NASA Seeks Student Missions to Send to Space in 2026, Beyond

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Technicians with the University of Kansas prepare their KUbeSat-1 for integration at Firefly’s Payload Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Credit: NASA NASA announced a new round of opportunities for CubeSat, developers to build spacecrafts on that will fly on upcoming launches through the agency’s CSLI (CubeSat Launch Initiative). CubeSats are a class of small spacecraft called nanosatellites. The initiative provides space access to U.S. educational institutions, certain non-profit organizations, and informal educational institutions such as museums and science centers, as well as NASA centers focused on workforce development,…

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NASA and IBM Collaborate to Develop INDUS Large Language Models for Advanced Science Research

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A collaboration between IMPACT and IBM has produced INDUS, a comprehensive suite of large language models (LLMs) tailored for the domains of Earth science, biological and physical sciences, heliophysics, planetary sciences, and astrophysics and trained using curated scientific corpora drawn from diverse data sources. Kaylin Bugbee (ST11), team lead of NASA’s Science Discovery Engine (SDE), spoke to the benefit INDUS offers to existing applications: “Large language models are rapidly changing the search experience. The Science Discovery Engine, a unified, insightful search interface for all of NASA’s open science data and…

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Hurricane Debby makes landfall in Florida as satellites watch from space (video)

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Satellites in space watched Hurricane Debby roar across Florida on Monday, bringing with it potentially record-setting rainfall and dangerous 80 mph (129 km/h) winds. NOAA’s GOES-East satellite recorded real-time views of Debby as it watched the hurricane unleash its force across the southeastern U.S. The footage, gathered from the satellite’s position about 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above Earth’s equator, shows Debby strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, swirling dangerously close to Florida. Debby made landfall at Steinhatchee, Florida around 7 a.m. ET (1100 GMT) on Aug. 5 as…

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2025 RASC-AL Competition

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2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The 2025 RASC-AL Competition is seeking undergraduate and graduate teams to develop new concepts that leverage innovation to improve our ability to operate on the Moon, Mars and beyond. Each team’s response should address novel and robust technologies, capabilities, and operational models that support expanding humanity’s ability to thrive beyond Earth. In this year’s RASC-AL Competition, teams and their faculty advisors are invited to design and propose innovative solutions with supporting original engineering and analysis in response to one…

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10 new dead star ‘monsters’ discovered at the heart of the Milky Way

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Astronomers have discovered ten strange dead stars, or “neutron stars,” lurking near the heart of the Milky Way. These weirdo neutron stars are also spinning, meaning they are “pulsars.” Scientists suspect the overly dense nature of this oddball globular cluster, located 18,000 light-years from Earth, could result in these rapidly spinning dead stars taking on bizarre and twisted forms. The lot, for instance, includes several “spider pulsars” that destroy stars with plasma webs and a speed demon vampire star greedily feasting on its companion stars. Pulsars are neutron stars that…

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The sun fires off 2 powerful X flares in less than 2 hours (video, photo)

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The sun showcased its immense power yet again this morning (August 5), firing off not one but two X-class flares. X flares are the strongest solar flare class. Today’s first X blast, which launched from a sunspot called AR3767, reached its peak around 9:40 a.m. EDT (1340 GMT), clocking in at X1.7 on solar scientists’ flare scale. Then, less than two hours later, the sunspot AR3780 fired off an X1.1 class solar flare, which peaked at 11:27 a.m. EDT (1527 GMT).  Solar flares are often accompanied by huge eruptions of solar…

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NASA, LASP Sign Agreement To Advance Space Weather Research, Modeling

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NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder enacted a collaborative Space Act Agreement Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, to advance research and modeling in the critical field of space weather. NASA and LASP are longtime space science and exploration partners, and this formal agreement expands the depth and breadth of space weather activities for everyone’s benefit. Space weather refers to conditions in space — typically driven by the Sun’s activity — that can affect…

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Station Science Top News: August 2, 2024

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Analyses suggest that microgravity does not significantly alter fundamental biochemical pathways in kidney cells, including metabolism of vitamin D. This finding could help researchers develop strategies to protect crew health on future missions and improve treatment of kidney-related diseases on Earth.  Kidney Cells examined the effects of microgravity and other factors of space travel on kidney health. Previous reports suggested that changes in kidney cell metabolism of vitamin D plays a role in bone loss in microgravity, and this paper recommends additional study to determine if this most recent finding is consistent with extended (>6…

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AstroViz: Iconic Pillars of Creation Star in NASA’s New 3D Visualization

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Learn Home AstroViz: Iconic Pillars of… For Educators Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Stories Science Activation Highlights Citizen Science   4 min read AstroViz: Iconic Pillars of Creation Star in NASA’s New 3D Visualization NASA’s Universe of Learning – a partnership among the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Caltech/IPAC, the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and part of the NASA Science Activation program portfolio – recently released a new 3D visualization of the towering clouds of cosmic…

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