Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the Earth

— Archimedes 200 BC

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Coverage, Briefing Set for NASA’s Artemis II Moon Rocket Roll to Pad

NASA - Breaking News - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 5:26pm
NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket is seen inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building as teams await the arrival of Artemis II crewmembers to board their Orion spacecraft on top of the rocket as part of the Artemis II countdown demonstration test, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

NASA’s integrated SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission is inching closer to launch – literally.

The agency is targeting no earlier than 7 a.m. EST, Saturday, Jan. 17, to begin the multi-hour trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A pre rollout mission news conference, live feed of rollout, and a media gaggle will stream on NASA’s YouTube channel. Individual streams for each of these events will be available from that page. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.

The time of rollout is subject to change if additional time is needed for technical preparations or weather.

All times are Eastern. Events are as follows:

Friday, Jan. 16:

12 p.m.: Artemis II Rollout, Mission Overview News Conference

  • John Honeycutt, Artemis II mission management team chair
  • Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, Exploration Ground Systems
  • Jeff Radigan, Artemis II lead flight director, Flight Operations Directorate
  • Lili Villarreal, landing and recovery director, Exploration Ground Systems
  • Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate

Saturday, Jan. 17:

7 a.m.: Rollout, Artemis II Live Views from Kennedy Space Center feed begins

9 a.m.: Artemis II Crew Rollout Media Event

  • NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and the Artemis II crew, including NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will answer questions about their preparations and the mission for media in-person at the countdown clock.

NASA’s crawler-transporter 2 will carry the 11-million-pound stack at about one mile per hour along the four-mile route from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B, on a journey that will take up to 12 hours.

To participate in the news conference by telephone, media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start to: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov

These events will be open in-person only to media previously credentialed for launch. The deadline has passed for in-person accreditation for Artemis II events at Kennedy.

Rollout to the pad marks another milestone leading up to the Artemis II mission. In the coming weeks, NASA will complete final preparations of the rocket and, if needed, rollback SLS and Orion to the Vehicle Assembly Building for additional work. While the Artemis II launch window opens as early as Friday, Feb. 6, the mission management team will assess flight readiness after the wet dress rehearsal across the spacecraft, launch infrastructure, and the crew and operations teams before selecting a launch date.

Follow NASA’s Artemis blog for mission updates.

Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Learn more about Artemis at:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

Rachel Kraft / Lauren Low
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov / lauren.e.low@nasa.gov

Tiffany Fairley
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
tiffany.l.fairley@nasa.gov

Share Details Last Updated Jan 14, 2026 EditorJennifer M. DoorenLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Categories: NASA

Two New Exoplanets And The Need For New Habitable Zone Definitions

Universe Today - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 2:50pm

How solid is our understanding of exoplanet habitability? Are the ideas of an Optimistic Habitable Zone and a Conservative Habitable Zone sufficient to advance our understanding? New research introduces an expanded exoplanet 'temperate zone,' highlighting planets that are amenable to atmospheric study by the JWST.

Categories: Astronomy

Horses Can Smell Your Fear, Bizarre Sweat Study Finds

Scientific American.com - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 2:00pm

Horses that were presented with cotton pads soaked in a scared human’s sweat showed more signs of fear themselves

Categories: Astronomy

New York–Newark–Jersey City Metropolitan Area

NASA - Breaking News - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 1:55pm
NASA

The New York–Newark–Jersey City Metropolitan Statistical Area, which spans 23 counties across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut and has a population of about 19.9 million, is pictured at approximately 3:29 a.m. local time Dec. 20, 2025, from the International Space Station as it orbited 262 miles above the Atlantic coast.

Crew members aboard the orbital lab have produced hundreds of thousands of images of the land, oceans, and atmosphere of Earth, and even of the Moon through Crew Earth Observations. Their photographs of Earth record how the planet changes over time due to human activity and natural events. This allows scientists to monitor disasters and direct response on the ground and study a number of phenomena, from the movement of glaciers to urban wildlife.

Image credit: NASA

Categories: NASA

Trump Administration Slashes Mental Health and Addiction Grants—Report

Scientific American.com - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 1:50pm

Experts say these reported cuts to federal grants will exacerbate the U.S.’s addiction crisis

Categories: Astronomy

Scientists Find Extinct Rhino DNA in Wolf Pup Mummy’s Stomach

Scientific American.com - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 12:40pm

Scientists have sequenced the genome of the long-extinct woolly rhinoceros from remains found in the stomach of a naturally mummified Pleistocene wolf pup

Categories: Astronomy

Solving the Mystery of Blue Flashes

Universe Today - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 12:36pm

Brief, brilliant flashes of blue light occasionally appear across the universe, burning hundreds of times brighter than ordinary supernovae before fading within days. Astronomers have puzzled over these luminous fast blue optical transients for years, unable to determine whether they were unusual stellar explosions or something else entirely. Observations of AT 2024wpp, the brightest example ever detected, have finally solved the mystery.

Categories: Astronomy

NASA Bids Farewell to Historic Test Stands That Built the Space Age

Universe Today - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 12:21pm

Two towering buildings that helped launch humanity's greatest space achievements came down on January 10 at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama. The Dynamic Test Stand and the T-tower, both designated National Historic Landmarks, played crucial roles in developing the Saturn V rockets that carried Apollo astronauts to the Moon and the Space Shuttle that defined an era of spaceflight. Their carefully orchestrated demolition marks a transformation, as NASA clears the way for a modernised infrastructure ready to support the next generation of space exploration.

Categories: Astronomy

Woolly rhino genome recovered from meat in frozen wolf pup’s stomach

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 12:01pm
A piece of woolly rhinoceros flesh hidden inside a wolf that died 14,400 years ago has yielded genetic information that improves our understanding of why one of the most iconic megafauna species of the last glacial period went extinct
Categories: Astronomy

Woolly rhino genome recovered from meat in frozen wolf pup’s stomach

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 12:01pm
A piece of woolly rhinoceros flesh hidden inside a wolf that died 14,400 years ago has yielded genetic information that improves our understanding of why one of the most iconic megafauna species of the last glacial period went extinct
Categories: Astronomy

A Supernova That Shouldn't Exist

Universe Today - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 11:44am

For decades, astronomers believed that the most massive stars in the universe lived fast and died quietly, collapsing directly into black holes without the spectacular fireworks of a supernova explosion. That understanding has been dramatically overturned by observations of SN 2022esa, a peculiar supernova that erupted from an incomprehensibly massive star and is now destined to become a black hole binary system.

Categories: Astronomy

Sinking river deltas put millions at risk of flooding

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 11:00am
Some of the world’s biggest megacities are located in river deltas threatened by subsidence due to excessive groundwater extraction and urban expansion, compounding the threat they face from sea-level rise
Categories: Astronomy

Sinking river deltas put millions at risk of flooding

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 11:00am
Some of the world’s biggest megacities are located in river deltas threatened by subsidence due to excessive groundwater extraction and urban expansion, compounding the threat they face from sea-level rise
Categories: Astronomy

Psychiatry has finally found an objective way to spot mental illness

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 11:00am
A decades-long push to identify clear biomarkers for anxiety and depression is at last achieving results
Categories: Astronomy

Psychiatry has finally found an objective way to spot mental illness

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 11:00am
A decades-long push to identify clear biomarkers for anxiety and depression is at last achieving results
Categories: Astronomy

NASA Commits to Plan to Build a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon by 2030

Scientific American.com - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 11:00am

The U.S. space agency and the Department of Energy will work together to build a fission reactor on the lunar surface in the next four years

Categories: Astronomy

To Study the Moon's Ancient Ice, We First Have to Pollute It

Universe Today - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 10:24am

There is a fundamental tension in space exploration that has created ongoing debates for decades. By creating the infrastructure we need to explore other worlds, we damage them in some way, making them either less scientifically interesting or less “pristine,” which some would argue, in itself, is a bad thing. A new paper available in JGR Planets, from Francisca Paiva, a physicist at Instituto Superior Técnico, and Silvio Sinibaldi, the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) planetary protection officer, argues that, in the Moon’s case at least, the problem is even worse than we originally thought.

Categories: Astronomy

Peering Below Callisto’s Icy Crust with ALMA

Universe Today - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 9:38am

What exists beneath the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Callisto? This is what a recent study accepted by The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the subsurface composition of Callisto, which is Jupiter’s outermost Galilean satellite. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the interior composition of Callisto, which is hypothesized to possess a subsurface liquid water ocean, and develop new techniques for exploring planetary subsurface environments.

Categories: Astronomy

La NASA publica datos de la temperatura global

NASA - Breaking News - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 9:35am
Credit: NASA

Read this press release in English here.

La temperatura global de la superficie terrestre en 2025 fue un poco más cálida que en 2023 pero, dentro de los márgenes de error, ambos años está prácticamente empatados, según un análisis realizado por científicos de la NASA. Desde que comenzaron los registros en 1880, 2024 sigue siendo el año más caluroso.

Las temperaturas globales en 2025 fueron más frías que en 2024, con temperaturas promedio de 1,19° Celsius (2,14° Fahrenheit) por encima del promedio para el período de 1951 a 1980.


El análisis del Instituto Goddard de Estudios Espaciales de la NASA incluye datos de la temperatura del aire obtenidos por más de 25.000 estaciones meteorológicas en todo el mundo, así como por instrumentos a bordo de barcos y boyas que miden la temperatura de la superficie del mar, y estaciones de investigación en la Antártida. Los datos son analizados utilizando métodos que toman en cuenta la distribución cambiante de las estaciones de medición de temperatura y los efectos del calentamiento urbano que podrían sesgar los cálculos.

Además, análisis independientes realizados por la Administración Nacional Oceánica y Atmosférica (NOAA, por sus siglas en inglés), la plataforma Berkeley Earth, el Centro Hadley (que forma parte del servicio meteorológico nacional del Reino Unido) y los Servicios Climáticos Copernicus de Europa han concluido que la temperatura global de la superficie para 2025 ha sido la tercera más calurosa que se haya registrado. Estos científicos utilizan gran parte de los mismos datos de temperatura en sus análisis, pero emplean diferentes metodologías y modelos; todos ellos muestran la misma tendencia al calentamiento continuo.

El conjunto completo de datos de la NASA sobre las temperaturas de la superficie global, así como los detalles de cómo los científicos de la NASA llevaron a cabo el análisis, están disponibles públicamente en línea (en inglés).

Para obtener más información sobre los programas de ciencias de la Tierra de la NASA, visita el sitio web:

https://ciencia.nasa.gov/tierra

-fin-

Liz Vlock / María José Viñas
Sede central, Washington
202-358-1600
elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov / maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov

Peter Jacobs
Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard, Greenbelt, MD
301-286-0535
peter.jacobs@nasa.gov

Share Details Last Updated Jan 14, 2026 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Categories: NASA

La NASA publica datos de la temperatura global

NASA News - Wed, 01/14/2026 - 9:35am
Credit: NASA

Read this press release in English here.

La temperatura global de la superficie terrestre en 2025 fue un poco más cálida que en 2023 pero, dentro de los márgenes de error, ambos años está prácticamente empatados, según un análisis realizado por científicos de la NASA. Desde que comenzaron los registros en 1880, 2024 sigue siendo el año más caluroso.

Las temperaturas globales en 2025 fueron más frías que en 2024, con temperaturas promedio de 1,19° Celsius (2,14° Fahrenheit) por encima del promedio para el período de 1951 a 1980.


El análisis del Instituto Goddard de Estudios Espaciales de la NASA incluye datos de la temperatura del aire obtenidos por más de 25.000 estaciones meteorológicas en todo el mundo, así como por instrumentos a bordo de barcos y boyas que miden la temperatura de la superficie del mar, y estaciones de investigación en la Antártida. Los datos son analizados utilizando métodos que toman en cuenta la distribución cambiante de las estaciones de medición de temperatura y los efectos del calentamiento urbano que podrían sesgar los cálculos.

Además, análisis independientes realizados por la Administración Nacional Oceánica y Atmosférica (NOAA, por sus siglas en inglés), la plataforma Berkeley Earth, el Centro Hadley (que forma parte del servicio meteorológico nacional del Reino Unido) y los Servicios Climáticos Copernicus de Europa han concluido que la temperatura global de la superficie para 2025 ha sido la tercera más calurosa que se haya registrado. Estos científicos utilizan gran parte de los mismos datos de temperatura en sus análisis, pero emplean diferentes metodologías y modelos; todos ellos muestran la misma tendencia al calentamiento continuo.

El conjunto completo de datos de la NASA sobre las temperaturas de la superficie global, así como los detalles de cómo los científicos de la NASA llevaron a cabo el análisis, están disponibles públicamente en línea (en inglés).

Para obtener más información sobre los programas de ciencias de la Tierra de la NASA, visita el sitio web:

https://ciencia.nasa.gov/tierra

-fin-

Liz Vlock / María José Viñas
Sede central, Washington
202-358-1600
elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov / maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov

Peter Jacobs
Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard, Greenbelt, MD
301-286-0535
peter.jacobs@nasa.gov

Share Details Last Updated Jan 14, 2026 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Categories: NASA