1. Sonos Unveils New Headphones, Soundbar and Major Push Into AI  Bloomberg.com
2. 'Sonos 27' Brings A Refreshed UI To The App And Lets AI Agents Control Your System  Engadget
3. Sonos Ace Ultra Headphones Get Upgraded Sound, Noise Canceling and Direct Link to Your Sonos System  CNET
4. Sonos Unveils New Beam Ultra Soundbar With 'True 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos'  Engadget
5. Sonos' Ace Ultra Headphones Can Swap Audio With Any Sonos Speaker  Engadget

1. Mac App Store Apps Can Now Drop Support for Intel Macs  MacRumors
2. Apple tells Mac App Store developers they can now drop Intel support  9to5Mac
3. 21 Years Ago, Intel Saved the Mac. Now, We Say Goodbye to the Intel Era Forever  PCMag Australia
4. Apple just gave developers the green light to leave Intel Macs behind  Digital Trends
5. Apple Made a Massive Bet on Intel 21 Years Ago. It Changed Everything  pcmag.com

1. New iPhone Ultra details arrive for specs, multitasking, launch timing, more  9to5Mac
2. Apple to Ship 10 Million Foldable iPhones in Year One, IDC Says  Bloomberg.com
3. iPhone, Home, iPad mini : Apple's launches for September and October  AppleInsider
4. A Folding iPhone at Last? What to Expect From Apple’s Surprise and Shine Fall Event  CNET
5. Apple iPhone 18 Pro Release Timeline: New Date Enters The Schedule  forbes.com

1. Razer Unveils the Razer Prio: the Pocket-Sized Controller  TechPowerUp
2. Razer Just Released A Cute And Teensy Mobile Game Controller  Engadget
3. Razer Drops Their Latest Controller: The Prio  Retro Handhelds
4. Razer Prio Review: A Must-Have Peripheral For Mobile Game Fans  Temple of Geek
5. Razer Prio: Compact And Responsive Tactile Controls  Men's Gear

NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract Tuesday to develop the agency’s Mars Telecommunications Network, a next-generation communications system that will enable reliable, high-bandwidth communications and navigation services for current and future Mars missions.

The firm-fixed-price contract has a maximum potential value of approximately $700 million to deliver a high-performance Mars telecommunications orbiter to NASA no later than Dec. 31, 2028.

Blue Origin will design, develop, integrate, launch, and operate the network as a part of the agency’s broader space communications and navigation infrastructure. The architecture will consist of a high-performance telecommunications spacecraft orbiting Mars, transmitting science data, imagery, navigation information, and critical mission communications for spacecraft operating on and around the planet.

The award marks a milestone in NASA’s strategy to expand communications and navigation services beyond Earth and the Moon, establishing the foundation for sustained exploration of Mars in the coming decades.

Under the Artemis program, NASA is sending astronauts to explore the Moon and prepare for missions to Mars. Robotic missions will pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and as these missions expand, demand for data will continue to increase. To meet this need, NASA is pursuing a purpose-built network capable of supporting a growing number of missions while providing greater capacity, reliability, and operational flexibility.

The selection follows NASA’s request for proposal issued in May. As the agency increasingly taps commercial partners for transportation and communications services in Earth orbit and to develop the Moon Base, the Mars Telecommunications Network initiative similarly seeks to harness private-sector capabilities while enabling NASA to focus on exploration and scientific discovery.

The network, managed by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program, is expected to be operational at Mars by 2030 and will support both current and future missions to the Red Planet, as NASA ventures deeper into space.

For more information about NASA’s space communications efforts, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/communicating-with-missions

-end-

Rob Margetta
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
robert.j.margetta@nasa.gov

Rob Garner
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-5687
rob.garner@nasa.gov

Brilliant Venus and a Harvest Moon

Use the Moon to find Antares and the Teapot, spot brilliant Venus, welcome the equinox, and see the Harvest Moon near Saturn and Neptune.

Skywatching Highlights

• Sept. 14-20: Use the Moon to find Antares and the Teapot; dark skies may reveal the Milky Way center
• Sept 18: Venus reaches peak brilliance for this evening appearance
• Sept. 22: September equinox; fall begins in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere
• Sept. 26: Harvest Moon rises near Saturn and Neptune

Transcript

The Moon joins a tea party… Venus cranks up the brightness… the seasons officially change… and the Harvest Moon meets up with some planetary neighbors.

That’s What’s Up for September.

From September 14 through 20, let the Moon guide you to a few celestial landmarks. About an hour after sunset, look south to find the Moon in the evening sky.

Night by night, the Moon shifts position against the background stars, passing near Antares.

This bright, reddish star marks the heart of the constellation Scorpius.

Next you’ll see the Teapot, a group of stars in neighboring Sagittarius that really does resemble a teapot, complete with a handle, lid, and spout.

If you are under an especially dark sky… you may see hazy steam rising from the Teapot’s spout.
Follow that steam to its thickest part, and you’ll be looking toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Look west on September 18 as Venus hits peak brilliance, shining at its brightest of this evening appearance..

You won’t have to search hard to find it. Shortly after sunset, Venus will stand out as a brilliant point of light low above the western horizon, outshining every star around it. A clear view of the horizon will give you the best chance to catch it before it sets.

On September 19, celebrate International Observe the Moon Night!

People around the world are invited to look up and connect with our nearest celestial neighbor while learning more about lunar science, exploration, and the many ways the Moon has shaped cultures around the world. Find an event near you — or learn how to participate from wherever you are — at go.nasa.gov/ObserveTheMoon.

Then on September 22, it’s officially fall in the Northern Hemisphere …while spring begins in the Southern Hemisphere.

That’s the September equinox, when the Sun is directly above Earth’s equator and day and night are close to equal in length around the world.

From there, daylight keeps getting shorter in the Northern Hemisphere and longer in the Southern Hemisphere.

And on September 26, the Harvest Moon takes center stage, rising in the east shortly after sunset.

It won’t be alone. Saturn appears nearby, with faint Neptune completing a wide triangle in the sky.

Saturn is the easy one-you can see it with just your eyes. Neptune is a bit more challenging. At around magnitude 8, it’s too faint to see with the unaided eye …so you’ll need binoculars or a telescope to spot it. Darker skies and good observing conditions can help bring it into view.

Here are the phases of the Moon for September.

You can stay up to date on all of NASA’s missions exploring the solar system and beyond at NASA Science. I’m Raquel Villanueva from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s What’s Up this month.

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On Aug. 24, technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida began installing the four RS‑25 engines in the core stage of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will carry the Artemis III crew into low Earth orbit in 2027.

Each RS‑25 engine has a unique serial number that records its detailed flight history. The four engines assigned to Artemis III — E2054, E2057, E2048, and E2052 — previously powered multiple space shuttle missions. Engine 2048 helped launch NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik’s earlier mission aboard space shuttle Atlantis during STS‑129. It also flew on Space Shuttle Discovery during STS‑95 in 1998, the mission that returned 77-year‑old space pioneer U.S. Sen. John Glenn to orbit, making him the oldest person to fly in space at that time.

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Image Details

An iceberg from Petermann Glacier encounters Joe Island in northwestern Greenland, visible in images captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9 on August 23, 2026 (right), and August 24, 2026 (left). NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin.

Summer is prime iceberg season in Greenland’s glacier-fed fjords, and 2026 was no exception. Especially notable was the berg that broke from the Petermann Glacier along Greenland’s northwest coast in August. Roughly the size of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, it was the largest calving event by any Arctic glacier since 2020.

Iceberg calving is a routine part of an outlet glacier’s life cycle. Scientists watch the process closely, however, along with numerous other observations of the ice and its environment, for longer-term signs of instability. Petermann is one of Greenland’s largest marine-terminating glaciers and acts as a gatekeeper for ice flowing from the ice sheet into the ocean. Its future stability has implications for sea level rise.

The calving event of summer 2026 was spotted on August 4 by Adam Garbo, a doctoral student in glaciology at the University of Ottawa, in imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 mission. Garbo and an international team of colleagues have been using remote sensing to study and track the glacier’s ice tongue.

The team reported that the large tabular iceberg, or “ice island,” measured just over 76 square kilometers (29 square miles) at the time it calved—the largest to break from the glacier since the ice island of 2012 (130 square kilometers). The 2012 calving followed earlier major events in 2008 (31 square kilometers) and 2010 (just over 250 square kilometers).

The August 2026 event could have been even bigger. Garbo and colleagues had been expecting a major calving once one of the large rifts they were monitoring finally cut all the way across Petermann’s ice tongue. “What surprised us was that the calving instead followed a different fracture, producing a smaller ice island than we had originally anticipated,” Garbo said. As of late August, two large rifts remained and were expected to eventually produce new ice islands of roughly 94 square kilometers and 84 square kilometers, though the timing remained uncertain.

Glaciologist Mauri Pelto of Nichols College has also been tracking the iceberg, using images from NASA-USGS Landsat satellites, as it drifted down Petermann Fjord toward Nares Strait. In the week since it calved, the berg drifted an average of 3 kilometers per day. It continued toward the fjord’s junction with Nares Strait, where it rammed into a small rocky outcrop known as Joe Island (Joe Ø). The brief encounter is visible in images captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9 on August 23 (top right) and August 24 (top left). A detailed view of the August 24 image is shown above.

Joe Island sits at the mouth of Petermann Fjord, making it one of the first obstacles a departing ice island meets. Collisions with it—like the one that split the 2010 ice island in two—often mark the start of a berg’s breakup. Petermann bergs tend to be thinner and more fragile than those calved by glaciers such as Greenland’s Jakobshavn and Helheim, and thinner still than Antarctica’s behemoths, Pelto noted.

“We were certainly watching closely as it interacted with Joe Island and were impressed that it survived the interaction without further fragmentation,” Garbo said.

The ice island was estimated to be less than 150 meters thick at the time of calving. Wind and surface currents have swept it out of the fjord, and satellite images show it pivoting away from Joe Island and continuing southwest through Nares Strait. As it drifts, it will fracture into smaller pieces as tides, winds, currents, and melting continue to weaken the ice.

Thicker bergs that calve from tidewater glaciers without floating ice-shelf extensions can drag and even become grounded on the seafloor within the fjord, while ice islands, like those from Petermann, might run aground later in their drift. Many ice islands have become “grounded” off the coasts of Coburg and Baffin islands.

Garbo and colleagues noted that ice islands and their fragments have been known to travel considerable distances, posing potential hazards to marine activities and infrastructure while also distributing freshwater through the ocean as they melt.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

Downloads

August 23, 2026

JPEG (12.59 MB)

August 24, 2026

JPEG (10.23 MB)

References & Resources

• Åkesson, H., et al. (2022) Petermann ice shelf may not recover after a future breakup. Nature Communications, 13(2519).
• Crawford, A. J., et al. (2016) Journey of an Arctic Ice Island. Oceanography, 29(2), 254–263.
• Eos (2011, April 5) Context for the Recent Massive Petermann Glacier Calving Event. Accessed August 28, 2026.
• The European Space Agency (2026, August 21) Sentinel-1 captures major ice loss from Greenland glacier. Accessed August 28, 2026.
• Fahrner, D., et al. (2026) Petermann Glacier on the brink: Progress, challenges and insights. Science Advances, 12(33).
• From a Glaciers Perspective (2026, August 17) Petermann Glacier, NW Greenland Releases Massive Iceberg in August 2026. Accessed August 28, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2023, May 20) Retreat at Petermann Glacier. Accessed August 28, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2012, August 2) Ice Island Drifts away from Petermann Glacier. Accessed August 28, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2010, August 10) Ice Island calves off Petermann Glacier. Accessed August 28, 2026.
• uOttawa (2026, August 7) Greenland glacier break creates new ice island. Accessed August 28, 2026.

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