This image shows the curvature of the Earth from 130,000 feet. It was taken remotely by a camera on EXCITE. The red blob at the top of the frame is the parachute.

It takes around an hour to fill a 39-million-cubic-foot scientific balloon with helium. The EXCITE telescope is poised for launch as the day breaks on August 31st, 2024.

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This is EXCITE’s moment of release. On August 31, 2024, the EXCITE (EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope) team conducted a test flight of their telescope from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. This photo was taken moments after the telescope was released from the tractor vehicle (called Big Bill). Unseen above is the helium-filled scientific balloon that carried the telescope to the edge of space.

NASA Goddard astrophysicist Kyle Helson looks at EXCITE (EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope) as it dangles from the ceiling of a hangar at NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

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$Enceladus appears as a rather bland orb in this far-off snapshot, but the dark markings near its south pole belie that assumption. The markings, called sulci, are long, roughly parallel fractures from which a spray of icy particles escapes into the void$

Exciting Orb

Excitement and Suspense on Landing Day

Engineer Mallory Lefland experienced the tension and relief shared by the team on Mars 2020 Perseverance landing day, on Feb. 18, 2021. She watched the dramatic entry, descent, and landing from inside a mission support area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. JPL built and manages operations of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover for NASA. A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23722

NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Triton, a moon of Neptune, on August 25, 1989. This frame from a video using Voyager data recreates that exciting encounter.

Triton Video

The bright streaks visible in these Cassini images taken during Saturn’s August 2009 equinox are exciting evidence of a constant rain of interplanetary projectiles onto the planet’s rings.

Rain on the Plane

This mosaic image shows the first target NASA Curiosity rover aims to zap ChemCam instrument. ChemCam will be firing a laser at this rock, provisionally named N165, and analyzing the glowing, ionized gas, called plasma, that the laser excites.

Curiosity First Rock Star

NASA New Horizons had an exciting flyby encounter with Jupiter in early 2007, and the spacecraft has been rapidly moving away from the giant planet ever since.

LORRI Looks Back

This Magellan image depicts a stereoscopic pair of an area on Venus with small volcanic domes. Stereoscopic images of Venus offer exciting new possibilities for scientific analysis of Venusian landforms. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00251

Venus - Stereoscopic Images of Volcanic Domes

Scientists were excited to discover clear skies on a relatively small planet, about the size of Neptune, using the combined power of NASA Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes.

A Sunny Outlook for Weather on Exoplanets Artist Concept

On August 31, 2024, the EXCITE (EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope) team conducted a test flight of their telescope from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Here, EXCITE’s Principal Investigator, Peter Nagler, watches his mission take flight.

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This image compilation shows some of the most exciting images taken thus far on the MESSENGER mission. A mural-sized copy hangs next to the MESSENGER Science Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16364

One Small Collection of Images, Many Giant Strides Forward for MESSENGER

Katherine Brown Portrait

“I love working in STEM. There's something about working at NASA, where you see new possibilities and amazing things happen all the time. During my first job at NASA [I'll never forget], I was working in the newsroom and was sent a draft press release about the discovery of new exoplanets. I got so excited and thought, I can't believe that I'm one of the first people reading about this discovery, and then tomorrow at noon, it will be released to the public, and everyone will feel this. I felt like an explorer, like I had made this amazing discovery on my own, but really, I was just reviewing a press release. “I get to see that excitement on the faces of the next generation, kids of all ages, when they're able to connect something on their own, or they have this new revelation of the world because that's what the agency has brought to them. That palatable excitement reminds me of how excited I was, and it's this kind of beautiful life cycle because it reenergizes me and gets me excited as well. “NASA is so big on this own, and for kids to feel like they're a part of it, it symbolizes this connection to great exploration and new discoveries. It makes them feel just as important and gets them excited thinking about what they can contribute or about learning something new. I've seen just one spark of curiosity create a great burning love and fire for learning. “Some of the kids I've talked to [during STEM outreach] will tell me they like something, and then I see it's created a more meaningful connection in the neighborhood. They'll dress up as astronauts for Halloween, or when they see me, they'll high-five me and tell me something they learned in science class. It spurs them on to not just make the connection at NASA but make the connection within themselves that they could do this if they wanted to. Not only can they be a part of STEM, but they realize they can also have a variety of interests in their life.” – Katherine Brown, Public Affairs Offi

About 170 high school and elementary girls from area schools participated in a Girls Excited about Math and Science event at Stennis Space Center on March 8, 2012. The event was designed to promote studies in science and mathematics.

G.E.M.S. event

On June 17, 2025, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, hosted Bring Kids to Work Day, offering hands-on activities that introduced children and their families to the exciting world of aeronautics and flight research.

NASA Armstrong Bring Kids to Work Day 2025

A diffuse aurora glows above Earth's horizon over Canada

iss073e0780439 (Sept. 2, 2025) --- A diffuse aurora glows above Earth's horizon over Canada as its red and green hues shimmer like neon lights—an effect created by excited oxygen atoms high in the atmosphere. The city lights of the U.S.-Canadian Pacific Northwest (toward upper right) trace the continent eastward. The red aurora is produced by high-altitude oxygen atoms (~300 km), while the green glow comes from lower-altitude oxygen (~100 km), both excited by energetic electrons guided into the atmosphere by Earth's magnetic field during solar activity.

For at least a couple of days, the science team of NASA Mars rover Curiosity is focused on a full-bore science campaign at a tantalizing, rocky site informally called Darwin.

Evolving Excitement Over Darwin Rock Outcrop at Waypoint 1

Researcher Determining a Ruby Laser’s Effect on a Crystal

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center researcher Americo Forestieri aims a ruby laser beam at a crystal to determine the effects of its radiation. Forestieri was a researcher in the Electric Component Experiment Section of the Space Power System Division. Lewis was in the midst of a long-term effort to develop methods of delivering electrical power to spacecraft using nuclear, solar, or electrochemical technologies. Ruby lasers contain a ruby crystal with mirrors on either side. The laser action is created when a high-intensity lamp shines around the ruby and excites the electrons in the ruby’s chromium atoms. After the excitation, the electrons emit their ruby-red light. The mirrors reflect some of this red light back and forth inside the ruby which causes other excited chromium atoms to produce additional red light. This continues until the light pulse reaches high power levels and consumes all of the energy stored in the crystal. Forestieri used optical absorption and electron paramagnetic resonance techniques to study the extent and manner in which the radiation interacted with the samples. He determined that individual bands were assigned to specific electronic transitions. He also studied the atomic changes in the ruby crystals after irradiation. He found that complex interactions depend on the crystal pretreatment, purity, and irradiation dose.