The Kennedy Space Center Master Plan is a long-range planning framework that guides how land, infrastructure, and facilities should evolve to support future missions. It does not dictate exactly what will be built or when; instead, it sets strategic priorities, identifies potential development areas, and helps decision-makers evaluate investments as

When clouds parted in early June 2026, satellites captured signs of summer approaching the Bering Sea off Alaska. Sea ice had broken into small fragments that spun and drifted as it melted, while rivers swollen with snowmelt flushed sediment and organic material into coastal waters. The images, acquired on June

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived June 21 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, beginning final prelaunch preparations. Teams completed integration and testing at Goddard Space Flight Center, loaded the nearly 18,000-pound (8,200-kilogram) observatory into a protected, environmentally controlled transport container, and drove it to the port of

An airplane carrying a rocket loaded with a robotic spacecraft designed to raise NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory departed the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Thursday, June 18. Stargazer, a modified L-1011 operated by Northrop Grumman, took off for Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the

The Expedition 74 crew explored how weightlessness affects cartilage growth and the digestive system to protect crew health and improve patient care on Earth, while preparing for a robotics maintenance spacewalk at the end of the month on the International Space Station. Research in microgravity provides insights unobtainable in Earth’

Rohit Goeptar was born into a poor family in Suriname, where both parents worked three jobs yet could only provide food and shelter. His family moved to California when he was about six, then he returned to South America with his father two years later while his mother stayed in

Curiosity has been ascending Mount Sharp through physical bands of exposed rock with differing textures and tones. Planning for sols 4920 and 4921 left the rover in the middle of a rough-textured, dark-toned unit where brushing wasn’t possible; APXS chemistry and MAHLI micro-imaging were planned on “Salto La Cascada”

NASA has selected the Dynamic Atmosphere-Ionosphere Explorer (DAPHNE) mission concept to study how space weather and dynamics within Earth’s atmosphere shape the near-Earth space environment. The mission aims to improve predictions of impacts on critical technologies such as GPS, low Earth orbit satellites and astronauts. DAPHNE will enter Phase

Jim Franke pulls away the cover page of a presentation in his office to reveal an illustration of an odd-looking uncrewed aircraft with massive wings designed to fly about 20 kilometers up, high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. The drawing shows the kind of plane proponents say

NASA has selected eight new companies and will acquire new data products from six existing Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition contract holders to expand the range of commercial satellite data available to researchers, civil agencies, and decision-makers. Such measurements supplement NASA’s Earth satellites by contributing high-resolution and frequent observations to

The Lucy spacecraft’s flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025, from about 650 miles away showed a wobbling, peanut-shaped body. Formed when fragments reassembled after a violent collision 155 million years ago, the asteroid still bears traces that suggest a brief presence of liquid water in its

The search for dark matter has been blown wide open. For decades physicists hunted weakly interacting massive particles, but their efforts now run into a “neutrino fog” from the sun and other stars that can drown out dark-matter signals; researchers are shifting tactics with proposals that range from quantum sensors

If you’re attending the American Astronomical Society’s 2026 Summer Meeting (AAS 248) in Pasadena CA, please join us for the following PhysCOS-organized activities (all times Pacific): Thursday 18 June 10a ‑ 11:30a, Ballroom G: (Special Session) Planning for the Future of Astrophysics and the ASTRA Initiative. Additionally, the

The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a galaxy cluster known as CL0016+1609, or MACS J0018.5+1626. It is very bright at X-ray wavelengths and among the most extensively studied clusters at X-ray and radio wavelengths. X-ray observations revealed that it is actually two clusters merging along

Relativity Space — acquired last year by former Google executive chair Eric Schmidt after stumbling on the path to orbit — was hired by NASA to build a spacecraft, launch it and fly it to Mars. The contract mirrors deals the agency has used with private firms: NASA handles the science while

Dr. John Wisniewski serves as the Program Scientist for the SPHEREx mission. He is the UVOIR Discipline Lead for APRA, the Program Officer for the Exoplanet Research Program, the executive secretary of the ExoPAG, and the Deputy Program Scientist for ExEP. Wisniewski earned a BS in Astronomy-Physics from the University

El Niño, defined by warmer-than-normal water in parts of the equatorial Pacific, returned in June 2026. Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite observations that month showed the event continuing to strengthen. NOAA declared an El Niño on June 11 after sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific measured at

Videos highlight the Orion team on the Johnson Space Center's YouTube channel. The featured video, "We Built Orion," notes: "Across the globe, our team is building the Orion spacecraft." Console roles listed on the site include Luca Fossati — European Service Module Spacecraft Integration (ESM)

The Artemis III crew will carry out objectives in low Earth orbit to demonstrate critical systems needed for a future lunar landing: NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik (commander), Andre Douglas (mission specialist), Frank Rubio (mission specialist), and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (pilot). Photographs and video stills show the crew in both

If you are observing the Moon on your own or with people in your household, register here for Individual/Household Registration. If you are organizing and hosting a Moon observing event that is free and open to everyone, register here to Host a Public Event. If you are organizing and

Some stars have planets. Others are orbited by brown dwarfs, balls of gas too massive to be planets but too low-mass to be stars. Astronomers value brown dwarf–star pairs because being paired with a star helps reveal a brown dwarf’s age; ages of astronomical objects are often hard

Show Me the Data The post Air Quality D appeared first. Air Quality D air quality, nasa science, data, air pollution, air monitoring, environment, atmosphere, air sensors, research, pollution data

A Hubble Space Telescope image released on June 12, 2026, captures the galaxy cluster MACS0329-0211, which resembles a swarm of bees returning to their hive. Zooming in reveals large, oval-shaped elliptical galaxies alongside thin spiral and lenticular galaxies seen edge-on, as well as face-on spirals with curving arms. Faint arcs

At 5:11 a.m. PDT (8:11 a.m. EDT), the unpiloted SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of California near Oceanside, marking the return of the 34th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for NASA. Dragon undocked at 12:25 p.m.

Stretching across about 350,000 sq km of Queensland coastline, the Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral system and sits alongside the Wet Tropics of Queensland, including the Daintree rainforest. That proximity makes it easy for visitors to combine marine and rainforest experiences, while the deep