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1. PlayStation's Official Desktop Speakers Arrive in November for $220  Push Square
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3. PlayStation's Pulse Elevate speakers finally have a release date  SoundGuys
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1. Pixel 11 Pro XL vs. iPhone 17 Pro Max: I Compared Google and Apple’s Flagship Phones  CNET
2. The Pixel 11 series: Your most personal Pixel yet  blog.google
3. Google Pixel 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S26: Specs, price, camera details  Mashable
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Between Aug. 11 and 12, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured a series of images of a new crater on the Moon. The crater formed on Aug. 5, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the surface following its January 2025 launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost 1 mission.

To capture imagery of the impact, engineers tilted the spacecraft so its cameras would point toward the crater each time LRO passed about 60 miles above the Moon, traveling 1 mile per second. The orbiter circles the Moon from pole to pole every two hours, while the Moon slowly rotates underneath it. To photograph a specific spot, the spacecraft must wait until that location turns into view, which took six days in this case.

Getting the pointing right was only half the challenge; timing had to be accurate as well. If the camera snapped even 10 seconds too early or too late, the target would drift off-center by 10 miles.

Because of the variety of viewing angles, scientists could see the crater under multiple lighting conditions that revealed unique features. In images where the crater rim stood out, scientists measured its 60‑foot width. Scientists also determined the crater is less than 10 feet deep based on the length of its shadow.

To capture these details, LRO used its Narrow-Angle Camera, which can spot features as small as 3 feet wide.

The images above show bright and dark rays stretching out from the crater. The darker streaks are made of surface dust and rocks altered over a long time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. This weathered material was excavated by the collision from 1.5 feet into the lunar surface. The brighter streaks near the crater rim are made of fresh material excavated from deeper underground.

Finding the impact site took global coordination among experts and hobbyists. Independent astronomers first identified the rocket’s trajectory using publicly available data. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which tracks natural objects that could pose hazards to Earth for the agency’s Planetary Defense program, used this opportunity to test and validate tools and techniques for predicting impacts.

Based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the center incrementally refined the trajectory until identifying the location of impact, which it provided to the Republic of Korea for their Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (Danuri) team. The team used the high-resolution LUTI camera on Danuri a few hours later to image the crater, finding the prediction was accurate to about 0.6 miles. 

After capturing images of the crater, the Danuri mission sent coordinates to NASA’s LRO team to help refine their follow-up imaging sequence. Comparing their new crater images with the pre-impact images, the LRO team updated the crater center coordinates: 19.4759°N, 266.7138°E, 511 meters elevation.

NASA’s next Gateways to Blue Skies competition invites collegiate teams to imagine innovative new ways aircraft could inspect land-based infrastructure, such as bridges and tunnels, to improve safety, reliability, and costs by 2035 or sooner.

Infrastructure is the foundation of the nation’s strong economy, global competitiveness, and daily quality of life. When that infrastructure is damaged or in disrepair, it restricts the movement of people, goods, and critical resources like water and energy. Inspections are important throughout the lifetime of infrastructure projects, but they often come with challenges.

Structures such as tunnels, bridges, highways, railways, and electric grids can be massive in size and difficult to reach. They can require disruptive shutdowns to access, or force workers to navigate extreme heights, confined spaces, and hazardous environments. As infrastructure ages and expands, there are opportunities to use innovative airborne platforms to improve current inspection practices.

“The demands for creative solutions like airborne platforms to improve the infrastructure sector are increasing exponentially,” said Steven Holz, Gateways to Blue Skies competition lead, NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “The time is ripe for innovative students to transform how we work with our critical infrastructure, and this competition gives talented students the opportunity to do so.”

Sponsored by NASA’s University Innovation Project, the 2027 Gateways to Blue Skies competition encourages multidisciplinary teams of college students to conceptualize innovations in the world of aviation. Each year, the competition selects a new theme based on a complex challenge facing the Nation. It aims to engage as many students as possible from all backgrounds, majors, and collegiate levels.

The competition is open to teams of two to six students and divided into two phases. In Phase 1, teams will submit a proposal and an accompanying two-minute video, which will be judged by NASA and industry experts. Up to eight finalist teams will each receive a $9,000 prize and advance to Phase 2, where they will present their updated work to a panel of NASA and industry experts at a forum in May 2027. Winners will be offered the opportunity to intern with NASA Aeronautics in the academic year following the forum.

Teams interested in participating in the competition can review guidelines and eligibility requirements posted on the competition website. Teams are encouraged to submit a non-binding Notice of Intent by Monday, Oct. 12, via the website to stay apprised of competition news. Proposal and video submissions are due Feb. 22, 2027. The Gateway to Blue Skies Competition is run by the Aeronautics Division in NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate. NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate, manages the challenge contract. The National Institute of Aerospace administers the challenge on behalf of NASA.

NASA’s Boeing 777 shows off a new paint job in this Aug. 11, 2026, photo. The B777 was acquired to replace and extend the capabilities of the NASA DC-8, which was retired in 2024.

The B777, set to begin operations from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia in 2027, will be a unique flying laboratory with global reach enabling data collection for NASA projects to include sensor development, satellite sensor calibration, data product validation, and field studies to better understand Earth system processes to improve models and decision-making.

Image credit: NASA/James Blair

Many of NASA’s most important aerospace breakthroughs that began in the laboratory were ultimately proven in the sky. For decades, experts at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland conducted flight tests — piloting aircraft into targeted environments such as icing clouds and carefully defined atmospheric routes. This approach allowed them to collect measurements directly in flight, providing critical data that linked laboratory theories to practical performance. 

The center’s flight research dates to the 1940s, when NASA Glenn was known as the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA’s predecessor agency. During World War II, engineers and pilots worked to improve aircraft performance and increase high-altitude reliability. In the mid-to-late-1940s, flight research helped make early jet and ramjet engines practical. Later, Glenn’s flight programs helped improve the efficiency and environmental performance of aircraft engines — primarily conventional jet engines. 

Behind those early flight programs was a pioneering group of pilots who helped establish NASA Glenn’s reputation for airborne research. The center’s first generation of pilots, including Howard Lilly, Joseph Walker, William Swann, and William “Ed” Gough, helped lay the groundwork for more than two dozen other Glenn pilots, including future astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Fred Haise. 

Together with Glenn’s researchers, engineers, and support staff, these pilots established airborne research capabilities that NASA continues to rely on today. Their work demonstrated how flight testing could bridge the gap between laboratory research and real-world performance. 

“These missions transformed aircraft into flying laboratories,” said Mark Russell, a NASA safety officer and pilot who served as the former acting chief of Aircraft Operations at Glenn. “They bridged the gap between ground testing and full-scale flight, proving the measurements needed to connect theory with performance. The testing also helped validate technologies and procedures later used aboard spacecraft and orbital missions.” 

Research workhorses 

From the start, NASA put its aircraft to work on a wide range of research challenges. 

For decades, NASA Glenn aircraft have been used to study in-flight icing hazards, collecting data that has helped make commercial aviation safer. For nearly 40 years, NASA Glenn’s De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter served as the center’s workhorse for icing research, gathering data that helped shape modern aviation safety standards. 

Beyond improving aviation safety, Glenn’s flight research also explored new propulsion technologies that could transform the future of flight. Today, researchers are exploring hydrogen as an aviation fuel. But NASA Glenn helped show its potential viability decades ago using its Martin B-57B Canberra aircraft. After developing a hydrogen fuel system for the B-57B, a team tested it safely from February to April 1957. The flights showed the system’s reliable operation and advanced efficiency, marking a major milestone in aviation technology.  

Flight testing also supported technologies destined for use beyond Earth, helping researchers evaluate hardware under conditions that closely resembled space. Beginning in 1963, the center began a program to test and measure how well solar cells worked under conditions similar to those in space. Using specially modified airplanes, including Learjets, NASA conducted flights to help recreate some of the sunlight and atmospheric conditions that solar cells would experience outside Earth’s atmosphere. The program lasted decades, supporting space technology calibration through numerous high-altitude flights and adapting to newer aircraft over time. 

Researchers later applied these airborne capabilities to environmental science, extending their value beyond aviation and space technology. Using the Twin Otter and S-3B Viking over the Great Lakes, researchers tracked harmful algal blooms on Lake Erie by measuring changes in water color and composition. The data improved satellite systems used to monitor water quality and ecosystem health.  

Glenn’s research aircraft also played an important role in preparing technologies and experiments for spaceflight through microgravity testing. NASA Glenn advanced microgravity research through in-flight testing using specially modified aircraft, such as its DC-9, to create short periods of weightlessness during parabolic maneuvers. These flights allowed researchers to study how fluids, combustion, materials, and experimental equipment behaved in near-zero gravity before experiments were conducted in space.  

Recent breakthroughs 

Other significant accomplishments enabled by Glenn’s flight research include supporting the development and testing of sustainable aviation technologies, including research related to more fuel-efficient engines and sustainable aviation fuels, and advancing in-flight instrumentation and measurement techniques used across aeronautics research. 

In 2024, Glenn’s Flight Operations participated in an optical communications study using the center’s Pilatus PC-12 NG aircraft. This mission successfully demonstrated the ability to transmit large volumes of data through a laser communication system across NASA’s legacy infrastructure. The work contributed to NASA’s broader effort to advance optical communications for future missions. NASA further tested optical communications on the Artemis II mission and effectively transmitted substantial amounts of data from the Orion capsule to multiple ground stations over the course of the 10-day journey.  

As NASA’s flight research enterprise evolved, the agency also restructured how it manages its research aircraft. In October 2025, NASA streamlined its aircraft flight operations, relocating its aircraft from Glenn to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA Glenn continues its important icing and propulsion research and communications technology development in collaboration with Armstrong.  

From its historical roots in wartime engine development to modern work on aircraft safety, Glenn’s airborne research has consistently moved innovative ideas from the laboratory to real-world application. For more than eight decades, NASA Glenn has transformed ideas first proven in the laboratory into innovations validated in the sky — a legacy that continues to shape the future of aviation and space exploration. 

Since portfolio companies often pivot and expand into competing markets, investors view occasional conflicts of interest as unavoidable for large VC firms.

If rolled out, the feature would use the social media service’s TikTok Pay offering, which is already available in Southeast Asia for TikTok Shop purchases.

The new safeguards include more detailed monitoring of models during the development process, as well as greater emphasis on alignment and security during the post-training process.

If you’ve been circling around Disrupt, then now’s the best time to lock in your pass and start getting ready to join the rest of the startup community gathering in San Francisco from October 13-15 at Moscone West!  

Jane Street has installed Etched's first shipped AI cluster system, and was so impressed, it led another massive round, the startup says.