The latest news briefs from NASA science.
Computer models used to forecast air quality may have gaps when it comes to farmland, according to a newly published NASA-supported study that compared simulations to real-world data collected on both coasts. Irrigation, in particular, may play a greater role than previously thought when it comes to how heat, moisture, and pollutants churn between Earth’s […]
A NASA instrument designed to measure moonlight to help satellite sensors make more accurate measurements.
Plants exposed to artificial lighting burst into bloom earlier and flower longer than plants exposed exclusively to natural sunlight. A recent study that relies on NASA satellite data found that this effect raises pollen counts throughout much of the year, extending and intensifying allergy seasons in brightly lit communities. In a study in PNAS Nexus, […]
NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, known for measuring tiny organisms in the ocean and particles in the atmosphere, has a new capability: it can track nitrogen dioxide pollution. Nitrogen dioxide is a harmful air pollutant produced from burning fossil fuels and wood. The trace gas can also react with sunlight and oxygen […]
Massive stars are often known to go out with a bang: The core collapses, and a wave of subatomic particles called neutrinos erupt outward, causing the star to explode as a supernova that can outshine an entire galaxy. But 2.5 million light-years away from Earth, in the Andromeda galaxy, a dying star named M31-2014-DS1 did […]
The thermal infrared capabilities of an imager on NASA’s Terra satellite have been shut off and will no longer collect data, more than 25 years after the instrument captured its first image of Earth from space. This is the latest effort to prioritize power on Terra for its remaining instruments. Terra, which had a design […]
In a new study, researchers say that non-biological sources they considered could not fully account for the abundance of organic compounds in a sample collected on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover. In March 2025, scientists reported identifying small amounts of decane, undecane, and dodecane in a rock sample analyzed in the chemistry lab aboard Curiosity. […]
Data from NASA’s Juno mission has revealed that the solar system’s largest planet is slightly smaller and more “squashed” than previously believed. By analyzing radio occultation data from 13 flybys of Jupiter and incorporating the effects of zonal winds, mission scientists have determined that Jupiter is about 5 miles (8 kilometers) narrower at the equator and 15 miles (24 […]
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 […]
