NASA News

May 19, 2026

Top Headlines

NASA’s Psyche Probe Is About to Slingshot Around Mars at 12,000 Mph

May 11, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is about to pull off a dramatic close flyby of Mars, skimming just 2,800 miles above the planet to get a powerful gravitational boost on its journey to the mysterious metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The maneuver will save ...

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Accidentally Pulled a Rock Out of Mars

May 11, 2026 NASA’s Curiosity rover had an unexpectedly stubborn Mars souvenir after drilling into a rock nicknamed “Atacama” — the entire chunk ripped loose from the ground and stayed stuck to the rover’s drill. Engineers watched as Curiosity shook, ...

Blue Origin’s New Moon Lander Just Survived Extreme Space Testing on Earth

May 6, 2026 A bold step toward returning humans to the Moon is underway with Blue Origin’s uncrewed MK1 “Endurance” lander, designed to test the technologies that future astronauts will rely on. Built in ...

NASA Shuts Down 49-year-old Voyager 1 Instrument to Keep It Alive

May 4, 2026 Voyager 1 just powered down a nearly 50-year-old instrument to stay alive in deep space. The spacecraft is running critically low on energy, forcing NASA to make careful sacrifices to keep its mission going. Despite the shutdown, it continues to ...

The Universe Is Expanding Too Fast and Scientists Still Can’t Explain It

Apr. 12, 2026 A major international effort has produced an ultra-precise measurement of the Universe’s expansion rate, confirming it’s faster than early-Universe models predict. By linking multiple distance-measuring techniques, scientists ruled out simple ...

SpaceX Starship Could Slash Travel Time to Uranus in Half

Apr. 3, 2026 A new concept suggests SpaceX’s Starship could revolutionize a future mission to Uranus, one of the solar system’s most overlooked planets. By refueling in orbit and helping slow the spacecraft on arrival, it could cut travel time nearly in ...

NASA Launches Twin Spacecraft to Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Lost Atmosphere

Mar. 14, 2026 Mars didn’t always look like the barren world we see today. Over billions of years, the Sun’s solar wind stripped away much of its atmosphere, helping transform it from a warmer, wetter planet ...

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Completes the First AI-planned Drive on Mars

Feb. 2, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover has just made history by driving across Mars using routes planned by artificial intelligence instead of human operators. A vision-capable AI analyzed the same images and terrain data normally used by rover planners, ...

Earth’s Toughest Microbes Could Help Humans Live on Mars

Jan. 6, 2026 Mars looks familiar from afar, but surviving there means creating a protective oasis in a hostile world. Instead of shipping construction materials from Earth, researchers are exploring how to use Martian soil as the raw ingredient. Two tough ...

What Are Asteroids Really Made of? New Analysis Brings Space Mining Closer to Reality

Dec. 25, 2025 Scientists are digging into the hidden makeup of carbon-rich asteroids to see whether they could one day fuel space exploration—or even be mined for valuable resources. By analyzing rare meteorites ...

Japanese Spacecraft Faces a Massive Challenge from a House-size Asteroid

Nov. 21, 2025 New observations show that asteroid 1998 KY26 is a mere 11 meters across and spinning twice as fast as previously thought. The discovery adds complexity to Hayabusa2’s 2031 mission but also heightens scientific interest. The asteroid’s ...

AI Restores James Webb Telescope’s Crystal-clear Vision

Oct. 27, 2025 Two Sydney PhD students have pulled off a remarkable space science feat from Earth—using AI-driven software to correct image blurring in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their innovation, called AMIGO, fixed distortions in the telescope’s ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:10am EDT

Webb Space Telescope Finds a Giant Galaxy That Doesn’t Spin

May 7, 2026 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted something that shouldn’t exist—at least not so early in the universe. A massive galaxy, formed less than 2 billion years after the ...

Webb Space Telescope Reveals a Scorching “super-Earth” That Looks Like Mercury

May 5, 2026 A scorching, airless world just 48 light-years away is offering scientists a rare glimpse into the geology of distant planets. Using the James Webb ...

Astronomers Finally Solve the Gamma-Cas X-Ray Mystery After 50 Years

May 1, 2026 A decades-old cosmic mystery has finally been cracked: the strange X-rays coming from the bright star gamma-Cas are caused by a hidden stellar companion feeding off it. Using cutting-edge ...

NASA Curiosity Rover Finds Mysterious Life Linked Molecules on Mars

Apr. 28, 2026 Curiosity has detected a surprising variety of organic molecules on Mars, including compounds tied to the chemistry of life. Some of these molecules may be billions of years old, preserved in ancient ...

Scientists Think Dark Matter Might Come in Two Forms

Apr. 10, 2026 A mysterious glow of gamma rays at the center of the Milky Way has long hinted at dark matter, but the lack of similar signals in smaller dwarf galaxies has cast doubt on that idea. Now, researchers ...

Something Just Hit the Moon and Left a Bright New Scar

Apr. 8, 2026 For all its ancient, familiar features, the Moon is still changing—and sometimes in dramatic ways. Scientists recently identified a fresh 22-meter-wide crater by comparing orbital images taken ...

Mars Dust Storms Are Sparking Electricity and Rewriting the Planet’s Chemistry

Apr. 5, 2026 Mars may look like a quiet, dusty world, but it’s actually buzzing with hidden electrical activity. Powerful dust storms and swirling dust devils ...

Saturn’s Magnetic Field Is Twisted and Scientists Just Figured out Why

Apr. 3, 2026 Saturn’s magnetic field isn’t the smooth, symmetrical shield scientists see around Earth. Instead, it’s noticeably skewed, and researchers now think they understand why. By analyzing years of ...

NASA Launches Artemis II for First Crewed Moon Flyby in 50 Years

Apr. 2, 2026 A new era of lunar exploration has begun as NASA launches four astronauts on Artemis II—the first crewed mission to fly around the Moon in over 50 years. Riding aboard the powerful SLS rocket, the ...

Webb Telescope Spots Mysterious Explosion That Defies Known Physics

Mar. 30, 2026 Astronomers have spotted a bizarre cosmic explosion that refuses to play by the rules—and it’s leaving scientists scrambling for answers. GRB 250702B, detected by NASA’s James Webb Space ...

Project Hail Mary Meets Reality: 45 Planets Could Harbor Alien Life

Mar. 25, 2026 Astronomers have narrowed down the cosmic search for life, identifying fewer than 50 rocky planets among thousands of known exoplanets that may have the right conditions to support life. Using new ...

Even JWST Can’t See Through This Planet’s Massive Haze

Mar. 18, 2026 Kepler-51d is a giant, ultra-light “super-puff” planet wrapped in an unusually thick haze that’s blocking scientists from seeing what it’s made of. Observations from JWST revealed that this ...

Astronomers Think They Just Witnessed Two Planets Colliding

Mar. 11, 2026 Astronomers have caught what may be a rare cosmic catastrophe unfolding 11,000 light-years away. A seemingly ordinary sun-like star suddenly began flickering wildly, puzzling scientists until they ...

Chickpeas Could Become the First Food Grown on the Moon

Mar. 12, 2026 Scientists have grown chickpeas in simulated moon soil, offering a promising step toward farming on the lunar surface. Researchers mixed moon-like regolith with worm-produced compost and helpful ...

NASA’s Webb Captures a Bizarre Brain-Shaped Nebula Around a Dying Star

Mar. 17, 2026 The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed new details in a bizarre nebula that looks like a brain floating in space. Formed by a dying star, the “Exposed Cranium” nebula shows layered gas and a ...

ALMA Captures the Most Detailed Image Ever of the Milky Way’s Turbulent Core

Mar. 5, 2026 A sweeping new ALMA image has peeled back the veil on the Milky Way’s core, exposing a dense network of cold gas filaments near the central black hole. Stretching across 650 light-years, the survey ...

Apollo Rocks Reveal the Moon Had Brief Bursts of Super-Strong Magnetism

Feb. 26, 2026 Scientists at the University of Oxford have finally settled a decades-long mystery about the Moon’s magnetic field — and it turns out both sides were right. By reanalyzing Apollo mission rocks, ...

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Investigates Strange Spiderweb Ridges on Mars

Mar. 14, 2026 NASA’s Curiosity rover is investigating strange spiderweb-like ridges on Mars that may reveal a hidden chapter of the planet’s watery history. These “boxwork” formations likely formed when ...

James Webb Space Telescope Captures Strange Magnetic Forces Warping Uranus

Feb. 21, 2026 For the first time, scientists have mapped Uranus’s upper atmosphere in three dimensions, tracking temperatures and charged particles up to 5,000 kilometers above the clouds. Webb’s sharp vision ...

The Moon Is Still Shrinking and It Could Trigger More Moonquakes

Feb. 18, 2026 Researchers have uncovered more than a thousand previously unknown tectonic ridges across the Moon’s dark plains, showing the Moon is still contracting and reshaping itself. These features are ...

A Lost Moon May Have Created Titan and Saturn’s Rings

Feb. 27, 2026 Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may have been born in a colossal cosmic crash. New research suggests Titan formed when two older moons slammed together hundreds of millions of years ago—an event so ...

Radar Evidence Suggests a Massive Lava Tube Beneath Venus

Feb. 12, 2026 Scientists have uncovered evidence of a massive underground lava tube hidden beneath the surface of Venus, revealing a new layer of the planet’s volcanic history. By reexamining radar data from ...

Scientists Just Mapped the Hidden Structure Holding the Universe Together

Feb. 3, 2026 Astronomers have produced the most detailed map yet of dark matter, revealing the invisible framework that shaped the Universe long before stars and galaxies formed. Using powerful new observations ...

“Stars Like the Sun Don’t Just Stop Shining,” but This One Did

Jan. 24, 2026 A distant Sun-like star suddenly went dark for months, stunning astronomers who quickly realized something massive was passing in front of it. Observations revealed a gigantic disk of gas and dust ...

Spacecraft Captures the "magnetic Avalanche" That Triggers Giant Solar Explosions

Jan. 21, 2026 Solar Orbiter has captured the clearest evidence yet that a solar flare grows through a cascading “magnetic avalanche.” Small, weak magnetic disturbances rapidly multiplied, triggering stronger ...

A Dying Star’s Final Breath Glows in a New Webb Image of the Helix Nebula

Jan. 26, 2026 Webb’s latest image of the Helix Nebula reveals a dramatic close-up of a dying star shedding its outer layers. The detailed view highlights glowing knots of gas shaped by fast-moving stellar winds ...

NASA Is Set to Send Astronauts Around the Moon Again

Jan. 25, 2026 NASA is moving into a new phase of space exploration, with major progress across human spaceflight, science missions, and advanced technology. In just one year, the agency has launched multiple ...

NASA Astronaut Suni Williams Retires After 608 Days in Space and Nine Spacewalks

Jan. 22, 2026 NASA astronaut Suni Williams has retired after 27 years of service and a career defined by endurance, leadership, and firsts in space. She spent 608 days in orbit, completed nine spacewalks, and ...

The Ring Nebula Is Hiding a Giant Structure Made of Iron

Jan. 18, 2026 A huge bar of iron has been discovered lurking inside the iconic Ring Nebula. The structure is enormous, spanning hundreds of times the size of Pluto’s orbit and containing a Mars-sized amount of ...

NASA Brings Crew-11 Home Early in Rare Medical Evacuation

Jan. 16, 2026 SpaceX Crew-11 splashed down safely in the Pacific after more than five months in orbit aboard the International Space Station. The four astronauts completed over 140 experiments and traveled nearly ...