1. Nvidia bets on AI personal computers with new ‘superchip’ powering Windows laptops  AP News
2. Nvidia Introduces First PCs Designed for AI Agents  WSJ
3. Nvidia jumps into PCs with new Arm-based chip debuting in laptops from Microsoft, Dell, HP  CNBC
4. Introducing Surface Laptop Ultra: Made for world makers  Windows Blog
5. Nvidia RTX Spark comes to Windows PCs with Arm CPU, RTX GPU, and unified memory  Ars Technica

1. ROG XBOX Ally X20 Bundle – 20th Anniversary OLED Handheld  ASUS Pressroom
2. Asus just announced the OLED Xbox Ally X of my dreams  The Verge
3. Leak Tips Potential New ASUS ROG Xbox Ally Gaming Handheld  TechPowerUp
4. Asus' monstrous ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20 includes expansive curved AMOLED display — also debuts 3,000W power supply and striking PC case  Tom's Hardware
5. ASUS Launches “Edition 20” Lineup To Commemorate 20 Years Of ROG At Computex 2026  Wccftech

1. Apple's Smart Glasses Reportedly Delayed Until Late 2027  CNET
2. Apple Seeks to Disrupt the Glasses Market the Way It Did With Watches  Bloomberg.com
3. Latest Apple Glasses leak has me way more excited for the product  9to5Mac
4. Cheaper, Lighter Apple Vision Pro Successor Could Arrive in Late 2028  MacRumors
5. Apple’s strategy for smart glasses is the same as for smart watches  The Verge

1. ASUS announces first 24.5-inch OLED esports monitor with 540Hz refresh rate  VideoCardz.com
2. ASUS and Republic of Gamers Announce New Displays at Computex 2026  ASUS Pressroom
3. Asus Announce the ROG Strix OLED XG259QWPG Ace, The World's First 24.5" Esports OLED Monitor  TFTCentral
4. ASUS Pushes OLED Gaming To A New Extreme With A 540Hz 1080p Panel And A 5K 27-Inch Display Hitting 218 PPI  Wccftech
5. Asus ROG teases a 540 Hz, 24.5-inch OLED monitor for esports gamers  PC Gamer

This image of Westerlund 2 released on March 19, 2026, features Chandra X-ray Observatory data (pink) and infrared data from NASA’S James Webb Space Telescope (red, orange, green, cyan, and blue). Scores of gleaming stars ringed in neon pink stretch across the frame, highlighting a cluster where stars are between one and three million years old. Brick-orange dust clouds along the bottom edge illustrate the raw materials of this active stellar nursery.

Westerlund 2 resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina.

See a different view of Westerlund 2.

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/Sejong Univ./Hur et al; JWST: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team. Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand

4 Min Read

Space Out This Summer with Variety of NASA STEM Activities

Summer is “Go” for launch, and NASA has a universe of ways to help you to jump in, explore, and create! Whether you prefer to spend this season fueling your creativity, going outdoors into nature, or daydreaming about your future, NASA offers ways to take your interests to the next level. 

Here are some opportunities to level up your skills with NASA STEM this summer.

Rise to Stardance Challenge

From Monday, June 1, through Sept. 30, students ages 13 to 18 are invited to flex their creativity in the online Stardance Challenge, a partnership between NASA and the education non-profit Hack Club. Whether you’re into space, coding, hardware, or just love building cool things, this is your chance to work with real NASA mission data from programs like Artemis, the James Webb Space Telescope, and more.

Participants can create anything from code and apps to electronics, circuit boards, models, and simulations. Hack Club will offer peer and expert reviews, prizes, and plenty of opportunities to show off your work. Meanwhile, NASA will provide access to publicly available datasets, mission materials, multimedia, and virtual sessions with subject matter experts who can share insights on space science, engineering, and careers. Ready to start brainstorming? Visit the Hack Club: Stardance Challenge website to explore project options, check out prizes, and RSVP to get a reminder when the challenge opens

Go Behind Scenes of NASA Careers

Think NASA is only for astronauts, scientists, and tech experts? Think again. It takes a wide range of professionals and specialists to bring the nation’s aerospace goals to life. Summer is the perfect time to discover how your skills and interests could make a difference at NASA.

Connect directly with NASA experts through online events designed to spark your curiosity and help you explore real STEM career paths. These virtual sessions provide a behind‑the‑scenes look at NASA’s workforce, plus the chance to ask questions.

• Tuesday, June 2: NASA’s Career Technical Education Day at Goddard Space Flight Center dives into robotics, AI, autonomous systems, and the skilled technical careers that keep NASA missions running. Register by May 26.
• Thursday, June 11: Virtual Career Connection: Aviation Technology and Maintenance introduces you to aircraft mechanics and technicians who support NASA’s flight programs and explores pathways into aviation technology careers. Register by June 2.

Looking for more? Check out the Next Gen STEM for Careers web page for videos, articles, and more ways to learn about the variety of jobs at NASA.

Dive into NASA Research Through Citizen Science

NASA invites people of all ages and backgrounds to do NASA science as a part of real science projects that rely on volunteers. Citizen Science is a great way to make new friends, meet some scientists, and help NASA solve mysteries of the universe this summer – using just a phone or computer. You can join from anywhere, participate on your own schedule, and dive right into real research using actual mission data. Here are two examples:

• Through Space Cloud Watch, you can help NASA study noctilucent clouds. Noctilucent means “night-shining,” and that’s exactly what they do! During summer twilight at high latitudes, these clouds catch sunlight and appear to glow even in a darkened sky. Take a photo and submit a report to help scientists track how these rare clouds are changing.
• Take your cloud‑watching to another planet with Cloudspotting on Mars, where you review real NASA images to identify clouds above the Red Planet and help scientists understand Martian weather.

Curious about what other projects you might enjoy? See all current Citizen Science opportunities available through NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

No matter how you spend your summer – building projects like the Hack Club’s Stardance Challenge, jumping into real NASA research through citizen science, or exploring possible NASA career paths – there’s a launch pad waiting for you. And remember, NASA’s STEM Resources website is available year-round to serve as your one-stop hub for hands-on activities, videos, articles, and more to spark curiosity and fuel big ideas.

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In mid-April 2026, Super Typhoon Sinlaku churned across the North Pacific Ocean and brought heavy rain and flooding to the Mariana Islands. The storm reached “violent typhoon” status—the highest intensity on the scale used by the Japan Meteorological Agency and roughly equivalent to a category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale. Sinlaku was one of only a handful of tropical cyclones of that intensity known to have occurred so early in the year in the region, meteorologists noted.

Sinlaku rapidly intensified over the ocean before its impacts reached land. Around the time of this strengthening, satellites began to detect that the typhoon’s effects also extended upward, into the upper atmosphere.

The nighttime image above, acquired with the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-20 satellite, shows atmospheric gravity waves radiating from the typhoon. These waves, resembling ripples on a pond, were made visible to the sensor via airglow in the mesosphere. Airglow occurs when atoms and molecules, excited by sunlight during the day, later emit light to release excess energy.

The release of latent heat near the eyewalls of tropical cyclones is known to drive convection and the formation of tall cumulonimbus clouds. These “hot towers” can rise out of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, and generate waves that propagate into the stratosphere and mesosphere above. An analysis of past tropical cyclones revealed that gravity waves often occur around the time that storms are intensifying. Indeed, in the 24 hours prior to the acquisition of the image above, Sinlaku had strengthened from a category 2 to a category 5 storm.

“We’re seeing waves propagating radially and upward, in a cone-like shape,” said Joan Alexander, senior research scientist at NorthWest Research Associates. Alexander was surprised to see nearly complete rings in the mesospheric airglow above the storm. Winds in the upper atmosphere can dissipate the waves before they reach such high altitudes, Alexander explained, but relatively light stratospheric winds at the storm’s latitude in April 2026 may have helped preserve them.

A relatively low amount of moonlight was fortuitous, as well. The VIIRS day-night band is sensitive to airglow in the mesosphere but also observes reflected moonlight. The Moon was about 25 percent illuminated on April 12, so some light reflected off clouds in the troposphere was visible, but not enough to overpower the signal from the airglow.

Sinlaku’s gravity waves, in addition to appearing high in the atmosphere via airglow, were observed lower in the atmosphere by the AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The image above depicts thermal emissions from gravity waves in the stratosphere on April 13. The rippling pattern appeared in April 14 observations, as well, indicating the storm’s continuing effects on the atmosphere.

Observing atmospheric gravity waves, particularly those caused by tropical cyclones, goes beyond scientific curiosity. Practical implications could include improved monitoring of storm development. “We’d like to use gravity waves to tell us if a storm is intensifying,” Alexander said, “which can be difficult to know, especially over the open ocean.” A geostationary satellite with the proper infrared imager would be able to observe gravity waves and track tropical cyclone evolution, she and colleagues have argued.

Furthermore, it’s critical to account for processes in the stratosphere in weather models, said Laura Holt, also a senior research scientist at NorthWest Research Associates. Stratospheric wind patterns are factors in long-term forecasts of the next Northern Hemisphere winter, for example, and tropical cyclones have a disproportionate influence because their sustained, intense convection drives prolonged gravity wave forcing of the stratosphere.

The effect of gravity waves even reaches into the realm of space weather. “For a while, people have seen signatures of hurricanes in ionospheric weather,” Holt said. Gravity waves can lead to traveling ionospheric disturbances—large-scale ripples in plasma density—and in some cases plasma bubbles, both of which can disrupt satellite signals and radio communications. “With space weather in particular,” Holt added, “a single event such as a tropical cyclone can be very important.”

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using VIIRS day-night band data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), and AIRS data from Hoffmann, L. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

Downloads

VIIRS: April 12, 2026

JPEG (2.89 MB)

AIRS: April 13, 2026

JPEG (1.75 MB)

References & Resources

Hoffmann, L., et al. (2018) Satellite observations of stratospheric gravity waves associated with the intensification of tropical cyclones. Geophysical Research Letters, 45, 1692–1700. 

NASA (2018, October 22) Why NASA Watches Airglow, the Colors of the (Upper Atmospheric) Wind. Accessed May 28, 2026.

NASA Earth Observatory (2026, April 14) Super Typhoon Sinlaku. Accessed May 28, 2026.

Nolan, D. S. (2020) An Investigation of Spiral Gravity Waves Radiating from Tropical Cyclones Using a Linear, Nonhydrostatic Model. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 77, 1733–1759.

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Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.

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NASA has selected seven companies to provide construction, revitalization, and infrastructure improvements at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Johnson Space Center Multiple Award Construction Contract supports up to $300 million in upgrades to mission‑support facilities, utilities, and equipment across the NASA Johnson campus. All funds must be obligated by Sept. 30, 2026.

The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity award enables rapid execution of facility projects essential to sustaining astronaut crew training, engineering development, and mission readiness. Task orders will be competed among awardees to ensure fair opportunity and best value to the government.

Contract awardees are:

• Coho Construction Management, LLC
• Conti Federal Services, LLC
• Healtheon, Inc.
• HITT Contracting, Inc.
• Ross Group Construction Corporation, LLC
• Energy EPC Solutions, LLC, doing business as S&B Services
• Sauer Construction, LLC

For more information about NASA and its missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Jennifer Dooren / Jessica Taveau
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
jennifer.m.dooren@nasa.gov / jessica.c.taveau@nasa.gov

Chelsey Ballarte
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
chelsey.n.ballarte@nasa.gov

NASA will host a public event featuring three crew members from the agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission at 11 a.m. EDT Monday, June 1. The event, which takes place during the crew’s standard postflight visit, will be held in the Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in the Mary W. Jackson building, 300 E. Street SW in Washington.

The crew members, including NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, will discuss their recent 167-day mission aboard the International Space Station, where they conducted a wide range of science experiments to benefit life on Earth and advance human space exploration as part of International Space Station Expedition 73/74.

The Crew-11 mission lifted off on Aug.1, 2025, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew’s SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the orbital outpost on Aug. 2.

During their mission, the three astronauts, along with crewmate Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, traveled nearly 71 million miles and completed more than 2,670 orbits around Earth. The Crew-11 mission was Fincke’s fourth spaceflight, Yui’s second, and the first for Cardman and Platonov. Fincke has logged 549 days in space, ranking him fourth among all NASA astronauts for cumulative days in space. The crew members returned to Earth on Jan. 15, splashing down off the coast of San Diego.

Along the way, Crew-11 logged hundreds of hours of research, maintenance, and technology demonstrations. The crew members also celebrated the 25th anniversary of continuous human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory on Nov. 2, 2025. Research conducted aboard the space station advances scientific knowledge and demonstrates new technologies that enable us to prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

Media interested in attending the event must RSVP by 8 a.m., June 1, by emailing the NASA Headquarters newsroom at hq-media@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. Based on the crew’s schedule, NASA will not be able to accommodate interviews.

This opportunity also is part of NASA’s Frontiers Forum: Voices Shaping the Future of Space speaking series designed to convene bold thinkers and senior leaders at the forefront of exploration and innovation. The series will spotlight mission-critical priorities from advancing the Artemis campaign and strengthening commercial partnerships to shaping the future workforce and accelerating breakthrough technologies. The agency will share more details soon.

To learn more about the International Space Station and its research and crews, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Gerelle Dodson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
gerelle.q.dodson@nasa.gov