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By NASA
On May 22, 2025, NASA hosted an Expedition 72 crew debrief and awards ceremony at Space Center Houston, where more than 1,000 attendees gathered to celebrate. The event recognized the achievements of the crew as well as NASA employees and partners whose dedication and support contributed to the expedition’s success. Crew members from Expedition 72 shared reflections and anecdotes from their time on the International Space Station and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to contribute to scientific research aboard the orbiting laboratory.
A group photo of participants from the Expedition 72 crew debrief and awards ceremony on May 22, 2025, at Space Center Houston’s IMAX theater. NASA/James Blair The event included four NASA astronauts:
Nick Hague, Crew-9 commander and Expedition 72 flight engineer Butch Wilmore, Boeing Starliner commander and Expedition 72 flight engineer Suni Williams, Boeing Starliner pilot and Expedition 72 commander Don Pettit, Soyuz MS-26 and Expedition 72 flight engineer The Expedition 72 crew also included Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Aleksey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, who were not in attendance. The cosmonauts served as Crew-9 mission specialist, Soyuz-MS commander, and Soyuz-MS flight engineer, respectively.
NASA astronaut Matt Dominick kicked off the event by striking the ceremonial bell, a tradition symbolizing the end of the mission for the crew and those that support them.
Johnson Space Center Acting Director Stephen Koerner recognized the crew’s commitment to the mission and their role in the advancement of human spaceflight. “These brave men and women make the tough yet rewarding choice to embark on long-duration missions away from their family and friends,” he said. “They do this to conduct groundbreaking research and inspire generations. Spaceflight is hard, but through togetherness we make giant leaps, going further than ever before.”
NASA astronauts (from left) Don Pettit and Butch Wilmore, Expedition 72 flight engineers, pack external research hardware which housed a variety of samples exposed to the vacuum of space such as polymers, photovoltaic devices, and more. The samples were returned to Earth to be examined to understand how space radiation, the extreme thermal environment, micrometeoroids, and more affect materials possibly benefitting the space industry. NASA NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Suni Williams, Expedition 72 Flight Engineer and Commander respectively, discuss orbital lab maintenance procedures aboard the International Space Station.NASA The Expedition 72 crew dedicated more than 1,000 combined hours to scientific research and technology demonstrations aboard the International Space Station. Their work included enhancing metal 3D printing capabilities in orbit, exploring the potential of stem cell technology for treating diseases, preparing the first wooden satellite for deployment, and collecting samples from the station’s exterior to examine whether microorganisms can survive in the harsh environment of space. They also conducted studies on plant growth and quality, investigated how fire behaves in microgravity, and advanced life support systems, all aimed at improving the health, safety, and sustainability of future space missions.
Pettit also used his spare time and surroundings aboard the station to conduct unique experiments and captivate the public with his photography. Expedition 72 captured a record 1 million photos during the mission, showcasing the unique research and views aboard the orbiting laboratory through astronauts’ eyes.
The expedition was a historic venture, with Williams and Wilmore launching aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test before being integrated with the Expedition 71/72 crew and returning on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9. While working aboard the orbiting laboratory, Williams established a new record for the most cumulative spacewalking time by a woman — 62 hours and 6 minutes — placing her fourth among the most experienced spacewalkers in history. Additionally, Expedition 72 saw the first reboost of the International Space Station by a Dragon spacecraft.
The crew participated in a panel discussion, sharing further details about the expedition including experiments conducted, favorite foods, and experiencing the Aurora Borealis. The conversation closed with a special patch presentation from Wilmore to Williams to highlight her achievement of exceeding Mach 25 in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
Following the panel, an award ceremony recognized team members for their efforts in supporting the mission, with recipients including the crew, NASA employees, and commercial partners.
The Expedition 72 crew poses for a portrait inside the International Space Station’s Harmony module with a cake commemorating a total of 3,000 cumulative days in space gained between the individual crew members. Front row (from left): Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Back row (from left): NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Don Pettit, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, and NASA astronaut Suni Williams.NASA Flight Operations Directorate Acting Director Kjell Lindgren discussed the impact of collaboration with commercial and international partners. “Your collaboration is vital not just to mission success but to the very identity of this program,” he said. “Together, we can demonstrate what global collaboration can achieve in pursuit of excellence and exploration.”
Watch below to recap the Expedition 72 crew members’ journey aboard the International Space Station and to celebrate those who helped make the mission a success.
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By NASA
Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Webb’s First Images Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 6 Min Read Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA’s Webb
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) A planetary system described as abnormal, chaotic, and strange by researchers has come into clearer view with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), researchers have successfully imaged one of two known planets surrounding the star 14 Herculis, located 60 light-years away from Earth in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The exoplanet, 14 Herculis c, is one of the coldest imaged to date. While there are nearly 6,000 exoplanets that have been discovered, only a small number of those have been directly imaged, most of those being very hot (think hundreds or even thousands of degrees Fahrenheit). The new data suggests 14 Herculis c, which weighs about 7 times the planet Jupiter, is as cool as 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3 degrees Celsius).
Image: 14 Herculis c (NIRCam)
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) The team’s results covering 14 Herculis c have been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and were presented in a press conference Tuesday at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska.
“The colder an exoplanet, the harder it is to image, so this is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared,” said William Balmer, co-first author of the new paper and graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. “We are now able to add to the catalog of not just hot, young exoplanets imaged, but older exoplanets that are far colder than we’ve directly seen before Webb.”
Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c also provides insights into a planetary system unlike most others studied in detail with Webb and other ground- and space-based `observatories. The central star, 14 Herculis, is almost Sun-like – it is similar in age and temperature to our own Sun, but a little less massive and cooler.
There are two planets in this system – 14 Herculis b is closer to the star, and covered by the coronagraphic mask in the Webb image. These planets don’t orbit each other on the same plane like our solar system. Instead, they cross each other like an ‘X’, with the star being at the center. That is, the orbital planes of the two planets are inclined relative to one another at an angle of about 40 degrees. The planets tug and pull at one another as they orbit the star.
This is the first time an image has ever been snapped of an exoplanet in such a mis-aligned system.
Scientists are working on several theories for just how the planets in this system got so “off track.” One of the leading concepts is that the planets scattered after a third planet was violently ejected from the system early in its formation.
“The early evolution of our own solar system was dominated by the movement and pull of our own gas giants,” added Balmer. “They threw around asteroids and rearranged other planets. Here, we are seeing the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene. It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own solar system, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces.”
Understanding the Planet’s Characteristics With Webb
Webb’s new data is giving researchers further insights into not just the temperature of 14 Herculis c, but other details about the planet’s orbit and atmosphere.
Findings indicate the planet orbits around 1.4 billion miles from the host star in a highly elliptical, or football-shaped orbit, closer in than previous estimates. This is around 15 times farther from the Sun than Earth. On average, this would put 14 Herculis c between Saturn and Uranus in our solar system.
The planet’s brightness at 4.4 microns measured using Webb’s coronagraph, combined with the known mass of the planet and age of the system, hints at some complex atmospheric dynamics at play.
“If a planet of a certain mass formed 4 billion years ago, then cooled over time because it doesn’t have a source of energy keeping it warm, we can predict how hot it should be today,” said Daniella C. Bardalez Gagliuffi of Amherst College, co-first author on the paper with Balmer. “Added information, like the perceived brightness in direct imaging, would in theory support this estimate of the planet’s temperature.”
However, what researchers expect isn’t always reflected in the results. With 14 Herculis c, the brightness at this wavelength is fainter than expected for an object of this mass and age. The research team can explain this discrepancy, though. It’s called carbon disequilibrium chemistry, something often seen in brown dwarfs.
“This exoplanet is so cold, the best comparisons we have that are well-studied are the coldest brown dwarfs,” Bardalez Gagliuffi explained. “In those objects, like with 14 Herculis c, we see carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide existing at temperatures where we should see methane. This is explained by churning in the atmosphere. Molecules made at warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere are brought to the cold, upper atmosphere very quickly.”
Researchers hope Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c is just the beginning of a new phase of investigation into this strange system.
While the small dot of light obtained by Webb contains a plethora of information, future spectroscopic studies of 14 Herculis could better constrain the atmospheric properties of this interesting planet and help researchers understand the dynamics and formation pathways of the system.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) newest planetary defender has opened its ‘eye’ to the cosmos for the first time. The Flyeye telescope’s ‘first light’ marks the beginning of a new chapter in how we scan the skies for new near-Earth asteroids and comets.
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/Stroe, A. et al.; Optical: PanSTARRS; Radio: ASTRON/LOFAR; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk New observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have captured a rare cosmic event: two galaxy clusters have collided and are now poised to head back for another swipe at each other.
Galaxy clusters are some of the largest structures in the Universe. Held together by gravity, they are monster-sized collections of hundreds or thousands of individual galaxies, massive amounts of superheated gas, and invisible dark matter.
The galaxy cluster PSZ2 G181.06+48.47 (PSZ2 G181 for short) is about 2.8 billion light-years from Earth. Previously, radio observations from the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), an antenna network in the Netherlands, spotted parentheses-shaped structures on the outside of the system. In this new composite image, X-rays from Chandra (purple) and ESA’s XMM-Newton (blue) have been combined with LOFAR data (red) and an optical image from Pan-STARRs of the stars in the field of view.
These structures are probably shock fronts — similar to those created by jets that have broken the sound barrier — likely caused by disruption of gas from the initial collision about a billion years ago. Since the collision they have continued traveling outwards and are currently separated by about 11 million light-years, the largest separation of these kinds of structures that astronomers have ever seen.
Colliding galaxy clusters PSZ2 G181.06+48.47 (Labeled).X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/Stroe, A. et al.; Optical: PanSTARRS; Radio: ASTRON/LOFAR; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Now, data from NASA’s Chandra and ESA’s XMM-Newton is providing evidence that PSZ2 G181 is poised for another collision. Having a first pass at ramming each other, the two clusters have slowed down and begun heading back toward a second crash.
Astronomers made a detailed study of the X-ray observations of this collision site and found three shock fronts. These are aligned with the axis of the collision, and the researchers think they are early signs of the second, oncoming crash.
The researchers are still trying to determine how much mass each of the colliding clusters contains. Regardless, the total mass of the system is less than others where galaxy clusters have collided. This makes PSZ2 G181 an unusual case of a lower-mass system involved in the rare event of colliding galaxy clusters.
A paper describing these results appears in a recent issue of The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) and is led by Andra Stroe from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and collaborators. It is part of a series of three papers in ApJ. The second paper is led by Kamlesh Rajpurohit, also of CfA, and the third paper is led by Eunmo Ahn, from Yonsei University in the Republic of Korea.
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.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description
In this release, a composite image illustrates a dramatic cosmic story unfolding 2.8 billion light years from Earth. Presented both with and without labels, the image details the fallout when two galaxy clusters collide.
At the center of the image are the colliding galaxy clusters, which together are known as PSZ2 G181. This combined cluster somewhat resembles an irregular violet peanut shell, with bulbous ends linked by a tapered middle. Inside each bulbous end are several glowing dots; some of the galaxies within the clusters. The violet peanut shape is tilted at a slight angle, surrounded by a blue haze of X-ray gas.
Far from the bulbous ends, at our upper left and lower right, are two blotchy, thick red lines. These are probably shock fronts, similar to those created by jets that have broken the sound barrier. Bracketing the combined galaxy cluster, these shock fronts were caused by the initial collision about a billion years ago. They are currently separated by 11 million light-years.
New data from the Chandra and XMM-Newton observatories suggests that PSZ2 G181 is poised for another powerful cosmic event. Having already taken one swipe at each other, the two clusters within are once again on a collision course.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jun 04, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities 3D Hubble Models Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary News Hubble News Social Media Media Resources More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spies Paired Pinwheel on Its Own
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the beautiful barred spiral galaxy NGC 3507 ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker A single member of a galaxy pair takes centerstage in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. This beautiful spiral galaxy is NGC 3507, which is situated about 46 million light-years away in the constellation Leo (the Lion). NGC 3507’s classification is a barred spiral because the galaxy’s sweeping spiral arms emerge from the ends of a central bar of stars rather than the central core of the galaxy.
Though pictured solo here, NGC 3507 actually travels the universe with a galactic partner named NGC 3501 that is located outside the frame. While NGC 3507 is a quintessential galactic pinwheel, its partner resembles a streak of quicksilver across the sky. Despite looking completely different, both are spiral galaxies, simply seen from different angles.
For galaxies that are just a few tens of millions of light-years away, like NGC 3507 and NGC 3501, features like spiral arms, dusty gas clouds, and brilliant star clusters are on full display. More distant galaxies appear less detailed. See if you can spot any faraway galaxies in this image: they tend to be orange or yellow and can be anywhere from circular and starlike to narrow and elongated, with hints of spiral arms. Astronomers use instruments called spectrometers to split the light from these distant galaxies to study the nature of these objects in the early universe.
In addition to these far-flung companions, a much nearer object joins NGC 3507. The object is marked by four spikes of light: a star within the Milky Way, a mere 436 light-years away from Earth.
Text Credit: ESA/Hubble
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated May 30, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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