Science

A collection of 541 posts

Science

Study maps 'ghost' roads to flag tropical forests at risk

A study published Dec. 22, 2025 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed roads across tropical forests in Brazil, the Congo and Southeast Asia and identified areas most at risk from illegal, unmapped "ghost" roads. Researchers examined 137 million hectares (about 338 million acres)

Science

January 2026 sky: Jupiter opposition, Moon–Saturn conjunction, Beehive Cluster

In January 2026, skywatchers can look for three highlights: Jupiter at opposition on Jan. 10, a Moon and Saturn conjunction on Jan. 23, and the Beehive Cluster visible throughout the month. On Jan. 10 Jupiter will be at opposition, meaning Earth is directly between Jupiter and the Sun. In that

Science

NASA releases spacecraft images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS near Mars

NASA on Wednesday released images captured by a fleet of government spacecraft of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passed by Mars in early October, agency officials said. The pictures remained out of sight during a 43-day U.S. government shutdown and had not been acknowledged by NASA while

Science

PhysCOS at AAS 247: NASA booth image and Tuesday sessions in Phoenix

If you’re attending the American Astronomical Society’s 247th Winter Meeting in Phoenix, stop by the PhysCOS table in the NASA booth in the Exhibition Hall from 5 to 6:30 pm this evening (Monday 5 January) to view a just‑released image that the page says "brings

Science

Perseverance rover records centimeter-scale electrical discharges on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance rover recorded audio evidence of small electrical discharges in Mars’s atmosphere, scientists reported in a paper published in the journal Nature. The researchers said the sparks were not Earth-like cloud-to-ground bolts but centimeter-scale short circuits, described by Baptiste Chide of the Research Institute in Astrophysics and

Science

NASA selects industry teams to advance Habitable Worlds Observatory technologies

NASA announced Monday it has selected industry proposals to advance technologies for the agency’s Habitable Worlds Observatory concept, a flagship space telescope that would aim to directly image Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars and study their atmospheres for signs of life. The selected proposals are three-year, fixed-price contracts awarded

Science

IXPE measures accretion column on white dwarf EX Hydrae

NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer (IXPE) has been used for the first time to study a white dwarf star, focusing on the intermediate polar EX Hydrae in the constellation Hydra about 200 light-years from Earth. IXPE spent nearly one week in 2024 observing the system. The nearly week-long observation

Science

UC Davis geneticist says NIH denied grant renewal over South Africa collaboration

Brenna Henn, a geneticist at the University of California, Davis, said the National Institutes of Health declined to renew a five-year grant because it involved a collaboration with South Africa. Her program officer told her, according to Henn, that “because your grant involves a collaboration with South Africa, it will

Science

NASA to broadcast two January ISS spacewalks, including solar-array prep

NASA will conduct two spacewalks outside the International Space Station on Thursday, Jan. 8, and Thursday, Jan. 15, and will provide live coverage. The agency said these will be the first two ISS spacewalks of 2026 and the first by Expedition 74. U.S. spacewalk 94 is scheduled to begin

Science

Damage at Baikonur launchpad halts Russia’s ability to launch crews

Russia’s launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is out of commission after a mishap during the liftoff of a Soyuz rocket last week. The rocket itself reached orbit and carried three astronauts — Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev of Russia and Chris Williams of NASA — to the International Space

Science

Gilbertson twins remeasure peaks and identify new national high points

Fraternal twins Eric and Matthew Gilbertson, both mechanical engineers, have been climbing and remeasuring mountain summits around the world. Eric returned to Southern Colorado and measured East Crestone, finding it one-third of a foot taller than the well-known Crestone Peak; that result was published last month in the journal Progress

Science

EPA terminates University of Colorado wildfire-smoke grant

Marina Vance, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency terminated a $549,000 grant she held to study wildfire smoke in homes and required her to return roughly $360,000. The three-year project, planned to run until August 2026, aimed to measure

Science

John Noble Wilford, New York Times Science Reporter Who Covered Apollo 11, Dies at 92

John Noble Wilford, a Pulitzer Prize–winning science reporter for The New York Times who chronicled America’s first moon landing, died on Monday at his home in Charlottesville, Va. He was 92. His niece, Susan Tremblay, said the cause was prostate cancer. Under the front-page banner headline “MEN WALK

Science

AAS Meeting 247 in Phoenix to host PhysPAG brainstorming on 2030s astrophysics

The 247th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society will be held 4–8 January 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Phoenix Convention Center. The meeting is joint with the Historical Astronomy Division and will feature sessions across NASA astrophysics programs. The Physics of the Cosmos Program Analysis Group (PhysPAG) will

Science

Last known Sacramento Mountains checkerspot caterpillar held in New Mexico lab

A single caterpillar kept in an Albuquerque laboratory is the last known individual of the critically endangered Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly, scientists say. Researchers hope the larva will pupate into a butterfly and that they can breed it if another mate is found in the insect's only known

Science

Landsat 9 image shows Cedar Breaks amphitheater and its layered rocks

An image released as NASA Earth Observatory’s Image of the Day for January 5, 2026 shows the bowl-shaped escarpment of Cedar Breaks National Monument in southwestern Utah. The OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 captured the amphitheater’s semicircular rim and deeply eroded drainages on June 18, 2025.

Science

Senate Confirms Jared Isaacman as NASA Administrator

The U.S. Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman to lead NASA on Wednesday, ending 11 months of turmoil at the agency; the vote was 67 to 30, the Times reported. Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who has flown to orbit twice on private missions, wrote a May plan called “Project Athena Strategic

Science

Highgate ranger runs bat surveys and popular night walks in North London

Cindy Blaney, a 62-year-old senior ranger at Highgate Wood in North London, conducts an annual bat census and leads nighttime bat walks that sell out months in advance. Ms. Blaney checks bat boxes for occupants and droppings as part of the survey and uses detectors on walks that convert ultrasonic

Science

PhysCOS to host multiple sessions at AAS 247 in Phoenix

Physics of the Cosmos (PhysCOS) will host several sessions at the American Astronomical Society’s 247th Winter Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. PhysCOS-organized activities on Monday 5 January (all times Mountain) include a NASA Update from 12:45 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. in room 301AB; "Beyond the

Science

Webb Telescope Observes Lemon-Shaped Jupiter-Mass Object Orbiting Pulsar

The James Webb Space Telescope has studied PSR J2322-2650b, a Jupiter-mass object orbiting a rapidly spinning pulsar more than 2,000 light-years from Earth, and found its equatorial diameter to be about 38 percent wider than its polar diameter, giving the world a lemon-like shape. PSR J2322-2650b was discovered in

Science

California's Winter Storms Boost Reservoirs and Snowpack, Easing Drought

Heavy rain and snow have pounded California in recent weeks, causing floods, power outages, mudslides and other disruptions, but the storms have also filled reservoirs and deepened the Sierra Nevada snowpack, easing drought concerns across the state. The near-constant pace of storms has brought above-average precipitation, driving storage levels in

Science

NASA outlines Cosmic Origins sessions at AAS 247 in Phoenix

NASA's Cosmic Origins program will hold sessions at the 247th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, to be held 4–8 January 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Phoenix Convention Center. The Cosmic Origins Program Analysis Group (COPAG) session will feature a decadal survey panel discussion with the

Science

Flagstaff named Dark Sky Place of the Year as winter reveals Milky Way over downtown

Flagstaff, Ariz., the world’s first and largest dark sky city, was named Dark Sky Place of the Year by DarkSky International in November, and longer winter nights make the Milky Way and hundreds of stars visible even from the city’s downtown. For decades the city has preserved night

Science

American Astronomical Society to meet in Phoenix, Jan 4–8, 2026

The 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society will be held January 4–8, 2026, in Phoenix, Arizona. The brief notice lists the dates and location of the gathering and appears as a post associated with NASA Science. The provided source material contains only the event dates, the Phoenix location,

Science

9,500-year-old cremation pyre discovered in Malawi with adult remains

Researchers say they have uncovered a cremation pyre built about 9,500 years ago in a rock shelter at the foot of Mount Hora in northern Malawi, thought to be the oldest in the world to contain adult remains and the oldest confirmed intentional cremation in Africa. Excavations in 2017