The latest news briefs from NASA science.
Scouring archived observations from NASA missions, scientists may have solved a mystery about what powers a type of aurora called auroral arcs. The answer, they say, is space waves. From the ground, auroral arcs look like green, glowing curtains of light sweeping across the night sky. From space, they appear as thin, green lines — or arcs — slicing across the […]
New analysis of decades-old data has turned up a significant result: the first discovery of ammonia-bearing compounds on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Ammonia is a nitrogen-bearing molecule, and nitrogen — like carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen — is key to life as we know it. As the first such detection at Europa, the finding […]
Science teams at NASA and the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales) have released the first-ever global estimate of river discharge and suspended sediment, as observed from space, marking a new milestone in our ability to understand one of Earth’s most fundamental systems. Developed using data from the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean […]
NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution instrument, or TEMPO, is known for measuring trace gases like nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and formaldehyde in the air we breathe. Now TEMPO has a new trick. It can see in the dark. Since launching in 2023, TEMPO data has set a record at the Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) […]
All 48 contiguous United States will now benefit from timely, high-resolution water data. The OpenET program, a public-private collaboration led by consortium partners NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, California State University Monterey Bay, Environmental Defense Fund, Desert Research Institute, Google Earth Engine, and HabitatSeven, provides information on evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration is the movement of water from […]
Researchers are turning to satellite data to monitor the world’s longest bridges. Due to high costs and logistical challenges, fewer than 1 in 5 bridges extending 492 feet (150 meters) or more have systems installed to track structural changes that might be harbingers of damage or danger. Satellites could more than triple the portion of […]
With the help of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, astronomers have made the first continuous, two-dimensional maps of the outer edge of the Sun’s atmosphere. At this boundary, which scientists call the Alfvén surface, solar material escapes from the Sun to become the solar wind, a million-mile-per-hour stream of particles that flows outward in all directions across the solar system, striking planets, […]
With several hundred blows of a 10-pound (4.5-kilogram) sledgehammer, researchers tested a method to find subsurface caves that could serve as safe underground habitats and research facilities on the Moon and Mars. The team, which includes NASA scientists, conducted their field experiments near Flagstaff, Arizona, and Tulelake, California, in locations that resemble the landscapes future […]
NASA scientists have developed a new set of tools to monitor plant growth under various conditions throughout the growing season. The hope is that land managers could use these tools to detect sudden drops in plant productivity and to respond earlier to events like heat stress, droughts, and cold snaps. Monitoring the productivity, or how […]
