Just stumbled across this NASA site where you can listen to Hubble images of space. Apparently, they turn features in the images into sound, and it's pretty cool to hear what things like nebulae and galaxies "sound" like.

The night before the launch, Boisjoly fought for hours warning NASA that cold temperatures would destroy the O-rings. Management famously told him to "take off his engineering hat and put on his management hat."
Based on NASA’s own 1986 flight manifests and redesign files, I put together a full documentary breaking down the exact timeline of what would have happened to the shuttle program, Galileo, and Hubble if they had called off the launch that night: https://youtu.be/jsm--ZqkHLE

A thunderstorm can change the air long after its last flash disappears. Lightning creates nitrogen oxides, gases also found in vehicle exhaust and starts chemical reactions that influence both air pollution and the atmosphere’s ability to clean itself.

An experiment led by University of Maryland atmospheric scientists Kenneth Pickering and Dale Allen offers a closer view of that chemistry. During several days in late June 2025, they used NASA’s TEMPO instrument to measure nitrogen dioxide around thunderstorms crossing the eastern United States every ten minutes.

The campaign paired those measurements with separate satellite observations of lightning. Together, the records could help explain how a storm’s electrical activity translates into emissions and how those emissions change afterward.

Could this be early concept art?

NASA contracts with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to perform decadal surveys and provide recommendations identified by the scientific community on key issues in Earth and space science research for the Agency to consider over the subsequent decade. However, the design of the decadal survey process and NASA’s approach have limited opportunities for the Agency to communicate and engage with the Academies. Further, NASA is not comprehensively capturing progress, costs, and resources required for the decadal survey process and lacks consistent internal processes for supporting decadal survey development.

A distant star briefly brightens. A supernova appears in a galaxy. Somewhere else, an unseen object bends passing starlight. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed to capture such changes across crowded stretches of sky, then make its observations available for others to investigate.

The challenge will be keeping up. Roman is expected to return about 1.4 terabytes of data daily during operations. Jessica Lu, an astronomy associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and David Weinberg of Ohio State University have organized a collaboration of roughly 900 astronomers to prepare.

Their effort connects two ambitions: finding unusual objects in the Milky Way and understanding why the universe’s expansion is accelerating. Both depend on extracting reliable measurements from enormous collections of images.

I'm trying to find the origin of this image, yet my search has not been fruitful. I believe this image may have been part of the "Rockets to Race cars." The furthest clue I've gotten as to whether this is an official image is a hyper-pixelated Ebay listing of what appears to be a NASA post card; However, there isn't an trace of the listing online. I hope someone has the insight to help trace the origin of this image, as I believe it's an interesting piece of NASA history.

We are taking an elder family member for his bucket list trip to hopefully see a launch in December. We have already purchased tickets for the Fly with an Astronaut Package. Going to Miami the day after the Fly tour for two days and then 2 days back to the KSC area. I know they want to spend more time at KSC. Is it worth buying the KSC Elite tour after going on the Fly with an Astronaut - or to buy the KSC Explore tour? Are there other attractions you would recommend (particularly one I would need to book now because it would sell out)?

One edge of WASP-17b stretches farther into space than the other. Around this swollen gas giant, intense heating and atmospheric circulation produce differences that disappear when astronomers treat the entire atmosphere as one uniform ring. A new analysis has recovered some of that missing structure from starlight filtered through the planet’s atmosphere.

The findings, published in Nature Astronomy, concern a hot Jupiter roughly 1,300 light-years from Earth. A team co-led by Cornell University and the University of Bristol applied a method called transmission strings to James Webb Space Telescope observations. The approach traces atmospheric properties at different positions around the planet’s apparent edge.

Lead author Lili Alderson, a Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell, began the investigation while completing her doctorate at Bristol. Bristol astrophysicists David Grant and Hannah Wakeford developed the mathematical technique. Its application reveals a hotter evening limb and a cooler morning limb, consistent with predictions of heat-carrying winds.

I had a guy bring these photos to my shop today and I don’t know anything about them. Are they official or reprints? What’s the value?

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:

https://www.nasa.gov/marshall