NASA
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NASA
What Lake Bonneville Left Behind
At its peak, ancient Lake Bonneville would have been a sight to behold. Nearly as large as Lake Michigan, the Ice Age lake spread across much of western Utah and parts of Nevada and Idaho. When it eventually receded, it left behind flat, bright playas and salt flats rich with minerals—a landscape that would later serve as the setting for feats of engineering and…
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NASA
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4982–4987: Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming
By Allison Dries-Padilla, Missions Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 14, 2026 This week of Curiosity Mars rover operations takes us back to our “regularly scheduled programming.” After taking a slight detour to investigate the “erosional surface” we are back on course to ascend Mount Sharp. As we transition into fall in Gale Crater,…
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NASA
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Mostly Perseids Explanation: Recorded the night of August 12-13, images from four dedicated meteor-monitoring cameras at an astronomical observatory in Czechia were aligned and combined to create this all-night, all-sky view. On that night, the total count came to 1,706 meteors. And since that coincided with the peak activity of the 2026 Perseid Meteor Shower, most are perseids. Their overwhelming numbers make them easy to…
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NASA
NASA Shares Views of August Solar Eclipse from Ground, Air, Space
On Aug. 12, a total solar eclipse darkened skies over Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. As the Moon covered the Sun, it briefly revealed the Sun’s wispy outer atmosphere — the corona — to those in the path of totality who were lucky enough to have clear skies. NASA researchers and photographers were along the eclipse path to study the corona,…
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NASA
Webb Opens Treasure Chest
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured this Aug. 6, 2026, infrared image of part of the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region also home to the Cosmic Cliffs. This feature, called the “Treasure Chest,” is an object known as a cometary globule. A cometary globule is an isolated cloud of gas and dust with a dense, dark head and a sweeping tail. Image credit: ESA/Webb,…
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NASA
NASA’s Artemis II Crew Set to Receive Congressional Space Medal of Honor
President Donald J. Trump will award each of NASA’s Artemis II crew members the Congressional Space Medal of Honor at 11 a.m. EDT on Friday, Aug. 28, during a ceremony at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, completed a 10-day mission around the Moon…
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NASA
Europe’s Scorching Summer
Western Europe got its first hint of an unusual summer in May 2026, when a heat dome produced exceptional temperatures that shattered records in several countries. Remarkable as it was, that early heat wave turned out to be only the opening salvo. By mid-August, Europeans were sweating through their fifth heat wave of the season, with the latest onslaught pushing temperatures well above 40 degrees Celsius…
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NASA
An Uncommon Drifter in the Denmark Strait
Greenland’s jagged coastline is lined with fjords, many of them cradling marine-terminating glaciers that routinely calve icebergs into the water. It’s common to see these bergs, small and large, drifting in the island’s fjords each summer once the sea ice breaks up. In summer 2026, one exceptionally large berg turned up in the Denmark Strait—more than a thousand kilometers south…
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NASA
Artemis Mission Patches
A jacket decorated with Artemis I and II mission patches, along with other NASA patches hangs on the back of a chair on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, inside the Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a terminal countdown simulation for the Artemis III mission. NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems team conducted the terminal count simulation, which…
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NASA
NASA Selects University Teams to Help Advance Aviation Research
NASA has selected four university teams to help the agency transform the future of aviation through projects ranging from high-supersonic propulsion systems to low-noise routes for small aircraft flying through cities. The agency made awards through its University Leadership Initiative, which offers student teams the opportunity to contribute to real-world flight research that advances NASA’s goals in aeronautics. This year’s awardees are pursuing…
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