BREAKING: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is illegally closing 13 campus buildings (including ~100 laboratories).

Report coming from GESTA, the Goddard employee union

NASA Goddard Begins To Disassemble Itself this memo was sent to GSFC-DL-ALL from GSFC-Communications today at 2:12 PM

@nasawatch.bsky.social's @keithcowing.bsky.social was on the case before anyone else- the demolition of Goddard Space Flight Center began right before the government shutdown, with a memo dated September 22

There have been many substorms over the past nights as well. In fact, we may have experienced a "sawtooth event" last night which can happen under steady Bz south conditions. Learn more about this special magnetospheric mode: go.theauroraguy.com/october2024s...

A #solarstorm, likely a CME flank hit, is causing geomagnetic disturbances (current Dst = -118 nT).
Bz dropped to -17 nT but has since turned northward ➡️ probably no aurora in Europe tonight.
Hoping high-latitude regions still in darkness get a good show! 💫🌌

An M2.6 solar flare along with a prominence eruption off the southwest limb on Tuesday morning. Image by GOES-19 SUVI. SolarHam.com

Captain Haddock looking very frazzled, saying, “What a week, huh?” Tintin leans into the frame and says, “Captain, it’s Wednesday.” Snowy is very excited about the drink he has found.

All is going well! 👍 🚀 ❗ First and second stage separation successful and reentry of the stage 1 with burn. Wow! 😱

A large prominence is currently liftoff near the northeast limb. Image by GOES-19 SUVI. SolarHam.com

Captain Haddock looking very frazzled, saying, “What a week, huh?” Tintin leans into the frame and says, “Captain, it’s Wednesday.” Snowy is very excited about the drink he has found.

Asteroid 2025 FA22 will safely pass Earth on 18 September 2025 at 07:41 UTC (09:41 CEST). It is between 130 and 290 m across and at its closest point to our planet, it will be just over twice as far away as the Moon.

Asteroid 2025 FA22 will safely pass Earth on 18 September 2025 at 07:41 UTC (09:41 CEST). It is between 130 and 290 m across and at its closest point to our planet, it will be just over twice as far away as the Moon.

www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

Lunar missions may contaminate the moon with hardy Earth microbes Experiments on Earth indicate some common species of bacteria and fungi could survive for several days on the moon's surface, suggesting missions must take stronger precautions to avoid contamination

Experiments on Earth indicate some common species of bacteria and fungi could survive for several days on the moon's surface, suggesting missions must take stronger precautions to avoid contamination

The Cassini Saturn mission ended with its "Grand Finale" #OTD in 2017.

To avoid the possibility of colliding with and possibly contaminating one of Saturn’s moons, the probe incinerated itself by plunging into the planet's atmosphere. 🧪 🔭

Video: Artist's conception, from a NASA/JPL-Caltech video

"Ride 'em cowboy," said Gemini XI command pilot Pete Conrad as pilot Dick Gordon attaches a tether from the Agena target vehicle to his spacecraft. This view was taken on September 13, 1966, over the Atlantic Ocean at approximately 160 miles above Earth.

contactlight.de

The dark, inner shadow of planet Earth is called the umbra. Shaped like a cone extending into space, it has a circular cross section most easily seen during a lunar eclipse. And on the night of September 7/8 the Full Moon passed near the center of Earth's umbral cone, entertaining eclipse watchers around much of our fair planet, including parts of Antarctica, Australia, Asia, Europe, and Africa. Recorded from Zhangjiakou City, China, this timelapse composite image uses successive pictures from the total lunar eclipse, progressing left to right, to reveal the curved cross-section of the umbral shadow sliding across the Moon. Sunlight scattered by the atmosphere into Earth's umbra causes the lunar surface to appear reddened during totality. But close to the umbra's edge, the limb of the eclipsed Moon shows a distinct blue hue. The blue eclipsed moonlight originates as rays of sunlight pass through layers high in the upper stratosphere, colored by ozone that scatters red light and transmits blue. In the total phase of this leisurely lunar eclipse, the Moon was completely within the Earth's umbra for about 83 minutes.

🔭 The Umbra of Earth

Image Credit & Copyright: Wang Letian (Eyes at Night)

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25091...

NASA hasn't found life on Mars yet – but signs are promising A rock found last year on the surface of Mars offered tantalising evidence that life once existed on the Red Planet. Now scientists have found yet more evidence that could point to the existence of an...

An important part of this story (which I am not expecting the NASA live stream to mention) is that the sample return mission that could potentially answer the question of life on Mars is being threatened by budget cuts from the Trump administration www.newscientist.com/article/2495...

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock The six-wheeled geologist found a fascinating rock that has some indications it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago, but further research is needed.

This story began with a JPL press release in July 2024, soon after the #Mars rock was discovered. www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-p...

Today is the publication of the peer-reviewed paper describing what's in it. That @nature.com paper is here www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪

Voyager 1 before launch

The lift-off of a Titan IIIE-Centaur launch vehicle with the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

#OTD in 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched towards Jupiter and Saturn. It flew by Jupiter in March 1979 and Saturn in November 1980. In August 2012, Voyager 1 left the Sun's heliosphere and is now traversing the interstellar medium as the most distant human-made object in history.

#OnThisDay in 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 probe on its journey to study the outer solar system. After 46 years of operation, the probe is still transmitting data, and at over 15.2 billion miles, is the most distant man-made object from Earth. #SpaceExploration

Captain Haddock looking very frazzled, saying, “What a week, huh?” Tintin leans into the frame and says, “Captain, it’s Wednesday.” Snowy is very excited about the drink he has found.

Thank you for your service This past week, we had to say goodbye to many of our colleagues.

This week has been tough. We've had to say bye to many colleagues

To them:

You were fantastic! Your dedication and service to our research community and our country have been valuable and valued. You are, and will always be, part of the amazing history of NASA.

open.substack.com/pub/plasmane...

let’s hope scientists can restore access to DSCOVR at some point since having reliable solar wind information is very important for monitoring space weather conditions.

On July 1, 2025, NASA reported the discovery of a new comet, called 3I/ATLAS.

It is only the third known object outside our solar system ever to be observed.

THIS IS REALLY COOL. Here’s why:
🧵⬇️

Erin strengthens, becoming the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic Season.

This hi-res view shows several lightning flashes within an intensifying storm.

The chart shows the hemorrhage of NASA staff in recent months, with darker orange indicating mission-support staff (over 1000 people), and the lighter color other NASA staff. GSFC alone has lost over 800 people. NASA HQ lost over 400 people, as did Kennedy Space Center. Source: NASA, reported by Politico.

2019: "NASA is one of the most recognised, revered and iconic brands in the world" (davidsonbranding.com.au/nasa-modern-...). 2025: >1000 NASA mission-support staff (and 2800 other NASA employees) have left under the current administration.

Trying to choose the cover for my 2026 Aurora Calendar. Which one do you like more: left or right?

Make sure to tap and expand both images. Thanks!

A map of Spain with the total eclipse path marked. It travels from Oviedo in the NW down to Palma in the SE. A colour scale marks the average August cloud cover from 20 years worth of data. There are pockets with <10% chance of clouds along the path of totality. From https://eclipsophile.com/tse2026/

A total solar eclipse. Whispy clouds cover a dark circle with a ring of bright light around it. On one side is an especially bright light, like a diamond on a ring.

Mark diaries: 1 yr from today!

12th Aug 2026: total solar eclipse🌞🌚🌍 for Northern Spain, Greenland and West Iceland.

Where's the best spot? Well eclipsophile.com has kindly calculated the average Aug cloud cover & Spain looks v promising 🧪🔭

📷: M Tomasso
ℹ️: www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/sola...

This image from India's Chandrayaan-2 orbiter from 7 March 2025 shows Intuitive Machines' IM-2 lunar lander lying on its side in a crater.

On the left rim is the shadow of one of the legs sticking up into space. Long gouges at right show how the lander dragged across the surface before tipping.

A line graph of July temperature anomalies, with a jagged bright red line growing from left to right across the page. The Y axis is labeled Temperature Anomaly in degrees Celsius, running from -.5 to 1. The X axis is labeled Year, running from 1880 to past 2000, with the line reaching 2025. Although the data line does not uniformly go up, with peaks and dips especially in the earlier years, the overall trend is rising temperatures. By 2023 the line is above the 1 degree Celsius point.

July 2025 comes in third hottest for NASA's GISTEMP surface instrumental record, behind only 2024 and 2023. 🧪⚒️

Data freely available from GISS: data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

On Aug. 10, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin completed their 21-day quarantine after returning from the Moon.
cerebral-overload.com/?p=114735

#OTD August 10, 1966 Lunar Orbiter 1,
was launched from Cape Kennedy to photograph possible Apollo landing sites from lunar orbit.
Www.contactlight.de