Discover

Four nuclear reactors hit a big milestone in the US

I was really looking forward to July 4, and not just because I love a poolside barbecue. This year the American holiday also marked a big symbolic deadline for US nuclear power. Last year the Trump administration set a goal to see three new microreactors achieve criticality, a technical milestone es...

Super Typhoon Bavi

The third category 5 tropical cyclone of 2026 crossed the U.S. Northern Mariana Islands and Guam before continuing toward Asia.

Students Connect NASA Science With Indigenous Knowledge to Study Coastal Erosion

Story by Keri Moskowitz, Gulf of Maine Research Institute For the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, or Sipayik, the ocean has always been a teacher. Situated in what is known as Downeast Maine, along the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay, generations of Indigenous people have lived along the coast...

EmTech AI 2026: The Rise of the AI Platform

NASA Awards Contracts for Mars Advanced Surface Mobility Technology

July 8, 2026 C.13 NASA Awards Contracts for Mars Advanced Surface Mobility Technology NASA has selected seven companies for contract awards under the Mars Exploration Program’s Science Transport and Robotic Innovation for Deployment and Exploration, or STRIDE, initiative to advance next-generation c...

Hubble Captures Star-Studded Cluster

This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showcases Messier 3 (M3), one of the Milky Way galaxy’s most massive globular clusters, or spherical collections of gravitationally bound stars. Globular clusters are made up of ancient stars that formed at roughly the same time...

The Download: worms fight pollution, and geoengineering faces reality

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution Anthony Agueda, a third-generation California dairy farmer, pulls a rake throu...

Cottonwood Fire Chars Utah

The blaze burned more than 150 square miles and swept through parts of a ski resort.

NASA Transfers ‘Hundred Acre Wood’ to Patuxent Research Refuge

NASA ceremonially transferred ownership of about 105 acres of wooded land at its Goddard Space Flight Center’s Greenbelt, Maryland, campus Tuesday to the adjoining Patuxent Research Refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The property, formerly known as NASA Goddard’s Area 400, is now...

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes from Hibernation in Good Health

Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper Belt far beyond Pluto. On June 23, flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laborato...

Artemis II Crew and Apollo 14 Moon Tree

In this photograph, the Artemis II crew participates in the dedication of the Apollo 14 Moon tree at the Lunar Receiving Park at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on June 25, 2026. This tree is a second-generation Apollo Moon tree of the loblolly pine species. The original Apollo Moon trees were gro...

July 2026 Satellite Puzzler

Your challenge is to tell us the location of the satellite image and why it is interesting.

The Download: your stake in OpenAI, and the Treasury’s AI warning

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Your family’s $300 stake in OpenAI Sam Altman’s proposal that Americans should share in the wealth created by AI is back in the spotlight, with report...

The foundational elements of AI architecture that IT leaders need to scale

With the rapid progress of AI capabilities and the move to agentic systems, organizations are expanding their use cases as the technology continues to grow. That constant evolution also introduces risk, leaving IT leaders to wonder which investments will prove valuable even six months into the futur...

Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution

Anthony Agueda, a third-generation California dairy farmer, pulls a rake through a bed of dark, wet wood chips on his family’s land in Hickman, a tiny town in the state’s agricultural heartland. He reaches down with both hands and pulls up a clump of muck, turning it over to reveal a half-dozen squi...

The World Cup From 250 Miles Up

Over the years, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have photographed several of the cities hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

NASA Takes Flight For America’s 250th

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman leads a flyover featuring his personally owned Northrop F-5 Tiger during the Great American State Fair on July 4, 2026, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. For 250 years, America has pushed the boundaries of what’s possible. From the earliest days of exploratio...

Your family’s $300 stake in OpenAI

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s oft-discussed promise that Americans will share in the wealth AI creates was in the news again last week. On Thursday, the Financial Times...

NASA Seeks Industry Input on Second Phase of Commercial Space Stations

On Monday, NASA released a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking feedback from American companies on the next phase of its commercial space stations strategy, aimed at ensuring a seamless transition of activities in low Earth orbit from the International Space Station.  “NASA’s review refle...

NASA’s CAPSTONE Completes Extended Mission Testing Lunar Technologies

As NASA prepares for a sustained human presence on the Moon, missions will increasingly require spacecraft that can navigate and communicate without a direct connection to Earth. NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, validated and...

NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision

In new images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to celebrate its fourth science anniversary, a familiar galaxy transforms into something far richer, and far more complex, than ever seen before. Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity across near- and mid-infrared wavelengths cuts through the thick lan...

The Download: South Korea’s hottest bachelors, and advancing eye transplants

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. South Korea’s hottest new bachelors are chip workers Baek, a 35-year-old manager at the South Korean semiconductor titan SK Hynix, was enrolled in a m...

South Korea’s hottest new bachelors are chip workers

Baek, a 35-year-old manager at the South Korean semiconductor titan SK Hynix, was enrolled in Sunoo, a matchmaking company based in Seoul, a year ago. In a move typical of anxious South Korean parents, his mother signed him up, hoping to find a good wife for her son. Lately, says Baek (who asked to...

Examining Algal Blooms in Blue Mesa

Using satellite data, researchers connected harmful algal blooms with warm water and low water levels at one of Colorado’s largest reservoirs.