NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Nebula PMR 1 is a cloud of gas and dust that bears an uncanny resemblance to a brain in a transparent skull, inspiring its nickname, the “Exposed Cranium” nebula. Webb captured its unusual features in both near- and mid-infrared light. The nebula was first revealed in infrared light by a predecessor to Webb, NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, more than a decade ago. Webb’s advanced instruments show detail that enhances the nebula’s brain-like appearance. This image, released on Feb. 25, 2026, is in near-infrared light.
The nebula appears to have distinct regions that capture different phases of its evolution — an outer shell of gas that was blown off first and consists mostly of hydrogen, and an inner cloud with more structure that contains a mix of different gases. Both Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) show a distinctive dark lane running vertically through the middle of the nebula that defines its brain-like look of left and right hemispheres. Webb’s resolution shows that this lane could be related to an outburst or outflow from the central star, which typically occurs as twin jets burst out in opposite directions.
NASA astronaut Chris Williams calls mission controllers during Crew Medical Officer training while inside the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module.
NASA/Jessica Meir
Students in New York will hear from NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Chris Williams as they answer prerecorded science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) questions while aboard the International Space Station.
The Earth-to-space call will begin at 12:05 p.m. EDT Wednesday, March 11, and will stream live on the agency’s Learn With NASA YouTube channel.
This event is hosted by the Queens Borough Public Library in Jamaica, New York, for students in grades K-12 and members of the community. This unique opportunity aims to deepen understanding of space exploration and inspire young people to pursue a future career in STEM.
For more than 25 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through SCaN’s (Space Communications and Navigation) Near Space Network.
Research and technology investigations taking place aboard the space station benefit people on Earth and lay the groundwork for other agency deep space missions. As part of NASA’s Artemis program, the agency will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars, inspiring the world through discovery in a new Golden Age of innovation and exploration.
Just inland from the Pacific coast of El Salvador, the striking blue waters of Lake Coatepeque fill part of a caldera of the same name. An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photo of the lake and surrounding terrain on February 10, 2026, as the station passed over Central America.
The caldera formed during a series of explosive eruptions between 72,000 and 51,000 years ago. After the caldera’s formation, additional eruptions produced several lava domes along its western side, including one that became Isla del Cerro (Isla Teopán). According to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, there have been no reported eruptions from the caldera during the Holocene (the past 11,700 years).
Today, homes, restaurants, boathouses, and other structures line the lakeshore. This human footprint extends westward toward the caldera’s steep rim, which abuts the eastern flank of Santa Ana—El Salvador’s tallest volcano. Unlike Coatepeque, Santa Ana remains active, with small to moderate explosive eruptions recorded since the 16th century. Its most recent severe eruption occurred in 2005.
Although the lake appears its usual blue in this photo, it can occasionally take on a strikingly different hue. At times, the water temporarily shifts to bright turquoise, prompting questions about its cause. In 2024, scientists reported that while pigments from microalgae and cyanobacteria can affect the lake’s color, the turquoise episodes are likely the result of natural mineralization.
The broader landscape around the lake and Santa Ana Volcano is a mosaic of urban areas, agricultural fields, and even more volcanic terrain. The city of Santa Ana lies about 15 kilometers (9 miles) to the north, while San Salvador, also nestled amid volcanoes, lies 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the east. The volcanic landscape stretches more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) along Central America’s Pacific coast, from Guatemala to Panama, composing the Central American Volcanic Arc.
Astronaut photograph ISS074-E-312810 was acquired on February 10, 2026, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 400 millimeters. It was provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The images were taken by a member of the Expedition 74 crew. The images have been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Story by Kathryn Hansen.
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References & Resources
Atlas Obscura (2024, November 12) Lago Coatepeque. Accessed March 5, 2026.
From Cabbages to Countdowns: NASA Marks 100 Years of Modern Rocketry
Photograph of Robert Goddard and his liquid-fueled rocket, prior to its first flight on March 16, 1926, from a farm at Auburn, Mass.
Credits:Esther Goddard, Courtesy of Clark University
Snow covered the ground that Tuesday morning 100 years ago, when a college professor and his wife took a morning drive to the family farm a few miles south in Auburn, Massachusetts. Along for the ride, the couple brought two work colleagues — and “Nell.”
They may not have known it at the time, but thanks to Nell, the four New Englanders were about to attend an auspicious birth.
Some eleven feet tall and weighing a mere 10 pounds, Nell was a contraption of the professor’s invention. He had devised, constructed, and tested Nell methodically, incrementally, over the course of many, many years.
That snowy morning at Aunt Effie’s farm, the professor’s assistant took a blowtorch to Nell.
Moments later Nell ascended. The gangly apparatus climbed 41 feet high and landed in a cabbage patch 60 yards away. The entire journey took less than three seconds, but March 16, 1926, had just become the date of the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket flight, and Dr. Robert Goddard had just become a father of modern rocketry.
“It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if it said, ‘I’ve been here long enough; I think I’ll be going somewhere else, if you don’t mind,’” Goddard wrote in his journal the next day.
Robert Goddard’s assistant Henry Sachs (left), former student and fellow Clark University Physics professor Percy Roope (middle), and wife Esther Goddard who photographed and filmed much of her husband’s work. They stand with parts from the rocket — later named “Nell” — following the flight of March 16, 1926, at Aunt Effie’s (a distant relative of Robert Goddard’s) Ward Farm in Auburn, Mass. This test marked the world’s first successful launch of a liquid-propelled rocket.
Courtesy of Clark University
The idea of a liquid-fueled rocket was not new. Others around the world had been pondering theory and sketching designs for years: Liquid propellant would offer greater thrust control than solid fuel, but the benefit accompanies tricky challenges, like how to pressurize and control the rate of fuel mixture. Goddard, who filled Nell up with a blend of gasoline and liquid oxygen, became the first in the world to build and successfully launch such a rocket.
Recognition was slow to arrive — ridicule came faster. In 1920, The New York Times opined that Goddard’s work in rocketry and his suggestion that such a device could reach the Moon was “a severe strain on credulity”: How could a rocket function in a vacuum with no air to push against, the newspaper accused. “Of course [Goddard] only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”
It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today, and the reality of tomorrow.
DR. ROBERT H. Goddard
Rocketry Pioneer
But Goddard pressed on, refining and retooling his rockets over the years. At the dawn of the Space Age and with Esther Goddard championing her late husband’s work (Robert Goddard died in 1945), the true significance of the Clark University professor’s work became clearer. NASA named its first new complex the Goddard Space Flight Center in his honor in 1959. Liquid-propelled rocketry has been the backbone of spaceflight ever since.
A century after Goddard’s first launch, NASA’s Artemis II mission is poised to bring astronauts around the Moon for the first time since 1972. The SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that will take them there is 30 times taller and half a million times heavier than Nell — but still liquid-fueled, just as Goddard predicted and pioneered, 100 years ago in a snowy field next to a cabbage patch.
By Rob Garner
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo craft, carrying over 11,000 pounds of new science and supplies for the Expedition 73 crew, is pictured moments before its capture with the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. Both spacecraft were orbiting 257 miles above Namibia. Cygnus XL is Northrop Grumman’s expanded version of its previous Cygnus cargo craft increasing its payload capacity and pressurized cargo volume.
NASA
Media accreditation is open for the next launch to deliver NASA science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. A Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL spacecraft will launch in April to the orbital laboratory on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for NASA.
The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 24 (NASA’s Northrop Grumman CRS-24). Liftoff is targeted for no earlier than Wednesday, April 8, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Following launch, astronauts aboard the space station will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture Cygnus and install the spacecraft to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port for cargo unloading. The spacecraft will remain at the space station until October. This is the company’s 24th spacecraft built to deliver supplies to the International Space Station under contract with NASA.
Credentialing to cover prelaunch and launch activities is open to U.S. media. The application deadline for U.S. citizens is 11:59 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, March 18. All accreditation requests must be submitted online at:
Credentialed media will receive a confirmation email following approval. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, or to request special logistical support, email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact NASA’s Kennedy Space Center newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
In addition to food, supplies, and equipment for the crew, Cygnus will deliver research to the space station, including a new module to advance quantum science that could improve computing technology and aid in the search for dark matter and hardware to produce a greater number of therapeutic stem cells for blood diseases and cancer. Cygnus also will carry model organisms to study the gut microbiome and a receiver that could enhance space weather models that protect critical space infrastructure, such as GPS and radar.
Each resupply mission to the station delivers scientific investigations in the areas of biology and biotechnology, Earth and space science, physical sciences, and technology development and demonstrations. Cargo resupply from U.S. companies ensures a national capability to deliver scientific research to the space station, increasing NASA’s ability to conduct new investigations aboard humanity’s laboratory in space.
For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs that are not possible on Earth. The station is an important testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies concentrate on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a strong low Earth orbit economy, NASA is focusing its resources on deep space missions to the Moon as part of the Artemis program to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:
The Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube traveled alongside NASA’s DART to capture the spacecraft’s collision with Dimorphos. In this LICIACube image, taken moments after impact on Sept. 26, 2022, rocky debris can be seen fanning out from the smaller asteroid below its larger binary partner, Didymos.
ASI/NASA
This image of asteroids Didymos, left, and Dimorphos was captured by NASA’s DART mission a few seconds before the spacecraft smashed into Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022. The impact on the smaller asteroid had a measurable effect on the orbit of its larger partner.
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
The spacecraft changed the binary system’s orbit, confirming that a kinetic impactor can be an effective planetary defense technique for deflecting a near-Earth object.
New research reveals that when NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos in September 2022, it didn’t just change the motion of Dimorphos around its larger companion, Didymos; the crash also shifted the orbit of both asteroids around the Sun. Linked together by gravity, Didymos and Dimorphos orbit each other around a shared center of mass in a configuration known as a binary system, so changes to one asteroid affect the other.
As detailed in a study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances, observations of the pair’s motion revealed that the 770-day orbital period around the Sun changed by a fraction of a second after the DART spacecraft’s impact on Dimorphos. That change marks the first time a human-made object has measurably altered the path of a celestial body around the Sun.
The Hubble Space Telescope observed two tails of dust ejected from the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system several days after NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted the smaller asteroid.
NASA, ESA, Jian-Yang Li (PSI), Joe Depasquale (STScI)
“This is a tiny change to the orbit, but given enough time, even a tiny change can grow to a significant deflection,” said Thomas Statler, lead scientist for solar system small bodies at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The team’s amazingly precise measurement again validates kinetic impact as a technique for defending Earth against asteroid hazards and shows how a binary asteroid might be deflected by impacting just one member of the pair.”
High impact
When DART struck Dimorphos, the impact blasted a huge cloud of rocky debris into space, altering the shape of the asteroid, which measures 560 feet (170 meters) wide. Because the debris carried its own momentum away from the asteroid, it gave Dimorphos an explosive thrust — what scientists call the momentum enhancement factor. More debris being kicked out means more oomph. According to the new research, the momentum enhancement factor for DART’s impact was about two, meaning that the debris loss doubled the punch created by the spacecraft alone.
Earlier research showed that the smaller asteroid’s 12-hour orbital period around the nearly half-mile-wide (805-meter-wide) Didymos shortened by 33 minutes. The new study shows the impact ejected so much material from the binary system that it also changed the binary’s orbital period around the Sun by 0.15 seconds.
“The change in the binary system’s orbital speed was about 11.7 microns per second, or 1.7 inches per hour,” said Rahil Makadia, the study’s lead author at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Over time, such a small change in an asteroid’s motion can make the difference between a hazardous object hitting or missing our planet.”
Although Didymos was not on an impact trajectory with Earth and it was impossible for the DART mission to put it on one, that change in orbital speed underscores the role spacecraft — aka kinetic impactors in this context — could play if a potentially hazardous asteroid is found to be on a collision course in the future. The key is detecting near-Earth objects far enough in advance to send a kinetic impactor.
To that end, NASA is building the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, this next-generation space survey telescope is the first to be built for planetary defense. The mission will seek out some of the hardest-to-find near-Earth objects, such as dark asteroids and comets that don’t reflect much visible light.
How they did it
To prove DART had a detectable influence on both asteroids — not just on the smaller Dimorphos — the researchers needed to measure Didymos’ orbit around the Sun to exquisite precision. So, in addition to making radar and other ground-based observations of the asteroid, they tracked stellar occultations, which occur when the asteroid passes exactly in front of a star, causing the pinpoint of light to blink out for a fraction of a second. This technique provides extremely precise measurements of the asteroid’s speed, shape, and position.
Measuring stellar occultations is challenging: Astronomers have to be in the right place at the right time with several observing stations, sometimes miles apart, to track the predicted path of the asteroid in front of a specific star. The team relied on volunteer astronomers around the globe who recorded 22 stellar occultations between October 2022 and March 2025.
“When combined with years of existing ground-based observations, these stellar occultation observations became key in helping us calculate how DART had changed Didymos’ orbit,” said study co-lead Steve Chesley, a senior research scientist at JPL. “This work is highly weather dependent and often requires travel to remote regions with no guarantee of success. This result would not have been possible without the dedication of dozens of volunteer occultation observers around the world.”
Studying changes in Didymos’ motion also helped the researchers calculate the densities of both asteroids. Dimorphos is slightly less dense than previously thought, supporting the theory that it formed from rocky debris shed by a rapidly spinning Didymos. This loose material eventually clumped together to form Dimorphos, a “rubble pile” asteroid.
More about DART
The DART spacecraft was designed, built, and operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which oversees the agency’s ongoing efforts in planetary defense. It was humanity’s first mission to intentionally move a celestial object.
For more information about the DART mission visit:
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft, loaded with more than 11,000 pounds of science and supplies for Expedition 73, is seen grasped by the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 after its capture on Sept. 18, 2025, as both spacecraft orbited 257 miles above Tanzania.
Credit: NASA
After delivering more than 11,000 pounds of supplies, science investigations, hardware, and other cargo to the International Space Station for NASA and its international partners, the Cygnus XL spacecraft supporting Northrop Grumman’s 23rd Commercial Resupply Services mission is scheduled to depart the orbiting laboratory Thursday, March 12.
Watch NASA’s live coverage of undocking and departure beginning at 6:45 a.m. EDT on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.
Flight controllers on the ground will send commands for the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach the Cygnus XL spacecraft from the Unity module’s Earth‑facing port and maneuver it into position for release at 7 a.m. ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot will monitor Cygnus’ systems as it departs.
Cygnus XL will be commanded to deorbit on Saturday, March 14, to dispose of several thousand pounds of trash during its reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, where it will harmlessly burn up.
The Northrop Grumman spacecraft launched in September 2025 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission is the first flight of the larger, more cargo-capable version of the solar-powered spacecraft.
Learn more about this NASA commercial resupply mission at:
Iceberg A-23A has had a more eventful run than most of the large Antarctic icebergs that have calved from the continent’s ice shelves in recent decades. Over its winding, forty-plus-year journey, the “megaberg” spent decades grounded in the Weddell Sea before drifting north, twirling in an ocean vortex for months, and nearly colliding with an island in 2025.
By 2026, the iconic iceberg, sopping with meltwater and shedding smaller bergs as it moved into warmer ocean waters, put on one more show. The chunks of ice and frigid glacial meltwater left in its wake appear to have fueled a surge in phytoplankton abundance, known as a bloom, observed in surface waters by NASA satellites.
Phytoplankton, which harvest sunlight to carry out photosynthesis, form the base of the marine food web. They also produce up to half of the oxygen on Earth and serve as part of the ocean’s “biological carbon pump,” which transfers carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the deep ocean.
The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this image (left) of the splintering tabular berg on January 25, 2026. The image was acquired after several large pieces had drifted northwestward and then curled toward the northeast following the iceberg breaking apart on January 9. A debris field full of brash ice, small icebergs, and bergy bits was visible east of the largest remaining pieces. Also on January 25, the OCI (Ocean Color Instrument) on NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem) satellite detected plumes of chlorophyll-a (right) drifting around the remaining bergs and debris field. Researchers use chlorophyll concentrations as a marker of phytoplankton abundance.
January 25, 2026
“This bloom is too big and too clearly spreading from the icebergs not to be strongly linked to them,” said Grant Bigg, an emeritus oceanographer at the University of Sheffield. Bigg, who has studied how large icebergs have enhanced phytoplankton activity in this region, noted that while blooms unconnected to icebergs do occur regularly here, satellite imagery shows a connection that has persisted for weeks—increasing his confidence that the iceberg and phytoplankton bloom are related.
The primary factors that limit phytoplankton in this region are access to light and nutrients, explained Heidi Dierssen, an oceanographer at the University of Connecticut. Light can be limiting even in the summer because phytoplankton are often mixed too deeply in the water column due to high winds and turbulence.
Melting icebergs can boost phytoplankton by both creating a stable surface layer with favorable growth conditions and releasing plumes of meltwater rich in iron—a key nutrient for phytoplankton that can be scarce in this part of the South Atlantic, she said. Research indicates that icebergs also often contain significant amounts of manganese and macronutrients, such as nitrates and phosphates, that can benefit phytoplankton. These nutrients often accumulate on icebergs through windblown dust or through contact with bedrock or soil.
The Landsat 8 image above, captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on January 25, 2026, shows blue meltwater pooling on several of the larger fragments. The linear patterns are likely related to striations that were etched hundreds of years ago when the ice was part of a glacier moving across Antarctic bedrock. Brown staining, perhaps soil or sediment, is visible on some of the bergs.
Bigg also noted that the phytoplankton signal appears to be more concentrated near the smaller bergs, possibly because these are melting faster, releasing nutrient-rich material at a higher rate. Dierssen added that it’s also possible that chlorophyll concentrations may be higher near the largest bergs than they appear because algorithms sometimes overcorrect for “adjacency effects” near bright surfaces, like ice, when processing chlorophyll data.
Ivona Cetinić, a researcher on NASA’s PACE science team, checked a database for clues about the smallest, or “pico,” phytoplankton swirling around the bergs. The tool, called MOANA (Multiple Ordination ANAlysis), taps into hyperspectral satellite observations of ocean color from PACE.
MOANA indicated that picoeukaryotic phytoplankton—microscopic eukaryotic organisms that respond quickly to changes in temperature or nutrient availability—were thriving in these waters when the image was captured. The swirls to the west of the berg were made of a slightly larger group of cyanobacteria called Synechococcus, she said. The PACE team is currently developing additional tools that will help identify communities of larger types of phytoplankton, which were likely present as well.
Some research suggests that icebergs may have contributed significantly to phytoplankton blooms in this region in recent years, possibly accounting for up to one-fifth of the Southern Ocean’s total carbon sequestration. Other research teams have concluded that surface waters trailing icebergs were about one-third more likely to have increased amounts of phytoplankton compared to background levels.
How long iceberg A-23A will enhance phytoplankton productivity before and after disintegrating completely remains an open question. NASA scientists watching the berg say it continued to shrink and shed mass in February, but as of March 3, 2026, it remained just slightly above the size threshold required for naming and tracking by the U.S. National Ice Center.
Past research indicates that icebergs can sustain elevated chlorophyll concentrations for more than a month after passing through in trails that stretch for hundreds of kilometers. Icebergs and the blooms surrounding them have also been known to attract fish, seabirds, and other types of marine life, highlighting the important ecological role they play.
