Astronomers capture an unprecedented view of gas giant formation in action
In recent decades, astronomers have reconstructed a fairly complete scenario for planet formation, from minute dust motes clumping together to the emergence of rocky spheres thous…
NASA to Study Human Health, Performance During Crew-13 Mission
During NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑13 mission aboard the International Space Station, astronauts will support a series of biomedical and human performance investigations, including a new c…
Faint young stars reveal spiral galaxy Messier 74 may be twice as large as thought
Astronomers have discovered a faint population of young stars extending far beyond the known edge of the nearby spiral galaxy Messier 74. The finding suggests the galaxy is nearly…
JWST finds early galaxies were already seeding the universe with heavy elements
When the universe was still in its infancy—only 500 million years after the Big Bang, or about 3% of its current age—some of the universe's earliest stars and galaxies had already…
APOD: 2026 September 24 – The Ghosts of Five Supernovas
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 24 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the co…
Cloudy Cloak Over the Northwest
A low-lying cloud layer brought autumn ambience to western Washington and Oregon, while mountainous areas near the coast remained above the pall.
Astrophysicists use wave simulations to open a new window on dark matter
Astrophysicists from The University of Hong Kong (HKU), working with a research team led by Beijing Normal University (BNU), have developed a more physically realistic approach to…
Bennu asteroid samples point to a surprising origin involving Jupiter
The asteroid Bennu orbits the sun once every 1.2 years and approaches Earth every six years, passing within around 300,000 kilometers. NASA took advantage of this to collect mater…
NASA Modernizes Commercial Airline Systems
NASA’s researchers know that when you settle into your seat on a commercial flight, you expect a smooth takeoff, views over the clouds, a steady descent, and hopefully an early ar…
Aiming at number 9: CASPAR targets fluorine in new science run
The Compact Accelerator System for Performing Astrophysical Research (CASPAR) recreates conditions inside stars to study how elements are made. The experiment recently restarted w…
NASA Welcomes Croatia as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory
The Republic of Croatia became the 74th signatory to the Artemis Accords on Wednesday during a ceremony in the capital city of Zagreb with NASA and U.S. Department of State offici…
NASA Selects Far-Infrared Telescope as First in New Mission Class
NASA announced Wednesday a mission to explore the history and evolution of the universe, PRIMA (PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics), is advancing to the next phase of dev…
NASA Aircraft to Make Low-Altitude Research Flights Over Colorado
Agricultural emissions represent an important and understudied part of Earth’s land and atmosphere systems. The FarmFlux mission will deploy more than a dozen sensors to measure o…
NASA's Hubble seeks lensed supernova, marks 200,000 orbits
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope completed its 200,000th orbit around Earth on Sept. 19, marking another milestone for an observatory that continues to transform our understanding of…
NASA’s Hubble Telescope Reaches Milestone, Looks for Elusive Supernova
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of massive galaxy cluster MACS J0417 (left of center) on Sept. 19, 2026. This galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, bendin…
The far side of the moon provides clues to a past magnetic field
Unlike Earth, the moon no longer has a core-generated magnetic field. On our planet, the movement of liquid iron in the outer core generates a global magnetic field. This so-calle…
Exercise keeps astronauts' hearts strong enough for flight to Mars
Intense exercise during long spaceflights helps maintain heart structure and function within a range needed to tolerate the low-gravity environment of Mars, a study co-led by a UT…
Arctic Sea Ice Reaches 2026 Annual Minimum Extent
Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum extent on Sept. 12, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder. The ice co…
Roaming black holes may tell the hidden history of galaxies
If you want to understand the origins of black holes, Yale astronomers say, you need to look beyond the centers of galaxies and start searching in the nooks and crannies. That's w…
SKA may detect magnetic fields on distant exoplanets
Studying exoplanets has given astronomers insights into the characteristics that could help them find life beyond Earth. For years, astronomers thought an exoplanet's location in …
Shannon Lucid’s Record-Setting Mission Aboard Mir
Shannon Lucid’s Record-Setting Mission Aboard Mir Three days before returning to Earth, Shannon W. Lucid—who joined NASA in 1978 as one of its first six female astronauts—checked…
How diffractive solar sails could stop a killer asteroid at 100 km/s
Asteroids don't come with a warning label that they might one day hit Earth. While we don't know of any currently on course to do so, we are finding thousands of new ones each yea…
FFA 2026 Hyperwall Schedule
FFA 2026 Hyperwall Schedule
Earth may have gained optimal conditions for life's chemistry 4.33 billion years ago
Conditions on early Earth may have become stable enough to sustain the chemistry associated with the origins of life around 4.33 billion years ago, according to new research co-le…