche spacecraft gaining speed and changing its trajectory with minimal fuel spent due to a gravity assist from Mars in May 2026. Mars has an average orbital speed of almost 87,000 km/h (54,000 mph) around the Sun. Its orbital motion and its gravity allowed Mars to pull Psyche along with it, increasing the spacecraft’s speed. Gravity assists have been used since 1959’s Luna 3 mission to allow for spacecraft (the Voyagers, Cassini) to reach farther than they could with fuel alone. This assist helped the Psyche spacecraft on its journey to the Psyche asteroid, which it will reach in 2029. While passing Mars, the spacecraft tested instruments that will analyze the asteroid’s composition and magnetic field. This is the first mission to an asteroid thought to be largely made of metal, an essential building block for planets, rather than rock or ice.
Find dark skies and look up this August to witness the Perseids meteor shower uninhibited by the Moon!
Tomorrow’s picture: a red Sun
Date July 29, 2026 Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/True Story Films Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.
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Understanding How Martian Auroras Are Made
This July 23, 2026, illustration depicts charged particles from a solar storm stripping away charged particles of Mars’ atmosphere, one of the processes of Martian atmosphere loss studied by NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission. NASA MAVEN mission scientists have found that certain types of auroras on Mars form in a similar way to Earth-based auroras.
Read more about this discovery.
Image credit: NASA
NASA Webb Explores Family Tree of Newly Discovered Distant Objects
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Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Pierluigi Rinaldi (Steward Observatory); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Since their discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers. Understanding the nature of these extremely distant, compact red sources has been a puzzling scientific endeavor.
One popular theory is that little red dots are supermassive black holes known as active galactic nuclei, although they display characteristics unlike nearby active galactic nuclei. While they appear abundant at high redshift early in the universe, they rapidly decrease in number at lower redshifts. (The higher the redshift, the greater the distance the light has traveled across the universe.) This perplexing shift in number raises the question: What happens to little red dots as the universe matures?
A team of researchers led by Pierluigi Rinaldi of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, now at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, has built upon their previous research in a new study published on July 29 in The Astrophysical Journal and proposed one pathway LRDs can follow as the universe ages: Though they may look like a unique galaxy population, these dots are affected by observational bias — some features just don’t appear at higher redshifts with current technology.
Image: Saguaro in GOODS-North Field (NIRCam) Scientists have proposed one pathway little red dots can follow as the universe matures based on their analysis of spiral galaxy WISEA J123635.56+621424.2, nicknamed the “Saguaro.” They suggest little red dots may be a temporary phase of highly active supermassive black holes. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Pierluigi Rinaldi (Steward Observatory); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)Their conclusions are based on their analysis of lower-redshift spiral galaxy WISEA J123635.56+621424.2, nicknamed the “Saguaro” for its prominent arms, like the cactus native to the Sonoran Desert in the Southwestern United States. A particularly intriguing feature of this redshift 2 galaxy, which corresponds to approximately 3.3 billion years after the big bang, is its little red dot-like center that is reminiscent of the ruby red fruit produced by the desert plant.
“Everything created in the early universe must evolve into something around us. We have had little idea of what LRDs become, but these results finally show us how to find their progeny,” said co-author George Rieke of the University of Arizona. Previous studies by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope provided the first hint of the dust-obscured, compact galaxy population in the lower-redshift universe that the Saguaro belongs to, paving the way for NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes’ high-resolution analyses.
“The Saguaro is important because it’s a prototypical little red dot and is one of the few we have found at lower redshift. It can be used to study the pathway of these dots throughout cosmic time,” said Fabio Pacucci of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a co-author of the study.
Among the thousands of sources Rinaldi looked at across several surveys, the Saguaro was an example of the right place — with one of Webb’s microshutter arrays perfectly framed over the galaxy’s core to take spectroscopic data — and right time — being at lower redshift. To get as broad a view of the spiral galaxy as possible across the electromagnetic spectrum, the team used Hubble’s ultraviolet- and Webb’s infrared-imaging and spectroscopic archival data, respectively.
“Because the Saguaro is at lower redshift, we can see the very beautiful and bright host galaxy in high resolution and detail with Webb and Hubble,” said Zihao Wu of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and a co-author of the study. “Webb’s observations can help us understand how the galaxy and its little red dot-like nucleus are connected.”
The team took multiple approaches to verify that the Saguaro’s compact red nucleus matched the characteristics of a prototypical LRD. In particular, the Hubble and Webb data showed that the nucleus is brighter in both ultraviolet and infrared light than in visible light, just like distant LRDs. The team also carefully disentangled the light emitted from the host and nucleus, and considered the presence of X-ray emission from the source.
Although the majority of little red dots at high redshift are not detectable in X-ray light, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory detected weak X-ray emission from the Saguaro.
“What the X-ray light observations show is that this galaxy has an active galactic nucleus, and a very obscured one at that,” said Carys Gilbert, a Master’s student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and a co-author of the paper. “It’s not only obscured but also X-ray weak. That kind of combination could explain the lack of X-ray emission that we see from all other little red dots. It fits the puzzle of little red dots nicely.”
In addition to demonstrating how the Saguaro’s central compact red source fits the little red dot criteria, the team synthetically shifted the galaxy to a higher redshift to explore how this galactic environment would appear to observers if located in the early universe. As expected, the Saguaro’s surrounding galactic structure fades so that only the bright, LRD-like source at its center is visible.
“Our theory is that most of these distant sources are affected by this cosmological effect, creating an observational bias,” said Rinaldi. “We simply are not able to sample the immediate environment of high-redshift little red dots because their surroundings are just too faint to be observed even with Webb. Little red dots are far more complex than just being a dot. They’re just the tip of the iceberg — of a supermassive black hole interacting with its nearby surroundings.”
Image: Little Red Dot at Redshift 2: Real and Simulated Graphic Scientists synthetically shifted the Saguaro, a lower-redshift spiral galaxy, to a higher redshift to find out how it would appear if it was in the early universe. Its compact red appearance suggests that little red dots are a phase of highly active supermassive black holes. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Pierluigi Rinaldi (Steward Observatory); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Illustration: Leah Hustak (STScI)Considering the Saguaro case study, the team believes that LRDs may not be a unique galaxy population, but instead a temporary phase of highly active supermassive black holes. Could this theory be the link between the populous high-redshift little red dots seen by Webb and the local universe?
While the Saguaro is not representative of all LRDs, the team proposes that this is one phase of these compact red sources. To build more confidence, further study of the Saguaro is necessary, as well as seeking other Saguaro-like galaxies at lower redshift. The team also intends to comb through Webb’s bountiful archival data to build a census of little red dots to study how their environments may impact how they mature. These different approaches are all geared to helping uncover the family tree of little red dots.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The 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.
To learn more about Webb, visit:
To learn more about Hubble, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/hubble
Downloads & Related InformationThe following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.
Related Images & Videos Saguaro in GOODS-North Field (NIRCam)Scientists have proposed one pathway little red dots can follow as the universe matures based on their analysis of spiral galaxy WISEA J123635.56+621424.2, nicknamed the “Saguaro.” They suggest little red dots may be a temporary phase of highly active supermassive black holes.
Little Red Dot at Redshift 2: Real and Simulated Graphic
Scientists synthetically shifted the Saguaro, a lower-redshift spiral galaxy, to a higher redshift to find out how it would appear if it was in the early universe. Its compact red appearance suggests that little red dots are a phase of highly active supermassive black holes.
Related Links
Read more: Webb Science: Galaxies Through Time
Read more: Galaxies Over Time
Explore more: ViewSpace: Connecting Little Red Dots
Watch: Sonification of Gas Velocity Around a Supermassive Black Hole
Watch: JWST Science Simulations: Galaxy Formation
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Laura Betz
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laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
Abigail Major
Space Telescope Science Institute
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Hannah Braun
Space Telescope Science Institute
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Contractor to Civil Servant: NASA Welcomes Ray Williams
Ray Williams’ progression at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, has uniquely prepared him for his new role.
As part of NASA’s plan to restore core competencies by converting contractors to civil service, the New Orleans native and Grambling State University graduate now works as a supervisor for test operations support at the agency’s E-Complex.
This propulsion testing facility provides mission-critical engineering capabilities to NASA. Through the use of high- and low-pressure propellant systems, engineers are able to focus on development testing of propulsion system components before integration into complete engine systems. Thanks to the versatility of its infrastructure and test team, the complex is uniquely equipped to support projects for the growing commercial aerospace industry and is capable of supporting a wide range of component, engine, and stage test activities.
“Ultimately, my goal is to continue to grow within my own abilities as an engineer and as a supervisor, and to help grow those that I have the opportunity to lead,” said Williams. “I want to align myself with the agency’s goals as a whole to continue to utilize our unique skillset to grow, build, evolve, and innovate.”
Williams began his career at the E-Complex in 1998 as an electrical technician contractor during the facility’s design and build phase. He quickly became familiar with the facility layout, the various systems under development, and the requirements involved in designing, building, and integrating those systems. He later advanced to the role of instrumentation and electrical engineer, gaining extensive institutional knowledge while developing expertise in the principles and importance of data validation.
In total, he brings 28 years of experience to NASA, along with an intimate understanding of the daily challenges his team of technicians faces.
Williams’ primary work location is the E-1 test stand, which is able to handle extremely high pressures and massive flow rates of super cold cryogenics.
Unlike the A and B test complexes at NASA Stennis, where a fully built engine or stage can be installed, fueled, and fired, the E-Complex is highly adaptable.
When commercial partners need to validate large, complex components, they provide specific requirements. The team then customizes the test facility to replicate the exact extreme conditions the hardware is expected to encounter during operation. NASA collects and analyzes data from these precisely controlled test conditions to validate design predictions and determine whether design modifications are needed throughout the development process, from subscale testing through full-scale testing.
Whether validating valve timings, ensuring facility instrumentation is properly calibrated, supporting ultra-high pressure pumping and cryogenic transferring operations, or troubleshooting electrical and mechanical support systems, Williams and his team must execute each task with precision. By retaining Williams’ facility specific expertise in-house as a civil servant, NASA reduces long term operational risk.
Williams describes the opportunity to perform this mission critical work in public service as a dream come true, a dream that began decades ago during an elementary school field trip to NASA Stennis. Today, he finds himself working at NASA just as the agency returns to the Moon to stay through Artemis missions and builds a Moon Base, humanity’s first lunar outpost.
“Having the opportunity to play a role at NASA means a lot,” said Williams. “To this day, I am still a kid at heart looking out at the sky and the galaxy. Being a part of the mission and doing things I know we are capable of doing is an amazing, but also humbling, opportunity.”
Share Details Last Updated Jul 29, 2026 EditorBo BlackLocationStennis Space Center Related Terms Explore More 2 min read NASA Drains 66-Million-Gallon Reservoir to Upgrade Critical Water System Article 2 months ago 5 min read How NASA is Collecting Explosion Data for Next Generation Rockets Article 4 months ago 3 min read NASA Marks Milestone in Preparation for Artemis IV Testing Article 6 months ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA StennisNASA’s Stennis Space Center History
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NASA Astronaut Chris Williams to Discuss Space Station Mission
NASA astronaut Chris Williams will recap his recent eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station during a news conference at 2:45 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 4, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA will stream this event live through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online:
United States-based media interested in attending in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m., Friday, July 31, at jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.
Media wishing to participate by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than two hours before the start of the event. To ask a question by phone, media must dial into the news conference no later than 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
Williams returned to Earth on July 26, after logging 241 days as an Expedition 73/74 flight engineer during his first spaceflight. He returned along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, completing 3,856 orbits of the Earth over the course of their more than 102-million-mile journey. They also saw the arrival of six visiting spacecraft and the departure of eight.
During his mission, Williams supported a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He helped advance research for new cancer treatments and improved in-space manufacturing of materials used in high-performance computers and electronics. Williams also completed two spacewalks to prep for space station power system upgrades and to replace a faulty joint on the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The crew’s work aboard the space station helps improve life on Earth and prepare for future human missions to the Moon and Mars.
To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit:
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NASA Science Soars During August Total Solar Eclipse
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NASA Science Soars During August Total Solar EclipseEach time the Moon covers the Sun during a total solar eclipse — darkening daytime skies and briefly revealing the Sun’s ethereal outer atmosphere, the corona — it presents new opportunities to better understand our star and its influence on Earth.
On Wednesday, Aug. 12, as the next total solar eclipse sweeps over Greenland, Iceland, and Spain, NASA-funded science teams will be chasing the Moon’s shadow with a high-altitude jet and scientific balloons to investigate the Sun’s dynamics and how the temporary darkening of our skies affects our atmosphere.
“From our unique perspective on Earth during a total solar eclipse, scientists can study the Sun’s corona in a way we can’t from anywhere else in the solar system,” said Kelly Korreck, eclipse program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The Sun impacts our daily life, satellites, and astronauts in space, and we can take advantage of this moment to advance our understanding of that influence.”
High-flying jet to record solar dynamicsSoaring in the nose cone of NASA’s WB-57 high-altitude research aircraft is a suite of four cameras to take high-resolution images of the corona in several different wavelengths of visible and infrared light. Part of an instrument developed by the NASA Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imagery (SCIFLI) team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the cameras will capture at least 20 images per second, recording structures, outflows, and rapid changes in the corona during the total solar eclipse.
With these images, scientists hope to learn more about the formation of prominences (solar material that gets suspended above the Sun’s surface), better understand the corona and how it gets heated to nearly a million degrees, and investigate how material in the corona and the solar wind are related, which flows out from the Sun across the solar system.
These images of the corona and solar prominences were taken in different wavelengths of visible and infrared light by imagers aboard a NASA’s WB-57 jet during the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse. The same cameras will fly on a NASA WB-57 jet again during the Aug. 12 eclipse. NASA / SwRI / William AshfieldBy chasing the Moon’s shadow, the jet will extend how long the cameras can observe the corona. On the ground, the longest anyone will be able to see the corona is two minutes and 18 seconds. But flying along the eclipse path at 460 miles per hour, the jet’s view of the corona will last nearly three minutes.
NASA’s WB-57 will fly at 50,000 feet, above any clouds that might obscure the view of the corona from the ground. The altitude also allows the cameras to observe some infrared wavelengths that get absorbed by the lower atmosphere before reaching the ground, and the corona only has been observed in those wavelengths a few times before.
One of NASA’s WB-57 high-altitude jets will carry a suite of cameras up to 50,000 feet to capture images of the solar corona during the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse. NASAThe instrument, called SCIFLI Multispectral Airborne Imager, or SAMI, also flew on a WB-57 during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, providing valuable imagery and information about the corona. However, the study’s principal investigator, Amir Caspi of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, says each total solar eclipse provides new opportunities to learn more about the corona.
“The Sun is always changing,” Caspi said. “Every eclipse is different. So we could see things we didn’t see before. And we learn from each eclipse how to better observe the next one.”
Caspi’s team also is making some enhancements for the 2026 campaign based on lessons learned in 2024. For example, the team will adjust exposure times to better capture bright features that were overexposed in 2024 imagery. They will also leverage software developed since 2024 to process and analyze the data sooner than before.
The experiment is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Low Cost Access to Space Program.
As a total solar eclipse crosses Russia, Greenland, Iceland, Spain, and Portugal on Aug. 12, 2026, some of the best views will come from 50,000 feet up, aboard NASA’s WB-57 jet. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Balloons to watch atmospheric changesWhen a total solar eclipse suddenly turns daytime skies dark, our atmosphere changes in ways we don’t yet fully understand.
The NASA-supported Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, led by Angela Des Jardins at Montana State University, is sending students from several U.S. universities to Iceland and Spain to launch scientific balloons before, during, and after the eclipse to better understand those changes.
A student team from the University of Kentucky prepares to launch a ballon from Bloomington, Indiana, to take atmospheric measurements on April 8, 2024, during the 2024 Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project campaign. Sean Bailey (University of Kentucky)In Iceland, two teams will launch a total of 80 balloons starting 18 hours before the eclipse until eight hours afterward to study how the eclipse affects Earth’s “boundary layer,” the part of the atmosphere that touches the ground. The thickness of the boundary layer changes depending on factors such as surface temperature and moisture in the air.
Previous balloon flights during solar eclipses in October 2023 and April 2024 showed that the boundary layer collapsed, or decreased in thickness, in locations with clear skies but not where there were cloudy skies. Scientists wonder whether that will be different in Iceland in 2026. Changes in the boundary layer are driven by the day-night cycle. However, in Iceland in August, the days are long and nights are short, so the nighttime influences might not be as strong as in 2023 or 2024.
“Will this eclipse be able to collapse the boundary layer?” said Matthew Bernards, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Idaho, who leads one of the Iceland teams.
This image shows the Moon’s shadow on Earth during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, as seen from about 90,000 feet from a camera carried by a scientific balloon. Cameras carried by balloons launched from Spain will capture similar images during the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse. Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project/Virginia TechIn Spain, three balloon teams will launch a total of six balloons with 360-degree cameras to image the eclipse shadow from above. These balloons also will include instruments designed to measure levels of ozone in the atmosphere, which requires sunlight to form. Similar balloon experiments showed that ozone decreased during totality in April 2024. Scientists wonder whether there will be differences with this eclipse, particularly since it happens at a later time of day and during a different season.
The NASA-funded Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project will allow teams of students from across the U.S. to get a unique view of the August total solar eclipse with scientific balloons. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Follow alongWhile the total solar eclipse won’t be visible in the U.S., some parts of the country will be able to see a partial solar eclipse. Learn more about where to see the eclipse and how to view it safely.
by Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Lee esta historia en español aquí.
Share Details Last Updated Jul 28, 2026 Related Terms Explore More 6 min read NASA’s Swift Sees ‘Wandering’ Mega Black Hole Shredding StarArticle
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NASA’s Hubble finds that star formation in the Andromeda galaxy has undergone a 500-million-year decline.
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NASA Astronaut Chris Williams Returns to Earth
NASA astronaut Chris Williams is all smiles in this July 26, 2026, photo taken shortly after he landed with Expedition 74 Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and Sergei Mikaev in Kazakhstan. This was Williams’ first mission.
Williams spent eight months aboard the International Space Station, where he supported a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He also completed two spacewalks to prep for space station power system upgrades and to replace a faulty joint on the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
NASA’s Swift Sees ‘Wandering’ Mega Black Hole Shredding Star
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory captured an “orphan” black hole lighting up as it devoured a star on the outskirts of a faraway galaxy. These phenomena are rare to begin with, and none had ever before been seen so far outside of a galaxy’s core.
“We were looking for these star-shredding events as a way to find otherwise invisible supermassive black holes wandering away from the galactic cores where they usually reside,” said Robert Stein, a research fellow at The University of Maryland, College Park and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “With this discovery, which is one of just a couple that have been confirmed so far, we’ve validated a new technique and can use it to hunt for more.”
A paper describing the results, led by Stein, was published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Researchers saw an ultrabright flare unleashed by a star being torn apart by extreme gravitational forces after drifting too close to a monster black hole — a phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. The black hole behind the blast weighs in at about a million times the Sun’s mass. Its existence was first flagged in November 2025 as an unusual brightening in a galaxy about 750 million light-years away by ZTF (Zwicky Transient Facility), a survey conducted by the Palomar Observatory in Southern California.
“Out of the half million flashes ZTF detects each night, our new artificial intelligence algorithm automatically recognized a flare that looked a lot like a tidal disruption event, despite its unusual location in the outskirts of a galaxy,” Stein said. For a few months, the tidal disruption event outshone its entire host galaxy in ultraviolet wavelengths, temporarily radiating with the light of about 10 billion suns.
This gif shows the galaxy WISEA J014656.04-152214.7, located about 750 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus, before and after a tidal disruption event was spotted on its outer edge in November 2025. The image at left was taken by the DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) Legacy Survey and the one at right is from the Lowell Discovery Telescope. Lowell Discovery Telescope/Legacy Survey/Robert SteinOther telescopes, including the SOAR (Southern Astrophysical Research) telescope in Chile, followed up on the ZTF source to look at the event’s spectrum, which revealed features supporting that it was likely a tidal disruption event. Astronomers then used NASA’s Swift to look at wavelengths they can’t detect with ground-based telescopes to uncover new information. For example, Swift’s UVOT (Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope) took the blip’s temperature and found that it had quite a fever at about 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (30,000 degrees Celsius).
“The combination of all this data helped us rule out other explanations and confidently say it’s a tidal disruption event, despite its strange location,” said Jonathan Carney, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who took the first spectra that supported the flare’s interpretation as a tidal disruption event.
Hidden heavyweightsNearly every galaxy in the universe is anchored by a supermassive black hole sitting right in the center. About once every 100,000 years, a star will drift too close to this invisible heavyweight and trigger a tidal disruption event.
While they’re rather rare in any given galaxy, scientists scour millions of galaxies for them. Each year, astronomical surveys typically spot about 30 tidal disruption events occurring somewhere in the universe.
Prior to 2024, they’d only been seen in galaxy cores. That’s partly because astronomers mainly looked for them there; after all, it’s where all the known supermassive black holes were, and you can’t get a tidal disruption event without one (the gravitational pull of lighter black holes isn’t strong enough).
Then scientists saw the telltale signs of a star being shredded 2,600 light-years from the center of its host galaxy. That inspired more astronomers to look beyond galaxy cores for similar events, and now a team has identified one more than 30,000 light-years away from a galaxy’s center.
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So how did the newfound black hole become so off-kilter?
“It must have originated in a galaxy’s center, but not the one it’s in the outskirts of now,” Stein said. “We think the host galaxy’s supermassive black hole is still at its core, but the one eating the star could have started off in a small galaxy that merged with the big one we see today.”
The researchers have outlined two possibilities. Three or more galaxies may have merged together, and the gravitational tug-of-war between their central supermassive black holes may have flung the lightest black hole out to the galaxy’s edge.
Or a dwarf galaxy could be midway through a merger. As the dwarf’s stars fell into the larger galaxy, one may have passed too close to the dwarf’s supermassive black hole.
“Further discoveries could reveal the origin of this apparent ‘orphan’ black hole,” Stein said. “The key science question we want to answer is: How common are wandering black holes?”
The answer may soon be within reach. “Pointed science observations with Swift’s UVOT and XRT (X-Ray Telescope) instruments are temporarily suspended as the mission awaits an orbit boost, which is planned for this summer,” said co-author S. Bradley Cenko, Swift’s principal investigator at NASA Goddard. The spacecraft, whose primary mission ran from 2004 to 2006, is slowly sinking toward Earth due to atmospheric drag after more than 20 years of observations of the changing universe. Nudging it to a higher orbit could extend its lifetime even longer. “Once it resumes normal operations, Swift could continue searching for more examples of out-of-place black holes.”
In the coming years, scientists will use the new technique to search for disintegrating stars in observations from the newly operational Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, in Chile and NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
“Rubin’s wide, deep surveys will reveal a much larger sample of tidal disruption events than current observatories are capable of collecting, including ones that are off-center,” Carney said. “And Roman’s space-based surveys will extend the current search zone by seeing ones that are farther away, looking back through 9 billion years of cosmic history.” Adding their observations to Swift’s and those from ground-based observatories will bring astronomers closer than ever before to completing a census of the universe’s behemoth black holes.
To learn more about the Swift mission, visit:
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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NASA to Cover Three US Spacewalks, Host Preview News Conference
Editor’s note: This media advisory was updated July 27, 2026 to reflect an updated start time for the spacewalk on Thursday, Aug. 6.
NASA will provide coverage as astronauts venture outside the International Space Station during three spacewalks in August to continue upgrading solar arrays, replace a communications antenna, and connect power and data cables in support of space station operations.
Experts will preview the upcoming spacewalks during a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 30, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA will stream these events through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online:
NASA participants in the news conference include:
- Bill Spetch, deputy manager of Commercial, Low Earth Orbit Program
- Chris Dobbins, spacewalk flight director
- Chloe Mehring, spacewalk flight director
United States-based media interested in attending in person must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than 3 p.m., Wednesday, July 29, at jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. Media joining by phone should request dial-in details by the same deadline. To ask a question, media must dial in no later than 15 minutes before the start of the news conference.
Thursday, Aug. 6
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon will exit the Quest airlock to install hardware that will modify the station’s 3B power channel and prepare it for the future installation of an International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA). The solar array, scheduled for delivery later this year, will be the seventh IROSA and will provide additional power to support critical station operations, including its safe and controlled deorbit.
Watch NASA’s live coverage of U.S. spacewalk 96 beginning at 7 a.m. The spacewalk is expected to start at 8:35 a.m. and last about six and a half hours.
This spacewalk will be the sixth for Meir and the first for Menon. Meir will serve as spacewalk crew member 1 and will wear a suit with red stripes. Menon will serve as crew member 2 and will wear an unmarked suit.
Thursday, Aug. 13
During U.S. spacewalk 97, two astronauts will replace a Space-to-Ground antenna on the orbital complex. The antenna is a critical communication system NASA uses to transmit data and high‑speed communication between the Mission Control Center in Houston and the space station.
Tuesday, Aug. 25
The U.S. spacewalk 98 crew members will connect power channel cables and data relay systems as part of ongoing maintenance, including preparations for the space station’s future deorbit. The astronauts also will replace a navigational aid used for spacecraft docking on the Harmony module’s forward port.
NASA will share additional details about U.S. spacewalks 97 and 98, including timing, assigned crew members, and coverage information, closer to each operation.
The spacewalks will be the 281st, 282nd, and 283rd conducted in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit:
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NASA’s Hubble Shows Star Formation in Andromeda Galaxy Winding Down
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Image: NASA, ESA, Benjamin Williams (UWashington), Zhuo Chen (UWashington), L. Clifton Johnson (Northwestern); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
A new study using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope finds that star formation in the nearby Andromeda galaxy has undergone a 500-million-year decline, with an even steeper drop in the last 40 million years. Andromeda, a spiral galaxy comparable in size to our Milky Way, is close enough to be seen with the unaided eye from areas with dark skies. Located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth, practically our cosmic backyard, Andromeda offers an opportunity for astronomers to examine its stellar populations in detail, leading to better understanding of the past of galaxies like our own.
The results published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers combined data from two Hubble surveys: the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury and the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury. Together, these two surveys mapped two-thirds of the disk of Andromeda in ultra-sharp detail. In total, the team measured about 200 million individual stars across the galaxy, giving them a detailed picture of Andromeda’s past activity.
“We need to measure the individual stars because they are the fossil record of the galaxy’s formation. Hubble is the only telescope that can give you high enough spatial resolution over a large enough area to be able to do that in Andromeda,” said Ben Williams, astronomer at the University of Washington and a co-author on the study.
Massive stars are bluer and short-lived, while less massive stars are redder and longer-lived. As a result, areas that have experienced recent star formation tend to have a larger fraction of blue stars, while areas with less recent star formation typically have a redder population. The team divided the Andromeda images into thousands of squares, spanning 300 light-years on each side of the square, and determined the history of star formation within each parcel to gain a comprehensive view of the galaxy’s past.
Unable to render the provided source NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided a detailed view of millions of stars in the Andromeda galaxy. Regions that have experienced recent star formation (1) appear significantly bluer than regions with less recent star formation (2). NASA, ESA, Benjamin Williams (UWashington), Zhuo Chen (UWashington), L. Clifton Johnson (Northwestern); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) Steady declinePrevious research showed the Andromeda galaxy experienced a dramatic burst of star formation about 2 billion years ago, likely due to a past interaction or merger with another galaxy. Since that time, star formation has been steadily declining.
Astronomers measure the rate of star formation in terms of the mass, or amount of gas and dust, converted into stars per year. The researchers calculated that, 500 million years ago, Andromeda formed stars at a rate of about one solar mass per year. However, the formation rate dropped to about half that by 40 million years ago. The current rate has plummeted even farther, to about one-fifth the mass of our Sun per year.
The team also examined whether that decline was consistent across the galaxy or concentrated in certain areas. They found that much of the recent star formation has occurred in a star-forming ring located about 32,000 light-years from the galaxy’s center. As a result, much of the decline they measure is driven by decreasing activity within that ring.
Rather than being the result of reduced material from which new stars can form, the decline is more likely to be a natural winding down from its previous, more active state.
“It’s just like after running a marathon, sometimes you’ve got to take a bit of a breather,” said Tobin Wainer, lead author, University of Washington.
Likely suspectThe team also investigated whether there was any connection between the decrease of activity in Andromeda and its proximity to satellite galaxy M32 (Messier 32). The M32 galaxy is separated from Andromeda by about 16,000 light-years in the plane of the sky; however, its 3D location in space is uncertain. As a result, astronomers are unsure if or when it might have interacted with Andromeda in the past.
“One of the major motivations for this program was to probe potential interactions between M32 and Andromeda’s disk,” said Zhuo Chen, co-author, University of Washington.
Survey data from the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury allowed the team to study the history of star formation in Andromeda near M32. They found that this area showed signs of decreased star formation compared with other regions. The timing of this decrease, which this study finds began roughly 60 million years ago, could help constrain when the M32 galaxy interacted with Andromeda’s disk.
“We can’t explicitly say that we are seeing a decrease in star formation because of M32. But it’s right there, and it’s definitely the most likely suspect,” said Wainer.
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The team plans to continue analyzing the Hubble data and combine it with data from ground-based observatories to gain additional insights into the history of Andromeda.
“There’s a strong scientific value to this archival data. Andromeda is important because it’s a neighbor that is close enough that we can see it in great detail while also getting a global perspective,” said Raja GuhaThakurta, co-author, University of California Santa Cruz.
An even greater global perspective is likely to come from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope after it launches as early as Sunday, Aug. 30. Roman’s gigantic field of view can cover at least 100 times as much area as Hubble at near-infrared wavelengths in a single observation. A newly approved Roman observing program will image the entirety of Andromeda’s disk and areas of its surrounding halo, allowing astronomers to measure hundreds of millions of stars and enabling groundbreaking new science.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than 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 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.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubbleRelated Images & Videos Andromeda Galaxy
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided a detailed view of millions of stars in the Andromeda galaxy.
Star Formation Rate in Andromeda Over Time
This movie, created from an analysis of data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, demonstrates how the rate of star formation in the Andromeda galaxy has declined over the past 500 million years.
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland
- Academic Paper: “The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury (PHAST). II. The Spatially Resolved Recent Star Formation History in M31”
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NASA Astronaut Chris Williams, Crewmates Return from Space Station
Concluding an eight-month science mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Chris Williams returned to Earth on Sunday alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev.
The crew made its safe, parachute-assisted landing at 5:27 a.m. CDT (3:27 p.m., Kazakhstan time), southeast of Dzhezkazgan, after departing the space station at 2:03 a.m., aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft.
The crew was in space for 241 days, orbiting the Earth 3,856 times and traveling more than 102 million miles. They launched to the International Space Station on Nov. 27, 2025. The mission was the first for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud-Sverchkov.
While aboard the orbiting laboratory, Williams supported a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He helped advance research for new cancer treatments and improved in-space manufacturing of materials used in high-performance computers and electronics. Williams also completed two spacewalks to prep for space station power system upgrades and to replace a faulty joint on the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The crew’s work aboard the space station helps improve life on Earth and prepare for future human missions to the Moon and Mars.
Following post-landing medical checks, the crew members will fly by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where recovery teams are based. Williams then will board a NASA aircraft bound for the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
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:
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NASA’s ESCAPADE Snaps Family Portrait of Earth, Moon
On July 3, one of NASA’s two Mars-destined ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft captured photos of Earth and the Moon in visible and thermal infrared light. At the time, the spacecraft was 363,250 miles (584,600 kilometers) from Earth and 115,600 miles (186,100 kilometers) from the Moon, making the Moon appear relatively large.
Taken with the Sun only partly illuminating Earth and the Moon, the visible light image shows the two bodies as crescents, with only around 8% of each face sunlit. Yet in the thermal infrared image, the shadowed hemisphere of Earth is illuminated by its own heat from both the atmosphere and surface, glowing at minus 10 to minus 44 degrees Fahrenheit (250 to 280 kelvins). Without the insulating blankets of oceans and atmospheres, the Moon’s far side remains at a much cooler minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (100 kelvins).
visible light thermal infrared light
Caption: In these images from NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, Earth (left) and Moon (right) can be seen. The image to the left of the slider shows visible light reflected by the Sun while the infrared image to the right shows the bodies’ emitted energy. White rings have been added in the thermal image to show the actual size of Earth and the Moon. Credit: NASA/UCB-SSL/NAU-Radiant/Lucint NASA/UCB-SSL/NAU-Radiant/Lucint
In these images from NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, Earth (left) and Moon (right) can be seen. The image to the left of the slider shows visible light reflected by the Sun while the infrared image to the right shows the bodies’ emitted energy. White rings have been added in the thermal image to show the actual size of Earth and the Moon. NASA/UCB-SSL/NAU-Radiant/Lucint visible lightthermal infrared light
Caption: In these images from NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, Earth (left) and Moon (right) can be seen. The image to the left of the slider shows visible light reflected by the Sun while the infrared image to the right shows the bodies’ emitted energy. White rings have been added in the thermal image to show the actual size of Earth and the Moon. Credit: NASA/UCB-SSL/NAU-Radiant/Lucint NASA/UCB-SSL/NAU-Radiant/Lucint In these images from NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, Earth (left) and Moon (right) can be seen. The image to the left of the slider shows visible light reflected by the Sun while the infrared image to the right shows the bodies’ emitted energy. White rings have been added in the thermal image to show the actual size of Earth and the Moon. NASA/UCB-SSL/NAU-Radiant/Lucint
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ESCAPADE Photos of Earth and Moon
July 3, 2026
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In these images from NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, Earth (left) and Moon (right) can be seen. The image to the left of the slider shows visible light reflected by the Sun while the infrared image to the right shows the bodies’ emitted energy. White rings have been added in the thermal image to show the actual size of Earth and the Moon. Credit: NASA/UCB-SSL/NAU-Radiant/Lucint
The ESCAPADE mission used its Visible and Infrared Observation System cameras, provided by Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, to capture the images, which are more than just road trip photo album snaps.
“We are thrilled that ESCAPADE was able to accommodate these excellent space-qualified cameras which will search for visible Martian aurora and investigate thermal properties of the Martian surface and atmosphere,” said Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley. “Since Earth and the Moon are well-known targets, imaging them provides an important calibration check for ESCAPADE’s cameras.”
The ESCAPADE spacecraft, which were built by Rocket Lab, are currently in a “loiter” orbit around Lagrange point 2, a location in space about a million miles from Earth. In November 2026, the spacecraft will fly by Earth to use the planet’s gravity to slingshot their way to Mars. When the spacecraft arrive in September 2027, they will study how a million-mile-per-hour stream of material flowing from the Sun, known as solar wind, interacts with the Martian environment and how that drives atmospheric loss at the Red Planet.
The ESCAPADE mission is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and is part of the NASA Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program. The UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory leads the mission with key partners Rocket Lab; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Advanced Space; and Blue Origin.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
