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5. Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026: Everything we think the company will unveil  Engadget

In the wake of a winter storm that blanketed numerous U.S. states with snow and ice, unusually low temperatures continued to grip a large swath of the nation east of the Rockies in late January 2026. The cold spell was notable for severity, longevity, and geographic scope.

This animation depicts surface air temperatures across part of the Northern Hemisphere, including North America, from January 21 to 29. It combines satellite observations with temperatures calculated by a version of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) global model, which uses mathematical equations to simulate physical processes in the atmosphere.

Dark blue areas indicate the lowest surface air temperatures. The brief pulses show daily warming and cooling, while the broader pattern reveals cold air spreading south and east and lingering through much of the week.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS), the surge of Arctic air pushed deep into the United States on January 22, ushering in a period of low temperatures and harsh wind chills. The cold coincided with a jet of moisture to produce significant accumulations of snow and ice spanning from the U.S. Southwest to New England.

In the days after the storm, dangerously cold weather persisted. In the Midwest, for example, the temperature in Alliance, Nebraska, dropped to minus 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 32 degrees Celsius) on January 24, the lowest daily minimum temperature for that date on record, according to preliminary NWS reports. In the South, an extreme cold warning was in effect in south-central Texas overnight on January 26, with temperatures dipping into the single digits. By January 27, parts of the South had started to see slight warming, but wind chills down to -20°F (-29°C) continued across the Midwest and Northeast.

According to meteorologists, the cold snap was caused by frigid air from the Canadian and Siberian Arctic funneling into eastern North America, then being driven south as high-pressure systems forced the jet stream to dip. Forecasts called for another blast of Arctic air late in the week, with below-normal temperatures persisting into early February.

The lingering cold has posed extra challenges to those who remained without power or heat after the storm and for those working to clean up, clear streets, and restore power and transportation services.

NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System has been activated to support agencies responding to the winter storm. The team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available.

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

References & Resources

• The Conversation (2026, January 24) How the polar vortex and warm ocean intensified a major US winter storm. Accessed January 29, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2026, January 28) Snow Buries the U.S. Interior and East. Accessed January 29, 2026.
• NBC News (2026, January 27) Millions remain under warnings as extreme cold has icy grip on much of the U.S. Accessed January 29, 2026.
• NWS Weather Prediction Center, via X (2026, January 27) Dangerously cold temperatures continue. Accessed January 29, 2026.
• The Washington Post (2026, January 28) Extreme cold spell shaping up as one of D.C.’s longest in 150 years. Accessed January 29, 2026.
• Yale Climate Connections (2026, January 23) Winter 2025-26 (finally) hits the U.S. with a vengeance. Accessed January 29, 2026.

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NASA’s Johnson Space Center brought the International Space Station’s 25-year legacy to the public on Jan. 24, 2026, during a community day event in Houston. Johnson’s visitor center, Space Center Houston, hosted the celebration commemorating 25 years of continuous human presence in space.  

For a quarter century, astronauts have lived and worked aboard the orbiting laboratory, advancing science, strengthening international partnerships, and shaping the future of exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

The event featured interactive exhibits, special videos in the museum’s theaters and at each activity station, and hands-on demonstrations highlighting how the space station continues to benefit life on Earth and prepare NASA for missions to the Moon and Mars. 

Johnson employees shared information about the agency’s current missions aboard the orbital outpost and how that research is helping prepare for future Artemis missions, including Artemis II’s upcoming journey around the Moon. 

Space fans received a “Go for Launch” card and a stamp after completing activities at three NASA stations to earn their choice of prize, either a space station activity book or a 2026 space station calendar. Volunteers also handed out pins and stickers at tables once guests completed the challenge at each station.

At one exhibit, participants assembled a space-themed puzzle while wearing gardening gloves, demonstrating the limited mobility astronauts face when completing tasks during a spacewalk. They then had the chance to see and hold a spacesuit glove used during spacewalk training.

At another station, attendees could color photos or write letters to the NASA astronaut corps, thanking them for their dedication to the mission and sharing their aspirations of one day supporting human spaceflight. They even got to drop it in a “mailbox” for delivery. 

A third booth invited guests to explore real space food and featured a nutrition challenge to identify what astronauts can and cannot eat in microgravity. Another activity at this station highlighted how the human body digests food in space. On Earth, gravity helps move food through the digestive system. In orbit, digestion relies almost entirely on peristalsis, the wave-like muscle contractions that push food through the esophagus and intestines. Without gravity, the process still works but can be slower, as muscles gently squeeze and push food through the digestive tract on their own.

These hands-on experiences demonstrated how research aboard the space station continues to shape the future of exploration. After 25 years of continuous habitation, the station remains essential to humanity’s next giant leaps.

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Ammonia-Bearing Compounds Discovered at Surface of Jupiter’s Moon Europa

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Advanced analysis of decades-old data from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft identifies ammonia-bearing compounds discovered on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, as shown in this composite image. Zooming in on an area about 250 miles (about 400 kilometers) wide, the black-and-white mosaic to the right is composed of multiple images from Galileo’s Solid-State Imaging camera. Overlaid are representations of data from the spacecraft’s Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) instrument: Red pixels mark locations where ammonia-bearing compounds were detected; purple pixels indicate no detections of the compounds. The NIMS data was captured during Galileo’s 11th orbit of Jupiter in 1997.

Dark, crisscrossing bands in the underlying image represent fracturing of Europa’s icy surface. Detection of ammonia-bearing compounds near such features could indicate that they were actively placed there by cryo-volcanic processes bringing liquid water up from Europa’s vast subsurface ocean.

Launched in 1989 and managed by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, NASA’s Galileo mission concluded its extended mission to the Jupiter system in September 2003. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

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NASA Analysis Shows La Niña Limited Sea Level Rise in 2025

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NASA Analysis Shows La Niña Limited Sea Level Rise in 2025

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This graph shows the rise in global mean sea level from 1993 to 2025 based on data from a series of five international satellites. The solid red line indicates the trajectory of this increase, which has more than doubled over the three decades. The dotted red line projects future sea level rise.
 
A NASA analysis found that the average height of Earth’s oceans increased by 0.03 inches (0.08 centimeters) in 2025, a rate of increase that was lower than the 0.23 inches (0.59 centimeters) seen in 2024. It was also below the long-term expected rate of 0.17 inches (0.44 centimeters) per year based on the rate of rise since the early 1990s.
 
Though sea levels have increasingly trended upward, years during which the rise in the average height was less usually have occurred during La Niñas — the part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle that cools the eastern Pacific Ocean, often leading to heavy rainfall over the equatorial portions of South America. 
 
The La Niña that started in 2025 and has extended into early 2026 has been relatively mild. Even so, the extra precipitation it has poured on the Amazon River basin contributed to an overall shift of water from ocean to land. This effect tends to temporarily lower sea levels, offsetting the rise caused by melting glaciers and ice sheets and warming of the oceans, which raises the sea levels through the expansion of water when the temperature increases. The net result in 2025 was a lower-than-average sea level rise. Faster-rising sea levels are likely to resume as the extra water in the Amazon basin makes its way to the oceans.
 
Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California conducted the analysis based on more than 30 years of satellite observations, starting with the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission, which launched in 1992, through the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission, which launched in November 2020 and is the current reference satellite for sea level measurements. Sentinel-6B, which launched in November 2025, will take over for its predecessor after a cross-calibration period.

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Using cutting-edge material licensed from NASA, a protective heat shield manufactured in-house by Varda Space Industries for the first time enabled one of its capsules to blaze through Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday, marking a significant milestone for the agency and America’s space industry. The material, known as C-PICA (Conformal Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator), provides a stronger, less expensive, and more efficient thermal protection coating to capsules, allowing them – and their valuable contents – to return to Earth safely.  

Varda’s W-5 capsule launched to low Earth orbit on Nov. 28, 2025, making it the latest spacecraft from the company to carry science and technology experiments from industry and government agencies into orbit.

Heat shields allow us to bring the benefits of work done in space, including medical research, technology development, and scientific discovery, down to Earth to improve our everyday lives.

Greg Stover

Associate Administrator (Acting), Space Technology Mission Directorate

“Heat shields allow us to bring the benefits of work done in space, including medical research, technology development, and scientific discovery, down to Earth to improve our everyday lives,” said Greg Stover, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington. “By licensing heat shield material to a commercial aerospace company, NASA is fostering their ability to manufacture it independently, helping make entry system materials more readily available across the space sector.” 

Developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, C-PICA sets the standard for heat shields, reflecting the decades of expertise that NASA brings to designing, developing, and testing innovative thermal protection materials.  

The transfer of NASA’s C-PICA to Varda’s has far-reaching benefits, as the company uses its W-series capsules as a platform to process pharmaceuticals and conduct other microgravity research. 

This flight shows what’s possible when NASA and our commercial partners collaborate closely to invest in learning together.

Danielle McCulloch

NASA's Flight Opportunities Program Executive

“This flight shows what’s possible when NASA and our commercial partners collaborate closely to invest in learning together,” said Danielle McCulloch, program executive of NASA’s Flight Opportunities program at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. “Not only does it advance the U.S. space industry, but it also takes other industries — like pharmaceuticals — to the next level, with benefits that ripple out across society.”  

The successful return of Varda’s W-5 capsule is the latest step in a productive ongoing collaboration. NASA not only licensed the technology to Varda but also selected Varda to receive a 2023 Tipping Point award to begin C-PICA production and flight testing through the agency’s Flight Opportunities program. NASA also provided technical support as the company set up its own manufacturing processes and assisted with gathering flight data. This work belongs to the growing sector of in-space manufacturing that depends in part on effective heat shields to safely return products and experiments to Earth. 

A NASA Technology Transfer Success  

Varda was the first company to license NASA’s C-PICA heat shield material, which has since been licensed to several other companies. The patented technology is still available, and NASA is working with other commercial space companies interested in the material. By licensing the technology as well as transferring the manufacturing expertise, NASA is helping increase the availability of C-PICA across the space sector, opening the door to greater growth of in-space manufacturing. 

Learn more about this flight test: https://go.nasa.gov/446Lqg4

By Tara Kennon
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, Ca.

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