Backup Blog for KaiYves

The Great Dog constellation. The Birth and Death of the Sun. 1959.

Did you know the soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will map our universe? 🗺️

Through its High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey, Roman will help astronomers study the universe’s large—and mostly hidden—structure by measuring distances to millions of galaxies. Over 520 days during the telescope’s five-year primary mission, Roman will observe 12% of the entire sky—equivalent to about 25,500 full moons. 🌕

This Roman survey will shed light on some of the perplexing aspects of the cosmos, including dark energy, dark matter, and the universe’s accelerating expansion. Roman will also uncover hundreds of millions of galaxies, providing insight about their evolution and the stellar populations within them.

This fraction of the legendary Helix Nebula, observed by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2024, is now available as a printable poster!

The poster is available single- or double-sided. The double-sided version includes the image on the front and a description in both English and Spanish on the back.

Download this high-resolution poster: https://go.nasa.gov/4vJQ8Nz

Engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida raised the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from horizontal to vertical, signaling preparations are moving forward for upcoming inspections, functional testing, and integration work.

HiPOD: Young Lava Flows of Elysium Mons

The team at NASA ARC is working on a project called HiRISE Image Analysis, aimed at selecting potential future landing sites for a robotic mission. This area shows a thermal anomaly in THEMIS data, indicating a potential cave entrance or simply a depression with high thermal inertia. The area of interest is located on young lava flows in Elysium, which provides new insights into recent volcanic activity and could be a potential site for astrobiology studies, as well as a natural habitat for a future Mars base.

ID: ESP_092989_1960 date: 29 May 2026 altitude: 282 km

2006 July 25

Jupiter's Two Largest Storms Nearly Collide

Credit & Copyright: Travis Rector (U. Alaska), Chad Trujillo (Caltech) et al., Gemini Obs., AURA, NSF

Explanation: Two storms systems larger than Earth are nearly colliding right now on planet Jupiter. No one was sure what would happen, but so far both storms have survived. In the above false-color infrared image taken last week by the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, the red spots appear white because their cloud tops tower above other clouds. Blue color represents lower clouds than white, while clouds colored red are the deepest. The smaller red spot, sometimes called Red Spot Jr. or just Oval BA, turned red earlier this year for reasons unknown. If both Jovian hurricanes continue to survive, they will surely pass near each other again in a few years since they revolve around Jupiter at different rates. Astronomers will continue to monitor Red Spot Jr. closely, however, to see if it will remain red when it rotates away from the larger Great Red Spot.

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)

NASA Official: Jay Norris.

A service of: EUD at NASA / GSFC

This image shows what it might look like standing on the surface of a planet orbiting a brown dwarf star. An alien moon can also be seen in the sky. The brown dwarf gives off such feeble visible light it is difficult to see any of the landscape except for the reflection in the water.

2026 July 8

Swift Boost Mission Image Credit: Katalyst Space Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: Sometimes we can all use a little help from a friend. NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory needs a boost to stay in orbit after almost 22 years of service. This video shows an artist's visualization of the Swift Boost Mission: The Katalyst's LINK spacecraft was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on July 3 and it is now en route to rendezvous with Swift and boost it to a higher orbit over the course of the next several months. This type of maneuver has never been attempted before. If successful, it will be the technology demonstration of a new key capability to extended the lifetime of spacecraft in low Earth orbit, whose orbits decay over time. Swift has an array of instruments that observe the most energetic explosions in the Universe in gamma-rays, X-rays and ultraviolet, and the unique ability to repoint in their direction within tens of seconds. Astronomers around the world, and indeed all fans of cosmic explosions, are anxiously hoping for a successful mission!