NASA News – 2026.06.26

ARTEMIS Next for NASA’s Moon Base   Join NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Carlos García‑Galán, Moon Base program manager, at 2:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, June 30, for a virtual conversation about NASA’s plans to build a Moon Base on the lunar surface. The Moon Base will serve as humanity’s first long‑term outpost on the Moon — a place where astronauts can live, work, and explore near the lunar South Pole. WAYS TO WATCH

THE UNIVERSE Super Puff Planets   Data from NASA’s TESS, or Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, mission has revealed two new “super‑puff” planets — giant worlds so lightweight that their density is comparable to cotton candy. The Jupiter‑sized planets, TOI‑791 b and TOI‑791 c, are considered the “puffiest” worlds ever discovered. Scientists aim to study the chemical makeup of their atmospheres, how each planet’s rotation influences its shape, and how the tilt of their host star aligns with their orbits. TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c

THE UNIVERSE Center of Our Galaxy A new look at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy by the Euclid space telescope — an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with NASA contributions — overlaps with a region scientists will observe with the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launching later this summer. This early look gives astronomers a valuable head start on Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, which will provide one of the deepest views ever into the center of our galaxy, helping scientists learn more than they could from either telescope alone. LEARN MORE

EARTH Observing the Planet With North America’s fire season already underway — and a record number of acres burned across the country — NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem, or PACE, satellite is using its three instruments to monitor vegetation conditions that can lead to fires, as well as track smoke plumes and their movement. These observations will help scientists piece together clues that deepen our understanding of wildfire behavior. LEARN MORE

Image data from Earth-observing satellites like NASA’s Landsat and PACE mission helps scientists monitor everything from wildfires and hurricanes to crop health and changing coastlines. But before scientists can use those images for research, the data must be carefully calibrated to ensure the measurements are accurate and consistent over time. How does image calibration work? Find out in the latest episode of NASA’s Small Steps, Giant Leaps podcast.

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found something they never expected — ultraviolet light from a galaxy that existed just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. This galaxy contains clusters of young, tightly packed stars that emit ionizing light powerful enough to transform the dense, neutral gas within and around it, allowing us to see it more clearly. This suggests that similar galaxies in the early universe were responsible for clearing the neutral fog of hydrogen gas that once filled the cosmos.

Located 12 million light-years away and undergoing rapid star formation, the edge‑on spiral galaxy Messier 82 is a scientifically unique sight to behold — and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now revealed details never seen before. Webb’s high-resolution imaging has unlocked vital information for astronomers as they seek to uncover the galaxy’s formation history.

Last week, we asked which discipline NASA astronaut Sally Ride earned a doctorate in before her selection as an astronaut in 1978. The answer? Physics. Ride earned bachelor’s degrees in physics and English literature before completing a master’s and a doctorate degree in physics. After leaving NASA in 1987, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and encouraged young people—particularly girls—to study math and science.

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