The Moon appears red during a total lunar eclipse over New Orleans, home of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, on March 3, 2026. This “blood moon” occurs during a total lunar eclipse, as Earth lines up between the Moon and the Sun. When this happens, the only light that reaches the Moon’s surface is from the edges of Earth’s atmosphere. The air molecules from Earth’s atmosphere scatter out most of the blue light. The remaining light reflects onto the Moon’s surface with a red glow, making the Moon appear red in the night sky. This is the same effect that turns the sky pink, orange, and red at sunrise and sunset.
On the southeastern coast of Anglesey, an island off the coast of mainland Wales, lies a little town with a big name. Following a Welsh tradition of naming towns after churches and nearby geographic features, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch roughly translates to “St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.”
Though Wales has many towns with long names, the unusual length of this one is intentional. The settlement, now home to about 3,000 people, was once called Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, but a local resident pushed for the longer version of the name in the 1860s as part of an effort to promote tourism and give its train station the longest name in Britain. Locals usually use a short version of the name—either Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG.
The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured this image of the town on April 9, 2025. The image below shows a wider view of the same area. The whirlpool mentioned in the name likely refers to a section of the Menai Strait between the Menai Suspension Bridge and Britannia Bridge known as the Swellies. The area is known for having exceptionally treacherous waters because of its complex bathymetry and because tides enter the strait from both ends at different times, creating strong swirling currents. Menai Suspension Bridge, often described as the first modern suspension bridge, was completed in 1826.
April 9, 2025
Llanddaniel Fab, a village nearby, is the hometown of NASA luminary Tecwyn Roberts. Roberts was a shy boy who grew up without electricity but went on to become one of NASA’s first flight dynamics officers. He is credited with helping to conceptualize NASA’s Deep Space Network, helping design Mission Control at Johnson Space Center, and leading the development of key systems used to communicate with Apollo astronauts.
Llanfairpwll’s full name, with 58 characters, is still shorter than the ceremonial 168-character name for Bangkok, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. However, Llanfairpwll’s full name is said to be the longest one-word place name in Europe and among the longest in the world.
Neighboring planets also boast some lengthy place names. Among the contenders on these other worlds: Schiaparelli crater on Mars, Nantosuelta valley on Venus, and Tchaikovsky crater on Mercury. But even these are less than half the length of the Welsh town’s name. The International Astronomical Union working group responsible for naming planetary features recommends that the first consideration for potential names is that they be “simple, clear, and unambiguous.”
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Artist concept of a high-speed point-to-point vehicle.
NASA Langley
What We do
The High-Speed Flight (HSF) project develops technologies that make high-speed, airbreathing, commercial flight possible from Mach 1 to Mach 5 and above.
HSF creates tools, technologies, and knowledge that will help eliminate today’s technical barriers to practical supersonic flight, most notably sonic boom. The project supports the X-59 quiet supersonic vehicle testing by gathering acoustic data and validating tools that predict in-flight sonic booms.
HSF conducts fundamental and applied research that explores key challenges in reusable, hypersonic flight technology.
Future Applications
The project evaluates the potential for future commercial hypersonic vehicles, including reusable access to space and commercial point-to-point missions.
Unique Hypersonic Facilities and Expertise
NASA maintains unique facilities, laboratories, and subject matter experts who investigate fundamental and applied research areas to solve the challenges of hypersonic flight. The High-Speed Flight project coordinates closely with partners in industry, academia, and other government agencies to leverage relevant data sets to validate computational models. These partners also utilize NASA expertise, facilities, and computational tools. Partnerships are critical to advancing the state of the art in hypersonic flight.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA
NASA’s Advanced Air Vehicles Program (AAVP) studies, evaluates, and develops technologies and capabilities for new aircraft systems and explores far-future concepts for revolutionary air travel improvements. AAVP develops technologies for all flight regimes from hover to hypersonic to enable safe, new aircraft that are faster, quieter, and more fuel efficient.
AAVP develops a broad range of technologies that maintain U.S. leadership in aerospace, benefitting the nation’s economy and quality of life. AAVP’s research primes the technology pipeline, bolstering U.S. competitiveness.
For subsonic transport aircraft, AAVP accelerates development of key technologies to ensure they will be ready by the late 2020s to transition into U.S. industry’s next-generation single-aisle transport aircraft. AAVP also explores high-risk, high-payoff concepts for future generations of aircraft. The program engages with partners from industry, academia, and other government agencies to maintain a broad perspective on technology solutions to aviation’s challenges, to pursue mutually beneficial collaborations, and to leverage opportunities for effective technology transition.
The food flying aboard Artemis II is designed to support crew health and performance during the mission around the Moon. With no resupply, refrigeration, or late-load capability, all meals must be carefully selected to remain safe, shelf-stable, and easy to prepare and consume in NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Food selections are developed in coordination with space food experts and the crew to balance calorie needs, hydration, and nutrient intake while accommodating individual crew preferences.
Here are a frequently asked questions about how NASA designs and prepares food systems for Artemis II to support crew health:
What considerations go into selecting and packaging food for safe use during a mission like Artemis II?
Food selection for Artemis II considers shelf life, food safety, nutritional value, crew preference, and compatibility with Orion’s mass, volume, and power requirements. Foods must be easy to prepare and consume in microgravity, minimize crumbs, and remain safe and stable throughout the mission. The crew provided input well before the meals were packed for the test flight.
How are menu items structured to make up an astronaut’s typical daily meals?
On a typical mission day—excluding launch and reentry—astronauts have scheduled time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Each astronaut is allotted two flavored beverages per day, which may include coffee. Beverage options are limited due to upmass constraints, which restrict how much food and drink can be carried onboard.
Fresh foods will not be flying on Artemis II as Orion does not have refrigeration nor the late load capability required for fresh foods. Shelf-stable foods help manage food safety and quality throughout the intended shelf life in a compact, self-contained spacecraft, while also reducing the risk of crumbs or particulates in microgravity.
How do Artemis II menus differ from those used during Apollo, space shuttle, and International Space Station missions?
Artemis II menus reflect decades of advancement in space food systems. Apollo missions relied on early food technologies with limited variety, while space shuttle missions expanded menu options and onboard preparation. The International Space Station benefits from regular resupply and occasional fresh foods. In contrast, Artemis II uses a fixed, pre-selected menu designed for a self-contained space vehicle with no resupply.
How much input does the Artemis II crew have in choosing their meals?
The Artemis II crew has direct input into menu selection. Crew members sample, evaluate, and rate all foods on the standard menu during preflight testing, and their preferences are balanced with nutritional requirements and what Orion can accommodate. Final, crew-specific menus are set well before launch. Two to three days’ worth of food for each crewmember is packed together in a single container, providing flexibility for meal selection during the mission.
How are menus tailored for different mission phases, such as launch, transit, and re-entry?
Menus are tailored based on the spacecraft’s food preparation capabilities during each hase of flight. Certain foods — such as freeze-dried meals — require hydration using Orion’s potable water dispenser, which is not available during some phases, including launch and landing. As a result, foods selected for those phases must be ready-to-eat and compatible with the spacecraft’s operational constraints, while a broader range of food options are available once full food preparation systems are up and running.
How is space food prepared in the Orion spacecraft?
Food aboard Orion is ready-to-eat, rehydratable, thermostabilized, or irradiated. The crew uses Orion’s potable water dispenser to rehydrate foods and beverages and a compact, briefcase-style food warmer to heat meals as needed.
What challenges come with designing and preparing food for a contained spacecraft like Orion?
Designing food systems for Orion requires balancing nutrition, safety, and crew preference within strict mass, volume, and power limits inside a compact, shared cabin.
Foods must be easy to store, prepare, and consume in microgravity while minimizing crumbs and waste. Preparation is intentionally simple, using ready-to-eat, rehydratable, thermostabilized, or irradiated foods that can be safely prepared without interfering with crew operations or spacecraft systems.
Watch: How to Eat in Space Aboard Orion
Victoria Segovia
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
victoria.segovia@nasa.gov
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4818-4824: Thinking Out of the Boxwork
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam), showing the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument investigating a target. APXS is a spectrometer that measures the abundance of chemical elements in rocks and soils, is about the size of a cupcake, and is located on the turret at the end of Curiosity’s robotic arm. Curiosity captured this image on Feb. 26, 2026 — Sol 4820, or Martian day 4,820 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 13:03:08 UTC.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Written by Ashley Stroupe, Operations Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 27, 2026
This week we had three planning sessions, exploring the eastern side of the boxwork unit. As a Rover Planner on Monday, I worked on the arm and drive activities, while on Friday I served as the Engineering Uplink Lead (planning all of our engineering activities like heating and managing our onboard data). We had two small drives this week to put different targets into our workspace for each plan. The months-long careful and systematic investigation of the boxwork unit will hopefully provide the science team insights on what was going on in this area of Mars that resulted in this interesting and unique terrain. As we wrap it up, we are already thinking ahead to our future investigations of the sulfate unit, where we will be heading after finishing here and continuing our climb up Mount Sharp.
With three plans and short drives, we were able to do a total of 19 Mastcam stereo mosaics, getting a full 360-degree panorama as well as additional documentation of the nearby ridges/hollows and the nearby sulfate unit. Some of the rocks in the hollows show a return of the polygonal structures that we saw in abundance prior to entering the boxwork unit, but have only seen sparsely in other hollows. As we are entering deeper into the warmer months, the start of dust-storm season, we have also been doing a lot of atmospheric measurements. We did multiple observations of the crater rim (to watch it fading into the haze), Mastcam solar Tau measurements (looking at the Sun to measure dust in the atmosphere), dust-devil movies, and other sky observations.
We investigated a total of four targets with MAHLI and APXS, two of which we were able to brush. The accompanying image shows the APXS down on one of the targets near the contact. Most of the targets were not very complicated for the Rover Planners because the rocks have been mostly smooth and flat. But our Wednesday target, “Los Monos,” was slightly under the front of the rover, and we had to do some additional intermediate arm motions to reach underneath safely. We won’t actually know if today’s targets are on the other side of the contact (in the sulfate unit) or not until we can study the data.
Planning the short drives has been interesting, as with most of the boxwork unit drives, because we must navigate around the sand and steeper slopes in hopes of minimizing slip. In this weekend’s plan our drive will head south towards the southern end of the boxwork unit, where the terrain smooths out a bit and driving should be easier.
