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Two galaxies merge at a furious rate in this Aug. 25, 2026, image of the II Zw 096 system. This and several other images of both visually and scientifically interesting galaxies were released by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.
Chandra X-ray data (magenta) pinpoint powerful black hole activity and hot gas, while optical data (blue and white) from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope illuminate vast stellar nurseries hidden behind interstellar dust. Systems like II Zw 096 show us how powerful galaxy collisions shaped the early universe.
See more galaxy photos from Chandra.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major
2026-09-11 15:05

Media are invited to hear from NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 astronauts during a news conference beginning at 2:45 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, Sept. 16, from the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will discuss their upcoming return to Earth. Learn where to watch online:
Media interested in participating must contact the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston no later than 5 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. To ask questions, media must dial into the news conference no later than 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.
Crew-12 joined Expedition 74/75 crew members aboard the space station and contributed to hundreds of experiments to prepare for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit and to benefit humanity on Earth. Research included studying pneumonia-causing bacteria to improve cardiovascular treatments, on-demand intravenous fluid generation for future space missions, and how physical characteristics may affect blood flow during spaceflight.
The crew will depart the space station after the arrival of Crew-13 and a short handover period. Ahead of Crew-12’s return, mission teams will review weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the coast of California prior to departure from station.
For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.
Learn more about the International Space Station, its research, and crew, at:
-end-
Joshua Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Anna Schneider
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov
2026-09-11 14:56

The science from every Moon rock sample, lunar dataset, and discovery produced through NASA’s Artemis program will be shared by the agency with the global scientific community. That commitment is upheld by all 71 countries that have signed the Artemis Accords, a set of principles for safe and transparent civil space exploration.
NASA put those principles into practice by hosting a two-part virtual workshop series that began July 28 and concluded Sept. 8, focusing on one key tenet of the Artemis Accords: the timely release of scientific data to the public and the international scientific community.
“As we return humans to the Moon, our Artemis efforts will help us unlock the full potential of scientific discovery through transparency, collaboration, and accessibility,” said Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist at NASA. “We are making data, tools, and results freely available, and inviting the Artemis Accords partners to innovate with us and share their data as well, accelerating our understanding of lunar processes and laying the groundwork for human space exploration for the Moon, Mars and beyond.”
The two recent workshops added to discussions led by the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) in May, when signatories first explored ways to advance open data practices and created common ground for deeper conversations on open data. NASA split its follow‑on discussion about data sharing into two virtual sessions, so technical experts around the world could take part.
The agency hosted its first session on open science principles and implementation practices. It promoted interoperability and collaboration among signatories and advanced reproducibility, accessibility, and transparency in scientific work, including in NASA’s Artemis program.
The second session focused on tools for open science, providing Artemis Accords signatories with a working model to reference as they build or refine their own data-sharing frameworks.
“NASA is committed to leading by example when it comes to open science,” said Andrew Mitchell, deputy chief science data officer for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, whose office leads the agency’s open science efforts. “These workshops gave our Artemis Accords partners practical tools and a shared foundation to build on as we move forward together.”
NASA presented the Planetary Data System, one of the agency’s primary archives for planetary science data, openly available lunar data, data visualization and analysis tools, and the system’s data information model standard, offering a real-world example of how NASA structures, curates, and shares scientific data with the world.
Across both sessions, NASA shared practices developed over years of stewarding scientific data and opened the floor to technical experts across the Artemis Accords community, reflecting a deliberate effort to build alignment at the working level.
“Advances in technology help enable open science, but technology alone is insufficient,” said Mitchell. “Open science requires a shift to a more transparent and collaborative scientific process, which will increase the pace and quality of scientific progress. Scientific processes and results should be as open and repeatable as possible to encourage further study.”
In 2020, NASA and the State Department joined with seven other founding nations to establish the Artemis Accords in response to the growing interest in lunar activities by both governments and private companies. They introduced the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing the safety and coordination between like-minded nations as they explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond, committing nations to:
By signing the Artemis Accords, nations open the door to opportunities for future lunar exploration with NASA, advancing humanity’s return to the Moon, and shaping the Golden Age of space exploration and innovation.
Learn more about the Artemis Accords at:
2026-09-11 04:05
APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation: Beautiful and bright spiral galaxy M83 lies some twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra. Prominent spiral arms traced by dark dust lanes and blue star clusters lend this galaxy its popular name, the Southern Pinwheel. Still, reddish star forming regions that dot this cosmic pinwheel’s spiral arms have suggested another nickname, the Thousand-Ruby Galaxy. A mere 40,000 light-years across, smaller than the Milky Way, M83 is a member of a group of galaxies that includes active galaxy Centaurus A. In fact, the core of M83 itself is bright at x-ray energies, showing a high concentration of neutron stars and black holes left from an intense burst of star formation. This sharp, groundbased telescopic view also features foreground Milky Way stars and distant background galaxies.
APOD’s main NASA site is moving: From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod
Tomorrow’s picture: lunar sun catcher
| Date | September 11, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Credit & Copyright | Aldo Zanetti |
| Authors & editors: | Jerry Bonnell, Robert Nemiroff, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |
2026-09-11 04:01
The curving, parallel mountain ridges of the Sierra Madre Oriental are an eye-catching feature of northeastern Mexico’s landscape. The spot where these folds nestle up against Mexico’s second-largest metropolitan area captured the attention of an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, who took this photo on August 26, 2026.
Monterrey, the capital of the state of Nuevo León, is an industrial hub supporting heavy industries such as ironworks and steelworks, as well as manufacturing facilities for goods ranging from textiles to processed foods to glass and plastics. The metropolitan area is home to 5.3 million people, according to the 2020 census. And while the city has seen overall population growth since 1990, the number of people living within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the city center has declined, researchers have found—a trajectory shared with many of Mexico’s metropolitan areas.
In Monterrey’s case, urban expansion runs up against some unforgiving terrain. Along the city’s southern edge, layers of limestone, deposited in the late Mesozoic era and then folded between about 80 and 50 million years ago, form the Sierra Madre Oriental. Over millions of years, weaker rock layers have eroded away, leaving behind the distinct ridgelines that bound Monterrey today.
The Río Santa Catarina carves through the mountains and onto the semiarid floodplain where the city lies. Because of the dry environment, the river carries little to no water for much of the time. But its channel is crucial for collecting runoff from summer rains and serves as an important natural area for plant and animal life within the city.
The river runs through Monterrey’s urban core and between several island-like protrusions of folded rock. One of these is the Sierra Las Mitras, a state nature reserve established in 2000. The mountain ridge rises approximately 1,500 meters (4,900 feet) over the city and provides a haven for wildlife. As conditions become cooler and wetter with higher elevations, vegetation turns from cacti and thorny shrubs on lower rocky slopes to oak and pine forests higher on the ridge. Cerro de la Silla (Mount Silla or Saddle Hill) is another prominent feature of the landscape, contrasting with the built environment.
Near the city’s border with the Sierra Madre Oriental sits Universidad de Monterrey, a host venue for the NASA Space Apps Challenge. This annual hackathon will take place in November 2026 in person and virtually at sites around the world. Participating teams use NASA and partner agency data to tackle challenges in fields such as software development, astrophysics, space exploration, and agriculture.
Astronaut photograph ISS075-E-70481 was acquired on August 26, 2026, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 400 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 75 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Story by Lindsey Doermann.
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