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discoveries

Psyche Spacecraft Completes Mars Flyby

- NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed a Mars close approach on May 15, passing 2,864 miles (4,609 km) above the surface. - Its multispectral imager captured representative color images showing the double-ring Huygens crater and the cratered southern highlands. - The flyby used a gravity assist to increase speed and change the spacecraft’s orbital plane without using onboard propellant. - Psyche is en route to asteroid 16 Psyche, arriving August 2029 to enter orbit, map the body, and investigate whether it is a metallic planetary core.

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Photo by @hubblespacetelescope / Unsplash

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NASA Satellites Uncover Large-Scale Ocean Nutrient Stress

NASA Satellites Uncover Large-Scale Ocean Nutrient Stress

- A study published June 5 (Science Advances) combines two decades of NASA MODIS satellite data, ocean surveys, and genetic markers in Prochlorococcus to map phytoplankton nutrient stress globally. - Warming sea-surface temperatures increase stratification, reduce upwelling, and limit surface nutrients, with strongest stress in subtropical gyres and the South

Fighting Fire With Fire

Fighting Fire With Fire

- NASA’s Aqua/MODIS imagery captured smoke from numerous fires in Australia’s Northern Territory on May 28, 2026. - Many detected fires are deliberate prescribed burns, typically lit in mornings to manage savanna fuel loads. - Indigenous practices and modern programs (e.g., WALFA, Arnhem Land Fire Abatement)

NASA-Funded Study Shows Wildfire Smoke’s Hidden Ozone Toll

NASA-Funded Study Shows Wildfire Smoke’s Hidden Ozone Toll

- A NASA-supported study found that over the past decade wildfires have increased ground-level ozone (smog) across much of the contiguous U.S., worsening air quality far from fires. - Nationally, fires offset nearly four years of ozone-control gains; in the Midwest wildfires erased about 5.3 years of progress