The Deep Space Network keeps NASA linked to spacecraft billions of miles away

Deep Space Network sites enable nonstop communication with distant spacecraft

Each DSN complex has multiple large, sensitive antennas that can receive weak radio signals from far-off spacecraft and send commands back to them. Their amplifiers are cooled to just above absolute zero to reduce electronic noise.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

A real-time 3D-explorer of the solar system

NASA's Eyes on the Solar System allows you to track all kinds of objects in space in real time, from observatories like the James Webb Telescope to all manner of comets and asteroids. Zoom in and out, read up on space missions, and see the solar system from a totally new angle with this incredible interactive site. Jump in here.

What does NASA do besides space?

Although its splashiest accomplishments are the ones taking place in outer space, NASA actually does a lot more than space exploration. The federal administration also conducts intensive research on the interconnected systems of the Earth, from studies of the atmosphere and oceans to research into the composition of the planet's interior. See what NASA is discovering about our home planet here.

The history of the National Science Foundation Network, a precursor of the internet

Although ARPANET connected various national laboratories and supercomputing facilities by the 1970s to facilitate scientific collaboration, the system was slow and required highly trained operators. The launch of NSFNET in 1986 provided a more flexible and powerful network that went on to connect over 170 academic and research communities and link to its European counterpart, EASInet.

Watch a livestream of Earth from the International Space Station

The feed is made possible by the SpaceTV-1 camera system, which is live over 20 hours a day. Video replays are shown during routine loss of signal communications with the inter-satellite link relaying the video data.

DESI is mapping the universe's expansion over the last 11 billion years

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument is conducting a five-year redshift survey of over one-third of the sky, measuring the receding motions and locations of about 35 million galaxies and millions of stars using light captured by 5,000 optical fibers.

NASA plans to bring down the ISS at a location farthest from land

Point Nemo is located in the South Pacific Ocean at coordinates 48°52.6'S 123°23.6'W, approximately 2,688 kilometers (1,670 miles) from Ducie Island, Motu Nui, and Maher Island. The location has served as an underwater graveyard for hundreds of satellites and is expected to be harbor the International Space Station in 2030.

See a timeline of James Webb Space Telescope discoveries

Since its launch on Christmas Day 2021, NASA's $10B James Webb Space Telescope has captivated the world with its rapid revelations of ancient galaxies, star-formation hotbeds, and more. This regularly updated timeline of Webb's discoveries keeps you up to date with the latest developments.

NASA's big dream that never came to life

Conceived in the early 1960s, the Sea Dragon was an audacious ocean-launched rocket design that would have dwarfed the Saturn V in both scale and payload—but its extreme engineering challenges kept it firmly on the drawing board.

A 'holoported' medical team has been beamed into the International Space Station

In 2021, using the Microsoft HoloLens Kinect camera and custom Aexa Aerospace software, NASA's flight surgeon led a team of hologram doctors on a pioneering visit to the space station, marking a significant advancement in communication and telemedicine technologies that will be crucial for future deep-space missions.

Visualize the impact of satellites and space debris orbiting Earth

According to NASA, approximately 9,000 metric tons of debris are orbiting Earth, with 70% of it located in low Earth orbit, where the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station reside. The growing reliance on space-based platforms for modern technologies, including Starlink satellites, increases the risk of debris collisions.

The European Space Agency is building a space-based gravitational wave observatory

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna will consist of three spacecraft forming an equilateral triangle that will trail Earth as it orbits the sun. Lasers will travel 2.5 million kilometers along the sides of the triangle between these spacecraft to detect massive objects undergoing mergers or inspiraling, as well as speculative phenomena (e.g., cosmic strings).

Designs for the Hubble Space Telescope were based on Cold War spy satellites

By incorporating elements of the KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellites, NASA could incorporate existing classified manufacturing expertise and infrastructure from the intelligence community to expedite the research project.

NASA's Near-Earth Object Surveyor can detect asteroids coming from the sun

Telescopes directed at the sun or lacking heat shields may become damaged, limiting our ability to monitor potentially dangerous objects coming from that direction. The NEO Surveyor is built to overcome this problem and spot asteroids that reflect as little as 5% of incoming light.

An interactive look at Neptune, the distant planet

Dark, cold, and whipped by supersonic winds, Neptune is a gas giant made of hydrogen, helium, ammonia, and methane, and was the first planet discovered through mathematics rather than direct observation. It's also the smallest of the gas planets on the periphery of the solar system. Learn more about the last planet in the solar system through the NASA site.

Two main types of inflight WiFi connections are air-to-ground and satellite-based

ATG systems rely on aircraft antennae to catch signals from cellphone towers, while the latter uses a network of satellites transmitting data from space. As of 2022, airlines like Delta and United hosted over 1.5 million monthly WiFi sessions.

NASA designed the Golden Record using hydrogen to ensure it's universally readable

The Golden Record holds what is essentially a human "time capsule," featuring music, nature sounds, and greetings from around the world. NASA used the radiation period of hydrogen's simplest transition as a baseline to convey timing and structure. The first coded image is included on the cover as a test so aliens can check if they decoded it correctly.

How do scientists study far away stars?

Astronomy is the only science that is purely observational: meaning, scientists can't study stars in a lab. Here's a breakdown of how modern researchers use new tools to understand objects billions of light years away. As it turns out, the rules of science allow us to identify, categorize, and experiment with phenomena light years away.

Explore a searchable map of underwater cables carrying internet traffic worldwide

The Submarine Cable Map provides users with data from TeleGeography's Transport Networks Research Service on individual submarine cables, including cable owners, suppliers, URLs, landing points, lengths, and notes of interest.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

A network of live bird song trackers

Do you know where the birds are singing? In a kind of magical way, now you can see where the latest literal tweets are happening with this innovative network of birdsong trackers dispersed around the world. The network automatically identifies which bird produced the sound and shares the data with the network. See who's singing here.

A modified Boeing 747 ferried Space Shuttles across the country

NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft—two specially modified Boeing 747s—were used to transport Space Shuttles between landing sites and launch facilities, playing a critical logistical role throughout the shuttle program.

NASA captures image of ghostly cosmic hand

NASA's X-ray space telescopes, Chandra and the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, have joined forces to study a hand-shaped structure in space, revealing the magnetic field "bones" of a pulsar wind nebula. Pulsars are rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic fields, creating extreme physics conditions. The combined data from these telescopes provide insight into how pulsars inject particles into space and shape their environment, with the magnetic field playing a crucial role.

NASA uses a specialized plasma wind tunnel to test heat shield technology

The ArcJet Complex ionizes compressed air that fires onto shields at hypersonic speeds, replicating the conditions of high-speed, planetary reentry. An enhanced facility incorporates lasers to mimic the radiant heating experienced during high-energy atmospheric traversal.

Internet sleuths solve secret message on Perseverance rover’s Mars parachute

In 2020, the Perseverance Rover landed on Mars, sending a message for the folks back home on its parachute. It took fewer than six hours for the Internet's collective forces to decode the secret slogan hidden in the parachute's colors and patterns, as well as the geographic coordinates of the earth-bound place where rocketry was perfected.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus remains extremely rare, so the 2026 hantavirus cruise ship outbreak doesn't mean we're facing a COVID-style pandemic risk.

Researchers believe the brain consolidates memories, processes emotions, and plans for the future during dream states

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.