This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.
Credits: Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
4 min read
NASA’s Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted
One well-done gas giant, coming right up! That’s the latest from researchers analyzing NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of HD 80606 b, an exoplanet four times the mass of Jupiter with an extremely elliptical orbit that sweeps close by its Sun-like star. The research team is presenting their study and preliminary findings Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.
“Hot Jupiters are already considered some of the most extreme exoplanets we know of, but even among that population, HD 80606 b is one of the most extreme,” said Tiffany Kataria, the study’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We typically think of hot Jupiters as hot gas giants sitting right next to their stars, but this planet’s highly eccentric orbit creates a completely different beast.”
As the planet plunges close to its star, Webb shows its temperature skyrockets by 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Previous studies have shown that radical temperature swings can cause an exoplanet’s chemistry and clouds to change in real time. According to the research team, the dynamic conditions of HD 80606 b make the planet an ideal target to observe these changes with Webb’s powerful instruments.
Image: Artist’s concept exoplanet HD 80606 b
This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.
Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
“Observing a planet like HD 80606 b is actually very efficient because its unusual orbit, with the corresponding swings in temperature and chemical composition, allow us to gather data under varying conditions in just hours and apply those findings to other hot Jupiters or more conventional exoplanets,” said Laura C. Mayorga, co-investigator on the study and an exoplanet astronomer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Measurements of temperature and chemical composition were done with spectroscopy, a technique scientists use to break light into its component colors to reveal information about the composition, temperature, motion, and physical properties of objects in space. The team used Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) for an extended observation of HD 80606 b before, during, and after its periastron, or closest pass by its star. During periastron, the planet also passed behind the star from Webb’s perspective in what’s known as a secondary eclipse. The observation was years in the planning, as scheduling the time to catch the planet at this point was complex given its extremely elliptical 111-day orbit, and Webb’s own restrictions on where it can look during specific times of the year, based on Earth’s position in orbit around the Sun.
Researchers say they have only begun to peel back the layers of an incredibly rich dataset, but they can clearly see a dramatic shift in the exoplanet’s temperature. “Webb has shown that the planet’s increase in temperature was even more extreme than we anticipated based on Spitzer data,” said Kataria.
In fact, the planet had already been dubbed the “roasted exoplanet” and even got its own poster in NASA’s popular series. NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope laid the groundwork of infrared observations of HD 80606 b, showing that more detailed spectroscopic data from Webb would be especially compelling.
“Spitzer did amazing work on this exoplanet, and now Webb is building on that legacy by enabling us to drill down to distinguish specific chemical signatures like methane and carbon dioxide, which is just amazing progress,” said Ryan Challener, co-author and research associate at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science. “There’s so much to learn from this one dataset here — we really are just getting started deciphering what Webb has to tell us.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.
Related Images & Videos
HD 80606 b (Artist’s Concept)
This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.
Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab
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Credits: NASA
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Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab
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NASA astronaut Jessica Meir inspects optical fibers while installing hardware updates to the agency’s Cold Atom Lab, or CAL, aboard the International Space Station on May 8, 2026.
About the size of a minifridge and operated from Earth, CAL chills atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), so close to absolute zero that they form a large quantum object called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) — a fifth state of matter distinct from solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. In a BEC, scientists can observe the quantum properties of atoms at a scale visible to the naked eye. For instance, atoms and particles sometimes behave like solid objects and sometimes behave like waves, a quantum property called “wave-particle duality.”
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, built, and operates Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The BPS division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations that are not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefiting life on Earth.
We are especially looking for early-career researchers, including graduate students, postdocs, and early-career scientists, who are broadly interested in the intersection of AI and astronomy. You do not need to be an expert across the whole field; curiosity and a willingness to help the community learn matter most.
The organizational duties are light. Council members help suggest speakers and run the remote seminars, which mainly means sending email reminders and introducing the speaker. It is a great way to meet people across the field and to help shape a series that reaches the NASA community and beyond.
Two themes will anchor next year’s series:
1. Agentic AI for Astrophysics. How LLM agents and multi-agent systems can accelerate astronomical research, from literature and data analysis to simulation and discovery workflows.
2. AI and Astronomy in the US: Initiatives, Funding, and Broader Impacts. The wider landscape of AI in astronomy, including national initiatives, funding opportunities, AI pedagogy, the ethics and philosophy of AI in science, and ways AI can support NASA priorities such as ASTRA.
Please use this Google form to nominate yourself or someone else by the end of this week (20 June 2026).
Wishing you the best,
Dr Francesca Civano & Dr Brian Humensky PhysCOS Chief Scientists, NASA GSFC
Dr Bernard Kelly PhysCOS Support Scientist, NASA GSFC
NASA Webb, Hubble Reveal History of Relic of Milky Way’s Formation
New observations from Webb combined with multiple observations from Hubble prove that Terzan 5 is a self-contained, self-enriching stellar system that contains up to four distinct star populations. It orbits within our Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge.
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Giorgia Zullo (University of Bologna), Francesco Ferraro (University of Bologna); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Researchers using two of humanity’s most powerful observatories — NASA’s James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes — have definitively shown that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster as it was once classified, offering new insight into how galaxies like our own form and evolve over time. A globular star cluster typically has only one ancient star population. New data not only confirms the existence of two distinct populations of stars in Terzan 5, but also provides evidence for two more recent rounds of star formation. Although located within the crowded bulge of our Milky Way, our galaxy’s central, spherical region of older stars, Terzan 5 was massive enough to maintain its separate identity while lighter weight systems spread out and mixed to form the bulge billions of years ago. It’s like a lump in an otherwise well-mixed cake batter.
“Webb’s new near-infrared observations, cross-referenced with Hubble’s archival observations, have given us a much clearer picture of the history of Terzan 5,” said Giorgia Zullo, who led the research and is a PhD student at the University of Bologna in Italy.
These results were presented at a press conference Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, and were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Image: Bulge Fossil Fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble Image)
New observations from Webb combined with multiple observations from Hubble prove that Terzan 5 is a self-contained, self-enriching stellar system that contains up to four distinct star populations. It orbits within our Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge.
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Giorgia Zullo (University of Bologna), Francesco Ferraro (University of Bologna); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Four generations of stars
Discovered in 1968 by astronomer Azop Terzan, Terzan 5 resembles a globular cluster in many ways. However, in 2009 this system was discovered to harbor two distinct populations of stars. In 2016 Hubble provided the first estimate of their ages, showing that one formed roughly 12 billion years ago — as the Milky Way itself was assembling — and the other about 5 billion years ago, just before Earth started forming. This pointed to a more complex history than a typical globular cluster.
Studying Terzan 5 is complicated by its location in a region of our galaxy crowded with stars and heavily obscured by dust. This is where Webb stepped in. Its infrared view allowed the research team to peer through the dust and catalog many more stars, and fainter stars, than previous work. By measuring star colors and brightnesses, astronomers can classify them into populations of different ages and chemistries.
Webb was able to measure these key properties for every star within the field of view in the sky — both stars within Terzan 5 and unrelated foreground stars. To isolate the stars of Terzan 5, the team relied on the power and longevity of Hubble. The 12-year separation allowed the team to measure very small movements of individual stars, known as proper motions, to determine which stars belong to Terzan 5 and which are part of the Milky Way bulge.
By combining data from both Webb and Hubble, the researchers found strong evidence for two more stellar populations, one that formed 3.8 billion years ago and another only 2.5 billion years ago. They also were able to determine the ages of the previously known stellar populations with unprecedented precision, finding that they formed 12.5 billion and 4.7 billion years ago.
With the previously known two generations of stars, astronomers could not rule out the possibility that Terzan 5 interacted with another object, like a globular cluster or a giant molecular cloud, becoming enriched with new gas and dust that set off a second round of star formation. With four stellar generations, those explanations are ruled out.
Measurements of the stellar composition of Terzan 5 populations made at the W. M. Keck Observatory and European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope also point toward very distinct populations. “Along with the ages of these populations, the cluster preserves a fossil record of progressive enrichment of heavy elements by supernovae,” said co-author R. Michael Rich, a research astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Terzan 5 formed multiple generations of stars because it was able to retain the necessary raw materials. There is evidence of powerful supernova explosions in Terzan 5 that forged heavier elements that were swept up by subsequent generations of stars. In lighter weight systems, the force of the explosions themselves could have ejected the resulting elements as well as sweeping out leftover gas and dust. The progenitor of Terzan 5 had enough mass to retain those stars’ ejections, allowing new generations of stars to form over billions of years.
‘Bulge fossil fragment’
The results show that Terzan 5 is most likely the remnant of a much more massive stellar system that initially formed 12.5 billion years ago. Terzan 5 is extraordinary because it survived — and never merged or fully “mixed in” with the Milky Way’s bulge. “For some reason, this peculiar clump of stars formed separately from the bulge and was not destroyed as the bulge itself formed,” said Francesco R. Ferraro, a professor at the University of Bologna and principal investigator of the Webb observations. “Terzan 5 is what we now call a bulge fossil fragment because it resembles the primordial clumps that contributed to the formation of the bulge.”
To date, there’s one other known cosmic object like Terzan 5. Liller 1 was the second to be reclassified from a globular star cluster to a bulge fossil fragment. It also contains multiple generations of stars. There may be more objects like it. Between 40 to 50 additional globular clusters that orbit within the bulge will be examined by Ferraro’s team to determine if their stellar populations are all the same, like globular clusters, or have several generations, like bulge fossil fragments.
Video: Zoom to See Terzan 5 Near Our Milky Way Galaxy’s Bulge
Zoom in to Terzan 5, a star cluster that lies within the crowded central region of our Milky Way galaxy known as the bulge. The scene starts with a ground-based image of our Milky Way bulge and zooms in on and circles Terzan 5, ending with the composite image of the star system from the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes.
Potential parallels for galaxy formation near, far
Ultimately, this research may improve what we know about how the central bulges of galaxies form over hundreds of millions of years. “Based on observations and in-depth simulations, we think that galaxies in the early universe had huge disks of gas that fragmented into clumps and formed stars. These clumps migrated to the center of the galaxies, and many merged to form their bulges,” said Barbara Lanzoni, a co-author and associate professor at the University of Bologna. For example, Webb has turned up several examples of “clumpy” galaxies that were actively forming when the universe was only a few hundred million years old, like the clumps in the Firefly Sparkle galaxy. “Terzan 5 may provide direct evidence that can help explain how bulges formed in galaxies throughout the universe,” Lanzoni said.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.
Related Images & Videos
Bulge Fossil Fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble Image)
New observations from Webb combined with multiple observations from Hubble prove that Terzan 5 is a self-contained, self-enriching stellar system that contains up to four distinct star populations. It orbits within our Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge.
Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble Compass Image)
This image of bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 was captured by the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes. Webb’s data are from its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and Hubble’s from its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The image shows a scale bar, compass arrows, and co…
Zoom to See Terzan 5 Near Our Milky Way Galaxy’s Bulge
Zoom in to Terzan 5, a star cluster that lies within the crowded central region of our Milky Way galaxy known as the bulge. The scene starts with a ground-based image of our Milky Way bulge and zooms in on and circles Terzan 5, ending with the composite image of the star system f…
Astronaut Jessica Meir inspects optical fibers while installing hardware updates to NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, or CAL, aboard the International Space Station on May 8, 2026. About the size of a minifridge, CAL enables researchers to explore quantum physics.
NASA
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have switched on NASA’s newly upgraded Cold Atom Lab, a one-of-a-kind facility designed to improve how scientists explore the fundamental workings of matter and develop new quantum technologies. By leveraging the unique environment of microgravity in space, the lab can accomplish cutting-edge science impossible to do anywhere else.
Quantum science is the study of matter at the smallest scales, like atoms, electrons, and single particles of light. While it’s easy to imagine atoms as billiard balls bouncing off one another, they also exhibit wave-like behavior, can exist simultaneously in two places at once, and may even pass through one another.
About the size of a minifridge and operated from Earth, the Cold Atom Lab chills atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 237 degrees Celsius). At this extreme cold, just above absolute zero, atoms form a large quantum object called a Bose‑Einstein condensate, or BEC, a collection of matter waves that is a fifth state of matter beyond solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. This object follows the rules of quantum mechanics despite being much larger than subatomic particles, and the microgravity of low Earth orbit helps make the waves even larger.
“At the coldest temperatures, matter behaves drastically different from anything we have experienced,” said Jason Williams, project scientist for Cold Atom Lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built the facility. “The wavelike nature of matter dominates, and ultracold matter can behave in ways that are not only unexpected, but that also enable extremely precise measurements of time, gravity, and motion. The lab has lots of tools — especially with this latest upgrade — to let us probe the nature of the universe.”
The project supports five international teams studying fundamental physics. It also tests the space-readiness of quantum tools that could support future Earth science and space exploration missions.
How it works
The heart of the Cold Atom Lab is a complex set of instruments called its science module. An upgraded module launched on April 11 as part of a Commercial Resupply Services mission to the space station, enabling new kinds of experiments.
For each experiment, a strip of rubidium or potassium metal is heated to as high as 750 F (400 C) — hot enough to form a gas within the facility’s vacuum chamber. Lasers tuned to specific frequencies are then fired at the gas, draining the energy from these atoms, and cooling them by slowing them down. Once this gas has completed the laser-cooling stage, a magnetic trap captures and holds the gas in place. Through a series of complex techniques, the laboratory reduces an atom cloud’s energy further, bringing it close to a standstill and maximizing its time in microgravity.
While facilities for studying ultracold gases exist on Earth, the Cold Atom Lab can study quantum gases in microgravity for longer periods of time and at even lower temperatures. Conducting these experiments in low gravity allows scientists to study larger quantum waves that also interact for longer times with gravity. To harness these benefits, the Cold Atom Lab essentially shrinks an atom physics lab, typically the size of an entire room filled with lasers and tabletop mirrors, to fit within an experiment rack aboard the space station.
“As the first project to create Bose-Einstein condensates in orbit, we’re demonstrating that we can make quantum technology work reliably in space,” said Ethan Elliott, deputy project scientist for Cold Atom Lab at JPL. “In the previous century, there was a quantum revolution that led to lasers, cellphones, and MRIs for medical imaging. We’re performing quantum 2.0 — direct manipulation of large quantum states — and we hope for similar gains in quantum tech by advancing this science in orbit.”
The latest upgrade is the fourth since the Cold Atom Lab arrived at the space station in 2018. Key improvements include a newly designed magnetic trap that changes the shape of the quantum gas clouds, allowing scientists to test different properties related to their atoms. The upgrade also features redesigned metal strips that act as sources for those gas clouds.
“It’s the closest thing we have to controlling the boundary of the quantum world,” said Kamal Oudrhiri, project manager of Cold Atom Lab at JPL, referring to those low temperatures. “This new upgrade pushes that boundary even further.”
The upgrade, Oudrhiri added, “demonstrates NASA’s ability to maintain U.S. leadership in space-based quantum technologies while maturing future quantum instruments, such as matter-wave interferometers for fundamental physics missions, positioning, navigation, timing, and gravity sensing of Earth, the Moon, and beyond.”
More about Cold Atom Lab
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, JPL designed, built, and operates the Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations that are not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefiting life on Earth.
The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is seen shortly after undocking from the International Space Station’s forward port on the Harmony module.
NASA+
At 12:25 p.m. EDT, the unpiloted SpaceX Dragon spacecraft undocked from the forward‑facing port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module after a command from SpaceX ground controllers. Flight controllers delayed the undocking slightly to power‑cycle a navigation sensor and restore full redundancy before departure.
Dragon will reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday, June 17, before splashing down off the coast of California at approximately 5:08 a.m. PDT. NASA will not stream the splashdown but will post updates on its space station blog.
A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft approaches the International Space Station for an automated docking to the Harmony module’s forward port on May 17, 2026. Dragon delivered nearly 6,500 pounds of food, supplies, and equipment for the Expedition 74 crew.
ESA/Sophie Adenot
NASA’s live coverage of the undocking and departure of 34th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for NASA is underway on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.
The unpiloted SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will undock at approximately 12:05 p.m. EDT from the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module and fire its thrusters to move safely away from the orbital complex.
On Wednesday, June 17, Dragon will reenter Earth’s atmosphere before splashing down off the coast of California at approximately 5:08 a.m. PDT. NASA will not stream the splashdown but will post updates on its space station blog.
Dragon will return to Earth with thousands of pounds of cargo in one of the most research-packed returns in commercial resupply mission history, carrying samples that could shape future space exploration and life on Earth. Research returning on this mission includes bioprinted organ and cartilage tissue, data on improving cryogenic fuel storage for future space missions, and DNA‑inspired materials to develop new cancer treatments. The returning hardware includes an ocular imaging device used to monitor crew members’ eye health, a sorbent bed that filters trace contaminants from cabin air, and a separator pump from the waste and hygiene compartment.
Loaded with nearly 6,500 pounds of crew cargo and science experiments, Dragon arrived at the station on May 17 after launching two days earlier on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Splinter Session: NASA’s Big Science, Small Missions
Tuesday, June 16th, 1:00pm – 2:30pm ET, 10:00am -11:30am PT (Hybrid Session)
For remote participation, please look for the “Join the Session” link above the agenda on the Cosmic Origins at AAS website.
High-Impact Science Smarter, Faster, Together
Agenda
Organizers: Swara Ravindranath (NASA/GSFC), Emily Witt (JHU)
Time
Topic
Speaker
10:00am ‑ 10:05am
Welcome
Swara Ravindranath (NASA/GSFC)
10:05am ‑ 10:15am
FORTIS Sounding Rocket
Emily Witt (JHU)
10:15am ‑ 10:25am
BlackCAT CubeSat
Abe Falcone (Pennsylvania State University)
10:25am ‑ 10:35am
SunRISE CubeSat Constellation
Joseph Lazio (University of Michigan)
10:35am ‑ 10:45am
SPHEREx Medium Explorer Mission
Roberta Paladini (IPAC/Caltech)
10:45am ‑ 10:55am
Landolt Pioneer Mission
Peter Kurczynski (NASA/GSFC)
10:55am ‑ 11:05am
Non-Traditional Path to Missions
Sanchayeeta Borthakur (Arizona State University)
11:05am ‑ 11:10am
BREAK
11:10am ‑ 11:30am
Panel Discussion
Swara Ravindranath (NASA/GSFC, moderator) Panelists: Drew Miles (Caltech), Pablo Saz Parkinson (NASA HQ), Joseph Lazio (University of Michigan), Abe Falcone (Pennsylvania State University), David Ardila (JPL)
American Astronomical Society
The 248th Meeting of the AAS
The 248th AAS meeting (joint with the High Energy Astrophysics and the Laboratory Astrophysics Divisions) will be held 14-18 June 2026 in Pasadena, California.
The Transient Artifact and Continuous Learning System (TACLS) leverages data from continuously operating satellite networks coupled with machine learning models to help meteorologists at the National Weather Service forecast flash floods more efficiently. This new software is the result of a collaboration between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS).
A visual analysis from a TACLS test prediction run using data from flash floods the week of Christmas, 2025. The image shows flash flood warning (FFW) probabilities generated by TACLS (in shades of red) and overlaid on areas that received flash flood warnings from the National Weather Service (in blue).
Credit: UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Created with support from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), TACLS leverages machine learning to automatically locate evidence (unusual increases in atmospheric moisture) of impending flash flooding that meteorologists may otherwise miss as they analyze large amounts of data. TACLS flags that evidence, indicates where flash flooding could likely occur, and displays that information via a user-friendly visualization for human analysts to interpret. Those analysts can then decide whether to issue a flash flood warning or weather advisory.
This novel framework for tracking extreme weather events and predicting imminent flash floods operates in near real-time, producing forecasts in as little as fifteen minutes.
“That’s really what we wanted to do, to give meteorologists a tool to help decision making for flash flood warnings,” said Yehuda Bock, Distinguished Researcher at the UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography and principal investigator for TACLS.
In simulations testing, TACLS used data from diverse severe weather events—including atmospheric rivers, monsoonal convection, and tropical cyclone remnants—between 2017 and 2023 and successfully captured 93% of the issued flash-flood warnings. Meteorologists from the National Weather Service are currently working to incorporate TACLS into their existing systems for forecasting flash floods in Southern California.
A cyclone makes landfall across the California coast on November 19, 2024. TACLS will help give communities more time to prepare for impending severe weather.
Credit: NASA
This learning system has two main components. First, an analytic back-end software suite uses machine learning algorithms to process satellite data and determine areas at risk for flooding. Second, user-friendly visualization software highlights those areas for further analysis by humans.
The ACLS back-end software analyzes data from satellites in the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), a constellation of satellite networks that drive navigation services around the world. Water vapor in the troposphere delays signals from these satellites as they travel to Earth. This signal delay can be analyzed to calculate the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere over a particular location on Earth.
The TACLS analytic back-end software suite features a machine learning model trained using more than 30 years of past GNSS data. This model is an anomaly detector that tracks unusual increases in atmospheric moisture. The model then carefully examines that atmospheric moisture data and determines whether it’s either an artifact (a false feature or distortion in the data) or a transient (a time-sensitive physical event, like heavy precipitation) that requires interpretation by human analysts.
If TACLS determines the data represents a transient, such as an extreme weather event that warrants a flash flood warning, it will forward that data to the TACLS visualization software (MGViz) for further evaluation by humans. The analysts use their judgement and experience to interpret these events and determine whether the flagged data indicates a flash flood is likely, and, if necessary, issue a flash flood warning.
Several past innovations developed at JPL are leveraged by TACLS to process GNSS data and present the results. The analytic back-end software suite incorporates elements from JPL’s Domain-agnostic Outlier Ranking Algorithms program and the Time-series Forecasting, Evaluation, and Deployment program. The TACLS visualizer is based on the Multi-Mission Geographic Information System, originally developed at JPL for NASA’s Mars missions.
The TACLS software binds all these components within a novel system that enhances existing methods to reduce the amount of time it takes for a human analyst to determine whether to issue a flash flood warning.
Both the TACLS software and the data used to train it will be open-source, allowing scientists to either tailor this model in response to their unique research needs or create their own model from scratch.
The Spaceport Infrastructure, Maintenance, and Operations (SIMO) contract is NASA Kennedy Space Center’s planned follow-on acquisition to the current Base Operations and Spaceport Services (BOSS) contract. SIMO will provide facility, infrastructure, utility, logistics, and technical support services across Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station under a fixed-price contract beginning no earlier than April 2027. A major change from previous contracts is that NASA will retain responsibility for engineering, system analysis, corrective actions, and spaceport integration activities, while the contractor will focus on maintenance, operations, logistics, and support services. NASA will also directly manage scheduling, outage coordination, infrastructure impacts, customer communications, transportation integration, and construction support activities. The contract is expected to support more than 30 government and commercial customers across approximately 220 square miles of KSC and CCSFS facilities. NASA is currently seeking industry feedback from both large and small businesses to help determine the acquisition strategy and potential small business participation opportunities. The solicitation is categorized under NAICS 561210 (Facilities Support Services) with a small business size standard of $47 million in annual revenue.
NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) assists in the use of crowdsourcing across the federal government. CoECI’s NASA Tournament Lab offers the contract capability to run external crowdsourced challenges on behalf of NASA and other agencies.
Sponsored by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), this prize competition seeks forward-thinking solutions to strengthen the nation’s ability to rapidly produce and distribute critical medical supplies during public health emergencies and supply chain disruptions. Through three challenge phases, participants will develop an innovative conceptual systems design using technologies and frameworks that advance the future of resilient medical manufacturing, logistics, and digital coordination capabilities.
Phase 1: Participants will submit:
8-page submission paper
3-minute Pitch video
Blueprint supporting the key capabilities and structure of the solution
Submissions will be evaluated per challenge Judging Criteria. Following the Judge evaluation period, up to 8 Finalists will receive a $5,000 prize each and be invited to the hybrid (in-person and virtual) Pitch Event at ASPR headquarters in Washington, DC. Up to 3 Winners from the Pitch Event will receive a $150,000 prize each and be invited to the innovation development phase.
Phase 2: Two developmental milestones will monitor solution development and will include $75,000 additional prizes for each milestone complete (up to $150,000 in total milestone prize payments).
Phase 3: At the end of the development milestone period, up to 3 teams may be invited to the final Live Validation Event to test their solution under applicable real-world simulations and compete for a total prize purse up to $1,100,000.
The aurora australis arcs over Earth during an active solar event in this photograph taken on June 5, 2026, from the International Space Station as it orbited 271 miles above the Indian Ocean southwest of Perth, Australia.
Auroras are colorful, dynamic, and often visually delicate displays of an intricate dance of particles and magnetism between the Sun and Earth called space weather.
Most stars in our Milky Way galaxy exist in groups, including pairs or “binaries,” in which two stars orbit each other. Some binaries are stars paired with brown dwarfs, balls of gas more massive than planets without enough mass to sustain nuclear fusion. Finding brown dwarfs in pairs helps scientists deduce their ages and origin stories! Backyard Worlds: Binaries invites you to search images made by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope to find these vital brown dwarfs in binary systems. Your discoveries will teach us about brown dwarf formation and identify objects that resemble giant planets like Jupiter.
Artist’s rendition of a brown dwarf orbiting a white dwarf (the bright white circle) with the Milky Way in the background.
NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld
What you’ll do
Learn how to recognize binary systems and brown dwarfs in images made by NASA’s WISE space telescope.
Click buttons to indicate whether or not they contain binaries. If you see a binary, click a button to indicate whether or not it includes a brown dwarf. Review as many image sets as you like,
If you want to, you can discuss what you have found with other volunteers and scientists in the Talk forum.
Requirements
Time: 5-15 minutes to complete the tutorial
Equipment: Web-connected device.
Knowledge: None. In project tutorial provides all instruction needed.
Complete the in-project tutorial to learn how to spot binary systems in short animations of WISE data.
Start identifying candidate binary systems containing a brown dwarf, using a Field Guide reference as necessary.
Learn More
The Backyard Worlds: Binaries Research page gives an overview of the research being pursued and its value towards expanding what we know about how star and planetary systems form. Links throughout this page take the reader to additional sources of information. The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page has additional information relevant to the work of the project.
Animated images from the Backyard Worlds: Binaries project showing two distinct “dipoles” – single objects moving through space – that appear to be moving together. These dipoles “flip” together, indicating that they are moving in the same direction.
Backyard Worlds: Binaries WISE data.
Get to know the people of Backyard Worlds: Binaries!
The Nebraska Sandhills stretch across the north-central part of the state in this image acquired on August 19, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin
Editor’s Note: Today’s story is the answer to the June Puzzler.
The undulating landscape of north-central Nebraska may be easy to overlook among the iconic dune fields of the world. Far from any coast or desert, the Nebraska Sandhills—comprising the Western Hemisphere’s largest system of sand dunes—bring their own brand of beauty and value. Grasslands blanket the rolling hills, providing grazing grounds for livestock, while lakes and wetlands dot the landscape, supporting diverse plant and animal life.
Much of the sand forming the hills originated in the Rocky Mountains. Rivers carried the eroded material down from the mountains and deposited it across the Great Plains during the Pleistocene. In times of drought, winds blowing predominantly from the north or south lofted sand out of dried riverbeds, gradually building and shaping dunes. About 3,500 years ago, grassland vegetation stabilized the features. Today, the rippled pattern spans about 20,000 square miles (52,000 square kilometers), about one-quarter of the state of Nebraska.
Some of the largest, grassland-covered dunes in the Nebraska Sandhills are found in the northwestern part of the region, shown in this image acquired on August 19, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin
Some of the largest dunes occur in and around the area shown in the detailed image above, near the northern edge of the Sandhills region. These transverse dunes stand as high as 400 feet (120 meters) and extend for several miles. Their northern slopes are gentler than their southern slopes, reflecting the dominant influence of northerly winds. In other areas, dunes are more symmetric, suggesting that winds blew with nearly equal strength from the north and south, alternating with the seasons.
The grasslands that now cover the hills constitute pastureland for grazing livestock. Ranching expanded significantly in the area after passage of the Kinkaid Act in 1904, which allotted 640-acre parcels of land to ranchers who would settle it. Today, far more cattle than humans occupy the region, and half of Nebraska’s nearly 23 million acres of rangeland and pastureland are in the Sandhills. Some ranchers graze their cattle in patterns meant to approximate the large bison herds that once roamed the land.
Lakes and wetlands fill the valleys between dunes in Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge, shown in this image acquired on August 19, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin
Though much of the land in the Sandhills is privately owned, some is set aside in protected public lands. One of these areas, Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge on the southwestern edge of the Sandhills region, is shown above. Wetlands, including shallow lakes, marshes, and wet meadows, fill some of the valleys between the dunes. The land here is sponge-like, with precipitation seeping down through the soil and recharging groundwater instead of flowing off through stream channels.
Located along the Central Flyway, the refuge is a haven for migratory birds, and dozens of species of waterfowl, marsh birds, and shorebirds utilize the area. Among other wildlife, several types of turtles thrive in the ponds and prairies. Wetlands across the Sandhills support rare species such as the whooping crane, western prairie fringed orchid, and Topeka shiner.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.
Dear Physics of the Cosmos (PhysCOS) community members-
If you’re attending the American Astronomical Society’s 2026 Summer Meeting (AAS 248) in Pasadena CA, please note the following activities that may be of special interest to the PhysCOS community (all times Pacific):
Tuesday, 16 June
8a ‑ 9a, Ballroom DE: Warner Plenary Lecture: Kyle Kremer, Globular Clusters: Astronomical factories of gravitational-wave and electromagnetic transients
10a – 11:30a, Conference Center 204: NASA’s Big Science, Small Missions
11:40a – 12:30p, Ballroom DE: HEAD Early Career: Carolyn Kierans
12:45p – 1:45p, Ballroom A: National Science Foundation Update Town Hall
3:40p – 5:10p, Conference Center 211: HEAD: NewAthena: The Next X-ray Flagship
3:40p – 5:10p, Conference Center 212: HEAD: Exploring the MeV Gamma-ray Sky with COSI
And please drop by the PhysCOS table in the Exhibit Hall!
For more information on PhysCOS throughout the meeting, check out our meeting webpage.
Wishing you the best,
Dr Francesca Civano & Dr Brian Humensky PhysCOS Chief Scientists, NASA GSFC
Dr Bernard Kelly PhysCOS Support Scientist, NASA GSFC
American Astronomical Society
The 248th Meeting of the AAS
The 248th AAS meeting (joint with the High Energy Astrophysics and the Laboratory Astrophysics Divisions) will be held 14-18 June 2026 in Pasadena, California.
Visitors are welcome to Explore JPL to learn more about space exploration, robotics, and technology being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tickets for the popular, free event become available on Aug. 29 and go fast.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory invites the public to its campus at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California for an open-house event, Explore JPL. On Oct. 10 and 11, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT, visitors will get the chance to visit JPL’s most iconic facilities and explore four thematic areas: Missions That Changed the World, Moon to Mars, In Flight, and Makerspace.
Tickets are free but very limited and have gone quickly for past Explore JPL events. They will be available on the Explore JPL webpage at 9 a.m. PDT Sunday, Aug. 29, and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, with a maximum of five tickets per requestor. Orders for more than five tickets may be subject to cancellation. Tickets will be provided for specific time slots and must be reserved for specific names. Attendees will not be admitted to JPL before the designated time printed on their ticket.
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL traces its origins to rocket-propulsion development in 1936. By 1958, the lab had built and helped launch America’s first satellite, Explorer 1. That same year, Congress established NASA, and JPL became a part of the agency. Since then, JPL has managed such historic missions as Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, the Mars Exploration Rover program, the Perseverance Mars rover, Europa Clipper, and many more.
Among other highlights, Explore JPL guests will get to:
Visit JPL’s legendary Space Flight Operations Facility, a National Historic Landmark where engineers send commands and receive data from spacecraft billions of miles away.
Discover the Spacecraft Assembly Facility and JPL Machine Shop, where precision spacecraft components are crafted.
See the latest cutting-edge innovations in robotics research, from autonomous lunar rovers to search-and-rescue robots.
Get up close with full-scale models of the Mars Perseverance rover, Voyager, and Galileo.
Step inside the Microdevices Laboratory to see how miniature technologies developed there are shaping the future of space exploration and Earth science.
To attend Explore JPL, visitors must have their tickets in hand and anyone age 18 or over must show government-issued identification. Tickets are not transferable and cannot be sold. Children under age 2 do not require a ticket, but experiences at the event are not intended for very young guests.
Visitors may not bring these items to JPL: weapons or explosives of any kind, incendiary devices, glass containers, alcohol, cannabis or illegal drugs, pets (except certified service animals), banners or signs, flags, boom boxes, air horns, musical instruments, and professional camera equipment with detachable telephoto lenses. Use of laser pointers or whistles is not allowed. No bags, backpacks, or hard-sided coolers are permitted, either, except small purses and diaper bags. Drones are not allowed to fly over JPL under any circumstances. Skates, skateboards, scooters, Segways, and bicycles are not permitted inside the event, as the venues are crowded with pedestrians.
Vehicles entering JPL property are subject to inspection. Parking is free.
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