Citizen Science Highlights

NASA needs your help! You can collaborate with professional scientists, conduct cutting-edge science, and make real discoveries. A science degree is not required, just a passion for understanding the natural world. Here, you can read news about NASA-funded citizen science projects, new discoveries, and opportunities to get involved. For more information on current citizen science projects.

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NASA’s CloudSat Ends Mission Peering Into the Heart of Clouds

6 min read

Over the course of nearly two decades, its powerful radar provided never-before-seen details of clouds and helped advance global weather and climate predictions. CloudSat, a NASA mission that peered into hurricanes, tallied global snowfall rates, and achieved other weather and…

Article23 hours ago
Image of the Fermi e-book cover

Explore the Universe with the First E-Book from NASA’s Fermi

4 min read

To commemorate a milestone anniversary for NASA’s Fermi spacecraft, the mission team has published an e-book called “Our High-Energy Universe: 15 Years with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.” Readers can download the e-book in PDF and EPUB formats. The e-book…

Article1 day ago
Taking up most of the image, is a multi-colored nebula in shades of blue, pink, yellow, orange, purple, and white. It appears as two translucent orbs attached by a white band.

Hubble Celebrates 34th Anniversary with a Look at the Little Dumbbell Nebula

5 min read

In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651) located 3,400 light-years away in the…

Article1 day ago
This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158. The majestic galaxy has a pinwheel shape made up of bright blue stars wound around a yellow-white hub of central stars. The hub has a slash of stars across it, called a bar. The galaxy is tilted face-on to our view from Earth. A slightly s-shaped white line across the top is a Hubble image is of an asteroid streaking across Hubble's view. It looks dashed because the image is a combination of several exposures of the asteroid flying by like a race car.

Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids

5 min read

Like boulders, rocks, and pebbles scattered across a landscape, asteroids come in a wide range of sizes. Cataloging asteroids in space is tricky because they are faint and they don’t stop to be photographed as they zip along their orbits…

Article6 days ago
Artist concept of TESS spacecraft.

NASA’s TESS Returns to Science Operations

2 min read

NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has returned to work after science observations were suspended on April 8, when the spacecraft entered into safe mode. All instruments are powered on and, following the successful download of previously collected science data…

Article7 days ago

NASA’s Near Space Network Enables PACE Climate Mission to ‘Phone Home’

6 min read

The PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission has delivered its first operational data back to researchers, a feat made possible in part by innovative, data-storing technology from NASA’s Near Space Network, which introduced two key enhancements for PACE and…

Article7 days ago
Photograph of NICER on the space station.

Astronauts To Patch Up NASA’s NICER Telescope

4 min read

NASA is planning to repair NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, during a spacewalk later this year. It will be the fourth science observatory in orbit serviced by astronauts. In May 2023,…

Article1 week ago
Screenshot of the webpage for My NASA Data: Solar Eclipse.

My NASA Data Milestones: Eclipsed by the Eclipse!

2 min read

The My NASA Data (MND) project supports grades 3rd through 12th-grade students and teachers across the globe in analyzing and interpreting NASA mission data. MND provides student and teacher materials, including teacher-facing lesson plans, student-facing lessons and interactives, and NASA…

Article1 week ago
The Pinwheel galaxy (M101) as imaged by the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, with SN 2023ixf circled.

NASA’s Fermi Mission Sees No Gamma Rays from Nearby Supernova

5 min read

A nearby supernova in 2023 offered astrophysicists an excellent opportunity to test ideas about how these types of explosions boost particles, called cosmic rays, to near light-speed. But surprisingly, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected none of the high-energy gamma-ray…

Article1 week ago
Background: A black landscape with small stars. Left: A small Jupiter-like orb. Right: A larger reddish orb passes in front of a star.

A Solar Neighborhood Census, Thanks to NASA Citizen Science

4 min read

To take a census of nearby cosmic objects, sending out a survey won’t work. Scientists need to use many telescopes with different specializations to chart what is in the general neighborhood of the Sun. Looking to understand more about our…

Article1 week ago
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