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Flight Engineer Joe Acaba works in the U.S. Destiny laboratory module on the International Space Station, setting up hardware for the Zero Boil-Off Tank (ZBOT) experiment. Joe Acaba Space missions rely on cryogenic fluids — extremely cold liquids like liquid hydrogen and oxygen — for both propulsion and life support systems. These fuels must be kept at ultra-low cryogenic temperatures to remain in liquid form; however, solar heating and other sources of heat increase the rate of evaporation of the liquid and cause the pressure in the storage tank to increase. Current storage methods require venting the cryogenic propellant to space to control the pressure in fuel tanks.
NASA’s Zero Boil-Off Tank Noncondensables (ZBOT-NC) experiment is the continuation of Zero Boil-Off studies gathering crucial data to optimize fuel storage systems for space missions. The experiment will launch aboard Northrop Grumman’s 23rd resupply mission to the International Space Station.
When Cold Fuel Gets Too Warm
Even with multilayer insulation, heat unavoidably seeps into cryogenic fuel tanks from surrounding structures and the space environment, causing an increase in the liquid temperature and an associated increase in the evaporation rate. In turn, the pressure inside the tank increases. This process is called “boil-off” and the increase in tank pressure is referred to as “self-pressurization.”
Venting excess gas to the environment or space when this process occurs is highly undesirable and becomes mission-critical on extended journeys. If crew members used current fuel storage methods for a years-long Mars expedition, all propellant might be lost to boil-off before the trip ends.
NASA’s ZBOT experiments are investigating active pressure control methods to eliminate wasteful fuel venting. Specifically, active control through the use of jet mixing and other techniques are being evaluated and tested in the ZBOT series of experiments.
The Pressure Control Problem
ZBOT-NC further studies how noncondensable gases (NCGs) affect fuel tank behavior when present in spacecraft systems. NCGs don’t turn into liquid under the tank’s operating conditions and can affect tank pressure.
The investigation, which is led out of Glenn Research Center, will operate inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox aboard the space station to gather data on how NCGs affect volatile liquid behavior in microgravity. It’s part of an effort to advance cryogenic fluid management technologies and help NASA better understand low-gravity fluid behavior.
Researchers will measure pressure and temperature as they study how these gases change evaporation and condensation rates. Previous studies indicate the gases create barriers that could reduce a tank’s ability to maintain proper pressure control — a potentially serious issue for extended space missions.
How this benefits space exploration
The research directly supports Mars missions and other long-duration space travel by helping engineers design more efficient fuel storage systems and future space depots. The findings may also benefit scientific instruments on space telescopes and probes that rely on cryogenic fluids to maintain the extremely low temperatures needed for operation.
How this benefits humanity
The investigation could improve tank design models for medical, industrial, and energy production applications that depend on long-term cryogenic storage on Earth.
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Scientists believe giant impacts — like the one depicted in this artist’s concept — occurred on Mars 4.5 billion years ago, injecting debris from the impact deep into the planet’s mantle. NASA’s InSight lander detected this debris before the mission’s end in 2022.NASA/JPL-Caltech Rocky material that impacted Mars lies scattered in giant lumps throughout the planet’s mantle, offering clues about Mars’ interior and its ancient past.
What appear to be fragments from the aftermath of massive impacts on Mars that occurred 4.5 billion years ago have been detected deep below the planet’s surface. The discovery was made thanks to NASA’s now-retired InSight lander, which recorded the findings before the mission’s end in 2022. The ancient impacts released enough energy to melt continent-size swaths of the early crust and mantle into vast magma oceans, simultaneously injecting the impactor fragments and Martian debris deep into the planet’s interior.
There’s no way to tell exactly what struck Mars: The early solar system was filled with a range of different rocky objects that could have done so, including some so large they were effectively protoplanets. The remains of these impacts still exist in the form of lumps that are as large as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) across and scattered throughout the Martian mantle. They offer a record preserved only on worlds like Mars, whose lack of tectonic plates has kept its interior from being churned up the way Earth’s is through a process known as convection.
A cutaway view of Mars in this artist’s concept (not to scale) reveals debris from ancient impacts scattered through the planet’s mantle. On the surface at left, a meteoroid impact sends seismic signals through the interior; at right is NASA’s InSight lander.NASA/JPL-Caltech The finding was reported Thursday, Aug. 28, in a study published by the journal Science.
“We’ve never seen the inside of a planet in such fine detail and clarity before,” said the paper’s lead author, Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London. “What we’re seeing is a mantle studded with ancient fragments. Their survival to this day tells us Mars’ mantle has evolved sluggishly over billions of years. On Earth, features like these may well have been largely erased.”
InSight, which was managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, placed the first seismometer on Mars’ surface in 2018. The extremely sensitive instrument recorded 1,319 marsquakes before the lander’s end of mission in 2022.
NASA’s InSight took this selfie in 2019 using a camera on its robotic arm. The lander also used its arm to deploy the mission’s seismometer, whose data was used in a 2025 study showing impacts left chunks of debris deep in the planet’s interior.NASA/JPL-Caltech Quakes produce seismic waves that change as they pass through different kinds of material, providing scientists a way to study the interior of a planetary body. To date, the InSight team has measured the size, depth, and composition of Mars’ crust, mantle, and core. This latest discovery regarding the mantle’s composition suggests how much is still waiting to be discovered within InSight’s data.
“We knew Mars was a time capsule bearing records of its early formation, but we didn’t anticipate just how clearly we’d be able to see with InSight,” said Tom Pike of Imperial College London, coauthor of the paper.
Quake hunting
Mars lacks the tectonic plates that produce the temblors many people in seismically active areas are familiar with. But there are two other types of quakes on Earth that also occur on Mars: those caused by rocks cracking under heat and pressure, and those caused by meteoroid impacts.
Of the two types, meteoroid impacts on Mars produce high-frequency seismic waves that travel from the crust deep into the planet’s mantle, according to a paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters. Located beneath the planet’s crust, the Martian mantle can be as much as 960 miles (1,550 kilometers) thick and is made of solid rock that can reach temperatures as high as 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius).
Scrambled signals
The new Science paper identifies eight marsquakes whose seismic waves contained strong, high-frequency energy that reached deep into the mantle, where their seismic waves were distinctly altered.
“When we first saw this in our quake data, we thought the slowdowns were happening in the Martian crust,” Pike said. “But then we noticed that the farther seismic waves travel through the mantle, the more these high-frequency signals were being delayed.”
Using planetwide computer simulations, the team saw that the slowing down and scrambling happened only when the signals passed through small, localized regions within the mantle. They also determined that these regions appear to be lumps of material with a different composition than the surrounding mantle.
With one riddle solved, the team focused on another: how those lumps got there.
Turning back the clock, they concluded that the lumps likely arrived as giant asteroids or other rocky material that struck Mars during the early solar system, generating those oceans of magma as they drove deep into the mantle, bringing with them fragments of crust and mantle.
Charalambous likens the pattern to shattered glass — a few large shards with many smaller fragments. The pattern is consistent with a large release of energy that scattered many fragments of material throughout the mantle. It also fits well with current thinking that in the early solar system, asteroids and other planetary bodies regularly bombarded the young planets.
On Earth, the crust and uppermost mantle is continuously recycled by plate tectonics pushing a plate’s edge into the hot interior, where, through convection, hotter, less-dense material rises and cooler, denser material sinks. Mars, by contrast, lacks tectonic plates, and its interior circulates far more sluggishly. The fact that such fine structures are still visible today, Charalambous said, “tells us Mars hasn’t undergone the vigorous churning that would have smoothed out these lumps.”
And in that way, Mars could point to what may be lurking beneath the surface of other rocky planets that lack plate tectonics, including Venus and Mercury.
More about InSight
JPL managed InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. InSight was part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supported spacecraft operations for the mission.
A number of European partners, including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), supported the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.
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Last Updated Aug 28, 2025 Related Terms
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The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft is seen as it lands with NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov aboard in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025.Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber The first crew to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program completed the agency’s 10th commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on Saturday.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov returned to Earth at 11:33 a.m. EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels retrieved the spacecraft and its crew. After returning to shore, the crew will fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and reunite with their families.
“Splashdown! Crew-10 is back on Earth from the International Space Station marking the completion of another successful flight,” said NASA acting Administrator Sean Duffy. “Our crew missions are the building blocks for long-duration, human exploration pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. NASA is leading the way by setting a bold vision for exploration where we have a thriving space industry supporting private space stations in low Earth orbit, as well as humans exploring the Moon and Mars.”
The agency’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission lifted off at 7:03 p.m. on March 14, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. About 29 hours later, the crew’s SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the Harmony module’s space-facing port at 12:04 a.m. on March 16. Crew-10 undocked at 6:15 p.m. Aug. 8, to begin the trip home.
During their mission, crew members traveled nearly 62,795,205 million miles and completed 2,368 orbits around Earth. The Crew-10 mission was the first spaceflight for Ayers and Peskov, and the second spaceflight for McClain and Onishi. McClain has logged 352 days in space over her two flights, and Onishi has logged 263 days in space during his flights.
Along the way, Crew-10 contributed hundreds of hours to scientific research, maintenance activities, and technology demonstrations. McClain, Ayers, and Onishi completed investigations on plant and microalgae growth, examined how space radiation affects DNA sequences in plants, observed how microgravity changes human eye structure and cells in the body, and more. The research conducted aboard the orbiting laboratory advances scientific knowledge and demonstrates new technologies that enable us to prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.
McClain and Ayers also completed a spacewalk on May 1, relocating a communications antenna, beginning the installation of a mounting bracket for a future International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array, and other tasks. It was the third spacewalk for McClain, the first for Ayers, and the 275th supporting space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
Crew-10’s return to Earth follows the Crew-11 mission, which docked to the station on Aug. 2 for its long-duration science expedition.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program provides reliable access to space, maximizing the use of the International Space Station for research and development, and supporting future missions beyond low Earth orbit, such as to the Moon and Mars, by partnering with private U.S. companies, including SpaceX, to transport astronauts to and from the space station.
Learn more about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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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 NASA’s Webb Finds New Evidence for Planet Around Closest Solar Twin
This artist’s concept shows what a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri A could look like. Observations of the triple star system Alpha Centauri using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope indicate the potential gas giant, about the mass of Saturn, orbiting the star by about two times the distance between the Sun and Earth. Full illustration and caption shown below. Credits:
Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC) Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found strong evidence of a giant planet orbiting a star in the stellar system closest to our own Sun. At just 4 light-years away from Earth, the Alpha Centauri triple star system has long been a compelling target in the search for worlds beyond our solar system.
Visible only from Earth’s Southern hemisphere, it’s made up of the binary Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, both Sun-like stars, and the faint red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. Alpha Centauri A is the third brightest star in the night sky. While there are three confirmed planets orbiting Proxima Centauri, the presence of other worlds surrounding Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B has proved challenging to confirm.
Now, Webb’s observations from its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) are providing the strongest evidence to date of a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri A. The results have been accepted in a series of two papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
If confirmed, the planet would be the closest to Earth that orbits in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. However, because the planet candidate is a gas giant, scientists say it would not support life as we know it.
“With this system being so close to us, any exoplanets found would offer our best opportunity to collect data on planetary systems other than our own. Yet, these are incredibly challenging observations to make, even with the world’s most powerful space telescope, because these stars are so bright, close, and move across the sky quickly,” said Charles Beichman, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech’s IPAC astronomy center, co-first author on the new papers. “Webb was designed and optimized to find the most distant galaxies in the universe. The operations team at the Space Telescope Science Institute had to come up with a custom observing sequence just for this target, and their extra effort paid off spectacularly.”
Image A: Alpha Centauri 3 Panel (DSS, Hubble, Webb)
This image shows the Alpha Centauri star system from several different ground- and space-based observatories: the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS), NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Alpha Centauri A is the third brightest star in the night sky, and the closest Sun-like star to Earth. The ground-based image from DSS shows the triple system as a single source of light, while Hubble resolves the two Sun-like stars in the system, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. The image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), which uses a coronagraphic mask to block the bright glare from Alpha Centauri A, reveals a potential planet orbiting the star. Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, DSS, A. Sanghi (Caltech), C. Beichman (NExScI, NASA/JPL-Caltech), D. Mawet (Caltech); Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI) Several rounds of meticulously planned observations by Webb, careful analysis by the research team, and extensive computer modeling helped determine that the source seen in Webb’s image is likely to be a planet, and not a background object (like a galaxy), foreground object (a passing asteroid), or other detector or image artifact.
The first observations of the system took place in August 2024, using the coronagraphic mask aboard MIRI to block Alpha Centauri A’s light. While extra brightness from the nearby companion star Alpha Centauri B complicated the analysis, the team was able to subtract out the light from both stars to reveal an object over 10,000 times fainter than Alpha Centauri A, separated from the star by about two times the distance between the Sun and Earth.
Image B: Alpha Centauri 3 Panel (Webb MIRI Image Detail)
This three-panel image captures NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observational search for a planet around the nearest Sun-like star, Alpha Centauri A. The initial image shows the bright glare of Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, and the middle panel then shows the system with a coronagraphic mask placed over Alpha Centauri A to block its bright glare. However, the way the light bends around the edges of the coronagraph creates ripples of light in the surrounding space. The telescope’s optics (its mirrors and support structures) cause some light to interfere with itself, producing circular and spoke-like patterns. These complex light patterns, along with light from the nearby Alpha Centauri B, make it incredibly difficult to spot faint planets. In the panel at the right, astronomers have subtracted the known patterns (using reference images and algorithms) to clean up the image and reveal faint sources like the candidate planet. Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Sanghi (Caltech), C. Beichman (NExScI, NASA/JPL-Caltech), D. Mawet (Caltech); Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI) While the initial detection was exciting, the research team needed more data to come to a firm conclusion. However, additional observations of the system in February 2025 and April 2025 (using Director’s Discretionary Time) did not reveal any objects like the one identified in August 2024.
“We are faced with the case of a disappearing planet! To investigate this mystery, we used computer models to simulate millions of potential orbits, incorporating the knowledge gained when we saw the planet, as well as when we did not,” said PhD student Aniket Sanghi of Caltech in Pasadena, California. Sanghi is a co-first author on the two papers covering the team’s research.
In these simulations, the team took into account both a 2019 sighting of the potential exoplanet candidate by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, the new data from Webb, and considered orbits that would be gravitationally stable in the presence of Alpha Centauri B, meaning the planet wouldn’t get flung out of the system.
Researchers say a non-detection in the second and third round of observations with Webb isn’t surprising.
“We found that in half of the possible orbits simulated, the planet moved too close to the star and wouldn’t have been visible to Webb in both February and April 2025,” said Sanghi.
Image C: Alpha Centauri A Planet Candidate (Artist’s Concept)
This artist’s concept shows what a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri A could look like. Observations of the triple star system Alpha Centauri using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope indicate the potential gas giant, about the mass of Saturn, orbiting the star by about two times the distance between the Sun and Earth. In this concept, Alpha Centauri A is depicted at the upper left of the planet, while the other Sun-like star in the system, Alpha Centauri B, is at the upper right. Our Sun is shown as a small dot of light between those two stars. Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC) Based on the brightness of the planet in the mid-infrared observations and the orbit simulations, researchers say it could be a gas giant approximately the mass of Saturn orbiting Alpha Centauri A in an elliptical path varying between 1 to 2 times the distance between Sun and Earth.
“If confirmed, the potential planet seen in the Webb image of Alpha Centauri A would mark a new milestone for exoplanet imaging efforts,” Sanghi says. “Of all the directly imaged planets, this would be the closest to its star seen so far. It’s also the most similar in temperature and age to the giant planets in our solar system, and nearest to our home, Earth,” he says. “Its very existence in a system of two closely separated stars would challenge our understanding of how planets form, survive, and evolve in chaotic environments.”
If confirmed by additional observations, the team’s results could transform the future of exoplanet science.
“This would become a touchstone object for exoplanet science, with multiple opportunities for detailed characterization by Webb and other observatories,” said Beichman.
For example, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch by May 2027 and potentially as early as fall 2026, is equipped with dedicated hardware that will test new technologies to observe binary systems like Alpha Centauri in search of other worlds. Roman’s visible light data would complement Webb’s infrared observations, yielding unique insights on the size and reflectivity of the planet.
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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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4622-4623: Kicking Off (Earth) Year 14 With an Investigation of Veins
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, using its Left Navigation Camera, caught the shadow of the rover’s mast looking ahead to new terrain as the mission started its 14th Earth year on Mars. Curiosity acquired this image on Aug. 6, 2025 — Sol 4621, or Martian day 4,621 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 06:24:09 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.
Today was a very special day for Curiosity as the rover celebrated the start of a 14th year on Mars. Curiosity is currently exploring the mysterious boxwork formations. On Monday, the rover positioned itself at the side of one of the ridges, where the team had spotted tantalizing hints of a complex network of razor-thin veins that may give insight into what is holding the ridges up, compared to the surrounding hollows.
In this plan, the team will use the instruments on Curiosity’s arm and mast to investigate the geometry and composition of these veins to learn more about them. APXS and MAHLI will both observe “Repechón,” a loose block with dark-toned, mottled material exposed on top, as well as “Lago Poopó,” a bright, relatively clean vein network. MAHLI will also collect a side view of “Repechón.” ChemCam will use its laser to analyze two targets, “Vicguna,” a protruding vein edge with nodular texture, and “Ibare,” which has some exposed light-toned veins. Outside of the vein investigation, ChemCam’s telescopic RMI camera will observe layering in a nearby butte and the Mishe Mokwa feature, while Mastcam will take mosaics on “Cachiniba,” a broken block, “Yapacani,” the side of another large boxwork ridge, and “Llullaillaco,” a faraway feature that we imaged from a slightly different location in a previous plan. Additional environmental monitoring observations will round out the plan, followed by a straight-line drive to the east, to an area where several large boxwork ridges intersect that the team has been informally calling “the peace sign” because of its shape.
I usually get nostalgic around landing anniversaries, or “landiversaries,” and this year, I found myself looking back through pictures of landing night. One of my favorites shows me standing next to science team member Kirsten Siebach right after we received the first images from Curiosity. The two of us have the biggest, most excited grins on our faces. We were both graduate students at the time, and both of us were writing thesis chapters analyzing orbital data over regions we hoped to explore with Curiosity one day. I was studying a layer in Mount Sharp that contained hematite, and the team named this feature “Vera Rubin ridge” when Curiosity reached it in 2017. Kirsten, who is now a professor at Rice University, was focused on the boxwork structures, pondering how they formed and hypothesizing what they might tell us about the history of Martian habitability when we reached them.
Thirteen years later, I had another big grin on my face today, as I listened to Kirsten and our incredible science team members excitedly discussing Curiosity’s new images of these same boxwork structures. I was also filled with gratitude for the thousands of people it took to get us to this moment. It was the absolute best way to spend a landiversary.
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