NASA

Artificial intelligence (AI) has led Abel Lawrence Peirson to all kinds of interesting places. He’s used AI techniques to examine brain activity in flies and other neuroscience applications. With the help of AI, he’s even trained a neural network to create internet memes, displaying phrases on images in a way that looks like a human made them to be funny — at least some of the time. Credit: Abel Lawrence Peirson Now, Peirson, a doctoral student at Stanford University, is using his AI skills to help solve some the universe’s mysteries through NASA’s Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission. It’s a spacecraft that looks at the polarization of X-rays from extreme objects like supernova remnants, neutron stars, and black holes. Polarization describes how the X-ray light is oriented...

ALTObservations from both NASA’s James Webb and Hubble space telescopes created this colorful image of galaxy cluster MACS0416. The colors of different galaxies indicate distances, with bluer galaxies being closer and redder galaxies being more distant or dusty. Some galaxies appear as streaks due to gravitational lensing — a warping effect caused by large masses gravitationally bending the space that light travels through.While Taylor’s Eras Tour explores decades of music, our universe’s eras set the stage for life to exist today. By unraveling cosmic history, scientists can investigate how it happened, from the universe’s origin and evolution to its possible fate.ALTThis infographic outlines the history of the universe.0 SECONDS | In the beginning, the universe debuted extremely small, h...

LOGAN, Utah — German startup Dcubed raised 4.4 million euros ($4.8 million) in a Series A funding round. With the investment, announced Aug. 5, Dcubed will expand production, demonstrate in-space manufacturing and open a U.S. office, Thomas Sinn, DCubed CEO and founder, told SpaceNews at the Small Satellite Conference here. Dcubed’s Westminster, Colorado, office will serve as a sales and distribution hub to support U.S. customers, who make up more than half of the firm’s client base, said Andria Fortier, Dcubed U.S. managing director. To demonstrate in-space manufacturing, Dcubed is buying SpaceX rideshare launches. “We want to launch at least twice next year with an in-space demonstrator and at least once in 2026,” Sinn said. For the first mission, Dcubed is w...

Past participants from the Human Performance Accelerator Lab Program train as a team to complete assigned simulated space missions at the historic William’s Pool. (Photo Courtesy, Space Center Houston). Space Center Houston’s Human Performance Accelerator Lab (HPALab) program is offering an exclusive one-day summer training session open to families and members to train like NASA Artemis astronauts. HPALab’s program To the Moon and Back aims to build up participants’ skills in communication, leadership, teamwork and dedication; all of which are skills needed to succeed in space missions, plus access to Johnson Space Center facilities. NASA’s Artemis astronauts under the Artemis Program are currently training for the second phase of its mission – going back to the Moon. Artemis...

The Perseids are back! Well… sort of. Usually bringing one of the most vivid annual meteor showers visible in Earth’s night sky, commonly delivering 50-100 “shooting stars” per hour at its height, the Perseids will peak Aug. 12 and 13. There’s just one problem: the full Moon. A shower of Perseid meteors lights up the sky in 2009 in this NASA time-lapse image. (NASA/JPL) “Sadly, this year’s Perseids peak will see the worst possible circumstances for spotters,” said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, who leads the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Most of us in North America would normally see 50 or 60 meteors per hour,” he said, “but this year, during the normal peak, the full Moon will reduce that to 10-20 per hour at best.” The Moon i...