APOD: 2026 August 27 – Colorful Aurora over an Icelandic Waterfall

NeRD

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 27 –… 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 a professional astronomer. Colorful Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall Explanation: What a sight to behold, when a night sky became filled with colors that appeared to rain over the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. This image was taken in a single 5 second exposure by…

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Building Foresight for Earth Science, featuring Lindsey Jacobson

NeRD

NASA’s Earth-observing satellite missions track dozens of features of a changing planet — aerosols, sea levels, land cover, cloud cover — over years and decades. Sustaining that record for the scientific and operational communities who depend on it requires more than engineering talent. It requires planning for an uncertain future: anticipating where a mission delay or on-orbit event might create a gap in the data those communities rely on. Lindsey Jacobson’s work helps NASA anticipate those disruptions before they happen and gives senior leaders options for managing them.A Pathways intern…

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Roman Space Telescope Travels to SpaceX Hangar

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NASA/Sydney Rohde (Rocz) NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, encapsulated in its payload fairing, travels from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, ahead of mating to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Roman’s science instruments are designed to help researchers understand dark energy, the mysterious force accelerating the universe’s expansion. The observatory also will map how galaxies form, cluster, and evolve by tracing the influence of dark matter. Liftoff from NASA Kennedy is targeted…

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Astronomers discover hot watery exoplanet destined to be swallowed by its star

NeRD

Astronomers have discovered a new ocean world outside the solar system that orbits extremely close to its parent star. This means that the extrasolar planet, or “exoplanet,” is in hot water, both literally and figuratively. The exoplanet orbits the star HD 176071 located around 335 light-years away, and is about two and a half times the size of Earth, but has about eight and a half times the mass of our planet. That indicates to scientists that this planet is about 50% water. At a distance from its star of…

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A black star in a false Spanish twilight: Here’s the story of my 1st total solar eclipse

NeRD

I had never seen a total solar eclipse. That’s a strange thing to admit for the skywatching writer at Space.com, but the truth is that the opportunity had simply never come up. When it comes to eclipses, I’ve always been beguiled by their beauty from afar. I’ve always hoped to see that strange moment when a black sun manifests to extend a glowing atmosphere into the fleeting twilight of totality. But after 37 years I hadn’t once found myself in the path of the moon’s inner shadow, and it was…

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NASA Sets Spacewalk for Station Maintenance, Live Coverage Planned

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NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot work together inside the International Space Station’s Quest airlock during spacesuit fit and leak checks. Credit: NASA NASA will provide coverage as two astronauts step outside the International Space Station on Tuesday, Sept. 1, to replace a spacecraft navigational aid and complete several maintenance tasks in support of space station operations. Watch live coverage beginning at 7 a.m. EDT. The spacewalk is expected to start at approximately 8:30 a.m. and last about six and a half hours. NASA’s…

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APOD: 2026 August 26 – JWST Images The Lion’s Head Nebula

NeRD

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 26 – JWST… 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 a professional astronomer. JWST Images The Lion’s Head Nebula Explanation: Are we looking at the future of our Sun? The James Webb Space Telescope captured today’s composite image of the Lion’s Head Nebula (NGC 2392) with its NIRCam and MIRI…

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New Next-Gen Dish Adds Muscle to NASA’s Deep Space Network

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Antennas soak in the summer Sun in August 2026 at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex near Barstow, California, including the recently completed Deep Space Station 23 (shown in the foreground, to the right). NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in California is marking the addition of a brand new 34-meter-wide (114-foot-wide) radio frequency antenna to the agency’s deep space communications and navigation system. The network uses giant dish antennas located at three global facilities to support more than 40 spacecraft exploring the solar system and interstellar space. The new…

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‘You just saved the video dish’: Two astronauts complete spacewalk to replace ISS antenna

NeRD

“Houston, we have a working comm link again.” Thanks to the efforts of two astronauts, such a call is possible again using one of two Space-to-Ground antennas outside the International Space Station (ISS). The pair finished the replacement of a faulty dish assembly during a spacewalk on Tuesday (Aug. 25). Anil Menon of NASA and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency (ESA), who previously removed a faulty dish during a spacewalk on Aug. 18, installed a spare in its place and moved the broken assembly from a temporary to…

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