APOD: 2026 August 28 – The Sky Turns Above Paranal

NeRD

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 28 – The… 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. The Sky Turns Above Paranal Explanation: At the latitude of ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, about 25 degrees south, Earth’s rotation moves the planet’s surface eastward at over 1,500 kilometers per hour. And while that’s faster than…

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The Forested Floodplains of Congaree National Park

NeRD

Earth Observatory Science Earth Observatory The Forested Floodplains of… Earth Earth Observatory Image of the Day EO Explorer Topics All Topics Atmosphere Land Heat & Radiation Life on Earth Human Dimensions Natural Events Oceans Remote Sensing Technology Snow & Ice Water More Content Collections Global Maps World of Change Articles Earth Matters Blog Blue Marble: Next Generation EO Kids Mission: Biomes About About Us Subscribe 🛜 RSS Contact Us Search   The OLI on Landsat 9 captured this image of the Congaree River winding through floodplain forests in Congaree National…

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NASA Invites Media to Turkey Artemis Accords Signing Ceremony

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Credit: NASA Turkey will sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony at 2:30 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 31, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, becoming the 71st country signatory. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will host Turkish Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır for the ceremony, together with U.S. Department of State officials. This event is in person only. Media interested in attending must RSVP no later than 11 a.m. on Aug. 31, to: hq-media@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. In 2020, during the first Trump Administration, the United States, led by NASA and…

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After failure of private rescue mission, NASA’s Swift space telescope will crash back to Earth. But when and where?

NeRD

A private spacecraft failed to rescue NASA’s Swift space telescope, meaning the big observatory will come crashing back to Earth in the near future. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory launched to Earth orbit in November 2004. Over the past two decades, it studied gamma-ray bursts — the most powerful explosions in the universe — and other cosmic objects and events using a trio of telescopes. But Swift’s science work is now done, and its days in orbit are numbered. Call to action In September 2025, NASA put out a call…

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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

NeRD

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

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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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