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How Can I See the Northern Lights? We Asked a NASA Expert
Want to catch a glimpse of the northern lights? You will need dark skies, the right location, good space weather and a little patience!
Auroras happen when charged particles from the Sun interact with Earth's magnetic field, creating dazzling light shows in the sky. A NASA scientist shares tips on where, when and how to see these stunning displays.
An Unusual Hole on the Martian Surface | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
What created this unusual hole in Mars? Actually, there are numerous holes pictured in this Swiss cheese-like landscape with all-but-one of them showing a dusty, dark, Martian terrain beneath evaporating, light, carbon dioxide ice. The most unusual hole is on the upper right, spans about 100 meters, and seems to punch through to a lower level. Why this hole exists and why it is surrounded by a circular crater remains a topic of speculation, although a leading hypothesis is that it was created by a meteor impact. Holes such as this are of particular interest because they might be portals to lower levels that extend into expansive underground caves. If so, these naturally occurring tunnels are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life. These pits are therefore also prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots, and even human interplanetary explorers.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to study the geology and climate of Mars, to provide reconnaissance of future landing sites, and to relay data from surface missions back to Earth. It was launched on August 12, 2005, and reached Mars on March 10, 2006.
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE. It was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Shenzhou-19 Crew Continues in-Orbit Scientific Experiments | China Space Station
China's Shenzhou-19 crew has worked at the Tiangong Space Station for over 150 days. They achieved steady progress in neuroscience, medical, and microgravity physics experiments last week.
The experiments were conducted by the three astronauts—Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze.
The trio used electroencephalogram devices to conduct multiple experimental tests. Data collected will help ground researchers explore how gravity affects visual-motor information processing, reveal the cognitive patterns and neural mechanisms of how humans perceive spatial relationships in a microgravity environment, and explore the regulatory effects of brainwave music intervention on inhibitory control functions during long-duration spaceflight.
After nearly six months in orbit, the astronauts also shared insights into life aboard the space station. Using questionnaires and video recordings, they documented their experience with the station's livability, real-time feedback on human-machine interfaces, and the layout of various onboard systems. Based on these data and findings, researchers can refine design processes, identify issues, and suggest targeted improvements to enhance the human-centered design of future spacecraft.
In medical research, the crew completed pharmacokinetics-related tasks, collecting valuable data to help shape future in-orbit medication strategies.
In the field of space technology, the team continued work on the reverse Brayton cryocooling experiment, assembling and testing components inside its payload cabin. This cooling technology, based on ultra-high-speed dynamic pressure gas bearings, aims to support future deep space missions and enhance China's space thermal control capabilities.
Meanwhile, several microgravity physics experiments continued. The crew replaced samples in the fluid physics and high-temperature materials experiment cabinets, performed vacuum operations, and managed gas exhaust procedures.
Environmental monitoring remained a priority as well. The astronauts measured airflow and temperature, tested air cleanliness, and conducted routine equipment inspections and maintenance.
In support of their health, the crew also completed a series of medical checks, including electrocardiograms, pulmonary function tests, and dynamic electrocardiogram and blood pressure monitoring, while actively engaging in countermeasures to mitigate the effects of weightlessness.
The Shenzhou-19 crewed spacecraft, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on October 30, 2024.
Shenzhou-19 Crew: Commander Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲) Mission Specialist Wang Haoze (王浩泽) Mission Specialist Song Lingdong (宋令东)
Video Credit: CCTV Duration: 2 minutes Release Date: April 13, 2025
Each New Shepard mission has a story. Learn more about the symbolism behind the NS-31 mission patch.
New Shepard's 11th human flight, NS-31, will lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas on Monday, April 14, 2025. The mission includes Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sánchez.
The New Shepard launch window opens at 8:30am CDT/13:30 UTC.
New Shepard's 11th human flight, NS-31, will lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas on Monday, April 14, 2025. The mission includes Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sánchez.
The New Shepard launch window opens at 8:30am CDT/13:30 UTC.
Orbital Changes & Surprises | International Space Station
Expedition 72 flight engineer and NASA astronaut Don Pettit: "Changes in attitude, changes in latitude for the International Space Station. We rotated 180 degrees and flew backwards for yesterday’s Soyuz docking. This is a bit long, but keep watching for the surprise in the middle."
Station Commander: Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin (Russia) Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Ivan Vagner, Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritskiy NASA Flight Engineers: Don Pettit, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Jonny Kim
JAXA Flight Engineer: Takuya Onishi
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
This week NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit joined station Commander Alexey Ovchinin and Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner of Roscosmos (Russia), and checked their Sokol launch and entry suits for leaks. The trio wore the suits when they launched together aboard the Soyuz MS-26 crew ship and docked to the Rassvet module on Sept. 11, 2024. They will wear the suits again when they return to Earth on April 19, 2025, inside the Soyuz MS-26 completing a seven-month space research mission.
The next cargo mission from SpaceX is due to launch later this month replenishing Expedition 72 with new science experiments and crew supplies.
Station Commander: Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin (Russia) Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Ivan Vagner, Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritskiy NASA Flight Engineers: Don Pettit, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Jonny Kim
JAXA Flight Engineer: Takuya Onishi
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
Shape of The Orion Constellation in 3D | Space Telescope Science Institute
This visualization reveals the stars of the Orion constellation in three dimensions. Watch as the familiar pattern on the sky distorts into a whole new perspective.
The sequence begins with a view of Orion in our sky. Featured in this scene are examples of the night's brightest stars, including Betelgeuse and Rigel within Orion, and Sirius at its lower left, a star in the constellation Canis Major.
Departing from the earthbound view, the camera begins to circle through interstellar space while maintaining the connecting lines of the constellation stick figure. Note how quickly the "flat" constellation shape transforms into an elongated mesh. In addition, the stars change their brightness markedly as they pass nearer or farther from the camera. The onscreen graphic depicts the direction, distance, and speed of the camera motion.
The most distant star in this visualization is Chi2 Orionis, a bright supergiant with an estimated distance of 4,300 light-years (ly). During the journey around Orion, we travel out to over 6,000 ly away from the Sun. This provides a stunning view of the Milky Way's galactic plane and the dust lanes within it.
This visualization features over 11 million stars down to a magnitude of 13.5 across the sky. The positions, colors, and luminosities are based on the Gaia and Hipparcos star catalogs, complemented by the HYG Database, which includes data from the Yale and Gliese catalogs. Insterstellar dust is visualized using the Edenhofer map out to adistance of 1.25 kiloparsecs (~4,000 ly) from the Sun. The rest of the Milky Way plane is recreated using simulated spiral galaxy data for stars and dust from the Horizon GalMer database.
Credits: Visualization: Christian Nieves, Frank Summers (STScI) Motion Graphics: Ralf Crawford (STScI) Data: Gaia DR3 – Gaia Mission/ESA/DPAC Hipparcos Catalog – ESA HYG-Database (v4.1) – Astronexus CC BY-SA 4.0 Edenhofer et al (2023). A Parsec-Scale Galactic 3D Dust Map out to 1.25 kpc from the Sun -- Dataset for the 1.25 kpc 3D Dust Map and the 2 kpc 3D Dust Map (v1.0.2) [Data set]. Zenodo. Horizon GalMer Database – Chilingarian I. V., Di Matteo P., Combes F., Melchior A.-L., Semelin B., 2010, A&A, 518, A61
How to Know You’re in Space: Zero Gravity Indicators | NASA
Have you ever wanted to design something that could fly around the Moon? This is your opportunity. The Artemis II astronauts will use a zero gravity indicator during their mission to demonstrate when their Orion spacecraft has reached microgravity. This plushie needs to be soft, small, and importantly, remind us of home.
The Moon Mascot contest challenges people of all ages from all over the world to submit a design to be made by NASA’s Thermal Blanket Lab and flown aboard Artemis II.
The Artemis II test flight will be sending NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, as well as Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a ten-day journey around the Moon and back.
Artemis II will launch no earlier than April 2026.
Check the NASA Artemis II Mission page for updates:
Journey to Star Cluster NGC 346 in Tucana | Hubble
This new image showcases NGC 346, a dazzling young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located 200,000 light-years away in the constellation Tucana. The Small Magellanic Cloud is less rich in elements heavier than helium—what astronomers call metals—than the Milky Way. This makes conditions in the galaxy similar to what existed in the early universe.
Although several images of NGC 346 have been released previously, this view includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory.
NGC 346 is home to more than 2,500 newborn stars. The cluster’s most massive stars, many times more massive than our Sun, blaze with an intense blue light in this image. The glowing pink nebula and snakelike dark clouds are the remnant of the birthsite of the stars in the cluster.
The inhabitants of this cluster are stellar sculptors, carving out a bubble from the nebula. NGC 346’s hot, massive stars produce intense radiation and fierce stellar winds that pummel the billowing gas of their birthplace and begin to disperse the surrounding nebula.
The nebula, named N66, is the brightest example of an H II (pronounced ‘H-two’) region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. H II regions are set aglow by ultraviolet light from hot young stars like those in NGC 346. The presence of the brilliant nebula indicates the young age of the star cluster, as an H II region shines only as long as the stars that power it—a mere few million years for the massive stars pictured here.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Nota, P. Massey, E. Sabbi, C. Murray, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble), N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble)
Close-up: Stellar Sculptors of Star Cluster NGC 346 in Tucana | Hubble
This new image showcases NGC 346, a dazzling young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located 200,000 light-years away in the constellation Tucana. The Small Magellanic Cloud is less rich in elements heavier than helium—what astronomers call metals—than the Milky Way. This makes conditions in the galaxy similar to what existed in the early universe.
Although several images of NGC 346 have been released previously, this view includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory.
NGC 346 is home to more than 2,500 newborn stars. The cluster’s most massive stars, many times more massive than our Sun, blaze with an intense blue light in this image. The glowing pink nebula and snakelike dark clouds are the remnant of the birthsite of the stars in the cluster.
The inhabitants of this cluster are stellar sculptors, carving out a bubble from the nebula. NGC 346’s hot, massive stars produce intense radiation and fierce stellar winds that pummel the billowing gas of their birthplace and begin to disperse the surrounding nebula.
The nebula, named N66, is the brightest example of an H II (pronounced ‘H-two’) region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. H II regions are set aglow by ultraviolet light from hot young stars like those in NGC 346. The presence of the brilliant nebula indicates the young age of the star cluster, as an H II region shines only as long as the stars that power it—a mere few million years for the massive stars pictured here.
Image Description: A star cluster within a nebula. The background is filled with thin, pale blue clouds. Parts are thicker and pinker in color. The cluster is made up of bright blue stars that illuminate the nebula around them. Large arcs of dense dust curve around, before and behind the clustered stars, pressed together by the stars’ radiation. Behind the clouds of the nebula can be seen large numbers of orange stars.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Nota, P. Massey, E. Sabbi, C. Murray, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble), N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble)
Stellar Sculptors of Star Cluster NGC 346 in Tucana | Hubble
This new image showcases NGC 346, a dazzling young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located 200,000 light-years away in the constellation Tucana. The Small Magellanic Cloud is less rich in elements heavier than helium—what astronomers call metals—than the Milky Way. This makes conditions in the galaxy similar to what existed in the early universe.
Although several images of NGC 346 have been released previously, this view includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory.
NGC 346 is home to more than 2,500 newborn stars. The cluster’s most massive stars, many times more massive than our Sun, blaze with an intense blue light in this image. The glowing pink nebula and snakelike dark clouds are the remnant of the birthsite of the stars in the cluster.
The inhabitants of this cluster are stellar sculptors, carving out a bubble from the nebula. NGC 346’s hot, massive stars produce intense radiation and fierce stellar winds that pummel the billowing gas of their birthplace and begin to disperse the surrounding nebula.
The nebula, named N66, is the brightest example of an H II (pronounced ‘H-two’) region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. H II regions are set aglow by ultraviolet light from hot young stars like those in NGC 346. The presence of the brilliant nebula indicates the young age of the star cluster, as an H II region shines only as long as the stars that power it—a mere few million years for the massive stars pictured here.
Image Description: A star cluster within a nebula. The background is filled with thin, pale blue clouds. Parts are thicker and pinker in color. The cluster is made up of bright blue stars that illuminate the nebula around them. Large arcs of dense dust curve around, before and behind the clustered stars, pressed together by the stars’ radiation. Behind the clouds of the nebula can be seen large numbers of orange stars.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Nota, P. Massey, E. Sabbi, C. Murray, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble) Release Date: April 4, 2025
Station Commander: Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin (Russia) Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Ivan Vagner, Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritskiy NASA Flight Engineers: Don Pettit, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Jonny Kim
JAXA Flight Engineer: Takuya Onishi
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
China's New Moon Missions to Look for Water, Test Lunar-Soil Bricks at South Pole
China plans to launch the Chang'e-7 mission around 2026 to explore the environment and resources of the south pole of the Moon, especially the evidence of water, and the subsequent Chang'e-8 Mission will test technologies for building habitats using lunar soil, a space official said on Tuesday.
The country's lunar exploration program has maintained a 100 percent mission success rate over the past two decades and is now advancing to its fourth phase, Wu Weiren, chief designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, told China Central Television (CCTV).
Chang'e-7, the next mission scheduled for launch around 2026, will target the moon's south pole to search for the evidence of water ice in permanently shadowed craters—a critical resource to sustain long-term human activity.
If confirmed, such deposits could revolutionize future lunar exploration by providing drinking water, oxygen and rocket fuel production capabilities.
Major spacefaring nations are focusing on the lunar poles due to their unique conditions which resemble those on Earth.
The lunar south pole's unique lighting conditions—with select areas receiving near-continuous sunlight for more than 100 days—create an environment where humans could potentially live and work for extended periods, Wu explained.
"This feature (of the south pole) lays a foundation for our exploration of the Moon because it will enable human beings to live and work there for long time. That's why we say we will be looking for water—is there water in the craters? If so, that would be a huge discovery and a monumental achievement," he said.
The follow-up Chang'e-8 mission, set for around 2028, will conduct experiments for the in-situ utilization of lunar resources, Wu said.
Apart from building communication systems and energy systems, the Chang'e-8 mission will test the possibility of building a research station on the Moon.
"Now we have developed the world's first device that produces bricks made of lunar soil. This system harnesses sunlight, collects solar energy, and transmits it to the Moon using fiber optics. By concentrating the sunlight, we can achieve temperatures between 1400 to 1500 degrees Celsius, which is sufficient to melt lunar soil. Our device then utilizes 3D printing technology to shape the molten material into bricks of various specifications. This approach allows us to utilize resources found on the Moon, free from transporting water and other materials from the Earth," Wu said.
China's planned International Lunar Research Station has attracted participation from Egypt, Bahrain and other countries with six foreign payloads confirmed for Chang'e-7 probe.
Once verified, the cutting-edge lunar soil brick technology will provide key support for the international research station project on the moon, Wu stressed.
"I hope more countries, more international scientific research institutions and more foreign scientists will participate in the construction of our entire project. I think in the next 10 to 20 years, we should mainly take the international lunar research station as a starting point or as a guide to push the lunar exploration program to a higher stage," Wu said.
Video Credit: CCTV Duration: 1 minute, 39 seconds Release Date: April 2, 2025
New US GOES-19 Weather Satellite Begins Operations as GOES East | NOAA
NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite, the latest and final satellite in NOAA’s GOES-R Series, officially began operations as GOES East today. This milestone comes after its June 25, 2024, launch and subsequent post-launch testing of its instruments, systems and data.
GOES-19 replaces GOES-16 as GOES East, positioned 22,236 miles above the equator at 75.2 degrees west longitude. GOES-16 will now become a backup for NOAA’s operational geostationary constellation, maintaining its operational readiness for future use, if needed.
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