National Aeronautics and Space Administration

the approximately 10-day Artemis II flight test will launch on the agency’s powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, prove the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems, and validate the capabilities and techniques needed for humans to live and work in deep space. The astronauts will launch from NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39B atop the SLS rocket as it generates 8.8 million pounds of thrust, beginning their 600,000 mile journey. Once out of our atmosphere, these star sailors will conduct a targeting demonstration and check the Orion spacecraft’s systems near Earth before they head around the Moon and back to Earth, reentering our atmosphere at 30 times the speed of sound, before gently splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Artemis II's crew is comprised of NASA astronauts commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch; and Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.

There are millions of asteroids in our solar system, so why is NASA going to the asteroid Psyche? Scientists think this particular asteroid, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, could be part of the metal-rich interior of a planetesimal, a building block of the rocky planets in our solar system. Visiting Psyche and studying it up close could help us understand how planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars came to be. Join us on the journey to the first metal-rich asteroid humankind has ever visited. The Psyche mission is set to launch as early as Oct. 12, 2023. Watch live launch commentary at / nasa .

What do Metallica and NASA’s Artemis missions to the Moon have in common? Both love “Fuel” and fire. See footage of the Artemis I launch scored by Metallica’s “Fuel.”

We don’t yet know what the James Webb Space Telescope will uncover. Will we get answers? Will we have more questions? One thing’s certain: The story of us is a never-ending quest for knowledge.

Watch a spacecraft deliver an asteroid sample to Earth! Our OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft is approaching Earth, and on Sept. 24, 2023, it will release its sample return capsule into the atmosphere on a path to land at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The touchdown will mark the end of a seven-year journey to explore asteroid Bennu, collect a sample from its surface, and deliver it to Earth as the U.S’s first pristine asteroid sample. Scientists around the world will study the sample over the coming decades to learn about how our planet and solar system formed, as well as the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth. For more information about OSIRIS-REx, visit https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions... Credit: NASA

This artist’s rendering illustrates new findings about a star shredded by a black hole. When a star wanders too close to a black hole, intense tidal forces rip the star apart. In these events, called “tidal disruptions,” some of the stellar debris is flung outward at high speed while the rest falls toward the black hole. This causes a distinct X-ray flare that can last for a few years. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer, and ESA/NASA’s XMM-Newton collected different pieces of this astronomical puzzle in a tidal disruption event called ASASSN-14li, which was found in an optical search by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) in November 2014. The event occurred near a supermassive black hole estimated to weigh a few million times the mass of the sun in the center of PGC 043234, a galaxy that lies about 290 million light-years away. Astronomers hope to find more events like ASASSN-14li to test theoretical models about how black holes affect their environments. During the tidal disruption event, filaments containing much of the star's mass fall toward the black hole. Eventually these gaseous filaments merge into a smooth, hot disk glowing brightly in X-rays. As the disk forms, its central region heats up tremendously, which drives a flow of material, called a wind, away from the disk. Music credit: Encompass by Mark Petrie from Killer Tracks.

An X1.5 class solar flare flashes on the right side of the Sun on Aug. 7, 2023. This image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171 and 131 angstrom wavelengths. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

NASA has launched a new streaming platform called NASA+ 123. It is aimed at space enthusiasts from around the world and will be an ad-free, subscription-free, and family-friendly streaming service 1. NASA+ will feature NASA’s Emmy award-winning live coverage and new original video series 4. It will be available on most major platforms via the NASA App on iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices; streaming media players such as Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV; and on the web across desktop and mobile devices 4. NASA+ is set to launch soon, and it will offer more space, more rockets, more science, more missions, and more NASA all in one place

The OSIRIS-REx mission is the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid. It is designed to return to Earth on September 24, 2023, with material from the asteroid Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will release the sample capsule for a safe landing in the Utah desert. The primitive material from Bennu, including rocks and dust collected from its surface, will be studied by scientists around the world to learn about how our planet and solar system formed, as well as the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth1. You can watch a trailer about the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return mission on YouTube. The trailer provides an overview of the mission and its objectives