nasa

🚨🌌 $700 QUADRILLION ASTEROID?! 🤯💰
Have you heard about Asteroid 16 Psyche? 🪨✨
NASA is exploring this extraordinary metallic asteroid, believed to contain large amounts of iron and nickel, along with other metals. 🪙🚀
💎 Some estimates put its theoretical mineral value at an astonishing $700 quadrillion — but this doesn't mean that wealth can actually be extracted or distributed!
🌍 Imagine what future space exploration could mean for science, technology, and the global economy.
🔥 Could asteroid mining change the future of humanity?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments!
#NASA #AsteroidMining #SpaceExploration
#Psyche

Looking at Earth’s seasons from millions of kilometers away, continents seem to “move house.”

NASA Earth Observatory’s Image of the Day (2026-09-21) combines four full-disk views captured by the EPIC camera on NOAA’s DSCOVR: upper left winter solstice, upper right spring equinox, lower left summer solstice, lower right autumn equinox — all of the Western Hemisphere, taken at roughly the same moment. At the winter solstice, South America sits closer to the center of the disk and the Antarctic continent comes into view in a large block; at the summer solstice, the reverse happens, with North America and Arctic sea ice moving upward and Antarctica entirely out of frame.

It’s not just a matter of the camera changing angle — Earth’s rotational axis is tilted about 23.5° relative to its orbital plane, so the hemisphere facing the Sun shifts as Earth moves through its annual orbit, which is what creates the seasons. On the spring and autumn equinoxes, the day-night boundary passes almost through both poles, and the two hemispheres receive roughly equal sunlight.

One more detail: on the spring/autumn equinoxes, Earth appears slightly smaller because the satellite is farther away in a Lissajous orbit near the Earth-Sun L1 point (for example, about 1.56 million km on 2024-09-22 versus about 1.45 million km on 2023-12-21), which has nothing to do with axial tilt.

Image source: NASA Earth Observatory (Michala Garrison); explanatory text: Adam Voiland. Also republished by Phys.org on 2026-09-22. Since it falls right around the Northern Hemisphere autumn equinox, it’s a good time to take a look.

#地球观测 #NASA #astronomy

🚨 **Bezos Beats Musk as NASA Awards $230M Moon Mission to Blue Origin 🛰️🌕

NASA has selected Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin over Elon Musk’s SpaceX for a $230M lunar contract, marking a major win in the ongoing billionaire space race and a key step toward building a future Moon base.

📊 Key Highlights:

🔹 Blue Origin will execute the first of three uncrewed lunar missions under NASA’s Artemis program

🔹 Mission involves delivering cargo and testing technology near the Moon’s south pole

🔹 The contract strengthens NASA’s long-term plan for a sustainable lunar base by the 2030s

🔹 SpaceX remains involved in other Artemis missions despite losing this round

💡 Expert Insight:
This isn’t just a “Bezos vs Musk” headline — it’s a strategic shift in NASA’s multi-vendor lunar strategy. By splitting contracts across companies, NASA reduces risk while accelerating competition in the new space economy.

📈 TradFi Angle:
Space exploration is becoming a government-backed industrial growth sector, where private companies compete for long-term infrastructure contracts — similar to how defense or energy sectors operate.

#PostonTradFi #NASA #BlueOrigin #SpaceX #SpaceEconomy $DOGE $SPCX $MOODENG

Looking down from a space station, Monterrey appears as a light-colored patch, with ringlike ridges of the Eastern Madre mountain range “clasping” the edges.

Per NASA Earth Observatory (2026-09-11, today’s image): Astronauts on the International Space Station during Expedition 75 captured ISS075-E-70481 on 2026-08-26 using a Nikon Z9 with a 400 mm focal length. The upper half of the image shows the light-toned built-up areas of Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo León; the lower half shows parallel, curved limestone ridge lines. The article states that the metropolitan area—based on the 2020 census—has about 5.3 million people, making it Mexico’s second-largest metropolitan area. The Sierra Madre Oriental on the southern edge was formed by folding of late Mesozoic sedimentary rocks from roughly 80 to 50 million years ago; after the weaker rock layers were eroded away, distinct ridge lines remained. Most of the time, the Santa Catarina River running through the city is nearly dry, but it does collect runoff from summer downpours, serving as an important natural corridor for the urban area. Between the ridge lines is the state-level nature reserve Sierra Las Mitras, established in 2000; the article says the ridges rise about 1,500 meters above the city. Another landmark is the saddle-shaped Cerro de la Silla.

Independent recheck: The NASA/JSC astronaut photo archive with the same number, ISS075-E-70481, lists the capture time as 2026-08-26 15:44:08 GMT, with a 400 mm lens and Nikon Z9—matching the EO specification. A review of the International Parks entry confirms Sierra de las Mitras as a nature reserve in Nuevo León (declared 2000-11-24), with a highest peak of about 2,060 meters, immediately adjacent to the city on the western side of Monterrey.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory; astronaut photo ISS075-E-70481 / ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility
Data as of: image dated 2026-08-26; NASA EO released 2026-09-11
#NASA #Earth observation

🚨 News | NASA contract value with SpaceX rises to $5.92 billion

The total value of NASA contracts with SpaceX reached $5.92 billion.

📌 Cipher Vault: The number reflects the growing scale of financial cooperation between NASA and SpaceX in the space sector.

⚠️ This is not financial advice or financial guidance, and not buying or selling.

#NASA #SpaceX #Technology

Instant takeaway: Autumn colors arrive early in Nunavut tundra—by early September, low shrubs are already brushed red, orange, and yellow; on the North American continent, this region is often among the first to change.

According to today’s image from NASA Earth Observatory (2026-09-14): Landsat 9 OLI captured the area along the Coppermine River and near the upstream region of Kugluktuk on September 6. Compared with the same scene on July 27, it was still entirely green. Common plants here include willow and birch thickets, along with low-growing tundra species such as lingonberry and crowberry. As autumn sets in, they shift to red, orange, and yellow. NASA and South Dakota State University’s analysis of roughly seven years of satellite data notes that this area typically starts changing color at the beginning of September, peaks in mid-month, and that the high-latitude peak often lasts only about a week—or even less.

Independent check: Popular Science (2022-09-30), using the same framing, also describes vivid Arctic tundra autumn color—but the window is extremely short. Once chlorophyll fades, carotenoids and anthocyanins only then become visible; with a short growing season at the far north, the color change comes and goes quickly.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Michala Garrison; Landsat USGS (left: summer green, right: early autumn)
Data as of: imagery 2026-07-27 and 2026-09-06; NASA EO published 2026-09-14; Popular Science 2022-09-30
#NASA #Earth observation

Hubble has caught a new kind of object: a “failed galaxy” candidate, Cloud-9, with almost no stars.

According to the NASA/ESA press release dated 2026-01-05, Cloud-9 is the first confirmed Reionization-Limited H I Cloud (RELHIC)—a neutral hydrogen cloud constrained by reionization. It lies in the outer region of the spiral galaxy M94, about 14 million light-years away. Radio observations (discovered by FAST, then rechecked with Green Bank and the VLA) show a compact, slightly comet-shaped knot of neutral hydrogen. The hydrogen mass is about 1 million times the Sun’s mass, and the core diameter is about 4,900 light-years. Hubble’s ACS image data digs deep into the radio peak region: within the area, no stars from this galaxy are visible—only background galaxies. That’s what seals the argument against the idea that it’s “actually a dark dwarf galaxy, but ground-based telescopes aren’t deep enough.”

If the gas pressure is roughly balanced by the gravitational pull from the dark matter halo, the team estimates the dark matter mass to be about 5 billion solar masses. Compared with typical hydrogen clouds near the Milky Way, it is smaller and rounder. The name simply means it is cloud number 9 around M94—there’s no lottery implication.

Independent verification: The ESA and NASA releases on the same day match in scope and wording; the results were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Image: NASA, ESA, VLA, Gagandeep Anand (STScI), Alejandro Benitez-Llambay; processed by Joseph DePasquale (STScI); ESA/Hubble heic2601
Data current through: NASA/ESA press release 2026-01-05
#Hubble #NASA

An almost uninhabited island near Antarctica twists the clouds into a string of reversed vortices.

According to NASA Earth Observatory on 2026-05-07: Landsat 8 captured on 2026-02-11 the Von Kármán vortex street on the leeward side of Peter I Island. The island lies in the Bransfield Strait at about 68.86° south latitude, roughly 400 kilometers from the southwestern Antarctic coast and more than 1800 kilometers from Cape Horn, Chile. Airflow slows as it moves around the island and then sheds into counter-rotating vortices; the typical wind speeds that form this kind of vortex street are about 18–54 km/h—if the wind is stronger, the vortices can’t hold together. Where the clouds break, the island’s peak can be seen, rising to about 1,640 meters; the summit has a circular volcanic crater roughly 100 meters wide. The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program classifies it as a shield volcano, but there are no records of modern eruptions.

Independent verification: Phys.org (2026-05-07) and EarthSky, in the same-topic reports, confirm that Landsat 8, the 2026-02-11 image date, the leeward vortex street on Peter I Island, and the 18–54 km/h wind-speed range all match NASA EO.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Michala Garrison; Landsat 8 (USGS). Also included is a 2011 IceBridge aerial comparison.
Data current through: NASA EO release date 2026-05-07; image acquisition date 2026-02-11
#NASA #earth observation

NISAR radar mapped the surface displacement from the two earthquakes in northern Venezuela on 2026-06-24: the most prominent east-west displacement is around Caracas and La Guaira.

According to NASA Earth Observatory on 2026-07-10: the figure was derived by differencing NISAR data from June 25 and 30 after the quake with data from June 13 and 18 before the quake. The red areas are shifted to the east and upward, while the blue areas are shifted to the west and downward; due to the strike-slip fault, the main displacement is primarily horizontal. The white band near Morón (near Momoron) roughly corresponds to the location of deep-seated rupture. Eric Fielding, a geophysicist at JPL, said InSAR can help explain why coastal damage is worse; the USGS also used this dataset to refine a finite fault model.

Independent verification: The USGS event page records that at about 22:04 UTC on the same day, a M7.2 occurred (about 20 km east of San Felipe), and about 32 seconds later, a M7.5 occurred (about 20 km west of Catia La Mar). NASA EO says this is the first time the NISAR Urgent Response system has been used to map surface displacement for a major earthquake.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin; data by Eric Fielding and NISAR / JPL
Data as of: NASA EO release 2026-07-10; USGS event page
#NASA #NISAR

The Black Sea turns “blue” every spring and summer: on June 22, 2026, NASA’s PACE satellite again captured an entire milky-blue vortex field.

According to NASA Earth Observatory (2026-06-25): On June 22, 2026, PACE’s OCI (Ocean Color Instrument) detected widespread turquoise/milky-blue in the surface waters of the Black Sea. The prevailing explanation is coccolithophores—tiny organisms whose outer shells contain calcium carbonate plates. When they gather in large numbers, they scatter sunlight into a milky blue color. From late spring to early summer, they often dominate; at other times of year, diatoms are more common and the water color is usually darker. In the same period, the Bosporus Strait also appears more greenish: on May 27, 2026, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed currents traced by phytoplankton on both sides of the strait (note that the image is oriented with north pointing downward).

Independent verification: Earth.com (2026-08-06) and SciTechDaily, covering the same topic, confirmed the PACE/OCI findings, the image date of 2026-06-22, the coccolithophore calcium carbonate shells as the cause of the coloration, and the ISS 2026-05-27 Bosporus imagery—matching NASA EO.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Michala Garrison (PACE OCI); astronaut photo ISS074-E-619520 (Expedition 74, Nikon Z9, 50 mm)
Data as of: NASA EO release 2026-06-25; PACE imagery 2026-06-22; ISS imagery 2026-05-27
#NASA #Earth Observation

On the day of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the astronauts didn’t just pick up rocks—they also “caught” a handful of solar wind.

Today (2026-09-12), NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) re-shared this Moon-surface photo taken on 1969-07-20: Neil Armstrong photographed the lunar module Eagle after landing. Meanwhile, Eagle’s pilot, Buzz Aldrin, is unfolding a long foil sheet—the Solar Wind Composition Experiment. The foil is oriented toward the Sun to capture outward-moving particles in the solar wind, effectively sampling solar material directly. Together with about 22 kilograms of lunar rocks and regolith, the collected foil was later brought back to Earth laboratories for analysis.

Image source: Apollo 11 / NASA (scan: Kipp Teague); APOD 2026-09-12
#NASA #Apollo11

Chlorophyll concentration in the equatorial Pacific: in June 2026, it is clearly lower than in the neutral year June 2025—the “base-ingredient” signal of phytoplankton first weakens.

According to NASA Earth Observatory (2026-08-10): the PACE satellite’s OCI instrument provided two month-average chlorophyll concentration maps—comparing June 2025 (neutral) with June 2026 (an El Niño strengthening phase). The most striking difference appears in the mid-equatorial Pacific, around the band north of New Zealand: chlorophyll levels are noticeably lower in 2026.

Matthew Kehrli and Graham Trolley from NASA Goddard’s ocean ecology laboratory explain: during El Niño, the easterly trade winds near the equator weaken; the warm surface layer becomes thicker. Upwelling—what should bring cold, nutrient-rich waters to the surface—is suppressed, so phytoplankton decline accordingly. Launched in 2024-02, PACE is the first mission able to track an El Niño event in detail with near-daily hyperspectral observations.

Independent rechecks: reports and retellings from Phys.org, Australia’s Weatherzone, and Mongabay confirm the same storyline for the comparison between June 2025 and June 2026—chlorophyll decreases in the mid-equatorial Pacific, trade winds weaken, and upwelling is suppressed—consistent with NASA EO. NOAA Climate Prediction Center guidance (as quoted by NASA): the event has arrived by June 2026, and is expected to continue strengthening through the end of 2026, with about a 97% probability that it persists into early spring of the Northern Hemisphere in 2027.

Figure: NASA Earth Observatory / Michala Garrison; PACE OCI data (NASA OB.DAAC)
Data as of: NASA EO publication 2026-08-10; month-average chlorophyll for 2025-06 / 2026-06
#NASA #Earth observation

On that pink-orange patch on the Antarctic’s dangerous islands—not a mineral at all, but the droppings of Adélie penguins. Too much krill in their diet turns their feces pink, but too much fish does not. Satellites read what they’re eating from this “color spectrum” seen from afar.

According to NASA Earth Observatory (2026-07-27): Landsat 8 captured on 2023-01-22 that parts of the coastline of the dangerous islands had been stained pink by droppings. Casey Youngflesh’s team at Clemson used more than 100 habitats and about 4,000 Landsat scenes from 1984–2013, then calibrated the fecal spectral signature with stable isotopes to reconstruct the diets of entire species. The conclusion is clear: in the eastern sector, where there is more sea ice, the diet is more fish-based; in the peninsula and western sector, where there is less sea ice, it is more krill-based. Communities that lean toward krill have long been more vulnerable and prone to weakening, while those that lean toward fish are steadier.

The findings were independently verified across sources, including Current Biology (2026, 36:3707) and Clemson News, Stony Brook, UC Santa Cruz, and Phys.org.

Figure: NASA EO / Michala Garrison (Landsat 8 OLI, 2023-01-22); drone image Thomas Sayre-McCord / WHOI-MIT (research expedition)
Data as of: NASA EO release 2026-07-27; study period 1984–2013
#NASA #Earth observation

This time the lunar eclipse is very deep: at the maximum eclipse, about 96.3% of the Moon’s disk passes into Earth’s umbra.

According to NASA’s 2026-09-02 image explanation, and using the parameters for the same eclipse from the Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS): the maximum eclipse occurs at about 04:13 UTC on 2026-08-28 (00:13 Aug 28 in the U.S. Eastern time zone). The maximum-eclipse phase is visible over much of the Americas (excluding Alaska and Canada’s northwest), as well as in Western Europe and West Africa. The photo was taken by NASA photographer Eric Bordelon in southern Louisiana, near the Michoud Assembly Facility.

#NASA #lunar eclipse

🚨 SPACEX JUST LANDED ANOTHER $946 MILLION NASA DEAL! 🚀🌎
NASA has awarded SpaceX another $946M contract to fly three additional astronaut missions to the International Space Station. 🛰️
🔥 Why this matters:
• 3 more crewed missions to the ISS
• Nearly $1B in additional contract value
• More flights for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon program
• Another major vote of confidence in commercial spaceflight
SpaceX continues to secure high-value NASA missions while expanding its role in human space transportation. 🚀
🗳️ WHAT DO YOU THINK COMES NEXT?
🚀 More NASA contracts
🌕 Moon missions accelerate
🔥 SpaceX keeps dominating launches
📈 Bigger commercial space market
The space race is getting bigger. 👀
#SpaceX #NASA #crypto

The West African summer is drawing to a close; there should have been less dust. But this part of Mali is still covered by dust and feathers.

According to NASA Earth Observatory (2026-09-10), the Terra satellite MODIS captured dust over Mali and neighboring countries on 2026-09-05. Large areas of ground detail were obscured. Goddard atmospheric scientist Tianle Yuan noted that such events are often associated with haboobs (dust-wall storms) driven by sinking airflows under strong convective storms.

In the days after the images were taken, aerosols continued spilling westward toward the Atlantic in a wider view. The article suggests this event is not quite like the long-distance transport across the ocean typical of late spring into midsummer, driven by the Saharan Air Layer.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin, MODIS Terra; data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview
Data as of: NASA EO release 2026-09-10; image captured 2026-09-05
#NASA #Earth observation

Fields in South Africa’s maize triangle are “seen” by radar as a false-color mosaic: within the same season, crop vigor and harvest timing are immediately apparent.

According to NASA Earth Observatory (2026-05-29), this image comes from the NASA–ISRO NISAR satellite. It covers croplands in South Africa’s Free State, about 110 km north of Bloemfontein, along the Vet River, where it made roughly 10 overpasses during the southern hemisphere growing season from 2025-11 to 2026-03. The synthetic aperture rendering is straightforward: green leans toward vegetation, red toward bare or sparsely vegetated ground, and blue indicates changes in vegetation structure—how quickly it shifts. Most pixels are a blend of three channels, so the result looks abstract. The L-band radar looks at structure, not color; clouds don’t block it.

NISAR’s ecosystem program lead Paul Siqueira of the University of Massachusetts Amherst says: corn, sunflowers, and forests show up differently in radar because of differences in biomass and growth cycles. Fields that grow quickly and are harvested early often appear more orange, but identifying the specific crop still requires ground verification.

Independent checks: ZME Science (2026-06-01) and News9live (2026-06-04), which restated the same topic, confirm key points—about 10 overpasses, Free State / the Vet River, the three-color false-color composition, and that radar reads structure rather than color—matching NASA EO.

Image: Paul Siqueira (UMass Amherst) using NISAR GCOV; NASA EO / Michala Garrison cartography
Data as of: NASA EO released 2026-05-29; composite period 2025-11-22 to 2026-03-10
#NASA #Earth observation

NASA Unveils Artemis III Crew, Pivoting to Orbital Testing

​NASA officially introduced the four-member crew for the highly anticipated Artemis III mission this week, outlining a strategic shift in its lunar exploration roadmap. The mission, now scheduled for 2027, has been re-architected to focus on critical validation testing in low Earth orbit.

​The crew—Commander Randy Bresnik, Pilot Luca Parmitano (ESA), and Mission Specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas—will spearhead a complex multi-launch campaign. The mission’s primary objective is to execute intricate rendezvous and docking operations between NASA’s Orion spacecraft and commercial lunar landing systems currently under development by SpaceX and Blue Origin. By mastering these maneuvers in Earth’s orbit, NASA aims to reduce systemic risk and establish the necessary technical foundation for the successful crewed lunar landings planned for Artemis IV in 2028.

​#NASA #ArtemisIII #SpaceExploration

From the International Space Station looking down, both of the Cascade Range’s glacier volcanoes are covered by wildfire smoke: fire is burning beside Mount Hood, while on Mount Rainier’s side the smoke drifts in from afar.

According to NASA Earth Observatory on 2026-08-13: Expedition 75 astronauts used Nikon Z9 cameras with 400-millimeter lenses to photograph Oregon’s Mount Hood (about 3,429 meters / 11,249 feet in elevation) and Washington’s Mount Rainier (about 4,392 meters / 14,411 feet) on 2026-07-31 and 2026-08-04, respectively. In the Mount Hood image, the smoke plume from the Grasshopper fire to the east is very dense. InciWeb reports that the fire began on July 23 after a lightning strike. In hot, dry weather, it spread rapidly to the north and east. As of 2026-08-12, it had burned nearly 84,000 acres (about 34,000 hectares), crossing beyond the boundary of the national forest. In Wasco County, many places issued “immediate evacuation” orders, and the nearby town of Dufur was also told to prepare for possible evacuation at any time.

About 100 miles farther north, there was no fire near Mount Rainier at the time; the smoke came from fires in central and eastern Washington and was pushed by easterly winds associated with a high-pressure system over the nearby ocean. The National Park Service reported that fine particulate matter (PM2.5) inside the park increased that day, and air quality reached an unhealthy level. A few days later, about 3 miles north of the Sunrise Visitor Center, the Grand Park 2 fire appeared. As of 2026-08-12 it had burned about 223 acres and was not yet contained, and the cause of the fire remains undetermined.

Independent verification: Linxi News and EcoPortal, in their topic-consistent reprints, confirmed the same figures reported for Mount Hood’s Grasshopper fire (about 84,000 acres) and the Rainier-area effects from incoming smoke and unhealthy air quality inside the park, matching NASA EO.

Photo: NASA / ISS Crew Earth Observations (ISS075-E-1705, ISS075-E-2221); NASA Johnson Space Center
Data as of: NASA EO release 2026-08-13; fire reports per InciWeb as of 2026-08-12
#NASA #Earth observation

The northernmost active volcano in Kamchatka, Shiveluch (Shivelyuch), has hot volcanic debris scorching black tracks into the snowfields.

According to NASA Earth Observatory on 2026-05-06: the OLI on Landsat 9 captured Shiveluch on 2026-04-23—one of the largest and highest-elevation volcanoes on the peninsula. Inside the horseshoe-shaped breached caldera lies a dark, many-lobed, viscous lava dome, which has been continuously extruding over the past few months. Outside the breached caldera, in the radial avalanche gullies and lahar pathways, warm deposits left by block-and-ash flows have melted the late-spring snow into dark bands. On the same day, KVERT reported an “explosive-extrusive eruption” accompanied by strong gas-steam activity. The thick deposits left by the major eruption in April 2023 and by dome collapse may still be slowly releasing heat.

Independent verification: A 2026-05-06 repost by Phys.org on the same topic confirms that the Landsat 9 image from 2026-04-23 shows the growth of the caldera-lava dome and that warm deposits melt the snow to form dark channels—consistent with NASA EO.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin; Landsat data from USGS
Data as of: imagery captured 2026-04-23; NASA EO / Phys.org published 2026-05-06
#NASA #Earth observation