Category: Space & Astronomy

What a cosmic coincidence! In today’s image, Mars joins the Beehive cluster below an auroral curtain and above a horizon of happy little trees near Lansjärv, Sweden.

NASA engineer and astronaut Christina Koch will serve as the agency’s acting deputy chief engineer beginning on Sunday, Nov. 1, following the retirement of Katherine Van Hooser, who will conclude more than 35 years of distinguished service to the agency on Wednesday, Oct. 21. In her new role, Koch will help lead NASA’s engineering community,…

Description This infographic illustrates the distances driven by various rovers on the surface of Earth’s Moon and Mars. Of the vehicles shown, the NASA Mars rovers Perseverance and Curiosity are still operational and moving across the surface; the figures shown for those two are distances driven as of Oct. 11, 2026. As of that date,…

Description Members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars mission team gather in the Mars Yard at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California with a certificate from Guinness World Records marking the rover distance record on the Red Planet. Positioned in front of the team is OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments…

Description Rover tracks and a rocky Martian landscape are shown in this image captured by one of the navigation cameras (navcams) aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on Oct. 11, 2026, the 2,006th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. During that sol’s drive, spanning 299.6 feet (91.31 meters), the mission passed a major milestone: pushing Perseverance’s total…

For more information, contact Joel W. Sills, Langley Research Center, joel.w.sills@nasa.gov Download the PDF version Complex mode shapes can emerge in a linear structure even when overall damping is low. This behavior can occur when two structural modes are closely spaced in frequency and are coupled through nonproportional damping. As the damping interaction increases, the…

A commercial lander that will be at the forefront of NASA’s efforts to establish a Moon Base, humanity’s first lunar outpost, has passed a series of critical tests at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The tests simulated the extreme temperatures and vacuum of space, as well as the intense shaking and ear-splitting…

NASA’s SpaceX 35th commercial resupply mission lifted off at 6:33 a.m. EDT Tuesday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and hardware, bound for the International Space Station. Following its successful launch, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will…

If the thought of extraterrestrial objects crashing into Earth weren’t creepy enough, behold Australia’s Spider Crater.

NASA experiments focused on human and plant health and drug-resistant organisms will travel to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission for the agency from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, advancing research that benefits life on Earth and future exploration. This research supports astronaut health during long-duration missions through…

The ice reached its third-lowest maximum extent since satellite observations began.