Month: October 2026

NASA is playing an important role in JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission, to advance our understanding of Mars’ moons and build on the agency’s long history of exploring the Red Planet. The mission aims to characterize and determine the origin of Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos and deliver a sample…

A phenomenon rarer than a solar eclipse and more powerful than any single storm system is unfolding this fall, and NASA is tracking it closely. El Niño is a natural climate pattern that emerges roughly every two to seven years marked by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific. NASA scientists are keeping…

From the International Space Station’s unique position 250 miles above Earth, the Sun is a vital source of energy. Solar power supports the station’s life support systems, daily activities, and hundreds of research investigations that improve life on Earth and prepare humans for deep space exploration. Over the past five years, NASA augmented the station’s…

A NASA Dynamic Aviation A200 aircraft will conduct low-flying research flights over farmland near Transit, Texas, from Thursday, Oct. 22, through Monday, Nov. 9. These flights will measure gaseous and particulate emissions from animal feeding operations. Agricultural emissions represent an important and understudied part of Earth’s land and atmosphere systems. The FarmFlux mission will deploy…

Registration is open for the 2026 NASA Space Apps Challenge, a two-day global event on Saturday, Nov. 14 and Sunday, Nov. 15, where teams work to create solutions inspired by NASA’s most ambitious exploration goals and making use of the agency’s free and open data. The annual challenge, often called a hackathon, is an intensive,…

NASA has selected 12 U.S. institutions to receive $12 million to accelerate academic research and technology development in support of the agency’s priorities for exploring the Moon, Mars, and deep space. Through NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Space Technology Artemis Research (M‑STAR) initiative, selected institutions will each receive up to $1 million…

NASA’s Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the Moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the Moon’s surface. Additional engineering data analysis of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield confirmed initial data showing the heat shield performed as expected.   In particular, NASA measured whether the thermal protection…

NASA will preview two upcoming spacewalks to complete solar array installation and power augmentation of the International Space Station during a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Oct. 20, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA will stream the event through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online: https://www.nasa.gov/live NASA participants…

Students in Florida will hear from NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney as they answer prerecorded STEM questions while aboard the International Space Station. The Earth-to-space call will begin at 12 p.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 16, and will stream live on the agency’s Learn With NASA YouTube channel. This event is hosted by Sally Ride Elementary School…

Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to break down the cause of a remarkable formation of radio waves they have nicknamed the “Treble Clef” because its distinct shape strongly resembles the musical symbol. The researchers discovered the Treble Clef is likely caused by an outburst from a supermassive black hole, followed by a collision…

Sunlight illuminates the exhaust plumes of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft on Oct. 13, 2026. This visual phenomenon is known as a “jellyfish”; it happens near sunrise or sunset when the exhaust plume from the rocket becomes brightly illuminated, creating a glowing shape resembling a jellyfish. The mission lifted off…

If you’ve ever had your car start sluggishly, or not at all, on a particularly frigid winter morning, you know standard batteries do not like extreme cold. That’s why NASA researchers are working to develop a battery that could function in the brutal cold of the Moon’s South Pole, where nighttime temperatures plunge to minus…