Science

A collection of 695 posts

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Artemis II crew begins quarantine in Houston ahead of lunar flyaround

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, entered quarantine late Friday in Houston as they prepare to fly around the Moon on the Artemis II mission. The crew’s quarantine is part of the health stabilization program, which typically starts

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Pedro Sanchez, soil scientist who expanded farming in poor countries, dies at 85

Pedro A. Sanchez, a soil scientist who helped raise crop yields for subsistence farmers in poor countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, died on Jan. 12 at his home in Falmouth, Mass. He was 85. The cause was end-stage dementia, his daughter Jennifer Goebel said. Dr. Sanchez was awarded the 2002

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Louis E. Brus, discoverer of quantum dots, dies at 82

Louis E. Brus, a chemist and Nobel laureate who discovered quantum dots, died on Jan. 11 at his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. He was 82. The cause was complications of myelodysplastic syndrome, his daughter Elizabeth Brus said. Dr. Brus discovered quantum dots while at Bell Laboratories in 1983, finding

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Seismic sensors traced Shenzhou-15 re-entry and narrowed likely impact area

Researchers led by Benjamin Fernando of Johns Hopkins University demonstrated that seismic sensors can be used to map the path of falling spacecraft and narrow where fragments may have landed, after analyzing the uncontrolled re-entry of the Shenzhou-15 orbital module over Southern California on April 2, 2024. The team showed

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Christopher J. Williams is acting deputy director for ARMD Integrated Aviation Systems

Christopher J. Williams serves as the deputy director (acting) for ARMD’s Integrated Aviation Systems Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. In collaboration with the program director, Williams supports the overall planning, management, and evaluation of the directorate’s efforts to conduct experimental flight research and to test the

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Winter storms bury Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula under meters of snow

Intense winter storms in December and January have dumped heavy snow across Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, leaving the regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky at a standstill, according to a NASA Earth Observatory report. News reports cited in the NASA article say more than 2 meters of snow fell in the first two

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Artemis II will carry historic keepsakes aboard Orion on crewed lunar test flight

NASA’s Artemis II mission will carry a collection of mementos in its official flight kit aboard the Orion spacecraft as it carries four astronauts around the Moon on the first crewed test flight of the Artemis campaign. The spacecraft will launch atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The

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Artemis II begins pad preparations at Kennedy for upcoming wet dress rehearsal

NASA’s Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrived at Launch Pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 17, and engineers began preparations for an upcoming wet dress rehearsal, a fueling test of the rocket set to occur before launch. Technicians hooked up

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Expedition 74 studies sound and conducts Earth observations aboard ISS

Expedition 74 crew members aboard the International Space Station carried out sound and hearing studies and conducted Earth observations on Wednesday. NASA Flight Engineer Chris Williams worked in the Columbus laboratory exploring how sound and shockwaves travel through small, solid particles, or granular materials. Sensors measured the speed of sound

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NASA to host Crew‑10 astronauts for media event at Marshall on Jan. 23

NASA will host two astronauts at 10 a.m. CST Friday, Jan. 23, for a media opportunity at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers and JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, who served as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑10 mission, will discuss

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NASA refreshes Program Facilitator Guides and adds Finding Exoplanets resources

NASA’s Universe of Learning has refreshed several Program Facilitator Guides and introduced a new "Finding Exoplanets" guide, the team announced Jan 21, 2026. The Program Facilitator Guides are resources for informal educators that cover astrophysics themes and help organizations share NASA science. Since their introduction, the guides

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AGN SIG to launch monthly Spotlight talks with two JWST-focused presentations

The Active Galactic Nuclei Science Interest Group (AGN SIG) will hold its inaugural AGN SIG Spotlight Talk on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, at 1:00 pm ET / 10:00 am PT. The virtual kickoff will feature invited talks by Dr. Namrata Roy (affiliation listed as University of Arizona and elsewhere

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NASA rolls Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft to Launch Pad 39B

An image released Jan. 17, 2026 shows NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft rolling out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and being carried to Launch Pad 39B. The massive Crawler-Transporter, upgraded for the Artemis program, moved the rocket and spacecraft

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Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee to hold hybrid meeting 29–30 Jan 2026

The Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee will hold a hybrid meeting on 29 and 30 January 2026, with in-person sessions at the Westin Alexandria in Alexandria, Virginia, and online participation available. The committee is a federal advisory body chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act at the recommendation of the

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Faded hand stencil in Sulawesi cave dated to at least 67,800 years

Archaeologists say the faded outline of a hand on a cave wall in Indonesia may be the world’s oldest known rock art, and that it was created at least 67,800 years ago. The stencil was found in a limestone cave on Muna Island in south-eastern Sulawesi. The hand

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NASA sets 29 January 2026 deadline for Fermi and NuSTAR proposals

NASA Science has reminded researchers that proposals for Fermi General Investigator Cycle 19 and NuSTAR General Observer Program Cycle 12 are due on 29 January 2026. Both programs are part of the ROSES-25 D.3 Combined General Investigator General Observer Program, and proposals must be submitted through the Astrophysics Research

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AI/ML STIG lecture: John Wu on Convolutional Neural Networks, 26 Jan 2026

An AI/ML STIG lecture on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), presented by John Wu of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), is scheduled for 26 Jan 2026, according to a NASA Science post. The brief listing describes the topic as "Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs)" and names John Wu,

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Urban geology walks reveal fossils and imported stones across central London

Dr Ruth Siddall is leading urban geology walking tours around central London that point out the stones and fossils embedded in the city’s architecture — including a 150m-year-old ammonite set in a limestone wall on Plantation Lane. The tours highlight a wide range of building materials and fossil evidence: York

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NASA to observe Day of Remembrance for Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia

NASA will observe its annual Day of Remembrance on Thursday, Jan. 22, commemorating the crews of Apollo 1 and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. The observance is traditionally held every year on the fourth Thursday of January, as all three astronaut accidents happened around the end of the month.

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Curiosity right Navcam images from Sol 4752 (Dec. 19, 2025) in cylindrical projection

NASA's Curiosity rover captured images with its right navigation camera on December 19, 2025, Sol 4752 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission. The images are presented as a cylindrical projection. The exposures were taken during drive 538 at site number 120. The local mean solar time for the

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Curiosity Navcam captures right-camera images on Dec 22, 2025 at drive 538

Curiosity took right navigation camera images on December 22, 2025, covering Sols 4755–4752 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 538, site number 120. The images are presented in a cylindrical projection. The local mean solar time for the image exposures ranged from 1 PM to 4 PM,

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NASA CSDA distributes Tomorrow.io radar and microwave satellite data to USG users

NASA's Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program is distributing data from Tomorrow.io's constellations of radar and microwave sounder satellites, offering frequent and global observations to support atmospheric and weather analysis. Tomorrow.io's Pathfinder satellites use Ka-band radar instruments for detection of near-surface precipitation

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Curiosity Navcam cylindrical-projection images from Sol 4757, Dec 24, 2025

The Curiosity rover captured right navigation camera images presented in a cylindrical projection on December 24, 2025, during Sols 4757–4752 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 538, site number 120. The image exposures occurred at local mean solar times from 11 AM to 4 PM. Each Navcam

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NASA selects three CLPS payloads to study Moon’s terrain, heat flow and radiation

NASA announced the selection of three new science investigations that will be delivered to the lunar surface no earlier than 2028 as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and the Artemis campaign. Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate,

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NASA astronaut Suni Williams retires after 27 years

NASA astronaut Suni Williams retired from the agency effective Dec. 27, 2025, concluding a 27-year career, the agency announced. Williams flew three missions aboard the International Space Station and logged 608 days in space, ranking second on the list of cumulative time in space by a NASA astronaut. She completed