NASA

HOUSTON, TEXAS (APRIL 28, 2025) – Since the start of the 2024-25 school year, nearly 2,000 high school teams and 5,000 students from more than 80 countries collaborated across oceans and time zones to develop viable solutions to global challenges in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Competing for first place titles as “Pete Conrad Scholars,” the top 31 student teams convened at Space Center Houston for the Conrad Challenge Innovation Summit and EXPO finals sponsored by Equinor. Founded in 2007 by Nancy Conrad in honor of her late husband, NASA astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad, the Challenge inspires students to design today’s solutions for tomorrow’s challenges, carrying forward his legacy for innovation and exploration. Nancy Conrad, ...

ALTThis computer-simulated image shows a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy. The black region in the center represents the black hole’s event horizon, beyond which no light can escape the massive object’s gravitational grip. The black hole’s powerful gravity distorts space around it like a funhouse mirror. Light from background stars is stretched and smeared as it skims by the black hole.You might wonder — if this Tumblr post is about invisible things, what’s with all the pictures? Even though we can’t see these things with our eyes or even our telescopes, we can still learn about them by studying how they affect their surroundings. Then, we can use what we know to make visualizations that represent our understanding.When you think of the invisible, you might first picture som...

Space Center Houston’s annual Planet Earth Celebration brings people and space together to recognize how extraordinary our planet is—and to explore simple, meaningful ways to protect it.  The origins of Planet Earth Celebration The Planet Earth Celebration traces its roots to the iconic Earthrise photo taken by Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968, showing our planet rising above the Moon’s horizon. This striking image—the first color photo of Earth from space—inspired a sense of global unity and urgency around protecting our fragile planet. It played a pivotal role in launching the environmental movement and led to the first Earth Day in 1970, when millions of people rallied for change. Today, the celebration continues to raise awareness and inspire action to preserve Earth’s uni...

Choose your player! As we gear up for our Artemis I mission to the Moon — the mission that will prepare us to send the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface — we have an important task for you (yes, you!). Artemis I will be the first integrated test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule. Although there won’t be any humans aboard Orion, there will be a very important crewmember: the Moonikin! The Moonikin is a manikin, or anatomical human model, that will be used to gather data on the vibrations that human crewmembers will experience during future Artemis missions. But the Moonikin is currently missing something incredibly important — a name! There are eight names in the running, and each one reflects an important piece of NASA...