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NASA Tracking Plane-Sized Asteroid Approaching the Earth Today
Jul 17, 2025 at 9:28 AM EDT
NASA is monitoring a plane-sized asteroid zooming past the Earth on Thursday at around 13,600 miles per hour.
The space rock known as "2022 YS5" made its closest approach at around 4.15 million miles from the Earth, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The asteroid was measured to be anywhere between around 95 to 204 feet in diameter. according to the JPL's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
The national space agency is also tracking a couple of other plane-sized asteroids that are expected to zip past the Earth this weekend.
An asteroid called "2018 BY6" that's around 210 feet in diameter is due to come as close as within 3.27 million miles from our planet on Saturday.
Another space rock, called "2025 ME92," that's around 95 feet in diameter is expected to make its closest approach at 3.19 million miles from the Earth on Sunday, according to the JPL.
Asteroids are small, rocky masses left over from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. They are found concentrated in the main asteroid belt, orbiting around the sun between the paths of Mars and Jupiter.
The orbits of asteroids bring them within 120 million miles of the sun. Most near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids that range in size from about 10 feet to almost 25 miles across.
Back in February, data from the CNEOS found that the impact probability of the asteroid known as "2024 YR4" in 2032 was at 3.1 percent, which was "the highest impact probability NASA has ever recorded for an object of this size or larger," the space agency noted at the time.
Further observations since saw NASA conclude that "the object poses no significant impact risk to Earth in 2032 and beyond," the space agency said in a blog post in June.
Experts from the JPL have been able to refine their knowledge of where the asteroid will be on December 22, 2032 by nearly 20 percent.
"As a result, the asteroid's probability of impacting the Moon has slightly increased from 3.8 percent to 4.3 percent," NASA said, noting that "in the small chance that the asteroid were to impact, it would not alter the Moon's orbit."
The space agency says: "Asteroid 2024 YR4 is now too far away to observe with either space or ground-based telescopes.
NASA expects to make further observations when the asteroid's orbit around the Sun brings it back into the vicinity of Earth in 2028."
"The majority of near-Earth objects have orbits that don't bring them very close to Earth, and therefore pose no risk of impact," NASA explains.
However, a small portion of them known as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) do merit closer monitoring.
Measuring around 460 feet in size, PHAs have orbits that bring them as close as within 4.6 million miles of the Earth's orbit around the sun, NASA explains.
"Not all NEOs are potentially hazardous, but all hazardous objects are NEOs," Martin Barstow, a professor of astrophysics and space science at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, told Newsweek.
Despite the number of PHAs out in our solar system, none are likely to hit Earth any time soon.
"The 'potentially hazardous' designation simply means over many centuries and millennia the asteroid's orbit may evolve into one that has a chance of impacting Earth.
We do not assess these long-term, many-century possibilities of impact," Paul Chodas, manager of the CNEOS, told Newsweek.
https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-tracking-plane-sized-asteroid-approaching-earth-2100193
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/asteroids/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch/next-five-approaches/
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/nasa-program-builds-bridge-from-military-to-civilian-careers-for-johnson-team-members/
https://www.nasa.gov/careers/skillbridge/
NASA Program Builds Bridge From Military to Civilian Careers for Johnson Team Members
Jul 17, 2025
Of all the possible entry points to NASA, the agency’s SkillBridge Program has been instrumental in helping servicemembers transition from the military and into civilian careers.
Offered in partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD), the program enables individuals to spend their final months of military service working with a NASA office or organization.
SkillBridge fellows work anywhere from 90 to 180 days, contributing their unique skillsets to the agency while building their network and knowledge.
The Johnson Space Center in Houston hosted NASA’s first SkillBridge fellow in 2019, paving the way for dozens of others to follow.
SkillBridge participants are not guaranteed a job offer at the end of their fellowship, but many have gone on to accept full-time positions with NASA.
About 25 of those former fellows currently work at Johnson, filling roles as varied as their military experiences.
Miguel Shears retired from the Marine Corps in November 2023. He ended his 30 years of service as the administration, academics, and operations chief for the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia, where he was also an adjunct professor.
Shears completed a SkillBridge fellowship with FOD in the summer and fall of 2023, supporting the instructional systems design team.
He was hired as a full-time employee upon his military retirement and currently serves as an instructional systems designer for the Instructor Training Module, Mentorship Module, and Spaceflight Academy.
He conducts training needs analysis for FOD, as well.
Ever Zavala was very familiar with Johnson before becoming a SkillBridge fellow.
He spent the last three of his nearly 24-year Air Force career serving as the deputy director of the DoD Human Spaceflight Payloads Office at Johnson.
His team oversaw the development, integration, launch, and operation of payloads hosting DoD experiments on small satellites and the International Space Station.
He also became a certified capsule communicator, or capcom, in December 2022, and was the lead capcom for SpaceX’s 28th commercial resupply services mission to the orbiting laboratory.
Zavala’s SkillBridge fellowship was in Johnson’s Astronaut Office, where he worked as a capcom, capcom instructor, and an integration engineer supporting the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program.
He was involved in developing a training needs analysis and agency simulators for the human landing system, among other projects.
He officially joined the center team as a full-time contractor in August 2024. He is currently a flight operations safety officer within the Flight Operations Directorate (FOD) and continues to serve as a part-time capcom.
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Carl Johnson thanks his wife for helping him find a path to NASA.
While she was a Pathways intern — and his girlfriend at the time — she gave him a tour of the center that inspired him to join the agency when he was ready to leave the Army.
She helped connect him to one of the center’s SkillBridge coordinators and the rest is history. Johnson was selected for a SkillBridge fellowship in the Dynamic System Test Branch.
From February to June 2023, he supported development of the lunar terrain vehicle ground test unit and contributed to the Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS), which simulates reduced gravity for astronaut training.
Johnson officially joined the center team as an electrical engineer in the Engineering Directorate’s Software, Robotics, and Simulation Division in September 2023.
He is currently developing a new ARGOS spacewalk simulator and training as an operator and test director for another ARGOS system. Johnson holds an electrical engineering degree from the United States Military Academy.
He was on active duty in the Army for 10 years and concluded his military career as an instructor and small group leader for the Engineer Captains Career Course.
In that role, he was responsible for instructing, mentoring, and preparing the next generation of engineer captains.
Kevin Quinn served in the Navy for 22 years. His last role was maintenance senior chief with Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 31, known as “the Dust Devils.”
Quinn managed the operations and maintenance of 33 aircraft, ensuring their readiness for complex missions and contributing to developmental flight tests and search and rescue missions.
He applied that experience to his SkillBridge fellowship in quality assurance at Ellington Field in 2024. Quinn worked to enhance flight safety and astronaut training across various aircraft, including the T-38, WB-57, and the Super Guppy.
He has continued contributing to those projects since being hired as a full-time quality assurance employee in 2025.
Andrew Ulat retired from the Air Force after serving for 21 years as an intercontinental ballistic missile launch control officer and strategic operations advisor.
His last role in the military was as a director of staff at the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.
There he served as a graduate-level instructor teaching international security concepts to mid-level officers and civilian counterparts from all branches of the military and various federal agencies.
Ulat started his SkillBridge fellowship as an integration engineer in Johnson’s X-Lab, supporting avionics, power, and software integration for the Gateway lunar space station.
Ulat transitioned directly from his fellowship into a similar full-time position at Johnson in May 2024.
Ariel Vargas transitioned to NASA after serving for five years in the Army.
His last role in the military was as a signal officer, which involved leading teams managing secure communications and network operations in dynamic and mission-critical environments in the Middle East and the United States
Vargas completed his SkillBridge fellowship in November 2023, supporting Johnson’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). During his fellowship, he led a center-wide wireless augmentation project that modernized Johnson’s connectivity.
He became a full-time civil servant in May 2024 and currently serves as the business operations and partnerships lead within OCIO, supporting a digital transformation initiative.
In this role, he leads efforts to streamline internal business operations, manage strategic partnerships, and drive cross-functional collaboration.
“My time in the military taught me the value of service, leadership, and adaptability—qualities that I now apply daily in support of NASA’s mission,” Vargas said.
“I’m proud to be part of the Johnson team and hope my story can inspire other service members considering the SkillBridge pathway.”
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NASA’s Chandra Finds Baby Exoplanet is Shrinking
Jul 16, 2025
A baby planet is shrinking from the size of Jupiter with a thick atmosphere to a small, barren world, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
This transformation is happening as the host star unleashes a barrage of X-rays that is tearing the young planet’s atmosphere away at an enormous rate.
The planet, named TOI 1227 b, is in an orbit around a red dwarf star about 330 light-years from Earth. TOI 1227 b orbits very close to its star — less than a fifth the distance that Mercury orbits the Sun.
The new study shows this planet outside our solar system, or exoplanet, is a “baby” at a mere 8 million years old. By comparison, the Earth is about 5 billion years old, or nearly a thousand times older.
That makes it the second youngest planet ever to be observed passing in front of its host star (also called a transit). Previously the planet had been estimated by others to be about 11 million years old.
A research team found that X-rays from its star are blasting TOI 1227 b and tearing away its atmosphere at such a rate that the planet will entirely lose it in about a billion years.
At that point the planet will have lost a total mass equal to about two Earth masses, down from about 17 times the mass of Earth now.
“It’s almost unfathomable to imagine what is happening to this planet,” said Attila Varga, a Ph.D. student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York, who led the study.
“The planet’s atmosphere simply cannot withstand the high X-ray dose it’s receiving from its star.” It is probably impossible for life to exist on TOI 1227 b, either now or in the future.
The planet is too close to its star to fit into any definition of a ‘habitable zone,’ a term astronomers use to determine if planets around other stars could sustain liquid water on their surface.
The star that hosts TOI 1227 b, which is called TOI 1227, is only about a tenth the mass of the Sun and is much cooler and fainter in optical light.
In X-rays, however, TOI 1227 is brighter than the Sun and is subjecting this planet, in its very close orbit, to a withering assault.
The mass of TOI 1227 b, while not well understood, is likely similar to that of Neptune, but its diameter is three times larger than Neptune’s (making it similar in size to Jupiter).
“A crucial part of understanding planets outside our solar system is to account for high-energy radiation like X-rays that they’re receiving,” said co-author Joel Kastner, also of RIT.
“We think this planet is puffed up, or inflated, in large part as a result of the ongoing assault of X-rays from the star.”
The team used new Chandra data to measure the amount of X-rays from the star that are striking the planet.
Using computer models of the effects of these X-rays, they concluded the X-rays will have a transformative effect, rapidly stripping away the planet’s atmosphere.
They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years.
“The future for this baby planet doesn’t look great,” said co-author Alexander Binks of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Germany.
“From here, TOI 1227 b may shrink to about a tenth of its current size and will lose more than 10 percent of its weight.”
The researchers used different sets of data to estimate the age of TOI 1227 b.
One method exploits measurements of how TOI 1227 b’s host star moves through space compared to nearby populations of stars with known ages.
A second method compared the brightness and surface temperature of the star with theoretical models of evolving stars.
Of all the exoplanets astronomers have found with ages less than 50 million years, TOI 1227 b stands out for having the longest year and the host planet with the lowest mass.
A paper describing these results has been accepted publication in The Astrophysical Journal, and a preprint is available here.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-chandra-finds-baby-exoplanet-is-shrinking/
https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2025/m31/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXiv250604440V/abstract
Muscle and Exercise Studies to Maintain Crew Health in Space
July 16, 2025
Maintaining muscles and monitoring astronaut health in space were the top research subjects aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday.
The Expedition 73 crew also replaced critical life support hardware and serviced a variety of experimental gear.
The lack of gravity weighing down on a human living in space contributes to muscle loss since it takes much less effort to move around in weightlessness.
Spaceflight crews exercise daily for two hours to counteract space-caused muscle atrophy and bone loss to stay healthy in microgravity and remain in shape for the eventual return to Earth.
Scientists are studying electrical muscle stimulation in combination with exercising in space to improve muscle function, reduce workout times, and design lighter exercise equipment.
NASA Flight Engineers Nichole Ayers and Jonny Kim joined each other in the Columbus laboratory module for the muscle study that may benefit future long-duration space flights as well as patients on Earth with mobility issues.
Ayers wore electrodes that sent electrical signals to her legs as Kim operated the biomedical equipment that also recorded how her muscles responded.
Next, Ayers removed the electrodes then wore a sensor-packed headband and vest collecting her heart and breathing rate as she worked out on the advanced resistive exercise device that mimics free weights on Earth and then pedaled on an exercise cycle.
Researchers will use the health data to continuously adjust crew exercise plans and improve aerobic and cardiovascular conditioning in microgravity.
Ayers and Kim later assisted NASA Flight Engineer Anne McClain as she replaced a catalytic reactor in the Tranquility module.
The catalytic reactor introduces oxygen into the station’s water processor assembly and oxidizes organic material in the wastewater.
Station Commander Takuya Onishi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) helped the trio conclude the maintenance work as he reinstalled hardware removed in Tranquility so the crew could access the advanced life support components.
Onishi began his day in the Kibo laboratory module troubleshooting and inspecting combustion research hardware in the Multipurpose Small Payload Rack.
Onishi then replaced a device, the Microgravity Measurement Apparatus, that measures the vibrations Kibo experiences due to astronaut activities and spacecraft dockings that may affect sensitive science experiments.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Kirill Peskov also participated in an exercise study as they took turns jogging on the Zvezda service module’s treadmill for a fitness evaluation.
Doctors will use the data to determine a crew member’s energy requirements to stay fit in space and ensure readiness for strenuous activities such as spacewalks and the return to Earth’s gravity.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritskiy started his shift cleaning ventilation systems and smoke detectors.
He then trained to perform medical procedures on the orbital outpost including eye checks, needle injections, injury treatments, and more.
The Progress 91 cargo craft docked to the rear port of Zvezda fired its engines for nearly 12 minutes on Wednesday.
The reboost lifts the space station’s orbit to the correct altitude for the approach and docking of the Progress 93 cargo craft planned for September.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/07/16/muscle-and-exercise-studies-to-maintain-crew-health-in-space/
NASA Curiosity Rover
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4597-4599: Wide Open Spaces
Jul 16, 2025
Earth planning date: Friday, July 11, 2025
Imagine this vista as the view out your office window to start your workday. Your natural tendency would be to grab your camera and photograph as much of the view as possible.
Curiosity was lucky enough to find herself in this situation today after a successful drive of about 61 meters (about 200 feet) on Wednesday, and the science team operating Curiosity wasted no time papering the scene with mosaics.
Between Mastcam and ChemCam, we planned 105 images across the scene.
Those images will capture the structures underpinning the boxwork ridges we are driving toward, smaller-scale fractures in the near field that might be related to the boxwork ridges, and the back side of a ridge we recently studied in detail, “Volcán Peña Blanca.”
Together, the images will help us understand the geologic history of the area that hosts the boxwork ridges, and what conditions existed in this part of Mount Sharp to support their formation.
We did not neglect the rocks directly in front of the rover as we gazed at our surroundings.
Indeed, the bedrock near the rover was nearly uniformly packed with small (less than 1 centimeter, or 0.39 inches) rounded nodules, a characteristic we have not seen for awhile.
MAHLI will image three different instances of the nodules while APXS and ChemCam will each analyze two different targets to understand the chemistry of the nodules and the bedrock hosting them.
REMS, RAD, and DAN will continue to monitor the Martian environment and subsurface throughout the weekend.
Additionally, we planned multiple observations of dust devils, the amount of dust in the atmosphere, and clouds including a cloud movie timed to match the overflight of the CASSIS instrument.
Our drive will take us to the foot of the smooth slope seen in the distance of the above image. That slope is the ramp we will take to the top of a big boxwork structure, where surely other delightful vistas await.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4597-4599-wide-open-spaces/
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4600-4601: Up and Over the Sand Covered Ramp
Jul 16, 2025
Earth planning date: Monday, July 14, 2025
The Curiosity rover continues to navigate through the region of Mount Sharp characterized by the boxwork terrain.
After successfully completing a drive of about 34 meters over the weekend (about 112 feet), the rover parked near the edge of a smooth, sandy stretch at the base of a ridge that leads to the most prominent and complex network of boxwork structures seen so far.
Due to the lack of exposed bedrock in the immediate workspace, the science team opted to give some of the rover’s contact science instruments a break.
With the dust removal tool (DRT) and APXS instruments stowed, the extra energy allowed the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to take high resolution images of “Playa de la Gallina” to survey the uniform, smooth surface consisting of sand and pebble-sized material.
The ChemCam and Mastcam teams scheduled several observations in this two-sol plan that further investigated the rocks and structures in our immediate vicinity and surroundings.
ChemCam LIBS was used to target “El Olivo” to determine the chemistry of the bumpy textured bedrock near the rover, which was also imaged by a Mastcam stereo mosaic.
Additional Mastcam stereo mosaics include fractures at “El Corral” and linear troughs at “Chapare.” Further away, ChemCam’s Remote Micro Imager (RMI) will provide insight into an intriguing section of scoured features within the Mishe Mokwa butte.
The environmental working group continues to keep an eye in the sky and planned a supra-horizon movie and a dust-devil survey as part of their ongoing monitoring campaign of the atmospheric conditions in Gale Crater.
The 21-meter-long drive (about 69 feet) at the end of this plan will maneuver the rover past the sandy ramp to the top of the main boxwork region.
From here, the science team will be able to explore this fascinating area of particularly large boxwork structures. Stay tuned as Curiosity continues to climb higher and delve deeper into the geologic history of Mars!
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4600-4601-up-and-over-the-sand-covered-ramp/
Aurora Australis
Jul 16, 2025
The aurora australis arcs above a partly cloudy Indian Ocean in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above in between Australia and Antarctica on June 12, 2025.
Astronauts aboard the space station take photos using handheld digital cameras, usually through windows in the station’s cupola, for Crew Earth Observations.
Crew members have produced hundreds of thousands of images of the Moon and Earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/aurora-australis-6/