Curated articles from sources across the web
Two hundred years ago, a battle in the port city of Baltimore inspired the writing of America’s national anthem.
NASA has announced the top student-developed solutions for environmental control and life support systems in future crewed lunar landers from participants in the 2026 Human Lander Challenge. The announcement marks the culmination of months of research by university teams working to advance technolog...
For NASA’s next generation of deep space exploration missions, spacecraft may need to refuel in Earth orbit before pushing farther into the solar system. Similar to how a gas pump needs a nozzle to fit your fuel tank, future spacecraft could require a special device in order to fill up prior to depa...
A mission to raise the orbit of NASA’s Swift observatory is poised for launch June 30.
NASA selected 41 proposals from 37 companies to advance technologies in support of the agency’s goals to establish a long-term presence on the Moon and enable human exploration of Mars. These American companies, picked from NASA’s 2025 Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity (ACO), will mature tec...
Euclid, an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with NASA contributions, took a new look at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, seen in this image released on June 24, 2026. This observation overlaps with a region scientists will observe with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching later t...
Growing up on the central California coast, watching rocket launches with his father was part of Eric Fernandez’s childhood routine. Fernandez had posters of rockets on the wall, but despite being fascinated by them, he never imagined one day this would be his career. Because both of his grandparent...
With the North American fire season underway, and a record number of acres already burned nationwide, NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite’s three instruments are observing vegetation precursors to fires, along with plumes of smoke and their movement. This data will...
The subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is an ancient inhabitant of our galaxy. This sparkling scene features a globular cluster: a collection of tens of thousands to millions of stars, all tightly bound together under the influence of gravity. There are more than 150 globular c...
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. Heat waves mess with your brain. Scientists are trying to figure out why. —Jessica Hamzelou It’s been hot in London this week. Really hot. A dangerous...
It’s been hot in London this week. Really hot. A dangerous heat wave has hit Western Europe. Yesterday, the UK recorded its highest ever June temperature at 36.1 °C (about 97 °F). But as the weather app on my phone confirmed, it felt like 39 °C. It’s frightening that we are seeing such temperatures...
Marshy, sandy terrain and an impassable inlet helped colonial forces repel British forces during a pivotal battle on the barrier island near Charleston, South Carolina, on June 28, 1776.
On June 16, astronauts and cosmonauts gathered at Space Center Houston to share stories from their missions aboard the International Space Station and recognize the teamwork and people on the ground that made their missions possible.  The Expedition 73 Welcome Home Ceremony brought togethe...
NASA and the U.S. Small Business Administration will sign a memorandum of agreement during a ceremony at 1 p.m. EDT, Monday, June 29, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The agreement will create a new interagency initiative that directly responds to President Donald J. Trump’s National Space Policy...
The Republic of Botswana signed the Artemis Accords Thursday during a ceremony hosted by NASA at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, becoming the sixth African nation to join a growing community of nations committed to the peaceful, transparent, and responsible exp...
NASA has selected Rocket Lab to provide the launch service for both the agency’s PolSIR (Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer) and Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor-2 (TSIS-2) missions. The two selections are part of NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR)...
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently observed edge-on starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82), nicknamed the Cigar Galaxy. Webb’s new view of M82, added to archival data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, gives us a more complete picture of this starburst galaxy. Because Webb can see infrared...
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping retail, but not in the ways consumers might immediately notice. The biggest transformation may not be flashy virtual try-ons or chatbot shopping assistants, but in how decisions are made behind the scenes: how products surface in search results, how inven...
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. Europe’s extreme heat is shutting down power plants Europe is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave, and the grid is being pushed to its limits...
It’s been hard to look away from headlines about the European heat wave this week. Temperatures are breaking records across the continent, and the weather is threatening lives, shutting down schools, and in one particularly ironic case, forcing the cancellation of a London Climate Action Week event...
IBM has built a new prototype chip with around 100 billion transistors on an area the size of a fingernail, which is twice the density of the company’s previous state-of-the-art technology announced in 2021. The design could pave the way for faster and more energy efficient computers for years to co...
Phytoplankton added a milky blue hue to the waters of the Black Sea and nearby waterways in spring and summer 2026.
NASA has revealed two new “super-puff” planets, giant worlds so light that their density is comparable to cotton candy. Scientists calculate that these Jupiter-sized planets are the “puffiest” worlds ever found.
Seven weeks after the Orion spacecraft returned four astronauts from humanity’s first crewed journey around the Moon since Apollo, Artemis II Orion Vehicle Manager Branelle Rodriguez reflected on the mission’s achievements and how it is shaping...