NASA’s nearly complete Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has made another set of critical strides toward launch. This fall, the outer portion passed two tests — a shake test and an intense sound blast — to ensure its successful launch. The inner portion of the observatory underwent a major 65-day thermal vacuum test, showing that […]
Red Spider Nebula
Using its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured never-before-seen details of the Red Spider Nebula, a planetary nebula, in this image released on Oct. 26, 2025. NIRCam is Webb’s primary near-infrared imager, providing high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy for a wide variety of investigations. Webb’s new view of the Red Spider Nebula reveals for the […]
NASA Crater Detection Challenge
Crater rims are vital landmarks for planetary science and navigation. Yet detecting them in real imagery is tough, with shadows, lighting shifts, and broken edges obscuring their shape. This project invites you to develop methods that can reliably fit ellipses to crater rims, helping advance future space exploration. In the pursuit of next generation, terrain-based […]
CHAPEA Crew Begins Stay Inside NASA’s Mars Habitat for Second Mission
A crew of four research volunteers stepped inside NASA’s CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) habitat on Oct. 19, marking the start of the agency’s second 378-day simulated Mars mission. Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery, and James Spicer are living and working inside the roughly 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat at the agency’s Johnson Space […]