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El Niño, characterized by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific, made its return in June 2026. Observations of sea surface height from the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite that month indicated that the 2026 event was continuing to strengthen.  

The natural, recurring phenomenon can have widespread effects, typically bringing wetter conditions to the U.S. Southwest and drought to countries in the western Pacific, such as Indonesia and Australia. NOAA declared an El Niño on June 11, after sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific measured at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above average for several consecutive months.

Meanwhile, NASA scientists have been observing a complementary sign of El Niño: areas of elevated sea surface height. When ocean water warms, it expands in volume and causes the sea surface to rise—making the water’s height a reliable indicator of ocean temperatures. Warmer-than-normal temperatures, hence higher sea surface heights, in parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean are associated with El Niño.

The map above depicts sea surface height anomalies across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean as observed on June 8, 2026. Shades of red indicate sea levels that were higher than average. Normal sea level conditions appear white, and lower areas are blue.  

Data for the map were acquired by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite—launched in 2020 by NASA and led by ESA (European Space Agency)—and processed by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Note that signals related to seasonal cycles and long-term trends have been removed to highlight sea level anomalies associated with El Niño and other short-term natural phenomena.

Earlier in spring 2026, the satellite started to detect precursor signs of El Niño as swells of warm water hundreds of miles wide, known as Kelvin waves, moved from the western Pacific to the eastern Pacific. That happens when trade winds in the western equatorial Pacific weaken and then temporarily reverse to blow from the west. Warm water piles up in the east, deepening the warm surface layer, lowering the thermocline, and suppressing the upwelling that usually keeps waters along the Pacific coasts of the Americas cooler.

This buildup of heat beneath the water’s surface is what sea surface height observations capture. It goes beyond surface temperature measurements to indicate how much heat is stored in the subsurface. That’s important because a shallow warm layer might not have much impact on climate and weather, while a large reservoir of heat below the surface can matter more.

According to JPL sea level researcher Severine Fournier, deputy project scientist for Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, conditions in the western Pacific on June 8 looked similar to those from the same time in 1997, a year when an exceptionally strong El Niño emerged. Warm conditions in the eastern Pacific in 2026 have lagged behind, however, with fewer Kelvin waves built up by the same date.

Still, more warm Kelvin waves appeared to be approaching the eastern Pacific, meaning El Niño was still strengthening. Whether it catches up to 1997 depends on ocean activity in the coming weeks. “For now, it looks like it’s going to be a big one—more so than I would have said last week—but we still need more observations to know what’s going to happen.”

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023) processed by the European Space Agency and further processed by Josh Willis, Severin Fournier, and Kevin Marlis/NASA/JPL-Caltech. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

Downloads

June 8, 2026

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References & Resources

• Climate Prediction Center/NCEP/NWS (2026, June 11) El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion. Accessed June 17, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2025, September 25) El Niño. Accessed June 17, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2023, June 21) El Niño Returns. Accessed June 17, 2026.
• NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2026, May 27) NASA-European Sea Level Mission Homes in on El Niño. Accessed June 17, 2026.
• NOAA (2026, June 11) El Nino forms, expected to strengthen, say NOAA forecasters. Accessed June 17, 2026.

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NASA Wednesday announced a new public‑private partnership to advance Mars science by combining the agency’s scientific leadership with commercial innovation. Under this model, NASA will provide the Aeolus atmospheric‑science instrument payload suite, while Relativity Space supplies the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations necessary to deliver the instruments to Mars.

This partnership reflects NASA’s growing commitment to approaches that accelerate discovery, expand mission cadence, and strengthen the foundation for future human exploration. By leveraging commercial investment and development capacity, NASA can focus resources on high‑value science while enabling more frequent opportunities to gather critical data about Mars, data essential to safely navigating the Martian atmosphere and ultimately landing humans on the surface.

“Public-private partnerships like this are a force multiplier for science,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “By pairing NASA’s world‑class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars.”

Aeolus, scheduled to launch in 2028, is a NASA‑developed suite of four complementary instruments designed to provide the first integrated, daily, global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust, and clouds. By improving models for dust, winds, temperature, and seasonal atmospheric behavior, Aeolus will generate the detailed environmental knowledge required to reduce risk for future crewed and uncrewed landings. These measurements will directly inform entry, descent, and landing systems and support safer, more predictable mission planning for astronauts.

Aeolus builds on more than two decades of NASA missions that have studied the Martian atmosphere, including orbiters such as MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Odyssey, while taking the foundation laid by earlier missions even further, continuing NASA’s tradition of expanding the frontiers of Mars science. Researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley will design, build, and integrate the payload, while Relativity Space will manage spacecraft development and mission operations.

“As NASA’s Innovation Center of Excellence, Ames is committed to delivering the technologies, capabilities, and creative partnerships that enable the agency’s boldest missions,” said Dr. Eugene Tu, center director, NASA Ames. “Aeolus reflects how innovative collaboration accelerates science and strengthens the foundation needed for one day landing humans on Mars.”

The Aeolus payload suite includes four NASA‑built instruments:

• Doppler Wind and Temperature Sounder (DWTS‑Ozone): Measures wind and temperature profiles from the surface up to approximately 37 miles (60 km). A collaboration with GATS.
• Thermal Limb Sounder (TLS): Provides vertical temperature profiles and observations of dust and water‑ice clouds. A collaboration with Xiomas Technologies.
• Surface Radiometric Sensor Package (SuRSeP): Measures surface energy balance, dust, and cloud properties.
• Wide‑Field Context Camera (WFCC): Captures daily global images of atmospheric activity.

NASA will support operations of science instruments for at least one Martian year, while Relativity Space maintains the spacecraft. As part of the agreement, NASA will develop the data‑processing pipeline needed to transform raw measurements into high‑quality, ready‑to‑use data products for broad scientific use.

This effort is supported under NASA’s first six‑year reimbursable Space Act Agreement, providing a stable framework for sustained collaboration, predictable development, and mission continuity.

Learn more about Mars science at:

https://science.nasa.gov/mars

-end-

Camille Gallo / Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
camille.m.gallo@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov

Jeanne Neal
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley
650-604-4789
jeanne.c.neal@nasa.gov

Some stars have planets. Others are orbited by brown dwarfs, balls of gas too massive to be planets, but too low-mass to be stars. Astronomers love these brown dwarf-star pairs because being paired with a star helps reveal a brown dwarf’s age. Ages of astronomical objects are often hard to measure, but essential for understanding how they form. 

Now, you can join NASA’s new Backyard Worlds: Binaries project and help astronomers discover these rare and interesting pairs. As a volunteer, you’ll inspect images from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope. Brown dwarfs may appear as small dots moving across a field of otherwise static stars. 

“We need your help to gain critical insights into these enigmatic cosmic objects,” said project lead Aaron Meisner.

Brown dwarfs are common but mysterious because they are so faint. There’s one for every three or four stars in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy. They are important laboratories for understanding giant planets like Jupiter.

Join the Backyard Worlds: Binaries project today and help astronomers understand where and when brown dwarfs form! You can also try one of our other brown dwarf-related projects: Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors! Anyone with a laptop or cell phone can participate. Participation does not require citizenship in any particular country.

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Looking somewhat like a swarm of bees returning to their hive, this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image released on June 12, 2026, features the galaxy cluster MACS0329-0211. Galaxy clusters like MACS0329-0211 are important signposts in the story of how the structure of the universe evolved, and are the ultimate telescopic lenses, placing gravitationally lensed galaxies from the earliest stages of the universe into our view.

Zoom into this galaxy swarm and you will find large, oval-shaped elliptical galaxies, and thin spiral and lenticular galaxies viewed from the edge. We can also see the full, face-on view of spiral galaxies and their curving spiral arms. The image’s upper-right quadrant holds faint arcs of distant galaxies gravitationally lensed by the cluster’s massive gravity. The largest of these arcs appears above the bright oval shape of a giant elliptical galaxy. Closer inspection of the image’s center reveals several bright-white intersecting curves that appear as a distorted figure eight. This may be another distant galaxy whose light was magnified and distorted by this massive cluster’s gravity.

Hubble looked at MACS0329-0211 as part of an observing program of X-ray bright galaxy clusters. Researchers used Hubble’s two main cameras, the Advanced Camera for Surveys and its Wide Field Camera 3, to gather data visible and infrared light from the cluster. Hubble’s ability to see such a broad spectrum of light makes it a valuable tool in understanding the very nature of these galaxy clusters.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI); Image Processing: G. Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

June 7, 2023

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June 7, 2023May 22, 2026

June 7, 2023

May 22, 2026

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Image Details

Little water remains in the San Carlos Reservoir in May 2026 (right) compared to fuller conditions in June 2023 (left). Images were captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 9 and 8 satellites, respectively. NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison.

The Gila River is among the Southwest’s most important rivers, delivering water for people, farms, and wildlife while linking the snow-fed mountains of southwestern New Mexico to the desert lowlands of southwestern Arizona.

In wetter years, seasonal snowfall on the Mogollon Mountains and Black Range provides much of the river’s spring flow and helps refill San Carlos Reservoir, which is formed by the Coolidge Dam. When filled to capacity, the reservoir is one of Arizona’s largest bodies of water.

However, in 2026, lackluster snowfall left the mountain snowpack in the Gila River watershed at 2 percent of the 1991-2020 March median. The limited snowpack pushed April streamflow to 39 percent of normal. By June, after mandatory water releases for downstream agriculture, the reservoir held less than 400 acre-feet of water.

The Landsat image above (right) shows the near-empty reservoir on May 22, 2026, when it stored 389 acre-feet of water—less than 1 percent full; the other image (left) shows the same area in June 2023, when it was about 60 percent full. The green vegetation growing along the river channel and reservoir edge includes a mixture of tamarisk, willow, cottonwood, sedges, and grasses.

Officials closed the reservoir indefinitely on June 5, 2026, after the declining water levels contributed to low oxygen levels—hypoxia—that killed virtually all of its fish. Species living in the reservoir included largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill, channel catfish, flathead catfish, and several stocked species, including brown trout and rainbow trout. The decomposing fish may pose health risks to people attempting to boat or fish, the San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Department warned.

The reservoir has hit similarly low water levels in the past, running out of water at least 20 times since it was filled in 1930, according to news reports. Even when the dam and reservoir were first dedicated, there was enough grass growing on the dried reservoir bottom that humorist Will Rogers famously quipped to President Calvin Coolidge: “If that was my lake, I’d mow it.”

Other years with major fish kills include 1976 and 2018. After more than 5 million fish died during a similar event in 1976, the Gila Herald reported that it took five years for the lake’s ecosystem to rebound.

The region is currently in the midst of a multi-year dry period that has left much of the Gila River’s headwaters in New Mexico in a state of severe drought, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

However, the river’s flow is highly variable, and heavy rains during the coming wet season could help the reservoir recover. A seasonal monsoon outlook released by NOAA in May 2026 projected a 33 to 50 percent chance that an above-average amount of rain would fall in the region that summer. El Niño in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, which was strengthening in late spring 2026, can make heavy rains in the U.S. Southwest more likely.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

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May 22, 2026

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References & Resources

• Arizona Silver Belt (2026, April 23) Low water levels prompt lifted fishing limits at San Carlos Lake. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation (2015, March 4) 85 Years of the Coolidge Dam! Accessed June 16, 2026.
• Gila Herald (2026, June 7) San Carlos Lake Closed Indefinitely Following Catastrophic “100% Fish Kill.” Accessed June 16, 2026.
• Natural Resources Conservation Service (2026, April 1) New Mexico Water Supply Outlook Report. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• National Weather Service (2026, May 21) 2026 Arizona Monsoon Outlook. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• National Integrated Drought Information System (2026, June 9) Lower Colorado Region Watershed Drought Information. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• National Weather Service (2026, May 4) Drought Information Statement for Southern NM/Far West TX. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• Pinal Central (2026, June 6) San Carlos Reservoir level very low, but not unprecedented. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Department (2026, June 5) San Carlos Lake Closure. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• True West (2016, February 1) Will Rogers in Arizona. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• The University of Arizona (2026, May 28) Southwest Climate Outlook. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• U.S. Geological Survey (2026, June 15) San Carlos Reservoir at Coolidge Dam, AZ. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• USA Today (2026, June 9) Massive fish kill forces indefinite closure of Arizona lake. Accessed June 16, 2026.
• Western-Water (2026, June 8) San Carlos Reservoir: Drought kills every fish. Accessed June 16, 2026.

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