National Aeronautics and Space Administration press releases

NASA Awards 2026 Innovative Technology Concepts

NASA has awarded 18 new projects under its Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, providing $3.2 million to support early-stage research into visionary aerospace technologies. These projects aim to develop breakthrough concepts for lunar exploration, planetary science, and deep-space missions.

NASA Sets Coverage for August Northern Hemisphere Total Solar Eclipse

NASA announced its coverage plan for the total solar eclipse occurring on August 12, 2026, which will be visible in parts of Europe, Greenland, Iceland, and northern Russia. The agency will provide a live broadcast featuring expert interviews and information on scientific experiments being conducted during the event.

NASA’s Curiosity Views a Sand-Capped Butte

NASA's Curiosity rover captured a panoramic image of a sand-capped butte nicknamed "Miraflores" on Mars. The image shows a geological feature left behind by erosion in a broad valley.

NASA’s Curiosity Discovers a Field of Martian Polygons

NASA's Curiosity rover captured a 360-degree panorama of a dense field of polygonal surface features on Mars. Scientists are analyzing these textures to determine if they were formed by processes such as water loss, temperature cycles, or sediment compaction.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Discovers Field of Honeycomb Textures

NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered a vast expanse of honeycomb-like polygonal fractures in the Valle Grande region of Mars. Scientists are currently analyzing the data to determine whether these features were formed by mud cracks, temperature cycles, or sediment compression.

APOD: 2026 July 29 – Psyche Receives Gravity Assist from Mars

NASA shared a video demonstrating how the Psyche spacecraft utilized a gravity assist from Mars in May 2026 to increase its speed and adjust its trajectory toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The mission also used the flyby to test instruments that will eventually analyze the asteroid's composition and magnetic field.

Understanding How Martian Auroras Are Made

This July 23, 2026, illustration depicts charged particles from a solar storm stripping away charged particles of Mars’ atmosphere, one of the processes of Martian atmosphere loss studied by NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission. NASA MAVEN mission scientists have found that certain types of auroras on Mars form in a similar way […]

NASA Webb Explores Family Tree of Newly Discovered Distant Objects

Since their discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers. Understanding the nature of these extremely distant, compact red sources has been a puzzling scientific endeavor. One popular theory is that little red dots are supermassive black holes known as active […]

Contractor to Civil Servant: NASA Welcomes Ray Williams

Ray Williams’ progression at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, has uniquely prepared him for his new role. As part of NASA’s plan to restore core competencies by converting contractors to civil service, the New Orleans native and Grambling State University graduate now works as a supervisor for test operations support at […]

Sizing Up the Sargassum Belt

Seaweed composing the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt hit near-record levels in June 2026, with the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of America both reaching all-time highs.

APOD: 2026 July 28 – Barnards Loop over Twin Volcanoes

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day features a photograph of Barnard's Loop appearing to connect the Parinacota and Pomerape volcanoes in Bolivia. The image also highlights the Orion Nebula, the star Betelgeuse, and the Rosette Nebula.

Smoke Blankets Oregon

Lightning storms have ignited dozens of fires in central and eastern Oregon.