1. [Galaxy Unpacked July 2026] A First Look at Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Flip8  Samsung Global Newsroom
2. Samsung debuts 3 new foldable phones as Apple readies its own  Yahoo Finance
3. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Fold8 and Flip8: Foldables, Perfected for Every Way of Living  Samsung Global Newsroom
4. Why Samsung Gave Its Next Folding Phone a New Shape  WIRED
5. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Tries Hard to Justify Its New ‘Ultra’ Name  CNET

1. Instagram will let users endlessly swap the audio on old posts  The Verge
2. Instagram now lets you swap out the music in your old posts  TechCrunch
3. Instagram gets post-publish audio change for posts and carousels  FoneArena.com
4. Now You Can Change the Music on Your Instagram Post  PetaPixel
5. How to change music on Instagram posts after posting  RUSSH

1. Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 and Ultra 2 specs and pricing leak in full ahead of launch  Android Authority
2. [Galaxy Unpacked July 2026] A First Look at Galaxy Watch Ultra2 and Galaxy Watch9  Samsung Global Newsroom
3. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 9 and Ultra 2 bet big on battery  The Verge
4. Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 Vs Galaxy Watch 8: What Are The Differences?  Engadget
5. Galaxy Watch 9 Breaks the New-Model Pricing Rule With Samsung's Trade-In Offer for Preorders  Gizmodo

1. The reported Apple Upgrade program raises a very big concern  9to5Mac
2. Apple to Launch ‘Upgrade’ Device Leasing Program With Klarna to Spur Sales  Bloomberg.com
3. Apple’s rumored ‘Upgrade’ program brings lease-to-own pricing for iPhones, Macs, and iPads  The Verge
4. iOS 27 code suggests Apple could restrict leased devices after missed payments  9to5Mac
5. Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program was great while it lasted  AppleInsider

1. The iPhone 18 Pro's Rumored Camera Upgrade, Explained  MacRumors
2. iPhone 18 Pro And iPhone 18 Pro Max Release Date: Apple’s Event Timeline Signals Exact Day  Forbes
3. When will iPhone 18 release? What previous announcements tell us  USA Today
4. iPhone 18 news, leaks, and rumors: Release date, iPhone 18 Pro details, more info  Mashable
5. The $1,625 iPhone 18 Pro Max could be the most expensive phone in Apple's history  PhoneArena

NASA is supporting the Genesis Mission, a national effort to drive the use of artificial intelligence in tackling complex scientific and engineering challenges to advance a new era of discovery.

President Donald J. Trump issued the Executive Order “Launching the Genesis Mission” on Nov. 24, 2025, creating a national mission to leverage artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery. The mission is led by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and has now expanded to more than 15 federal agencies in a whole-of-government initiative. NASA is exploring how its missions, data, and expertise can support National Science and Technology challenges and help develop the powerful AI tools envisioned under the Genesis Mission, opening the door to faster breakthroughs, new knowledge, and discoveries that benefit the American people and help unlock some of the world’s greatest mysteries.

“America has invested for generations in the data, missions, and technical expertise that make NASA one of the world’s greatest engines of discovery,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “The Genesis Mission is an opportunity to turn that foundation into faster science, stronger engineering, and better mission outcomes. Leveraging our relationships with interagency counterparts, NASA can advance AI tools that accelerate exploration, strengthen American leadership in space, and open new paths to understanding our planet and the universe. Likewise, NASA is committed to applying our research and development to other initiatives within government for the benefit of American taxpayers.”

NASA introduced new Genesis Mission National Science and Technology Challenges that center on two major priorities: strengthening America’s superiority in space and igniting a new era of innovation driven by more than 70 years of science and engineering by the agency.

To operate safely in a space environment that is growing more crowded and dynamic each year, and to maintain America’s leadership in space, NASA must develop advanced systems faster than traditional engineering methods allow. These systems must work together reliably across spacecraft, communications, logistics, surface operations, and other mission capabilities. By combining NASA’s mission expertise with the Department of Energy’s computing and AI capabilities, the Genesis Mission can shorten the path from concept to operational readiness and strengthen America’s ability to operate and lead in space.

NASA also will explore how AI can unlock new discoveries from more than 150 petabytes of data collected across decades of missions and research. NASA’s telescopes, satellites, orbiters, landers, and aeronautics programs have produced an extraordinary record of Earth, the solar system, and the universe, but the scale and complexity of these archives make it difficult to examine every observation using traditional methods. Advanced AI tools could help scientists connect data from different missions, instruments, simulations, and fields of study, identify patterns that might otherwise remain hidden, improve predictions, and reveal new discoveries in data that may have already been studied. By turning NASA’s mission archives into engines of discovery, the Genesis Mission can expand the return on generations of American investment in space and strengthen research across a wide range of scientific fields.

As the Genesis Mission advances, NASA remains dedicated to harnessing its decades of scientific and mission data and engineering capabilities to accelerate new innovations and discovery.

For more information about NASA’s missions, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

George Alderman / Elizabeth Shaw
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
george.a.alderman@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.shaw@nasa.gov

Wildland fire activity in Canada ramped up in July 2026, a time of year when lightning ignitions typically increase, according to a seasonal outlook published by several North American fire agencies. The blazes sent smoke plumes pouring across the U.S. and Canada, affecting air quality in both countries.  

This animation tracks brown carbon, the organic aerosols emitted by fires that give smoke plumes their characteristic yellow, orange, and brown tint. Brown carbon is a major component of a fire’s PM_2.5 emissions, a type of air pollution that can aggravate cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. Here, the plume drifts across North American skies from July 14 through July 20, 2026.

Data for the animation come from a version of the GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) model, which assimilates data from satellites, aircraft, and ground-based observing systems. In addition to satellite observations of aerosols and fires, the model also incorporates meteorological data such as air temperature, moisture, and winds to project the plume’s behavior.

On July 14, at the start of the animation, numerous fires had already cropped up, including more than 180 in Ontario and several in northern Minnesota. Winds carried the smoke southeast, and by July 15, skies turned hazy and air quality declined from southern Ontario in Canada to the Upper Midwest and Northeast in the U.S. July 16 and 17 saw air quality in many areas continue to plummet, including in Detroit, where it stayed in the hazardous range for several consecutive days. Toronto, Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C., saw air quality ranging from unhealthy to hazardous.

On July 19 and 20, smoke continued to affect air quality downwind, including in the Great Lakes region, according to the National Weather Service. Storms began clearing it away in parts of the East, where air quality improved to good or moderate. Meanwhile, fires in the Pacific Northwest began degrading air quality there. 

The brown carbon shown in this animation represents organic carbon that comes specifically from wildfire smoke. Wildfires also emit black carbon, or soot, which contributes to their PM_2.5 output. Black carbon has long served as a tracer for smoke plumes, but human sources—such as vehicle exhaust and industrial combustion—produce it too, blending in with the black carbon from fires. The GEOS model has been able to make that distinction for brown carbon since February 2026, when an update enabled it to split organic carbon into its anthropogenic and biomass-burning components.

NASA Earth Observatory animation by Lauren Dauphin, using GEOS-FP data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

References & Resources

• The Conversation (2026, July 16) Yes, breathing wildfire smoke can harm your health – here’s what you can do to protect yourself. Accessed July 21, 2026.
• NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (2026, February 19) Splitting Anthropogenic and Biomass Burning Sources of Organic Carbon in GOCART-2G. Accessed July 21, 2026.
• NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (2026, July 20) Long-range Transport of 2026 Canadian Wildfire Smoke into the United States (July 14-20, 2026). Accessed July 21, 2026.
• National Interagency Fire Center, Natural Resources Canada, and Servicio Meteorológico Nacional (2026, July 14) North American Seasonal Fire Assessment and Outlook. Accessed July 21, 2026.
• The New York Times (2026, July 19) When Will the Wildfire Smoke Clear? Accessed July 21, 2026.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2026, July 14-20) AirNow: Interactive Map of Air Quality. Accessed July 21, 2026.

You may also be interested in:

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

Ontario Wildfire Smoke Moves East

3 min read

Canadian wildfires sent plumes of smoke streaming over Ontario, Quebec, and parts of the U.S. Midwest and Northeast.

Article

Smoke Shrouds Northern Thailand

3 min read

Seasonal fires have darkened skies over Southeast Asia.

Article

Fighting Fire With Fire

3 min read

In fire-prone ecosystems in Australia’s Northern Territory, prescribed burns are lit to minimize the severity of fires later in the…

Article

Keep Exploring

Discover More from NASA Earth Science

Subscribe to Earth Observatory Newsletters

Subscribe to the Earth Observatory and get the Earth in your inbox.

Earth Observatory Image of the Day

NASA’s Earth Observatory brings you the Earth, every day, with in-depth stories and stunning imagery.

Explore Earth Science

Earth Science Data

Open access to NASA’s archive of Earth science data

2 Min Read

NISAR’s L-Band Radar Reveals ‘Hummingbird’ in Antarctica

Downloads

NISAR’s L-Band Radar Reveals ‘Hummingbird’ in Antarctica

PNG (43.77 MB)

PIA26617 Figure A

JPEG (29.10 MB)

Description

Data from the Earth-orbiting U.S.-India NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite’s L-band radar was used to produce an image of Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja — a mountaintop in East Antarctica — poking out amid a stream of ice flowing northeast to the ocean. The obstruction causes stresses in the ice, heavily fracturing the surrounding surfaces with deep cracks, called crevasses, which show as sharp green lines in the image. Produced in August 2025, the image has been nicknamed “the hummingbird” by NISAR scientists. 

The colors show differences in the way polarized microwave signals, which vibrate in different directions, interact with and reflect from the ice. Over Antarctica, NISAR transmits radar waves toward Earth with a horizontal polarization. The orientation of the signals that return, either horizontal, vertical, or both, provide clues about the object or surface that reflected them.

Signals that come back with a horizontal polarization likely bounced off a more regular surface, such as smooth ice. Those signals appear magenta in the image. Signals that return with vertical polarization may have refracted as they partially penetrated the ice or scattered at different angles as they reflected off irregular surfaces, like the faces of crevasses. Called volume scattering, these observations are displayed in green.

The white represents areas in which both magenta and green signals scatter back strongly, a possible indication that there is an equal blend of surface and volume scattering.

Figure A is an annotated version of image.

Managed by Caltech, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the United States component of the project and provided the satellite’s L-band SAR and antenna reflector. The spacecraft bus and its S-band SAR were provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation. The NISAR satellite is the first to carry two SAR instruments at different wavelengths, collecting data using the spacecraft’s giant drum-shaped reflector, which measures 39 feet (12 meters) wide — the largest radar antenna reflector NASA has ever sent into space.

To learn more about NISAR, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/nisar/

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From Photojournal

Photojournal

Search Photojournal

Photojournal’s Latest Content

Feedback

Media are invited to join NASA for a virtual news conference at 2 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, July 29, to preview the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission, scheduled to launch from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, Aug. 30.

NASA will stream this event live through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online: https://www.nasa.gov/live.

Participants in the briefing, who will provide an overview of the mission and its status, include:

• Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Jackie Townsend, Roman telescope project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
• Julie McEnery, Roman telescope senior project scientist, NASA Goddard
• Jeremy Perkins, Roman telescope integration and test scientist, NASA Goddard

Media interested in participating by phone must RSVP no later than two hours prior to the start of the briefing to Rob Garner at rob.garner@nasa.gov. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.  

Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a deep, panoramic view of the cosmos, generating never-before-seen pictures that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe. The observatory will usher in a new era of cosmic surveys, unveiling troves of celestial objects and shedding light on some of the universe’s most profound mysteries, including phenomena we can’t see. Roman also will showcase cutting-edge technology, including a test of the most advanced technology ever flown in space to directly image planets around nearby stars, a key step in NASA’s search for life on other worlds.

The Roman telescope is managed at NASA Goddard with participation by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a team of scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc., L3Harris Technologies, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging. Contributions to Roman also are made by ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.

For more information about NASA’s Roman telescope, visit:

https://nasa.gov/roman

-end-

Alise Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov

Claire Andreoli / Rob Garner
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-1940 / 301-286-5687
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov / rob.garner@nasa.gov

Main

Figure A

MainFigure A

Main

Figure A

NISAR’s L-Band Radar Reveals ‘Hummingbird’ in Antarctica

CurtainToggle2-Up

Image Details

Scientists used data from the L-band radar aboard the U.S.-India Earth-orbiting NISAR satellite to produce this image of Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja, a mountaintop in East Antarctica, poking out amid a stream of ice flowing northeast to the ocean. The annotations point out the sharp green lines that indicate ice fractured with crevasses. Magenta represents more regular surfaces, such as smooth ice. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

As of July 20, the public can access data from the two powerful radar instruments aboard the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite. Teams in the United States and India will release files processed from the satellite’s L-band and S-band radars on an ongoing basis, helping researchers and other users track the movement of Earth’s land and ice masses, monitor changes in ecosystems like forests and wetlands, and respond to natural hazards such as landslides and earthquakes. 

The release comes as NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) prepare to celebrate the first anniversary of NISAR’s July 30, 2025, launch from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Since that time, the mission engineering and science teams have been busy calibrating instrumentation, refining algorithms, and monitoring nearly all the planet’s land- and ice-covered surfaces twice every 12 days. Along the way, the team has captured scenes from around the globe — urban street grids, agricultural fields, landslides, earthquakes, and sinking land in Mexico City.  

An early image released Tuesday revealed the fractured, barren surface of an Antarctic landscape in stark detail. In a merging of science and serendipity, it also resembles something else entirely: a hummingbird. 

Despite its otherworldly quality, the Antarctic image shows a very real geographical feature called Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja, a mountaintop in East Antarctica, poking out amid a stream of ice flowing northeast to the ocean. As the moving glacier passes the obstruction, the mountain’s topography causes stresses in the ice, heavily fracturing the surrounding surfaces with deep cracks, called crevasses, which show as sharp green lines in the image.  

“First, it’s a beautiful image, with rich details of features that provide insights to how the glacier is moving. Then, because radar can often see through snow and deep into the ice, NISAR can observe fundamentally different properties of Antarctic ice than can be seen in optical imagery,” said Seongsu Jeong, the signal analysis engineer who produced the image at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “With NISAR we’re seeing what’s hidden beneath the surface.” 

Story in magenta, green 

Generated with measurements that NISAR’s L-band instrument gathered in August 2025, as U.S. and Indian mission teams tested the satellite’s systems, the “hummingbird” exemplifies one of the young mission’s hallmarks: intricately detailed imagery that is both informative and eye-catching.  

The colors show differences in the way polarized microwave signals, which vibrate in different directions, interact with and reflect from the ice. Over Antarctica, NISAR transmits radar waves toward Earth with a horizontal polarization. The orientation of the signals that return — either horizontal, vertical, or both — provide clues about the object or surface that reflected them. 

Signals that come back with a horizontal polarization likely bounced off a more regular surface, such as smooth ice. Those signals appear magenta in the image. Signals that return with vertical polarization may have refracted as they partially penetrated the snow and ice or scattered at different angles as they reflected off irregular surfaces, such as the faces of crevasses. Called volume scattering, these observations are displayed in green. 

The white represents areas in which magenta and green signals scatter back strongly, a possible indication that there is an equal blend of surface and volume scattering. 

The same scene viewed in optical light is almost entirely white with ice and snow. Slight shadows and rippling indicate the presence of the mountaintop, and textures in the surrounding area suggest the ice is not completely smooth. 

Access to data 

The NISAR satellite is the first free-flying space mission to feature two radar instruments: an L-band system and an S-band system. The systems are complementary due to their differing wavelengths. For example, the longer-wave L-band can pass through tree canopies, imaging the ground beneath. Meanwhile, depending on leaf sizes, S-band can collect observations of those canopies. 

The Indian science team, based at ISRO’s Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad, recently started releasing S-band data via the Bhoonidhi portal.  

On July 20, the U.S. side of the mission started releasing calibrated products continuously for all L-band measurements collected since June 17. By the end of the year, the team expects to have released all data acquired earlier during science operations. The NISAR project science team previously had two limited releases of L-band data, the first in January of about 25 sample products and a release in February of thousands of pre-calibrated products. 

As with the earlier releases, data users will be able to download the latest files at the Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center in Fairbanks, which hosts and distributes all NASA synthetic aperture radar data.  

The NISAR mission’s science data output is vast, on the order of dozens of terabytes a day, due to the satellite’s frequent coverage of nearly all the land and ice surfaces on Earth. It scans from within a few degrees of the South Pole in Antarctica to 77.5 degrees north latitude, above the Arctic Circle. 

More about NISAR 

Managed by Caltech, JPL leads the U.S. component of the project and provided the satellite’s L-band SAR and antenna reflector. The spacecraft bus and its S-band SAR were provided by ISRO. 

The NISAR satellite is the first to carry two SAR instruments at different wavelengths, collecting data using the spacecraft’s giant drum-shaped reflector, which measures 39 feet (12 meters) wide — the largest radar antenna reflector NASA has sent into space. 

To learn more about NISAR, visit: 

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/nisar/

Media Contacts

Andrew Wang / Andrew Good 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 
626-379-6874 / 818-393-2433 
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov 

2026-049

Explore More

3 min read

A Week of Smoky Skies Across North America

Brown carbon, emitted by wildland fires and tracked over the span of a week in…

Article 10 hours ago

2 min read

NISAR’s L-Band Radar Reveals ‘Hummingbird’ in Antarctica

Description Data from the Earth-orbiting U.S.-India NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite’s L-band radar was…

Article 14 hours ago

4 min read

Why Maine’s Sandy Shorelines Turn Jagged

Differences in the underlying bedrock and how rivers distribute sediment make the coastlines west of…

Article 1 day ago

Keep Exploring

Discover Related Topics

NISAR

NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) systematically maps Earth, measuring changes of our planet’s surface as small as a centimeter.

Earth Science Missions

In order to study the Earth as a whole system and understand how it is changing, NASA develops and supports…

Earth Science Data

Open access to NASA’s archive of Earth science data

Earth Science at Work

NASA Earth Science helps Americans respond to challenges and societal needs — such as wildland fires, hurricanes, and water supplies…