May 28, 20257 min readWhy Is NASA Shuttering This Iconic Institute in New York City?Since 1966 NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has been at the forefront of Earth and planetary science from its location in upper Manhattan. Now a Trump administration directive is ejecting its scientists to parts unknownBy Christopher Cokinos edited by Lee BillingsPhoto of the building housing NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, at the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street in New York City. Cirofono via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)In the early 1980s, then real estate developer Donald Trump famously tried to evict a group of New York City residents from a rent-controlled building that he wanted to replace with a luxury high-rise. The tenants eventually beat back the plan.Today President Trump is having more luck with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).Ensconced on six floors of a building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, GISS has been a small-but-mighty source of world-changing scientific research for more than a half-century. NASA scientists first moved into the building, which another federal agency leases from GISS’s institutional partner, Columbia University, in 1966. Last month, at the behest of the Trump administration, NASA officials told GISS it had to move out before the end of May. In response, more than 100 staffers have abandoned the facility, leaving its tastefully decorated halls and offices littered with boxes, papers and packing tape.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Although it may be best known to the public indirectly (its building often appeared in the hit sitcom Seinfeld as the site of “Monk’s Café”), GISS has been a leader in Earth science and climate research for decades. The work within its halls was crucial for sparking broader public awareness of anthropogenic climate change in the 1980s and has contributed to cutting-edge weather forecasting and multiple interplanetary missions, as well as the underpinnings of the past, present, and future habitability of Earth and other worlds.Yet now that rich legacy and prospects for further breakthrough research are at risk, GISS personnel say, jeopardized by the White House’s demands for notionally better government efficiency. Ironically, however, the effective eviction of GISS may well result in more costs to taxpayers rather than less.A Federal Mandate to “Institutionally Couch Surf”GISS itself has not been disbanded. But without a physical home and under the looming threat of a White House–proposed 50 percent cut to the entirety of NASA’s science for the 2026 federal fiscal year, the Institute’s future can only be called uncertain. Many of its staff are now operating as academic nomads—working remotely and scrambling to secure office space at other locations in the city.“We’re being told to institutionally couch surf,” says one senior GISS researcher, who, like many others in this story, asked not to be identified because of the possibility of reprisal.In April Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which technically includes GISS, e-mailed GISS personnel about the eviction, explaining it was part of White House efforts to review government leases.Sources familiar with the situation, however, tell Scientific American the termination was specifically set in motion earlier this spring by an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service (a newly minted federal entity that was, until recently, led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk). That employee, the sources say, approached NASA administrators, who ultimately agreed to the move out of fear of losing their jobs.A GISS scientist recounts the sudden events: “On Wednesday afternoon of April 23, NASA GISS workers were informed that there would be an all-hands Thursday morning meeting (the next day) with folks from HQ ... the topic of which was not mentioned,” the scientist says. “The next morning, we were promptly told ... the decision was made to vacate our building by the end of May and that the decision was made as part of a broader DOGE assessment of federal leased spaces. They also mentioned that this decision was made by NASA within just a few days.” According to this scientist, the move deadline changed several times. This account is supported by others who spoke to Scientific American.Multiple GISS personnel consulted for this story say there will be no cost savings because the $3-million-per-year lease on the space remains in place through 2031. That lease is between Columbia and the General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency that is tasked with providing workspace for some governmental employees. Even if a new tenant is found, the lease is likely to remain in force because terminating it will result in major financial penalties per the leasing agreement. The lease, they say, is about half the current commercial rate in New York City, and for now, the GSA continues to pay rent.“Columbia is fully committed to our longstanding collaboration with NASA and the scientific research at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies,” said Millie Wert, a spokesperson for the university, when reached for comment for this article.The suddenness of the move has stunned GISS researchers and personnel, one of whom calls the decision “idiocy.”“One hundred and thirty scientists must move all their books and office equipment,” the senior researcher told Scientific American shortly after GISS received the eviction notice. “A library and $400,000 in tech must be moved out. We also have historical items here: Where are we supposed to put them?” Much of this material is reportedly going into storage at warehouse space in New Jersey.Another staffer adds that “we have no information about what will be discarded.... Ironically, many of us decided not to accept new furniture [recently] because our existing 1950s furniture is perfectly good—and that would save the taxpayer money.”As GISS employees packed their belongings, they saw workers dismantling a recently renovated conference room and a brand-new security system, according to documents obtained by Scientific American from the departing staff. The documents also note that computers and servers are “at risk of damage while being moved in haste.”Two protest letters against the eviction that were sent from the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE) to particular congressional representatives and senators, respectively, noted that a recent renovation of GISS is nearly complete at a cost of more than $6 million. In the letter to members of the House of Representatives, IFPTE called the dispersal of staff and equipment “blatantly wasteful financially.”An Institutional “Diaspora”GISS is globally renowned for tracking and predicting climate conditions with GISTEMP (GISS Surface Temperature Analysis), along with other datasets and modeling that involve planetary science beyond Earth and that are focused on weather, fire and agriculture on our world. GISS also has played roles in missions across the solar system, the discovery of the big bang’s all-sky afterglow, and more.According to firebrand climate researcher and former GISS director James Hansen, now retired from NASA, the institute was deliberately located in New York City because physicist Robert Jastrow, its founder, wanted a NASA center that was not a closed campus. Being in the heart of a city with academia and industry outside the door has been an asset to GISS, according to Hansen and others. The process of developing GISS began modestly, with “Jastrow ... interviewing people in an office over a furniture store in Silver Spring, Md.,” Hansen says. “The ‘GISS Formula’ ... was to have a minimum government staff, which allowed the research focus to change with time as the need dictated.”One such focus was the high levels of carbon dioxide on Venus, which Hansen was studying decades ago. That led to his trailblazing work on what was then called “the greenhouse effect,” including his famous testimony before Congress on human-driven climate change in 1988.Climate modeling, says a different senior GISS researcher, “is what drove the development of supercomputing, [and] we continue to use the same Earth climate modeling to understand Venus and Mars and constrain their potential habitability.” From climate feedback loops to ocean heat transport, GISS is at the center of important science, its researchers say.But the GISS dispersal, along with other disruptions, such as frozen grants and proposed science budget cuts at NASA, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other agencies, “represent a monumental step backwards,” a GISS scientist says, “not just for understanding a climate that will still change due to human activities ... but also for operational weather prediction that saves lives due to forecast and warnings, pollution and contamination assessments.”GISS’s current director Gavin Schmidt tells Scientific American that “the issue of whether to do something with the GISS lease goes back a year or two due to a shift in how these things are paid for at NASA.... [The agency] commissioned an external panel to look at [this], and they concluded (last year) that the status quo was the most efficient plan. I am not privy to who decided to raise that idea again in recent weeks.”Other GISS researchers complain that, to their knowledge, no administrators above Schmidt went to bat for keeping the institute in its building.“I think there was pushback initially at HQ,” Schmidt says, “but by the time we were told at GISS, it was a done deal.”Concerns now include the lack of in-person interaction and a general loss of support for postdoctoral researchers. “It’s pretty dire,” one scientist says.“I’m now watching people who have dedicated their entire careers to understanding the most pressing issues of our time deciding whether they might have to leave the place they’ve built their life around,” says Alessandra Quigley, an early-career scientist, who is affiliated with GISS. “This is the only positive takeaway I can find: the fact this administration cares so much about ending climate science just demonstrates how important [this science] is, and I hope the public comes to see that, too.”While Lystrup called GISS’s work “critical” and promised support during the transition in her e-mail, which was obtained by Scientific American , Schmidt says that “people are shell-shocked and anxious—and that is not conducive to doing high-quality science.”He adds that “we will nonetheless push through and try and make the GISS diaspora function as well as it can. We have been contacted with many offers to help.”Asked for comment by Scientific American, a NASA spokesperson referred to the situation as “part of the administration’s government-wide review of leases to increase efficiency.” While NASA “seeks and evaluates options for a new space for the GISS team,” the spokesperson added, the institute’s work remains “significant” and “critical.”But at least one GISS researcher isn’t convinced. Angry that the agency didn’t do more to stop the eviction and even had tasked officials with frequent check-ins to ensure the move was underway, the researcher says, simply, “NASA is the new thug.”

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Perseverance Explores Mars' Oldest Rocks in Krokodillen Region Highlights Perseverance explores Krokodillen, a potential Mars water site Clays and carbonates found, hinting at ancient wet conditions New rover strategy allows sample swaps for flexibility Advertisement NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is now exploring a new region on the lower slope of Jezero Crater's rim. This region "Krokodillen," named after a mountain ridge on the island of Prins Karls Forland, Norway, Krokodillen (which means “the crocodile” in Norwegian) is a 73-acre (about 30-hectare) plateau of rocky outcrops located downslope to the west and south of Witch Hazel Hill. Previous studies suggest that this region contains some of the oldest rocks from the Noachian period, the earliest geological era of Mars. This region gives a chance to study the environmental history of Mars because it marks a key boundary between ancient crater rim formations and younger plains.Minerals and the indication of waterAs per preliminary studies over this region, signs of clay, olivine, and carbonate minerals have been found. Krokodillen plateau contains rocky outcrops rich in clays, minerals that only form in the presence of water. Their discovery hints at a wetter ancient Mars and raises the potential for finding preserved organic compounds — the chemical signatures of life.These findings build on previous discoveries, such as at “Cheyava Falls” in 2024, where potential biosignatures were found. If similar clues emerge at Krokodillen, it could suggest multiple episodes of possible habitability in Mars' deep past.Perseverance is currently examining a site within this region called "Copper Cove," where it's believed that Noachian-era rocks, among the oldest on Mars may be found.Sampling StrategyPerseverance rover has arrived at Krokodillen with a new sampling strategy that allows for leaving cored samples unsealed in case of finding more scientifically compelling geologic features. The rover has collected and sealed two regolith samples, three witness tubes, and one atmospheric sample. It has also collected 26 rock cores and sealed 25 of them.The rover's most recent unsealed sample is a rock core called "Bell Island," which contains small round stones called spherules. If a new sample is needed, the rover could be commanded to dump the previous sample. The engineering sample team assessed whether leaving a tube unsealed could diminish the quality of a sample, but the team believes it is a minor concern for the opportunity to collect the best and most compelling samples. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Gadgets 360 Staff The resident bot. If you email me, a human will respond. More Related Stories

Starfish Space plans to perform the first commercial satellite docking in orbit with its Otter Pup 2 mission, aiming to connect to an unprepared D-Orbit ION spacecraft using an electrostatic capture mechanism and autonomous navigation software. NASASpaceFlight.com reports: This follows the company's first attempt, which saw the Otter Pup 1 mission unable to dock with its target due to a thruster failure. The Otter Pup 2 spacecraft will be deployed from a quarter plate on the upper stage adapter of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, placing it into a sun synchronous orbit altitude of 510 km inclined 97.4 degrees. The target will be a D-Orbit ION spacecraft which will simulate a client payload, which is not equipped with a traditional docking adapter or capture plate as you might see aboard a space station or other rendezvous target. Instead, Starfish Space's Nautilus capture mechanism will feature a special end effector connected to the end of the capture mechanism. This end effector will enable Otter Pup 2 to dock with the ION through electrostatic adhesion. "An electromagnet will be integrated into the end effector and will be used as a backup option to the electrostatic end effector, to dock with the ION through magnetic attraction," the company notes. The goal is to eventually commission its Otter satellite servicing vehicle to allow for servicing of previously launched satellites. The company's first Otter missions include customers such as NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and Intelsat, with the goal of flying those missions as soon as 2026. [...] Following the thruster issues on the first mission, this flight will feature two ThrustMe thrusters, which use an electric propulsion system based on gridded ion thruster technology. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Small-scale ocean features once overlooked are now seen as powerful forces shaping Earth's climate and marine life. Developed in association with the French space agency CNES, the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite caught two-dimensional images of submesoscale waves and eddies about a mile across in a recent NASA-led study. Now clearly seen in before-unheard-of clarity, these currents are essential in moving carbon, nutrients, and heat across the ocean. The high-resolution data of the satellite provides the most comprehensive picture yet of how small-scale vertical currents affect the ecosystems and climatic systems of the world.NASA SWOT Satellite Discovers Vertical Ocean Currents Driving Climate and Ecosystem ChangeAs per a recent report from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, SWOT revealed how vertical ocean circulation, previously too fine for satellite observation but too broad for ship-based tools, drives exchanges between ocean depths and the atmosphere.“Vertical currents can bring heat from deep layers to the surface, warming the atmosphere,” notes oceanographer Matthew Archer in a statement. SWOT tracked a submesoscale eddy in the Pacific's Kuroshio Current and measured vertical circulation of up to 14 metres per day, showing how such features help sustain surface ecosystems.The satellite also observed an internal solitary wave in the Andaman Sea with twice the energy of a typical internal tide, underscoring its ability to estimate energy movement in global waters. Scientists use sea surface height data from SWOT to infer wave slope and fluid pressure, which reveals current speed and the volume of energy or material being transported. “Force is the fundamental quantity driving fluid motion,” explained coauthor Jinbo Wang of Texas A&M University in the blog.Researchers emphasise SWOT's role in reshaping ocean modelling. “Now models must adapt to these small-scale features,” denotes JPL's Lee Fu in the official NASA blog, adding that SWOT data is already being integrated into NASA's ECCO ocean model. Through continuous monitoring, SWOT is intended to help clarify among environmental changes, ocean-atmosphere interaction, and climate behaviour. The SWOT mission is a joint project between NASA and CNES, with contributions from CSA and the UK Space Agency, and represents a new era in observing Earth. Its snapshots of the globe every 21 days offer a one-of-a-kind glimpse of how small, dynamic ocean systems help control life and climate on Earth. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: SWOT satellite, ocean circulation, submesoscale, NASA, CNES, marine ecosystems, ocean currents, space science, climate models Gadgets 360 Staff The resident bot. If you email me, a human will respond. More Related Stories

Water ice is a crucial building block of planetary systems. We've found plenty of it in our own Solar System, in places like Europa, Mars, and wayward comets, but we've never made a definitive detection of frozen water around other stars. Plenty of water vapor, yes, but no (d)ice.But that just changed. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astronomers have confirmed the presence of water ice in a debris disk encircling a young, Sun-like star just 155 light years away. And tantalizingly, it's the same kind of ice found in our own system."Webb unambiguously detected not just water ice, but crystalline water ice, which is also found in locations like Saturn's rings and icy bodies in our Solar System's Kuiper Belt," said Chen Xie, an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of a new study published in the journal Nature, in a statement about the work. We tend to think of water in biological terms — as a key ingredient for life. But frozen chunks of the stuff play just as influential a role in the formation of giant planets, which, with their incredible mass, are themselves a huge determinant of a planetary system's structure. Icy bodies can clump together to kickstart planetary formation, and they could also bring water to existing worlds. In fact, that could explain how Earth got its water.The findings, therefore, have paved the way to exploring water ice's role outside our solar system."The presence of water ice helps facilitate planet formation," Xie said. "Icy materials may also ultimately be 'delivered' to terrestrial planets that may form over a couple hundred million years in systems like this."The star at the heart of the discovery, HD 181327, is practically an infant at just 23 million years old, compared to the Sun's 4.6 billion years. It is both slightly more massive than our star, and hotter, with a larger system surrounding it.There's a vast stretch of empty space between the star and its debris disk where the water ice was found, Webb observations confirmed. Like "dirty snowballs," the ice chunks are caked in particles of dust."There are regular, ongoing collisions in its debris disk," explained coauthor Christine Chen, an associate astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, in the statement.  "When those icy bodies collide, they release tiny particles of dusty water ice that are perfectly sized for Webb to detect." Most of the water ice is found farther away from the star, with the debris disk's outer area consisting of over 20 percent water ice, Xie said. Meanwhile, in the middle of the disk, Webb only detected 8 percent water ice, where water particles are likely produced slightly faster than they're vaporized.But in the region nearest the star, there was almost none to be found. There, the astronomers believe that the star's ultraviolet light vaporizes the ice chunks, and if any survive, they might be hidden from Webb's eye, trapped inside chunks of rock called planetesimals, which serve as the building blocks of planets.Strikingly, the debris disk appears remarkably similar to our Solar System's Kuiper Belt, a ring of comets, dwarf planets, and icy objects that lie just beyond the outermost planet, Neptune. That could hint at a pattern in how planetary systems evolve across the cosmos. It may be more than a coincidence that the first confirmed water ice we're seeing around another star mirrors the distribution of our Solar System. Only future observations — and probably with the James Webb — will tell.Share This Article

On may 10th, a semitrailer delivered NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe or IMAP to the Astrotech space operations facility all the way from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The IMAP mission is a modern-day celestial cartographer that will map the solar system by studying the heliosphere, a giant bubble created by the Sun's solar wind that surrounds our solar system and protects it from harmful interstellar radiation. Tentatively scheduled for launch no earlier than fall 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy, IMAP will be processed fuelled and encapsulated by the technicians in Astrotech facility.About the missionAccording to reported  NASA's blog, The IMAP mission will orbit the Sun at a location called Lagrange Point 1 (L1), which is about one million miles from Earth towards the Sun. From this location, IMAP can measure the local solar wind and scan the distant heliosphere without background from planets and their magnetic fields. The spacecraft will use 10 scientific instruments to study and map the heliosphere, a vast magnetic bubble surrounding the Sun protecting our solar system.At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, IMAP went through thermal vacuum testing at the X-ray and Cryogenic facility that simulates harsh conditions and dramatic temperature changes to simulate the environment during launch, on the journey toward the Sun.Mission ManagementIMAP is the fifth mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program portfolio. It is lead by Princeton University professor David J. McComas with an international team of 25 partner institutions. The spacecraft was built and operated from The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.Information from this mission are expected to provide early warnings about space weather, which can affect human space explorers and technological systems like satellites and power grids that can affect life on Earth.

May 14, 20254 min readRemember VIPER, NASA’s Off-Again, On-Again Lunar Rover? It’s Still in LimboNASA’s nearly complete yet canceled lunar rover VIPER isn’t going to get carried to the moon by a private space exploration company—but it’s also not quite dead yetBy Stephanie Pappas edited by Jeanna BrynerNASA's VIPER, or the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, can be seen in this artist's impression. Geopix/Alamy Stock PhotoThe only consistent thing about NASA’s VIPER lunar rover is that the road to the moon has been a rocky one. And now the space agency has nixed its attempt to find a commercial partner to launch VIPER moonward, leaving the nearly complete little space vehicle in a continued state of limbo.VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover) was intended to launch this year to explore the lunar south pole in search of buried ice and other chemical compounds. But NASA canceled it in July 2024 after delays led to cost overruns. This is the second time NASA has nixed a lunar rover mission in recent years, says Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida (UCF). In 2018 NASA axed the Resource Prospector rover, which would have done similar exploration.In January NASA raised hopes that VIPER might somehow still see space when it put out a call for proposals for private aerospace companies to launch and operate the rover. On May 7, however, NASA canceled that call for proposals.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The agency says it is exploring new strategies for VIPER in the future.“We look forward to accomplishing future volatiles science with VIPER as we continue NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration efforts,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a recent statement.Why can’t VIPER get off the ground? The rover’s budget problems started with supply chain disruptions during the COVID pandemic, says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society. It was also slated to launch on a platform built by aerospace company Astrobotic, which failed its first landing of a scaled-down version of that platformThe mission was unusually far along when NASA pulled the plug: the rover was fully assembled and was in the final stages of testing for a launch. By that point, NASA had sunk nearly $800 million into its construction and the contract with Astrobotic.It’s not clear why NASA has been unable to find a private partner to launch the rover, but such a company would have assumed the costs of the mission and agreed to share the data freely with the space agency. That made for a tough business case for private companies, SpaceNews reported earlier this month.What kind of science was VIPER supposed to do?The 2.5-meter-tall rover was designed to search for resources such as water ice, carbon dioxide and helium in the lunar subsurface. The goal, says Clive Neal, a lunar expert at the University of Notre Dame, is to find resources that humans could use to establish a permanent research base on the moon. The data on where such volatiles might be and whether they’re accessible and extractable are crucial for the Artemis program’s plans for long-term human presence on the moon.The rover carries four instruments: a neutron spectrometer to detect water as deep as a meter below the surface, a near-infrared spectrometer to determine the makeup of samples, a mass spectrometer to analyze gases in the environment at touchdown and a drill called TRIDENT (The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrains). The drill is one of VIPER’s blockbuster features, designed to pull samples from up to a meter deep.The cancelation of VIPER, after 2018’s loss of Resource Prospector, is short-sighted, given NASA’s goals, Neal says. “Is NASA actually serious about getting humans back to the moon?” he says. “Are they actually serious about enacting our current space policy? Have they actually read it?”VIPER could also answer basic science questions about the origin of the water on the moon, says UCF’s Metzger. It may have been part of the lunar core from the moment of its formation, or the water could have arrived with planetary dust or large impactors over time, among other possibilities. “Understanding those processes is crucial for understanding our solar system,” Metzger says. The answers could reveal more about how common water-rich bodies are in the galaxy and how many planets or moons might host life.What’s next for VIPER?That’s the big question. Until NASA releases more details on potential future partnership structures, the project remains in a state of suspended animation.“I don’t know what to make of it because there is so little information,” Dreier says.It’s possible NASA could reopen negotiations with Astrobotic, the company that was originally going to launch the rover, Neal says. Or, Metzger suggests, the agency might be seeking international partners that could take on some of the operational costs.There are no other U.S. missions on the horizon with the drilling capabilities of VIPER. If the rover doesn’t find a way to the moon, Neal says, two other lunar explorers from China could pick up the banner of volatiles science: Chang’e 7 and 8.As uncertain as things are looking for VIPER, though, it’s an optimistic sign that NASA hasn’t dropped the rover outright, Dreier says, given that the White House has proposed a 50 percent cut to NASA’s science programs and a more than 20 percent cut to the agency overall in 2026. “If it’s not openly identified as being canceled,” Dreier says, “you are winning as a NASA science mission right now.”