NASA
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NASA
Tracking Glacial Change with Landsat and Radar
For the first time, scientists have created a comprehensive global dataset revealing how the world’s glaciers speed up and slow down with the seasons. Published in Science in November 2025, this groundbreaking study analyzed over 36 million satellite image pairs—including decades of Landsat data—to track the seasonal “pulse” of every major glacier on Earth. The research, built off the ITS_LIVE ice velocity dataset from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory…
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NASA
Chilled New York City
The New York metropolitan area was showing the effects of a prolonged cold spell in late January 2026. During a stretch of frigid weather, ice choked the Hudson River along Manhattan’s western shore. The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured this image of the wintry landscape around midday on January 28. The image is false-color (bands 5-4-3) to distinguish ice (light blue) from open…
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NASA
Full Moon over Artemis II
A full moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the early hours of February 1, 2026. The agency concluded a wet dress rehearsal for the agency’s Artemis II test flight early Tuesday morning, successfully loading cryogenic propellant into…
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NASA
NASA Space to Soil Challenge
Rapid advances in commercial space, artificial intelligence, and edge computing are transforming what is possible for Earth observation. By pushing more intelligence onboard, missions can move from passively collecting data to actively interpreting and responding to changing surface conditions in near-real time, enabling more targeted observations and dramatically improving the value of data returned to the ground. Within this context,…
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NASA
Cracking Antarctic Sea Ice
‘Tis the season for long and ruler-straight cracks in McMurdo Sound’s sea ice. Though natural breaks in sea ice are called leads, the better term for the human-made fracture seen in these satellite images is a ship channel. In the austral summer, usually in January, an icebreaker rams a path through the fast ice—a type of sea ice that is anchored to the shore—that often covers…
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NASA
NASA Astronaut to Answer Questions from Students in Pennsylvania
NASA astronaut Chris Williams will connect with students in Pennsylvania to answer prerecorded science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) questions while aboard the International Space Station. The Earth-to-space call will begin at 12:20 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 5, and will stream live on the agency’s Learn With NASA YouTube channel. Media interested in covering the event must RSVP by 5 p.m., Wednesday, Feb.…
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NASA
NASA’s Orion Spacecraft at Launch Pad
NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which will carry the Artemis II crew around the Moon, sits at the launch pad on Jan. 17, 2026, after rollout. It rests atop the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. Orion can provide living space on missions for four astronauts for up to 21 days without docking to another spacecraft. Advances in technology for deep space travel such as life support, avionics,…
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NASA
NASA to Discuss Early Results of Artemis II Wet Dress Rehearsal
Editor’s note: This advisory was updated at on Feb. 3, 2026, to reflect a change in the start of the news conference and its participants, as well as removing a placeholder for a crew media gaggle. Following a fueling test of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket at the launch pad for the Artemis II Moon mission, leaders will discuss…
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NASA
NASA Earth Energy Instrument Completes Testing, Ready for Delivery
NASA’s Libera instrument, which is designed to maintain the global data record of Earth’s radiation budget, has successfully completed comprehensive environmental testing. This critical milestone included thermal vacuum tests that simulate the expected space temperature and environments that Libera will experience during its mission. The Libera instrument will fly on Joint Polar Satellite System-4 (JPSS-4), the next satellite in the…
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NASA
NASA Selects Axiom Space for Fifth Private Mission to Space Station
NASA and Axiom Space have signed an order for the fifth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, targeted to launch no earlier than January 2027 from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “The award of our fifth private astronaut mission shows that commercial space is not a distant promise, but a present reality,” said NASA Administrator Jared…
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