Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
3D 67P
Explanation:Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to the jagged and double-lobed nucleus of Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as Comet 67P . The stereo anaglyph was created by combining two images from the Rosetta spacecraft’s narrow angle OSIRIS camera taken on July 25, 2015 from a distance of 184 kilometers. Numerous jets are emanating from the small solar system world’s active surface near its closest approach to the Sun. The larger lobe is around 4 kilometers in diameter, joined to a smaller, 2.5 kilometer diameter lobe by a narrow neck. Rosetta’s mission to the comet ended in September 2016 when the spacecraft was commanded to a controlled impact with the comet’s surface . Keep those 3D glasses on though. You can check out a catalog of nearly 1400 stereo anaglyphs created from Rosetta image data on this website.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has named Stephen Cash director of the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, effective Monday, Oct. 19. Cash, a veteran NASA engineer and aerospace executive, returns to lead the center where he began his career more than four decades ago.
“Marshall contributions to NASA’s missions are historic and it’s no question why it’s the Center of Excellence for propulsion,” said Isaacman. “Steve Cash is a Marshall legend, has spent his career around the hardware, the people and has been in the seat before making the decisions when human spaceflight is on the line. As Marshall continues its critical role in Artemis and takes on new challenges in advanced propulsion, nuclear power, and the systems that will carry us deeper into the solar system, Steve brings the experience, technical judgment, and mission focus needed to lead the center into that next chapter. I am also grateful to Rae Ann Meyer for the leadership she has provided to Marshall during this transition and for her continued service to NASA.”
“Leading a NASA center requires a commitment to its people and to the technical capabilities entrusted to them,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA associate administrator and chief engineer. “Steve understands that the jewel of Marshall is its workforce and that engineering excellence is sustained by giving talented people the opportunity to design, build, test, and learn through hands-on work. As Marshall continues strengthening the manufacturing, structural loads and dynamics, and propulsion capabilities that underpin NASA’s exploration enterprise, Steve’s leadership will help ensure the workforce has opportunities to develop and apply the expertise needed to deliver the agency’s most ambitious missions.”
As center director, Cash will lead one of NASA’s largest field centers, overseeing a workforce of more than 5,000 civil service and contractor employees and a broad portfolio of propulsion, space systems, scientific research, and technology development activities. Marshall plays a critical role in NASA’s Artemis program, including the development of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, management of the Human Landing System Program, as well as other capabilities supporting sustained exploration of the Moon and future missions to Mars. Further, Marshall plays a key role in the advancement of nuclear power and propulsion, an area of focus that is expected to grow as NASA works towards sending the first humans to Mars.
“It is a profound honor to be back home at the Marshall Space Flight Center,” said Cash. “I am humbled to stand alongside the brilliant minds here as we continue to turn the impossible into everyday history.”
Cash began his NASA career at Marshall in 1982 and spent 34 years with the agency, holding senior engineering and management positions supporting some of the nation’s most significant human spaceflight programs.
During his NASA career, Cash served as manager of Marshall’s Space Shuttle Propulsion Office, overseeing critical propulsion systems supporting shuttle through its final missions. He later served as director of Marshall’s Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate from 2011 until his retirement in 2016, providing leadership in safety, reliability, and quality engineering to support mission success across the center.
Following his retirement from NASA, Cash continued his work in the aerospace industry, including serving as vice president for advanced space systems at Axient, supporting the development and execution of major spaceflight programs. In 2024, he was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to engineering and the nation’s space program.
Cash succeeds Rae Ann Meyer, who has served as Marshall’s acting center director since September 2025. Meyer, who previously served as Marshall’s deputy center director and associate director, has provided leadership and continuity across the center’s programs and operations during her tenure as acting director. Meyer will return to her role as Deputy Center Director.
Established in 1960, Marshall has played a central role in American space exploration for more than six decades, from developing the Saturn rockets that carried astronauts to the Moon during Apollo to advancing the propulsion systems, infrastructure, and technologies supporting the next era of human spaceflight.
For more information about NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, visit:
Nighttime lights along the Florida Panhandle coast in August 2026, brightest in Pensacola and Destin and along the road between them.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
Nighttime lights along the Florida Panhandle coast on October 11, 2026, after Hurricane Isaias, with fewer and dimmer lights in Pensacola and Destin and gaps along the road between them.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
Nighttime lights along the Florida Panhandle coast in August 2026, brightest in Pensacola and Destin and along the road between them.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
Nighttime lights along the Florida Panhandle coast on October 11, 2026, after Hurricane Isaias, with fewer and dimmer lights in Pensacola and Destin and gaps along the road between them.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
August 2026 Composite
October 11, 2026
Lights around Pensacola, Florida, and along the U.S. Route 98 corridor toward Destin appear sharply reduced on October 11, 2026 (right), compared with typical conditions in August 2026 (left), suggesting widespread power outages after Hurricane Isaias. Images are from NASA’s Black Marble HD product.
After a quiet start to the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, Isaias became the season’s first hurricane on October 8 as it tracked toward the U.S. Gulf Coast. The storm brought heavy rain and flash flooding to parts of the Southeast, including Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, and winds that toppled trees and downed power lines, leaving many people in the dark.
Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, on the evening of October 9 as a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles (170 kilometers) per hour. Gusts topped 100 miles per hour along a corridor west of the storm’s center, according to the National Weather Service, with preliminary reports showing a 117-mile-per-hour gust in Oriole Beach and a 102-mile-per-hour gust at Pensacola City Hall.
These areas of high winds overlapped a broader area west of the storm’s eye where satellite images showed substantial decreases in nighttime lights. The image pair above shows nighttime lights before and after the storm. The left image is a composite of August 2026 data representing typical conditions, and the right image shows lights on October 11, after most of the storm’s clouds had cleared.
The data depicted in the images, provided by Ranjay Shrestha of NASA’s Black Marble science team, come from the Black Marble HD product. The product uses data from the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-20 satellite, which has a day-night band that detects light emitted and reflected at night. The team processed the data to account for changes in the landscape, the atmosphere, and phase of the Moon, and to filter out stray light that does not come from electric lights. Dark gray, hash-marked areas show where clouds prevented VIIRS from collecting data. The nighttime lights are shown over a base map from the Landsat 9 satellite.
“Standard Black Marble nighttime lights imagery, available through NASA Worldview, provides a broad picture of the storm’s immediate impacts,” Shrestha said. “Black Marble HD takes this a step further by allowing us to visualize these changes at a much finer spatial scale.”
At these finer scales, the images reveal lights decreasing sharply around parts of Pensacola, Florida, and along the U.S. Route 98 corridor toward Destin, suggesting widespread power disruptions. Shrestha also pointed out pockets where lights persisted, including Pensacola International Airport, Pensacola Christian College, and parts of downtown Pensacola. “These patterns could reflect backup power systems, differences in electrical infrastructure, or areas that maintained electricity during the storm, although the imagery alone cannot confirm the underlying reasons,” he said.
October 11, 2026
October 12, 2026
Nighttime lights along the Florida Panhandle coast on October 11, 2026, after Hurricane Isaias, with fewer and dimmer lights in Pensacola and Destin and gaps along the road between them.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
The same area on October 12, 2026, with lights in Pensacola and Destin and along the road between them closer to pre-storm levels.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
Nighttime lights along the Florida Panhandle coast on October 11, 2026, after Hurricane Isaias, with fewer and dimmer lights in Pensacola and Destin and gaps along the road between them.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
The same area on October 12, 2026, with lights in Pensacola and Destin and along the road between them closer to pre-storm levels.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
October 11, 2026
October 12, 2026
Widespread outages darken the region around Pensacola, Florida, and along the U.S. Route 98 corridor toward Destin on October 11, 2026 (left). By October 12 (right), lights have returned to some affected areas. Images are from NASA’s Black Marble HD product.
Black Marble HD images also reveal the pace and spatial patterns of recovery. The image pair above compares the same October 11 view (left) with one from October 12 (right), when lights had begun to return to some affected areas. By October 14, lighting patterns looked similar to pre-storm conditions.
“Understanding where recovery is progressing and where disruptions persist can help emergency responders and decision makers identify areas that may require additional attention, prioritize resources, and assess the effectiveness of restoration efforts,” Shrestha said.
Black Marble data complement ground-based outage reports rather than replace them, offering a more comprehensive view of disasters’ impacts and recovery. “Ultimately, this is where the value of Black Marble lies: turning nighttime Earth observations into actionable insights that support informed decisions and help bridge the gap between Earth science and action,” Shrestha said.
The NASA Disasters Program, in coordination with FEMA and the USGS Coastal Storms Team, is supporting the Alabama Red Cross and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Isaias. The team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Black Marble HD data courtesy of Ranjay Shrestha/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Kathryn Hansen.
NASA is playing an important role in JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission, to advance our understanding of Mars’ moons and build on the agency’s long history of exploring the Red Planet.
The mission aims to characterize and determine the origin of Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos and deliver a sample of Phobos to Earth. The MMX spacecraft is targeting launch from JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 3:41 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 19 (4:41 a.m. JST on Tuesday, Oct. 20).
An artist’s concept of JAXA’s MMX spacecraft during its Mars’ orbit insertion. The Martian moon Phobos, which MMX will explore and sample, is in the background.
JAXA
“The samples from MMX will bring forth paradigm-shifting science on the Mars system for generations to come, especially as NASA prepares to send the first humans to Mars,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The NASA-JAXA sample curation partnership is extremely valuable, and I am proud that NASA Science is supporting MMX sample curation and will be sharing portions of these samples for study as we continue to expand humanity’s understanding of the universe for the benefit of all.”
NASA’s contributions to the mission include the Mars-moon Exploration with Gamma rays and Neutrons (MEGANE) spectrograph instrument, the Pneumatic Sampler (P-Sampler) technology demonstration, and communications and navigation support from the agency’s Deep Space Network, as well as funding United States scientists participating on the MMX science team.
Scientists have long debated the origin of Mars’ two moons. The data and samples collected by the MMX mission will help answer essential questions about the origins of these moons and the history of the solar system.
“Phobos and Deimos may be the remains of a massive impact on Mars that sent material into orbit around the planet, or they could be ancient asteroids that were captured by Mars’ gravity billions of years ago,” said Tom Statler, MMX program executive and program scientist at NASA Headquarters. “Having the answer will help illuminate that early era when Earth and the other inner planets may have been acquiring much of their water and organic compounds.”
The MEGANE (pronounced meh-GAH-nay, the Japanese word for eyeglasses) spectrograph will help scientists “see” what Phobos is made of by measuring neutrons and gamma rays emitted from the moon’s surface and determining its chemical elemental composition, which will provide important clues about its origin.
Mounted on one of the spacecraft’s landing legs, the P-Sampler is designed to collect a ground sample from Phobos. The system gathers surface material using bursts of high-pressure nitrogen gas, complementing JAXA’s C-Sampler, which will extract cores from a few inches deeper. NASA will obtain and curate about 15% of the total returned sample at the agency’s Johnson Space Center Astromaterials Lab in Houston, making it available for research for decades.
Another key part of NASA’s contribution to MMX is its scientific partnership with JAXA. NASA-supported researchers are working alongside international colleagues to help reveal the story of Phobos and will use mission data and returned samples to uncover new clues about the moon’s origin and the evolution of the Mars system.
The MMX spacecraft will arrive at Mars in August 2027 to begin its survey of the Red Planet’s two moons. After surveying Phobos in detail, the spacecraft will collect a sample of the moon’s surface no earlier than December 2028 and deliver it to Earth in 2031.
The MEGANE instrument was developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, developed the spacecraft’s pneumatic sampler mechanism. NASA’s contributions to the MMX mission were developed under the agency’s Discovery Program. The Discovery Program is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the MMX mission, visit:
This visualization compares three ocean data products, sea surface temperature anomaly, apparent visible wavelength, and sea surface height anomaly, over the same months in 2025 and 2026. Signals of El Niño in each map are highlighted with pop-up labels.
Credits: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
A phenomenon rarer than a solar eclipse and more powerful than any single storm system is unfolding this fall, and NASA is tracking it closely.
El Niño is a natural climate pattern that emerges roughly every two to seven years marked by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific. NASA scientists are keeping watch as it flips trade winds, redistributes ocean heat, scrambles rain patterns, and raises sea surface height across parts of the Pacific.
As of October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said that there’s an 83% chance that the strongest El Niño since 1950 is currently unfolding. People around the world, including farmers, firefighters, and coastal communities, are already experiencing the effects in different ways.
Follow along with these maps as NASA tracks El Niño from its epicenter in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Sea surface height in flux
Lower-than-normal sea level conditions appear blue, and higher areas are orange and red in this map, which compares the ocean in 2025 (a weak La Niña year) and 2026. The map was created using altimetry data from the Sentinel-6 satellites, which measure water height for the entire ocean every 10 days, down to fractions of an inch.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
One of the first clues appeared in satellite imagery in January 2026, when a swell of warm water called a Kelvin wave was spotted near Micronesia in the western Pacific. Kelvin waves are slow-moving pulses of water thousands of miles long. Like underwater freeways, they transfer heat from west to east across the Pacific. The warm water heats the air directly above it, making it rise. The change in air pressures weakens or even reverses the trade winds that typically blow in the opposing direction, from the Americas toward Asia, causing sea levels in the eastern Pacific to rise further, and waters to warm even more. This chain reaction signifies the start of an El Niño.
The map above shows that by early April, those Kelvin waves had reached the eastern Pacific, and sea surface temperatures had begun to warm. Warm water expands in volume, elevating local sea levels in some areas by as much as 1 to 1.3 feet (30 to 40 centimeters). The higher-than-normal water can be seen sloshing toward South America then moving up the coast to California. Sea levels that are six to eight inches (15 to 20 centimeters) lower than normal are visible around Indonesia and northern Australia.
“Kelvin waves are like the heartbeat of El Niño,” said Josh Willis, project scientist for sea level missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “And our sea level satellites let us peer into the ocean and watch every beat.”
Scientists have used satellite altimetry to track the height of the ocean with ultraprecision since 1993. That unbroken data record continues today with the Sentinel-6 satellites. State-of-the-art radar altimeters aboard these satellites survey millions of square miles of ocean in a single day, complementing NOAA’s fleet of ocean sensors and buoys drifting and diving through the water below.
Warming Pacific waters
The map above compares sea surface temperatures in 2025 (a weak La Niña year) and 2026. Data are acquired from satellite instruments, buoys, and ship sensors.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
Warmer-than-normal seawater is one of the best-known indicators of El Niño. Already, sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific are about 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 degrees Celsius) warmer than the long-term average and could jump another fraction of a degree in the coming months, Willis said.
Satellites carrying microwave and infrared radiometers can see through and around clouds to measure heat energy at the sea surface. Satellites in 2026 mapped the band of warmer-than-normal water as it expanded throughout the spring. The band, seen in dark red, stretches for millions of square miles from the heart of the Pacific to the coast of South America. Ocean temperatures can influence weather patterns around the world. Air above the water’s surface carries heat and moisture into the atmosphere, seeding rainstorms and rearranging weather patterns across the globe.
Ocean gets bluer
The map above compares Apparent Visible Wavelength from 2025 (a weak La Niña year) and 2026. Apparent Visible Wavelength is a data product from NASA’s PACE satellite utilizing ocean color data from the Ocean Color Instrument.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
El Niño’s warm waters also change the color of the ocean. A NASA satellite is tracking these subtle shifts in hues, as equatorial Pacific waters have become measurably more blue over the last several months.
“Some people think of water as being just blue, but it’s amazing the multitude of colors the ocean can be,” said Matthew Kehrli, a lead research scientist for the PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This spectrum is in part thanks to microscopic plants called phytoplankton, which form the basis of the marine food web. There are thousands of different species of phytoplankton, which come in shades like teal, brown, or green. This year, in areas of the Pacific Ocean along the equator that are typically lush with phytoplankton and greener as a result, these hues are waning.
This is an expected effect of El Niño. Phytoplankton thrive in cool, nutrient-rich waters, but during an El Niño, the weakening trade winds reduce the upwelling of nutrient-rich deep water to the ocean surface. With limited food supply, phytoplankton abundance drops. This decline can trigger cascading effects across the marine food web, forcing other marine life to relocate to new feeding grounds.
This year’s El Niño is the first since PACE launched in 2024, providing new views of the phenomenon. The Ocean Color Instrument aboard PACE observes the ocean in hyperspectral color — across several hundred different wavelengths of visible, near-infrared, and ultraviolet light — monitoring phytoplankton and other ocean-color changes in near-real time. With PACE data, researchers calculate the average color of the ocean, simplifying spectra of light into a single number, known as apparent visible wavelength.
The 2026 map above shows the green area along the equator in the western Pacific Ocean shrink as a bluer shade fills in, indicating fewer phytoplankton. In contrast, the map from 2025 shows how the green-hued section stays steady over time.
“You have expectations of what you would think would happen,” Kehrli said. “But to visually see the results with the data products that you’re working with in real time is gratifying.”
NASA scientists will continue to monitor the signs and impacts of this El Niño with its fleet of Earth-observing satellites.
“El Niño touches almost all of us in some way every time it occurs,” Willis said. “While many have seen what it can do, we look to the ocean to understand why.”
