Day: June 16, 2025

NASA Announces Winners of 2025 Student Launch Competition

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3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) By Beth Ridgeway  NASA’s Student Launch competition celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 4, just north of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, bringing together more than 980 middle school, high school, college, and university students from across the U.S. to showcase and launch their high-powered rocketry designs. The event marked the conclusion of the nine-month challenge where teams designed, built, and launched more than 50 rockets carrying scientific payloads—trying to achieve altitudes between 4,000 and 6,000…

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Titan A.E. came out 25 years ago, and history has been kind to the infamous flop that killed Fox Animation Studios

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“After Earth Ends, The Adventure Begins!” Sometimes a work of unique art arrives on the scene that seems misplaced in the stream of time, and this is precisely the fate of “Titan A.E.,” a lavish animated space movie set in the 31st century and helmed by the distinguished animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Together, this superstar producing and directing team conjured up a flourish of ’80s classics including “The Secret of NIMH,” “An American Tail,” “The Land Before Time,” “Anastasia,” and “All Dogs Go to Heaven.” Today marks the…

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NASA Seeks Commercial Feedback on Space Communication Solutions

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2 Min Read NASA Seeks Commercial Feedback on Space Communication Solutions An illustration of a commercial space relay ecosystem. Credits: NASA / Morgan Johnson NASA is seeking information from U.S. and international companies about Earth proximity relay communication and navigation capabilities as the agency aims to use private industry satellite communications services for emerging agency science missions. “As part of NASA’s Communications Services Project, the agency is working with private industry to solve challenges for future exploration,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s SCaN Program. “Through this effort,…

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Powerful solar flare erupts from sun triggering radio blackouts across North America (video)

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An Earth-facing sunspot has turned into a prolific flare factory, firing off multiple powerful M-class solar flares in less than 24 hours, along with several minor C-class eruptions. The most intense of these solar flares erupted on June 15, peaking at 2:25 p.m. EDT (1825 GMT) and registering as an M8.46-class — just shy of the X-class category, the most powerful type of solar flare. This eruption also unleashed a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a massive plume of solar plasma and magnetic field — now partially headed toward Earth.…

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Dark matter ‘lampshades’ dimming stars could solve one of the greatest scientific mysteries

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Dark matter clumps could act as stellar lampshades, drifting between Earth and distant stars, dimming them by an almost imperceptible amount, a new study suggests. If this idea is correct, such “dark matter lampshades” could help solve the mystery of what dark matter is made of. This is a huge problem in science because, despite making up around 85% of the matter in the cosmos, no one knows what dark matter actually is. The team’s research mainly focuses on one particular candidate for dark matter: massive astrophysical compact halo objects,…

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Johnson’s Jason Foster Recognized for New Technology Reporting Record

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Heading into a recent staff meeting for Johnson Space Center’s Business Development & Technology Integration Office, Jason Foster anticipated a typical agenda of team updates and discussion. He did not expect an announcement that he had been named a 2025 Rookie of the Year – Honorable Mention through the Federal Laboratory Consortium’s annual awards program. Foster was one of only three technology transfer professionals across the federal government to be recognized in the Rookie of the Year category, which is open to early-career individuals with less than three years of…

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