Friends of NASA

Thursday, August 28, 2025

Swarming: Using Tiny Spacecraft to Reach Star Proxima Centauri | NASA Space Tech

Swarming: Using Tiny Spacecraft to Reach Star Proxima Centauri | NASA Space Tech

Could a swarm of tiny spacecraft reach another star in just 20 years?

Four light-years away, orbiting the dim red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, lies an intriguing exoplanet: Proxima Centauri b. It is the closest Earth-like planet we have found outside our solar system. Today’s spacecraft would take 75,000 years to get there . . . but a revolutionary new idea could cut that down to just twenty years. Instead of sending a single spacecraft, this concept proposes launching thousands of autonomous micro-probes, each just a few grams in weight, and propelling them with laser light.

NASA 360 takes a look at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) that could help us explore an Earth-like exoplanet up-close. To learn more visit: https://go.nasa.gov/408MnEv

To watch the in-depth presentation about this topic please visit the 2024 NIAC Symposium Vimeo site: https://vimeo.com/showcase/10973241?video=1008860866#t=8471s

Shining brightly in this Hubble image is our closest stellar neighbor: Proxima Centauri.

Proxima Centauri lies in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur), just over four light-years from Earth. Although it looks bright through the eye of Hubble, as you might expect from the nearest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri is not visible to the naked eye. Its average luminosity is very low, and it is quite small compared to other stars, at only about an eighth of the mass of the Sun.

However, on occasion, its brightness increases. Proxima is what is known as a “flare star”, meaning that convection processes within the star’s body make it prone to random and dramatic changes in brightness. The convection processes not only trigger brilliant bursts of starlight but, combined with other factors, mean that Proxima Centauri is in for a very long life. Astronomers predict that this star will remain middle-aged—or a “main sequence” star in astronomical terms—for another four trillion years, some 300 times the age of the current Universe.

These observations were taken using Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Proxima Centauri is actually part of a triple star system—its two companions, Alpha Centauri A and B, lie out of frame.

Although by cosmic standards it is a close neighbor, Proxima Centauri remains a point-like object even using Hubble’s eagle-eyed vision, hinting at the vast scale of the Universe around us.

Video Credit: NASA Space Technology
Duration: 2 minutes
Release Date: Aug. 27, 2025

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #StarSystems #Star #ProximaCentauri #RedDwarfs #Exoplanet #ProximaCentaurib #Centaurus #Constellations #MilkyWayGalaxy #Universe #Swarms #Microprobes #Nanotechnology #LaserTechnology #SpaceTechnology #Engineering #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

SpaceX Starship 10th Test Flight: Landing Burn & Splashdown in Indian Ocean

SpaceX Starship 10th Test Flight: Landing Burn & Splashdown in Indian Ocean

SpaceX: "View of Starship landing burn and splashdown on Flight 10, made possible by SpaceX’s recovery team. Starship made it through reentry with intentionally missing tiles, completed maneuvers to intentionally stress its flaps, had visible damage to its aft skirt and flaps, and still executed a flip and landing burn that placed it approximately 3 meters from its targeted splashdown point."

The SpaceX Starship on a Super Heavy booster successfully launched from Starbase Texas at 6:30pm Central Time (CT) on Tuesday, August 26, 2025 for the Tenth Test Flight.

→ Watch full flight here: https://t.co/UIwbeGoo2B

After about 10 minutes, Starship’s Super Heavy Booster stage softly landed in the Gulf of Mexico as had been planned. Next, Starship performed an orbital payload demonstration test with eight Starlink simulators being deployed. The Starship spacecraft then continued on a suborbital flight before a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean at the intended landing site, where a Starlink-equipped camera buoy captured the Starship's arrival in real-time. Of course, SpaceX purposefully stressed the Starship during reentry to better understand how the spacecraft responds to extreme conditions. The above are significant improvements in comparison with the last few test flights.

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket—collectively referred to as Starship—represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship is currently the "world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed", capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.

Key Starship Parameters:

Height: 123m/403ft
Diameter: 9m/29.5ft
Payload to LEO: 100–150t (fully reusable)

"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."

Learn more about Starship:

https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/

Download the Free Starship User Guide (PDF):

https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf

Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX)

Duration: 32 seconds

Capture Date: Aug. 26, 2025

#NASA #SpaceX #Space #Earth #Mars #Moon #MoonToMars #ArtemisProgram #ArtemisIII #Starship #StarshipSpacecraft #Starship10 #StarshipTestFlight10 #SuperHeavyBooster #SuperHeavyRocket #ElonMusk #Engineering #SpaceTechnology #HumanSpaceflight #CommercialSpace #SpaceExploration #StarbaseTexas #Texas #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

What is the Big Bang? | NASA Astrophysics

What is the Big Bang? | NASA Astrophysics

What is (or was) the Big Bang? Learn this and more with “Astro-Investigates,” the video series that explores and explains important astrophysics topics with the help of NASA scientists.

In this episode, you will hear from:

Dida Markovic - NASA JPL Astrophysicist

Alina Kiessling - NASA JPL Astrophysicist

Ami Choi - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Astrophysicist

Sangeeta Malhotra - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Astrophysicist

To learn more about the Big Bang theory and NASA missions studying the strange history of the universe, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/universe/overview/

Video Credit: NASA Science

Host and Co-Producer: Chelsea Gohd
Editor/Director/Co-Producer: Keith Miller (Caltech-IPAC)
Science Visualizations/Co-Producer: Robert Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)
Cinematographer: Isabel Swafford
Duration: 6 minutes
Release Aug. 28, 2025

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #NASAScientists #Stars #Supernovae #BlackHoles #Galaxies #Universe #Astrophysics #Cosmology #HubbleSpaceTelescope #Hubble #HST #JWST #NASAChandra #SpaceTelescopes #GSFC #JPL #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #CSA #Canada #Animation #Art #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Star's Inner Conflict Pre-explosion Revealed | NASA Chandra [Alert: To be Canceled)

Star's Inner Conflict Pre-explosion Revealed | NASA Chandra [Alert: To be Canceled)

A new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed that the insides of a star turned on itself before it spectacularly exploded. This happened in the star that created the Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, supernova remnant, which is one of the best-known, well-studied objects in the sky.

Over three hundred years ago, however, it was a giant star on the brink of self-destruction. The new Chandra result reveals that just hours before it exploded, the star’s interior violently rearranged itself. This last-minute shuffling of its stellar belly has profound implications for understanding how massive stars explode and how their remains behave afterwards.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is being canceled in NASA's Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request, along with 18 other active science missions. NASA's science budget is being reduced by nearly 50%. NASA's total budget will become the lowest since 1961, after accounting for inflation.

Contact your representatives in the United States Congress, House and Senate, to express your concerns about severe budget cuts at NASA:

https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials/

NASA's Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request (PDF): https://www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budget-request/

As massive stars age, increasingly heavy elements form in their interiors by nuclear reactions, creating onion-like layers of different elements. Their outer layer is mostly made of hydrogen, followed by layers of helium, carbon and progressively heavier elements—extending all the way down to the center of the star.

Once iron starts forming in the core of the star, the game changes. As soon as the iron core grows beyond a certain mass, about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, it can no longer support its own weight and collapses. The outer part of the star falls onto the collapsing core, and rebounds as a core-collapse supernova.

The new research with Chandra data reveals a change that happened deep within the star at the very last moments of its life. After living for more than a million years, Cas A underwent major changes in its final hours before exploding. Just before the star in Cas A collapsed, part of an inner layer with large amounts of silicon traveled outwards and broke into a neighboring layer with lots of neon. During this violent event, the barrier between these two layers of the onion, so to speak, would have disappeared.

There are several significant implications for this inner turmoil inside of the doomed star. First, it may directly explain the lopsided rather than symmetrical appearance of the Cas A remnant. Second, a lopsided explosion and debris field may have given a powerful kick to the remaining core of the star, now a neutron star, explaining the high observed speed of this object. Finally, the strong turbulent flows created by the star’s internal changes may have promoted the development of the supernova blast wave, facilitating the star’s explosion.

After more than a quarter century of observations of Cas A, this is just the latest example of how Chandra continues to find new discoveries about this iconic exploded star and its impact on astrophysics.

Video Credit: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
Duration: 3 minutes, 24 seconds
Release Date: Aug. 28, 2025

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Stars #NeutronStars #SupernovaRemnants #CassiopeiaA #CasA #Cassiopeia #Constellations #Cosmos #Universe #NASAChandra #ChandraObservatory #SpaceTelescopes #XrayAstronomy #MSFC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

SpaceX Starship 10th Test Flight Liftoff: Super Heavy Engine view | Starbase Texas

SpaceX Starship 10th Test Flight Liftoff: Super Heavy Engine view | Starbase Texas

Super Heavy is the first stage, or booster, of the Starship launch system. Powered by 33 Raptor engines using sub-cooled liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX), Super Heavy is fully reusable and it re-enters Earth's atmosphere to land back at the launch site. Watch the SpaceX Starship on a Super Heavy booster successfully lift off from Starbase Texas at 6:30pm Central Time (CT) on Tuesday, August 26, 2025 for the Tenth Test Flight.

→ Watch full flight here: https://t.co/UIwbeGoo2B

Key Starship Parameters:

Height: 123m/403ft
Diameter: 9m/29.5ft
Payload to LEO: 100–150t (fully reusable)

Learn more about Starship:

https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/

Download the Free Starship User Guide (PDF):

https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf

Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX)

Duration: 32 seconds

Capture Date: Aug. 26, 2025

SpaceX CRS-33 Resupply Mission: Cargo Dragon Arrival | International Space Station

SpaceX CRS-33 Resupply Mission: Cargo Dragon Arrival | International Space Station

At 7:05 a.m. EDT, Monday, August 25, 2025, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft docked to the forward port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module.

The spacecraft carried over 5,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory on SpaceX’s 33rd commercial resupply services mission for NASA. The mission launched at 2:45 a.m. on Aug. 24 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Research conducted aboard the International Space Station advances future space exploration—including Artemis missions to the Moon and astronaut missions Mars—that are intended to "provide benefits to humanity."

Learn about NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) Program:
https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/commercial-resupply/

Follow Expedition 73:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 73 Crew

Station Commander: Sergey Ryzhikov (Roscosmos)

JAXA Flight Engineer (Japan): Kimiya Yui

Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Alexey Zubritskiy, Oleg Platonov

NASA Flight Engineers: Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center

Date: Aug. 25, 2025

#NASA #Space #ISS #Earth #Science #SpaceX #DragonCargoSpacecraft #CRS33 #Docking #CommercialResupplyServices #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #HumanSpaceflight #SpaceTechnology #SpaceResearch #SpaceLaboratory #UnitedStates #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Japan #Expedition73 #STEM #Education

The Butterfly Star: A Dusty Planet-forming Disc in Taurus | Webb Telescope

The Butterfly Star: A Dusty Planet-forming Disc in Taurus | Webb Telescope

This NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope picture provides a close-up view of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disc located about 525 light-years away in a dark cloud within the Taurus star-forming region. With Webb, researchers can study the properties and growth of dust grains within protoplanetary discs like this one, shedding light on the earliest stages of planet formation.

In stellar nurseries across the galaxy, baby stars are forming in giant clouds of cold gas. As young stars grow, the gas surrounding them collects in narrow, dusty protoplanetary discs. This sets the scene for the formation of planets, and observations of distant protoplanetary discs can help researchers understand what took place roughly 4.5 billion years ago in our own Solar System, when the Sun, Earth, and the other planets formed.

IRAS 04302+2247, or IRAS 04302 for short, is a beautiful example of a protostar—a young star that is still gathering mass from its environment—surrounded by a protoplanetary disc where baby planets might be forming. Webb is able to measure the disc at 65 billion km across—several times the diameter of our Solar System. From Webb’s vantage point, IRAS 04302’s disc is oriented edge-on, so we see it as a narrow, dark line of dusty gas that blocks the light from the budding protostar at its center. This dusty gas is fuel for planet formation, providing an environment where young planets can bulk up and pack on mass.

When seen face-on, protoplanetary discs can have a variety of structures, like rings, gaps and spirals. These structures can be signs of baby planets that are burrowing through the dusty disc, or they can point to phenomena unrelated to planets, like gravitational instabilities or regions where dust grains are trapped. The edge-on view of IRAS 04302’s disc shows instead the vertical structure, including how thick the dusty disk is. Dust grains migrate to the midplane of the disc, settle there and form a thin, dense layer that is conducive to planet formation; the thickness of the disc is a measure of how efficient this process has been.

The dense streak of dusty gas that runs vertically across this image cocoons IRAS 04302, blotting out its bright light such that Webb can more easily image the delicate structures around it. As a result, treated to the sight of two gauzy nebulae on either side of the disc. These are reflection nebulae, illuminated by light from the central protostar reflecting off of the nebular material. Given the appearance of the two reflection nebulae, IRAS 04302 has been nicknamed the 'Butterfly Star'.

This view of IRAS 04302 combines observations from Webb, the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Webb contributed data from both its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and its Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI).

Together, these three powerful facilities paint a fascinating multiwavelength portrait of a planetary birthplace. Webb reveals the distribution of tiny dust grains as well as the reflection of near-infrared light off of dusty material that extends a large distance from the disc. Hubble focuses on the dust lane as well as clumps and streaks surrounding the dust that suggest the star is still collecting mass from its surroundings as well as shooting out jets and outflows. ALMA detects the glow of larger dust grains within the disk, showing that for a disc as young as IRAS 04302, the dust has yet to settle into a narrow plane as is expected for more evolved discs.

The Webb observations of IRAS 04302 were taken as part of the Webb GO program#2562 (PI F. Ménard, K. Stapelfeldt). This program investigates four protoplanetary discs that are oriented edge-on from our point of view, aiming to understand how dust evolves within these discs. The growth of dust grains in protoplanetary discs is believed to be an important step toward planet formation.

Image Description: A detailed view of IRAS 16594-4656 captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. A bright central region is bisected by a thin, horizontal line of dark dust. Symmetrical lobes of glowing gas extend above and below, with soft blue, purple, and orange hues blending outward into surrounding space.

Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Villenave et al.; CC BY 4.0
Release Date: Aug. 27, 2025

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Protostars #ButterflyStar #IRAS165944656 #Planets #Exoplanets #ReflectionNebulae #Taurus #Constellations #MilkyWayGalaxy #Universe #SpaceTelescopes #JWST #UnfoldTheUniverse #InfraredAstronomy #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #ESA #Europe #CSA #Canada #STEM #Education

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Planet WISPIT 2b in Aquila | European Southern Observatory [AI Narration]

Planet WISPIT 2b in Aquila | European Southern Observatory [AI Narration]

What is that yellow spot? It is a young planet outside our Solar System. This image from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile surprisingly captures a distant scene much like our own Solar System's birth, around 4.5 billion years ago. Although we cannot look into the past and see Earth's formation directly, telescopes let us watch similar processes unfolding around distant stars. At the center of this frame lies a young Sun-like star, hidden behind a coronagraph that blocks its bright glare. Surrounding the star is a bright, dusty protoplanetary disk—the raw material of planets. Gaps and concentric rings mark where a newborn world is gathering gas and dust under its gravity, clearing the way as it orbits the star. Although astronomers have imaged disk-embedded planets before, this is the first-ever observation of an exoplanet actively carving a gap within a disk—the earliest direct glimpse of planetary sculpting in action.

The image shows white protoplanetary disc at the center of the picture taking up most of the frame. The elliptical cloud of dust and gas consists of gaps creating a ring-like structure to the cloud. In of the larger gaps/rings a little dot, in this case a planet is visible. It has accumulated the dust in its orbit and hence created the ring-shaped gap.

What appears to be a ripple in space is this picture depicts a newborn planet eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits its host star. This image, taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings.

These so-called protoplanetary discs surround young stars and appear as disc-shaped structures of gas and dust, often with rings like the one in this image. They are the birthplace of planets, and the rings are thought to indicate the presence of (hungry) planets in the disc. Initially, little particles in the spinning disc begin to accumulate and grow as gravity takes over, stealing more material from the native disc until they evolve into embryo planets.

The clear detection of the planet WISPIT 2b in this image is an important step forward in our understanding of how planets form. It is about 5 times the mass of Jupiter, and its host star is a younger version of our Sun. It also reinforces the idea that gaps can be created by newly formed planets—a prediction only made in theory that has now been verified observationally.

While looking for stars hosting young planets, the team of researchers were lucky enough to find a planet so young that is still embedded in its birth disc. This discovery was published in a paper led by Richelle van Capelleveen at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, in collaboration with an international team of astronomers from the University of Galway and the University of Arizona. It was made possible through the precise observations of the planet-hunting SPHERE instrument on the VLT. SPHERE blocks the light of the central star and corrects atmospheric turbulence with adaptive optics, delivering crisp images of the surroundings of the star. The University of Arizona's MagAO-X AO system on the 6.5m Magellan telescope in Chile detected hydrogen gas falling onto the planet, confirming that it is accreting matter from its surroundings. Further observations of this system might reveal new insights about how our own Solar System may have looked in its early days.

Credit: ESO/R. F. van Capelleveen et al.
Duration: 1 minute, 45 seconds
Release Date: Aug. 26, 2025

#NASA #ESO #Space #Astronomy #Science #Stars #Exoplanets #Planets #WISPIT2b #CircumstellarMaterial #ProtoplanetaryDisks #Aquila #Constellations #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #VLT #SPHERE #ParanalObservatory #Chile #SouthAmerica #Europe #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Planet WISPIT 2b in Aquila | European Southern Observatory

Planet WISPIT 2b in Aquila | European Southern Observatory

Credit: ESO/R. F. van Capelleveen et al.
Release Date: Aug. 26, 2025

The Butterfly Nebula: NGC 6302 (labeled version) | Webb Telescope & ALMA

The Butterfly Nebula: NGC 6302 (labeled version) | Webb Telescope & ALMA

This annotated image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, as seen by the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy.

Planetary nebulae are among the most beautiful and most elusive creatures in the cosmic zoo. These nebulae form when stars with masses between about 0.8 and 8 times the mass of the Sun shed most of their mass at the end of their lives. The planetary nebula phase is fleeting, lasting only about 20,000 years.

At the center of the Butterfly Nebula is the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energizes the surrounding nebula and causes it to glow. This scorching central star is hidden from view at optical wavelengths, but Webb’s infrared capabilities have revealed the star and its surroundings in great detail.

This image, combining infrared data from Webb with submillimeter observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionized iron shoot off in opposite directions.

Image Description: The complicated structure at the center of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. There is a bright source at the center of the image, labeled ‘dying star’. This is surrounded by greenish nebulosity and several looping lines in cream, orange and pink. One of these lines appears to form a ring oriented vertically and nearly edge-on around the bright source at the center. This ring is labeled in several places to indicate the near and far sides of a structure called the torus, a dust lane running along the torus and an area where the torus is ionized. Other lines trace out a figure eight shape. These lines are labeled to indicate the inner bubble as well as where the bubble intersects with the torus. Moving outward from these complex lines and green nebulosity, there is a section of red light on either side of the object, labeled ‘outer bubble’. The upper-right and lower-left corners of this image show a purple streak pointing out of the image. These purple streaks are labeled ‘jet’.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Release Date: Aug. 27, 2025

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #ButterflyNebula #NGC6302 #PlanetaryNebulae #Scorpius #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescopes #JWST #InfraredAstronomy #ALMA #RadioAstronomy #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #ESA #Europe #CSA #Canada #Infographics #STEM #Education

Earth Aerosol Activity Model: Aug. 1-Sept. 14, 2024 | NASA Goddard

Earth Aerosol Activity Model: Aug. 1-Sept. 14, 2024 | NASA Goddard

This visualization demonstrates global aerosol activity as modeled by NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) for the period between August 1 to September 14, 2024. Aerosols are tiny solid or liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere that can travel vast distances, affecting air quality and visibility far from their original sources. This visualization shows how these particles moved through Earth's atmosphere from August 1-September 14, 2024.

Each color represents a type of aerosol: sea salt (blue), dust (pink/magenta), smoke from fires (orange/red), and sulfates from pollution and volcanoes (green). This visualization is based on NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model. It provides realistic, high-resolution weather and aerosol data that enables customized environmental prediction and advances in artifical intelligence (AI) research.

NASA uses satellites, ground measurements, and powerful computer models to track tiny particles floating in our air called aerosols. These small solid or liquid particles can travel thousands of miles, affecting the air we breathe and how far we can see, even far from where they originated.

The visualization highlights several atmospheric phenomena:

Hurricanes and Typhoons: Hurricane Ernesto in the Atlantic Ocean pulls in dust from Africa, while Typhoons Shanshan and Ampil near Japan draw pollution from mainland Asia. The storms' powerful winds churn up ocean water, creating sea salt particles visible as blue spirals.

Saharan Dust Journey: Desert dust from the Sahara travels all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, creating hazy skies in the Caribbean and affecting air quality as far away as Texas and Florida during summer 2024.

Volcanic Plumes: Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano released a narrow stream of sulfate particles moving westward, while Italy's Mount Etna created similar streams over southern Europe.

Wildfire Smoke:

In southern Africa, seasonal agricultural burning created smoke that drifted over the Atlantic Ocean

South America faced record-breaking wildfires in 2024, creating a river-like flow of smoke particles that affected major Brazilian cities

Canada experienced its second-worst wildfire season on record, with smoke traveling as far as northern Europe

The swirling blue patterns over oceans show sea salt kicked up by strong winds.

This visualization helps us understand how our atmosphere connects distant parts of the world. What happens in one region—whether natural events or human activities—can affect weather patterns and air quality thousands of miles away. By tracking these movements, NASA helps communities prepare for changes in air quality and visibility while advancing our understanding of Earth's complex atmospheric system.

The visualization was developed using NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), a complex modeling and data assimilation system that creates global analyses of the Earth System. GEOS integrates satellite observations, in situ measurements, and approximately one million weather observations collected hourly to inform its models. Through the GEOS Forward Processing (FP) product, the system generates both analyses and forecasts in near real-time. Images for this visualization were created by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO).

This version includes annotations and a color scale. It is provided in 6480×3240 resolution (2:1 aspect ratio).

Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
Visualizations: Joseph V. Ardizzone, Helen-Nicole Kostis
Scientific consulting: Lesley Ott
Duration: 1 minute, 13 seconds
Release Date: Aug. 8, 2025

#NASA #Space #Satellites #Science #Planets #Earth #Atmosphere #AirQuality #Aerosols #WildfireSmoke #Dust #Volcanoes #AirPollution #ClimateModels #ClimateChange #GlobalHeating #Climate #Environment #EarthObservation #RemoteSensing #GEOS #AI #GSFC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #Visualization #HD #Video

SpaceX Starship Launch: 10th Test Flight | Starbase Texas

SpaceX Starship Launch: 10th Test Flight | Starbase Texas

A SpaceX Starship successfully lifted off from Starbase Texas at 6:30pm Central Time (CT) on Tuesday, August 26, 2025.

→ Watch here: https://t.co/UIwbeGoo2B

Key Starship Parameters:

Height: 123m/403ft
Diameter: 9m/29.5ft
Payload to LEO: 100–150t (fully reusable)

Learn more about Starship:

https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/

Download the Free Starship User Guide (PDF):

https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf

Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX)

Release Dates: Aug. 25-27, 2025

Journey to The Butterfly Nebula | Hubble/Webb/ALMA Views

Journey to The Butterfly Nebula | Hubble/Webb/ALMA Views

This video takes the viewer on a journey through space to the Butterfly Nebula, also called NGC 6302. The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy.

The first image that is revealed in this video highlights the bipolar nature of the Butterfly Nebula in optical and near-infrared light captured by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. Then, the new Webb image is overlayed on the center of the Butterfly Nebula and the viewer is shown a close-up view of this part of the object, providing an unprecedented view of its complex structure. The Webb data are supplemented with data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, a powerful network of radio dishes.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, J. Kastner, K. Noll, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler, A. Hornstrup and J.-E. Ovaldsen, Digitized Sky Survey 2, KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Adam Block
Duration: 1 minute, 30 seconds
Release Date: Aug. 27, 2025

Close-up: The Butterfly Nebula | Webb Telescope (infrared) & ALMA (radio) View

Close-up: The Butterfly Nebula | Webb Telescope (infrared) & ALMA (radio) View

This image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy.

This image, combining infrared data from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope with submillimeter observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionized iron shoot off in opposite directions.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb)
Duration: 30 seconds
Release Date: Aug. 27, 2025

The Butterfly Nebula: NGC 6302 (Near-infrared view) | Hubble Space Telescope

The Butterfly Nebula: NGC 6302 (Near-infrared view) | Hubble Space Telescope

This view of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, comes from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. Compared to its appearance in visible light, the Butterfly Nebula looks gauzy at near-infrared wavelengths. The red color that is most prevalent in this view shows light from hydrogen, while green and blue come from iron that has been ionized.

This Hubble image highlights the Butterfly Nebula’s bipolar shape, showing how its two lobes spread in opposite directions, forming the ‘wings’ of the butterfly. A dark band of dusty gas poses as the butterfly’s ‘body’. This band is actually a doughnut-shaped torus that is being viewed from the side, hiding the nebula’s central star—the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energizes the nebula and causes it to glow. The dusty doughnut may be responsible for the nebula’s insectoid shape by preventing gas from flowing outward from the star equally in all directions.

Image Description: A planetary nebula called NGC 6302 or the Butterfly Nebula. A dark dust lane runs through the center of the nebula and two broad clouds emerge from either side of the dust lane like the outstretched wings of a butterfly. The nebula appears cream colored and most opaque near the center, then becomes reddish with purple streaks and more translucent out toward the wings of the nebula. There are hundreds of background stars in the image. Many are visible through the nebula.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Release Date: Aug. 27, 2025

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The Butterfly Nebula: NGC 6302 in Scorpius | Hubble, Webb & ALMA Views

The Butterfly Nebula: NGC 6302 in Scorpius | Hubble, Webb & ALMA Views

This image set showcases three views of the Butterfly Nebula, also called NGC 6302. The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy.

The Butterfly Nebula is a bipolar nebula, meaning that it has two lobes that spread in opposite directions, forming the ‘wings’ of the butterfly. A dark band of dusty gas poses as the butterfly’s ‘body’. This band is actually a doughnut-shaped torus that’s being viewed from the side, hiding the nebula’s central star—the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energises the nebula and causes it to glow. The dusty doughnut may be responsible for the nebula’s insectoid shape by preventing gas from flowing outward from the star equally in all directions.

The first and second of the three images shown here highlight the bipolar nature of the Butterfly Nebula in optical and near-infrared light captured by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. The new Webb image on the right zooms in on the center of the Butterfly Nebula and its dusty torus, providing an unprecedented view of its complex structure. The Webb data are supplemented with data from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array, a powerful network of radio dishes.

While the nebula’s central star is blanketed with thick, dusty gas at optical wavelengths, Webb’s infrared capabilities reveal the central star and show the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround it.

Image Description: Three views of the same nebula, presented side by side. The left and middle images, labeled ‘Hubble Optical’ and ‘Hubble Near IR’, show the nebula at roughly the same scale. These two images show some similar features, including a dark dust lane that runs through the center of the nebula and two broad clouds that emerge from either side of the dust lane like the outstretched wings of a butterfly. A diamond-shaped region centered on the dust lane is outlined in each of these images. In the optical Hubble image, the nebula appears clumpy and nearly opaque with few background stars showing through the cloudy material. The nebula appears in different shades of cream, yellow and orange with the lightest colors appearing closest to the center. The background of space is black with a handful of stars that are tinged pink. In the near-infrared Hubble image, the nebula appears cream colored and most opaque near the center, then becomes reddish with purple streaks and more translucent out toward the wings of the nebula. There are hundreds of background stars in the image, many are visible through the nebula. The third and final image zooms in on the diamond-shaped region near the center of the other two images. This image is labeled ‘Webb & ALMA, Mid-IR & Sub-mm’. This image shows a bright source at the center that is surrounded by greenish nebulosity and several looping lines in cream, orange and pink. The upper-right and lower-left corners of this image show a purple streak pointing out of the image.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, J. Kastner, K. Noll, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Release Date: Aug. 27, 2025

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #ButterflyNebula #NGC6302 #PlanetaryNebulae #Scorpius #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescopes #HST #JWST #InfraredAstronomy #ALMA #RadioAstronomy #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #ESA #Europe #CSA #Canada #Infographics #STEM #Education

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