Growing up in Waverly, Tennessee, Gage Coon spent much of his childhood outside. His family had everything from chickens to horses and even an emu named Big Bird. Coon and his cousins would explore the woods surrounding their home, and his father, a mechanic, taught him how to build andContinue Reading
Three teams comprising 35 students across eight different MIT departments and Wellesley College have been at work since fall 2025, designing critical early infrastructure elements that a moon base would require. This June, their designs were recognized with five awards at NASA’s 2026 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts — Academic LinkageContinue Reading
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 26 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by aContinue Reading
Amid reports that hundreds of people are still missing in Nepal and China after a floodwater surge slammed into towns and villages on Wednesday, aid teams have been working to reach communities cut off by the disaster.Continue Reading
Countries are spending too little to restore degraded land even as the economic cost of doing nothing climbs towards $1 trillion a year, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned at a major UN land conference in Mongolia. Continue Reading
The Pacific Ocean has had an unusual number of storms this year, while the Atlantic hasn’t recorded a single full-blown hurricane. Scientists point to an exceptionally strong El Niño. (Image credit: NOAA via AP)Continue Reading
NASA’s Balloon Program is past the halfway point for the fall campaign in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Four missions have successfully launched from the launch site, with two more lined up in the coming weeks. Hurricane Polo is affecting the upper-level winds near the launch site and the team isContinue Reading
APOD Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss The first frame depicts the observer in empty space looking toward the constellation Orion. The three stars in Orion’s belt are visible to the right of the center of the screen. Sirius can be seen as the brightestContinue Reading
The four members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station display their mission plaque inside a training mockup of a space station module. From left are, Commander Jessica Watkins and Pilot Luke Delaney, both from NASA, and Mission Specialists Joshua Kutryk of CSA (Canadian Space Agency) andContinue Reading
APOD Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss You currently sit at the black hole’s photon sphere, where light can travel endlessly in a circle due to the star’s great gravitational pull. The apparent position of the photon sphere is always easy to spot – itContinue Reading
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft that launched NASA’s Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station is pictured docked to the Harmony module’s forward port. Credit: NASA During a news conference at 3 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28, NASA and Boeing leadership will discuss Starliner’sContinue Reading
APOD Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss As before, from this orientation, the black hole’s enormous gravity bends light to make two discernible images of the constellation Orion. You now descend to the photon sphere. A photon sphere is a location where gravity is soContinue Reading
APOD Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss The first frame is dark as you peer into the black hole itself. You begin to look up and stars come back into view. Now the stars are more blue than ever before as starlight that has fallenContinue Reading