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llustration of BioSentinel’s spacecraft flying past the Moon.NASA/Daniel Rutter Editor’s Note: This article was updated Nov. 20, 2024 shortly after BioSentinel’s mission marked two years of operation in deep space. Astronauts live in a pretty extreme environment aboard the International Space Station. Orbiting about 250 miles above the Earth in the weightlessness of microgravity, they rely on commercial cargo missions about every two months to deliver new supplies and experiments. And yet, this place is relatively protected in terms of space radiation. The Earth’s magnetic field shields space station crew from much of the radiation that can damage the DNA in our cells and lead…

5 min read 5 Surprising NASA Heliophysics Discoveries Not Related to the Sun With NASA’s fleet of heliophysics spacecraft, scientists monitor our Sun and investigate its influences throughout the solar system. However, the fleet’s constant watch and often-unique perspectives sometimes create opportunities to make discoveries that no one expected, helping us to solve mysteries about of the solar system and beyond. Here are five examples of breakthroughs made by NASA heliophysics missions in other fields of science. This graphic shows missions in NASA’s Heliophysics Division fleet as of July 2024. NASA Thousands and Thousands of Comets The SOHO mission —…

Earth (ESD) Earth Home Explore Climate Change Science in Action Multimedia Data For Researchers 14 Min Read NASA’s Brad Doorn Brings Farm Belt Wisdom to Space-Age Agriculture This image shows corn cultivation patterns across the U.S. Midwest in 2020, with lands planted in corn marked in yellow. Credits: NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin Bradley Doorn grew up in his family’s trucking business, which hauled milk and animal feed across the sprawling plains of South Dakota. Home was Mitchell, a small town famous for its Corn Palace, where murals crafted from corn kernels and husks have adorned its facade since 1892—a…

On Nov. 6, 2024, NASA Night brought cosmic excitement to the Toyota Center, where Johnson Space Center employees joined 16,208 fans who interacted with NASA as they watched the Houston Rockets claim victory over the San Antonio Spurs.  Energy soared as International Space Station Program Manager Dana Weigel stepped up to take the first shot.  International Space Station Program Manager Dana Weigel takes the first shot on Nov. 6, 2024, as the Houston Rockets go up against the San Antonio Spurs at Toyota Center.NASA/Helen Arase Vargas The ceremonial first shot also gave back to the community, with Rockets owner Tilman…

5 min readPreparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) A prototype of a robot designed to explore subsurface oceans of icy moons is reflected in the water’s surface during a pool test at Caltech in September. Conducted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the testing showed the feasibility of a mission concept for a swarm of mini swimming robots.NASA/JPL-Caltech In a competition swimming pool, engineers tested prototypes for a futuristic mission concept: a swarm of underwater robots that could look for signs of life on ocean worlds. When NASA’s Europa Clipper reaches its destination in 2030, the spacecraft will prepare…

5 Min Read Making Mars’ Moons: Supercomputers Offer ‘Disruptive’ New Explanation A NASA study using a series of supercomputer simulations reveals a potential new solution to a longstanding Martian mystery: How did Mars get its moons? The first step, the findings say, may have involved the destruction of an asteroid.  The research team, led by Jacob Kegerreis, a postdoctoral research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, found that an asteroid passing near Mars could have been disrupted – a nice way of saying “ripped apart” – by the Red Planet’s strong gravitational pull. The team’s simulations show the resulting rocky fragments being strewn into a variety of orbits…

5 min read NASA’s Swift Reaches 20th Anniversary in Improved Pointing Mode After two decades in space, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is performing better than ever thanks to a new operational strategy implemented earlier this year. The spacecraft has made great scientific strides in the years since scientists dreamed up a new way to explore gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. “The idea for Swift was born during a meeting in a hotel basement in Estes Park, Colorado, in the middle of a conference,” said John Nousek, the Swift mission director at Pennsylvania State University in…

Technicians carefully install a piece of equipment to house Gateway’s xenon fuel tanks, part of its advanced electric propulsion system. Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element, which will make the lunar space station the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown, recently received the xenon and liquid fuel tanks for its journey to and around the Moon. Technicians in Palo Alto, California carefully install a piece of equipment that will house the tanks. Once fully assembled and launched to lunar orbit, the Power and Propulsion Element’s roll-out solar arrays – together about the size of an American football field endzone –…

Imagine designing technology that can survive on the Moon for up to a decade, providing a continuous energy supply. NASA selected three companies to develop such systems, aimed at providing a power source at the Moon’s South Pole for Artemis missions.  Three companies were awarded contracts in 2022 with plans to test their self-sustaining solar arrays at the Johnson Space Center’s Space Environment Simulation Laboratory (SESL) in Houston, specifically in Chamber A in building 32. The prototypes tested to date have undergone rigorous evaluations to ensure the technology can withstand the harsh lunar environment and deploy the solar array effectively…

NASA NASA astronaut Alan Bean steps off the lunar module ladder in this photo from Nov. 19, 1969, joining astronaut Charles Conrad Jr. on the Moon in the area called the Ocean of Storms. The two would then complete two spacewalks on the lunar surface, deploying science instruments, collecting geology samples, and inspecting the Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which had landed in the same area. While Bean and Conrad worked on the Moon, astronaut Richard F. Gordon completed science from lunar orbit. Learn more about Apollo 12’s pinpoint landing on the Moon. Image credit: NASA