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Satellite Constellations Are Too Bright, Threatening Astronomy and Our Night Sky
Our quest for universal internet is stealing the stars. Thousands of satellites now travelling across the night sky are far brighter than international safety limits, turning what was once humanity's window to the cosmos into a highway of artificial lights. New research reveals that major constellations like Starlink and OneWeb are breaking the brightness rules designed to protect both cutting edge astronomy and the simple joy of stargazing potentially robbing future generations of the dark skies that have inspired wonder for centuries.
Scientists Solve 400 Year Old Solar Mystery
For over four centuries, the dark blemishes on our Sun's surface have puzzled astronomers. Now, German scientists have cracked the code behind sunspot stability, revealing how these Earth sized magnetic monsters, each powerful enough to rival an MRI machine yet spanning areas larger than our entire planet, maintain their grip on the solar surface for weeks or months at a time. This breakthrough not only solves one of astronomy's oldest mysteries but could revolutionize our ability to predict the explosive solar storms that threaten our satellite dependent world.
Earth Was Born With Water; No Delivery Needed
The source of Earth's water is one of the most compelling questions facing scientists. Earth's habitability depends on multiple factors, but water is the basis for life, and it had to come from somewhere. Did comets and meteorites deliver it after Earth formed? Or did water become part of our planet as it formed?
A Lunar Base Could Start with a Dome over a Crater Made of Regolith
When astronauts live on the Moon permanently, they're going to need a safe habitat, ideally made out of local construction material. A new paper suggests that lunar astronauts could cover a 17-meter crater with a dome made from a lunar regolith-based geopolymer. A 3D printer would extrude a paste made of lunar regolith that would be sintered together into the shape of the dome. This would provide protection from radiation and could even maintain a pressurized habitat.
This Earth-sized Exoplanet is On a Death Spiral
An international team of astronomers have discovered an Earth-size exoplanet on a very tight orbit around its star. It completes an orbit in only 5 hours and 22 minutes. Unfortunately, the planet will either be torn to pieces or crash into its star in about 31 million years.
The Milky Way Could be Surrounded by 100 Satellite Galaxies
The Milky Way is surrounded by about 60 satellite galaxies. The famous ones are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. But according to a new simulation, the Milky Way could have 80 and even 100 satellite galaxies that we haven't detected so far. These galaxies will be hard to find. They've had most of their mass stripped by the gravity of the Milky Way's halo. But new telescopes like Vera Rubin should be able to spot them.
A Solar Gravitational Lens Telescope Is The Only Feasible Way To Get High Resolution Pictures Of A Habitable Exoplanet
Sometimes in order to support an idea, you first have to discredit alternative, competing ideas that could take resources away from the one you care about. In the scientific community, one of the most devastating ways you can do that is by making the other methods appear to be too expensive to be feasible, or, better yep, prove they wouldn’t work at all due to some fundamental limitation. That is what a recent paper by Dr. Slava Turyshev, the world’s most prominent proponent of a Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) telescope mission, does. He examines how effective alternative telescope technologies would be at creating a 10x10 pixel map of an exoplanet about 32 light years away. Unsurprisingly, there’s only one that is able to do so without giant leaps and bounds in technology development - the SGL telescope.
Scientists Unlock Secrets of Matter Under Extreme Conditions
Scientists have recreated the universe's first moments by smashing atomic nuclei together at near-light speeds, generating temperatures 1,000 times hotter than the Sun's core and briefly forming the same "soup" of fundamental particles that existed microseconds after the Big Bang. In this groundbreaking research, heavy particles act like tiny cosmic detectives, moving through this primordial matter and revealing how the chaotic early universe transformed into the structured reality we see today. By understanding how these massive particles behave under the most extreme conditions imaginable, researchers are essentially reading the universe's origin story written in the language of fundamental physics.
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NASA Invites Media to Marshall’s 65th Anniversary Celebration July 19
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will host astronauts for a media opportunity as the center celebrates its 65th anniversary during a free, community event on Saturday, July 19, from noon to 5 p.m. CDT at The Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama.
Marshall, along with its partners and collaborators, will fill the amphitheater with space exhibits, music, food vendors, and hands-on activities for all ages. The summer celebration will mark 65 years of innovation and exploration, not only for Marshall, but for Huntsville and other North Alabama communities.
The event will kick off with a program at 12:30 p.m. led by Joseph Pelfrey, director of NASA Marshall, and will include a presentation from some of the Expedition 72 crew members who recently returned from their mission after dedicating more than 1,000 combined hours to scientific research and technology demonstrations aboard the International Space Station. The crew will share their experiences in space with the community.
The official portrait of the International Space Station’s Expedition 72 crew. At the top (from left) are Roscosmos cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin, NASA astronaut and space station Commander Suni Williams, and NASA astronaut and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore. In the middle row are Roscosmos cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut and Flight Engineer Don Pettit. In the bottom row are Roscosmos cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov and NASA astronaut and Flight Engineer Nick Hague. NASA/Bill Stafford and Robert Markowitz
Media are invited to attend the event and participate in a news conference with the astronauts after the presentation but must confirm their attendance by 4:30 p.m., Thursday, July 17, to Lance D. Davis – lance.d.davis@nasa.gov – in Marshall’s Office of Communications.
Media should arrive at the front entrance of The Orion Amphitheater by 11:45 a.m., Saturday, July 19, to be escorted by the Office of Communications.
Founded July 1, 1960, in Huntsville, Marshall has shaped or supported nearly every facet of the nation’s ongoing mission of space exploration and discovery, solving the most complex, technical flight challenges, and contributing to science to improve life and protect resources around the world.
Learn more about Marshall’s 65th anniversary celebration at:
https://www.nasa.gov/marshall65/
Lance D. Davis
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-640-9065
lance.d.davis@nasa.gov
Summer Triangle Corner: Vega
3 min read
Summer Triangle Corner: VegaIf you live in the Northern Hemisphere and look up during July evenings, you’ll see the brilliant star Vega shining overhead. Did you know that Vega is one of the most studied stars in our skies? As one of the brightest summer stars, Vega has fascinated astronomers for thousands of years.
Vega is the brightest star in the small Greek constellation of Lyra, the harp. It’s also one of the three points of the large “Summer Triangle” asterism, making Vega one of the easiest stars to find for novice stargazers. Ancient humans from 14,000 years ago likely knew Vega for another reason: it was the Earth’s northern pole star! Compare Vega’s current position with that of the current north star, Polaris, and you can see how much the direction of Earth’s axis changes over thousands of years. This slow movement of axial rotation is called precession, and in 12,000 years, Vega will return to the northern pole star position.
A map of the asterism known as the Summer Triangle. This asterism is made up of three stars: Vega in the Lyra constellation, Altair in the Aquila constellation, and Deneb in the Cygnus constellation. Stellarium Web
Bright Vega has been observed closely since the beginning of modern astronomy and even helped to set the standard for the current magnitude scale used to categorize the brightness of stars. Polaris and Vega have something else in common, besides being once and future pole stars: their brightness varies over time, making them variable stars. Variable stars’ light can change for many different reasons. Dust, smaller stars, or even planets may block the light we see from the star. Or the star itself might be unstable with active sunspots, expansions, or eruptions changing its brightness. Most stars are so far away that we only record the change in light, and can’t see their surface.
Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a large asteroid belt around the bright star Vega, as illustrated here at left in brown. The ring of warm, rocky debris was detected using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, and the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory, in which NASA plays an important role. NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s TESS satellite has ultra-sensitive light sensors primed to look for the tiny dimming of starlight caused by transits of extrasolar planets. Their sensitivity also allowed TESS to observe much smaller pulsations in a certain type of variable star’s light than previously observed. These observations of Delta Scuti variable stars will help astronomers model their complex interiors and make sense of their distinct, seemingly chaotic pulsations. This is a major contribution towards the field of astroseismology: the study of stellar interiors via observations of how sound waves “sing” as they travel through stars. The findings may help settle the debate over what kind of variable star Vega is. Find more details on this research, including a sonification demo that lets you “hear” the heartbeat of one of these stars, at: bit.ly/DeltaScutiTESS
In 2024, the James Webb Space Telescope revisited the Vega system to reveal a 100-billion-mile-wide disk of dust around this star. While the debris disk is confirmed, there is no evidence of planets as of today.
Originally posted by Dave Prosper: June 2020
Last Updated by Kat Troche: July 2025
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NASA to Preview Advanced US-India Radar Mission Ahead of Launch
NASA will host a news conference at 12 p.m. EDT Monday, July 21, to discuss the upcoming NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission.
The Earth-observing satellite, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), carries an advanced radar system that will help protect communities by providing a dynamic, three-dimensional view of Earth in unprecedented detail and detecting the movement of land and ice surfaces down to the centimeter.
The NISAR mission will lift off from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, on India’s southeastern coast. Launch is targeted for no earlier than late July.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will stream the briefing live on its X, Facebook, and YouTube channels. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Participants in the news conference include:
- Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters
- Wendy Edelstein, deputy project manager, NISAR, NASA JPL
- Paul Rosen, project scientist, NISAR, NASA JPL
To ask questions by phone, members of the media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start of the event to: rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. Questions can be asked on social media during the briefing using #AskNISAR.
With its two radar instruments — an S-band system provided by ISRO and an L-band system provided by NASA — NISAR will use a technique known as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to scan nearly all the planet’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. Each system’s signal is sensitive to different sizes of features on Earth’s surface, and each specializes in measuring different attributes, such as moisture content, surface roughness, and motion.
These capabilities will help scientists better understand processes involved in natural hazards and catastrophic events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, land subsidence, and landslides.
Additionally, NISAR’s cloud penetrating ability will aid urgent responses to communities during weather disasters such as hurricanes, storm surge, and flooding. The detailed maps the mission creates also will provide information on both gradual and sudden changes occurring on Earth’s land and ice surfaces.
Managed by Caltech for NASA, JPL leads the U.S. component of the NISAR project and provided the L-band SAR. NASA JPL also provided the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Near Space Network, which will receive NISAR’s L-band data.
Multiple ISRO centers have contributed to NISAR. The Space Applications Centre is providing the mission’s S-band SAR. The U R Rao Satellite Centre provided the spacecraft bus. The rocket is from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, launch services are through Satish Dhawan Space Centre, and satellite mission operations are by the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network. The National Remote Sensing Centre is responsible for S-band data reception, operational products generation, and dissemination.
To learn more about NISAR, visit:
-end-
Karen Fox / Elizabeth Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Andrew Wang / Scott Hulme
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-653-9131
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / scott.d.hulme@jpl.nasa.gov
NASA to Preview Advanced US-India Radar Mission Ahead of Launch
NASA will host a news conference at 12 p.m. EDT Monday, July 21, to discuss the upcoming NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission.
The Earth-observing satellite, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), carries an advanced radar system that will help protect communities by providing a dynamic, three-dimensional view of Earth in unprecedented detail and detecting the movement of land and ice surfaces down to the centimeter.
The NISAR mission will lift off from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, on India’s southeastern coast. Launch is targeted for no earlier than late July.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will stream the briefing live on its X, Facebook, and YouTube channels. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Participants in the news conference include:
- Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters
- Wendy Edelstein, deputy project manager, NISAR, NASA JPL
- Paul Rosen, project scientist, NISAR, NASA JPL
To ask questions by phone, members of the media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start of the event to: rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. Questions can be asked on social media during the briefing using #AskNISAR.
With its two radar instruments — an S-band system provided by ISRO and an L-band system provided by NASA — NISAR will use a technique known as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to scan nearly all the planet’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. Each system’s signal is sensitive to different sizes of features on Earth’s surface, and each specializes in measuring different attributes, such as moisture content, surface roughness, and motion.
These capabilities will help scientists better understand processes involved in natural hazards and catastrophic events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, land subsidence, and landslides.
Additionally, NISAR’s cloud penetrating ability will aid urgent responses to communities during weather disasters such as hurricanes, storm surge, and flooding. The detailed maps the mission creates also will provide information on both gradual and sudden changes occurring on Earth’s land and ice surfaces.
Managed by Caltech for NASA, JPL leads the U.S. component of the NISAR project and provided the L-band SAR. NASA JPL also provided the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Near Space Network, which will receive NISAR’s L-band data.
Multiple ISRO centers have contributed to NISAR. The Space Applications Centre is providing the mission’s S-band SAR. The U R Rao Satellite Centre provided the spacecraft bus. The rocket is from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, launch services are through Satish Dhawan Space Centre, and satellite mission operations are by the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network. The National Remote Sensing Centre is responsible for S-band data reception, operational products generation, and dissemination.
To learn more about NISAR, visit:
-end-
Karen Fox / Elizabeth Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Andrew Wang / Scott Hulme
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-653-9131
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / scott.d.hulme@jpl.nasa.gov
Satellite images track Grand Canyon wildfires burning across thousands of acres
NASA’s Chandra Finds Baby Exoplanet is Shrinking
A star is unleashing a barrage of X-rays that is causing a closely-orbiting, young planet to wither away an astonishing rate, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and described in our latest press release. A team of researchers has determined that this planet will go from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
This graphic provides a visual representation of what astronomers think is happening around the star (known as TOI 1227) and a planet that is orbiting it at a fraction the distance between Mercury and the Sun. This “baby” planet, called TOI 1227 b, is just about 8 million years old, about a thousand times younger than our Sun. The main panel is an artist’s concept that shows the Jupiter-sized planet (lower left) around TOI 1227, which is a faint red star. Powerful X-rays from the star’s surface are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, represented by the blue tail. The star’s X-rays may eventually completely remove the atmosphere.
The team used new Chandra data — seen in the inset — to measure the amounts of X-rays from TOI 1227 that are striking the planet. Using computer models of the effects of these X-rays, they concluded they will have a transformative effect, rapidly stripping away the planet’s atmosphere. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years.
The researchers used different sets of data to estimate the age of TOI 1227 b. One method exploits measurements of how TOI 1227 b’s host star moves through space in comparison to nearby populations of stars with known ages. A second method compared the brightness and surface temperature of the star with theoretical models of evolving stars. The very young age of TOI 1227 b makes it the second youngest planet ever to be observed passing in front of its host star (a so-called transit). Previously the planet had been estimated by others to be about 11 million years old.
Of all the exoplanets astronomers have found with ages less than 50 million years, TOI 1227 b stands out for having the longest year and the host planet with the lowest mass. These properties, and the high dose of X-rays it is receiving, make it an outstanding target for future observations.
A paper describing these results has been accepted publication in The Astrophysical Journal and a preprint is available here. The authors of the paper are Attila Varga (Rochester Institute of Technology), Joel Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology), Alexander Binks (University of Tubingen, Germany), Hans Moritz Guenther (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Simon J. Murphy (University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia).
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray ObservatoryLearn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
Visual DescriptionThis release features an artist’s illustration of a Jupiter-sized planet closely orbiting a faint red star. An inset image, showing the star in X-ray light from Chandra, is superimposed on top of the illustration at our upper left corner.
At our upper right, the red star is illustrated as a ball made of intense fire. The planet, slightly smaller than the star, is shown at our lower left. Powerful X-rays from the star are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, causing wisps of material to flow away from the planet’s surface in the opposite direction from the star. This gives the planet a slight resemblance to a comet, complete with a tail.
X-ray data from Chandra, presented in the inset image, shows the star as a small purple orb on a black background. Astronomers used the Chandra data to measure the amount of X-rays striking the planet from the star. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years, causing it to ultimately shrink from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
News Media ContactMegan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
Doing NASA Science brings many rewards. But can taking part in NASA citizen science help…
Article 13 hours ago 4 min read NASA’s IXPE Imager Reveals Mysteries of Rare Pulsar Article 1 day ago 7 min read One Survey by NASA’s Roman Could Unveil 100,000 Cosmic Explosions Article 2 days agoNASA’s Chandra Finds Baby Exoplanet is Shrinking
A star is unleashing a barrage of X-rays that is causing a closely-orbiting, young planet to wither away an astonishing rate, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and described in our latest press release. A team of researchers has determined that this planet will go from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
This graphic provides a visual representation of what astronomers think is happening around the star (known as TOI 1227) and a planet that is orbiting it at a fraction the distance between Mercury and the Sun. This “baby” planet, called TOI 1227 b, is just about 8 million years old, about a thousand times younger than our Sun. The main panel is an artist’s concept that shows the Jupiter-sized planet (lower left) around TOI 1227, which is a faint red star. Powerful X-rays from the star’s surface are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, represented by the blue tail. The star’s X-rays may eventually completely remove the atmosphere.
The team used new Chandra data — seen in the inset — to measure the amounts of X-rays from TOI 1227 that are striking the planet. Using computer models of the effects of these X-rays, they concluded they will have a transformative effect, rapidly stripping away the planet’s atmosphere. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years.
The researchers used different sets of data to estimate the age of TOI 1227 b. One method exploits measurements of how TOI 1227 b’s host star moves through space in comparison to nearby populations of stars with known ages. A second method compared the brightness and surface temperature of the star with theoretical models of evolving stars. The very young age of TOI 1227 b makes it the second youngest planet ever to be observed passing in front of its host star (a so-called transit). Previously the planet had been estimated by others to be about 11 million years old.
Of all the exoplanets astronomers have found with ages less than 50 million years, TOI 1227 b stands out for having the longest year and the host planet with the lowest mass. These properties, and the high dose of X-rays it is receiving, make it an outstanding target for future observations.
A paper describing these results has been accepted publication in The Astrophysical Journal and a preprint is available here. The authors of the paper are Attila Varga (Rochester Institute of Technology), Joel Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology), Alexander Binks (University of Tubingen, Germany), Hans Moritz Guenther (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Simon J. Murphy (University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia).
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray ObservatoryLearn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
Visual DescriptionThis release features an artist’s illustration of a Jupiter-sized planet closely orbiting a faint red star. An inset image, showing the star in X-ray light from Chandra, is superimposed on top of the illustration at our upper left corner.
At our upper right, the red star is illustrated as a ball made of intense fire. The planet, slightly smaller than the star, is shown at our lower left. Powerful X-rays from the star are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, causing wisps of material to flow away from the planet’s surface in the opposite direction from the star. This gives the planet a slight resemblance to a comet, complete with a tail.
X-ray data from Chandra, presented in the inset image, shows the star as a small purple orb on a black background. Astronomers used the Chandra data to measure the amount of X-rays striking the planet from the star. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years, causing it to ultimately shrink from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
News Media ContactMegan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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