NASA

Tablets, smart appliances, and other technologies that are an indispensable part of daily life are no longer state-of-the-art compared to the research and technology development going on over our heads. As we celebrate 20 years of humans continuously living and working in space aboard the International Space Station, we’re recapping some of the out-of-this-world tech development and research being done on the orbiting lab too.Our Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) helps redefine state-of-the-art tech for living and working in space. Here are 10 technologies tried and tested on the space station with helping hands from its astronaut occupants over the years.1. Astronaut Wanna-BeesAstronauts on the space station are responsible for everything from conducting science experiments and ...

This second, as you’re reading these words, trillions of tiny particles are hurtling toward you! No, you don’t need to brace yourself. They’re passing through you right now. And now. And now. These particles are called neutrinos, and they’re both everywhere in the cosmos and also extremely hard to find.Neutrinos are fundamental particles, like electrons, so they can’t be broken down into smaller parts. They also outnumber all the atoms in the universe. (Atoms are made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are made of quarks … which maybe we’ll talk about another time.) The only thing that outnumbers neutrinos are all the light waves left over from the birth of the universe! Credit: Photo courtesy of the Pauli Archive, CERNPhysicist Wolfgang Pauli proposed the existen...

ALTLove is in the air, and it’s out in space too! The universe is full of amazing chemistry, cosmic couples held together by gravitational attraction, and stars pulsing like beating hearts.Celestial objects send out messages we can detect if we know how to listen for them. Our upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will help us scour the skies for all kinds of star-crossed signals.ALTCelestial Conversation HeartsCommunication is key for any relationship – including our relationship with space. Different telescopes are tuned to pick up different messages from across the universe, and combining them helps us learn even more. Roman is designed to see some visible light – the type of light our eyes can see, featured in the photo above from a ground-based telescope – in addition to longer w...