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See NASA’s GUARDIAN Catch a Tsunami

2026-03-23 18:10

This animation shows how, following a massive earthquake off Russia on July 29, 2025, GUARDIAN flagged an incoming wave west of Hawaii some 32 minutes before it made landfall and was detected by tide gauges (shown in blue). Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

A new data visualization illustrates how an experimental NASA technology can provide extra lead time to communities in the path of a tsunami. Called GUARDIAN (GNSS Upper Atmospheric Real-time Disaster Information and Alert Network), the software detects slight distortions in satellite navigation signals to spot hazards on the move..

The animation breaks down a real-life case study: last summer’s massive Kamchatka earthquake and the tsunami that it sent racing across the Pacific and towards Hawaii at over 500 mph (805 kph).

The visualization shows the magnitude 8.8 earthquake (seen in purple) strike off the Russian coast on July 29, 2025, triggering the tsunami. The red, orange, yellow, and green ringlets represent real-time readings from ground stations tracking GPS and other navigational satellite signals. The disturbances were spotted by GUARDIAN’s artificial intelligence-powered detection algorithms as soon as eight minutes after the earthquake.

For the next several hours, signs of the tsunami were picked up by GUARDIAN across the Pacific Ocean in near real time. The system flagged an incoming wave off the coast of Kauai some 32 minutes before it made landfall and was detected by tide gauges (shown in blue).

The results highlight GUARDIAN’s potential to augment existing early warning systems, said Camille Martire, one of its developers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Currently, determining whether an earthquake generated a tsunami remains a challenge. Forecasters rely on seismic data and computer simulations to make their best prediction, then wait for pressure sensors attached to the ocean floor to confirm a passing wave. Those sensors work well but are expensive and thinly dispersed. Gaps in coverage remain. And in those gaps, warning time disappears.

The GUARDIAN approach is complementary and cost effective because it monitors existing data from GPS and other constellations that make up the Global Navigation Satellite System. It’s also free to access, though for now best suited to analysts trained to interpret its findings.

How GUARDIAN works

All day, every day, geopositioning constellations transmit radio signals to ground stations around the globe. On the ground, the data is refined to sub-decimeter (less than 10 centimeters) positioning accuracy by JPL’s Global Differential GPS System. Before the signals get there, however, they must travel through an electrically charged skin of plasma called the ionosphere.

Solar storms and other space weather can wreak electrical mayhem in the ionosphere, and so can events on Earth. Tsunamis and earthquakes, by displacing large amount of air at Earth’s surface, unleash pressure waves that can slightly perturb the radio signals coming down from satellites. While systems are in place to correct for this “noise,” GUARDIAN considers it a useful signal.

Currently, GUARDIAN scours data from more than 350 GNSS ground stations around the Pacific Ring of Fire, a hotbed for the ocean’s deadliest waves. And the system is not confined to tsunamis. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, missile tests, spacecraft reentries, meteoroid splashdowns — anything that produces a large rumble on Earth is potentially fair game. While the Kamchatka event didn’t cause widespread damage to people or property, it showed how the next time disaster strikes, NASA science could give communities a few more minutes to act.

GUARDIAN is being developed at JPL by the GDGPS project, which is partially supported by NASA’s Space Geodesy Project.

To learn more, visit: https://guardian.jpl.nasa.gov/

Media Contacts

Andrew Wang / Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-393-2433
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Sally Younger

2026-017

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SWOT Mission Unlocks a New View of Our Waterways

2026-03-23 17:22

1 min read

SWOT Mission Unlocks a New View of Our Waterways

Explore how rivers move, change, and sustain life across the planet.

Using data from the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission, jointly developed by the NASA/JPL and the Centre National d’Études Spatiales with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the United Kingdom Space Agency, scientists can now measure rivers continuously and across the entire globe for the first time in human history.

From the Mississippi River to the Amazon, these observations reveal how rivers flow, how they change over time, and how they support ecosystems, economies, and communities worldwide like never before.

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Last Updated

Mar 23, 2026

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Earth Science Division Editorial Team

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NASA’s Hubble, Webb Telescopes Survey Pinwheel Galaxy

2026-03-23 16:32

A close-up view shows a galaxy’s bright, yellow center, surrounded by patches of glowing orange-brown dust and pink stars.

NASA, CSA, ESA, D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts – Amherst), C. Clark (Space Telescope Science Institute – ESA – JWST), K. Kuntz (The John Hopkins University), and B. Shappee (University of Hawaii); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

This March 16, 2026, image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope takes a closer look at the core of Messier 101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy. At 25 million light-years away, M101 is one of the closest “face-on” spiral galaxies to us. With that in mind, Hubble’s ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared data were taken as part of studies to find out more about its stellar population and galactic structure.

See more images from Hubble’s Messier Marathon 2026.

Image credit: NASA, CSA, ESA, D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts – Amherst), C. Clark (Space Telescope Science Institute – ESA – JWST), K. Kuntz (The John Hopkins University), and B. Shappee (University of Hawaii); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

NASA to Provide Update on Implementation of National Space Policy

2026-03-23 14:20

The Moon is seen shining over the SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher on February 1, 2026. The rocket is currently at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as teams are preparing for a wet dress rehearsal to practice timelines and procedures for the launch of Artemis II.

Credit: NASA/Sam Lott

NASA will host a public event at 9 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 24, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in Washington to outline how the agency is executing President Donald J. Trump’s National Space Policy and accelerating preparations for America’s return to the surface of the Moon by 2028.

The program will open with remarks from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, followed by a series of high-level panels providing updates on mission priorities, including sending the first astronauts to the lunar surface in more than 50 years, establishing the initial elements of a permanent lunar base, getting America underway in space on nuclear propulsion, and other objectives.

At 4:45 p.m., NASA will hold a live news conference from headquarters to provide an update on the agency’s progress toward implementing the National Space Policy and recapping major announcements discussed throughout the day.

NASA participants include:

Administrator Jared Isaacman
Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
Dana Weigel, program manager, International Space Station Program
Carlos Garcia-Galan, program executive, Moon Base
Steve Sinacore, program executive, Fission Surface Power
Dr. Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate
Dr. Lori Glaze, program manager, Moon to Mars Program

The full program and news conference will stream live on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.

This event is invitation-only for in-person attendance. To participate virtually in the news conference, members of the media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start of the event to Cheryl Warner at: cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.

For more information about NASA’s missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Bethany Stevens / Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov

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Mar 23, 2026

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NASA’s Hubble Revisits Crab Nebula to Track 25 Years of Expansion

2026-03-23 14:00

4 Min Read

NASA’s Hubble Revisits Crab Nebula to Track 25 Years of Expansion

Colorful nebula in space with a white haze throughout that is more concentrated in the center with a rippling effect. Colorful gas filaments appear to splash outward from the nebula center, colored yellow, magenta, and blue. A faint black border with right angles at the corners of the images show where the telescope’s field of view stopsdotted line with right angles shows the borders of the telescope’s image. Small white stars dot the background.

This 2024 image that NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured of the Crab Nebula, paired with its past observations and those of other telescopes, allows astronomers to study how the supernova remnant is expanding and evolving over time.

Credits:
Image: NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

A quarter-century after its first observations of the full Crab Nebula, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken a fresh look at the supernova remnant. The result is an unparalleled, detailed look at the aftermath of a supernova and how it has evolved over Hubble’s long lifetime. A paper detailing the new Hubble observation is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

This new Hubble observation continues a legacy that stretches back nearly 1,000 years, when astronomers in 1054 recorded the supernova as an impressively bright new star that, for weeks, was visible even during the day. The Crab Nebula is the aftermath of SN 1054, located 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

“We tend to think of the sky as being unchanging, immutable,” said astronomer William Blair of Johns Hopkins University, who led the new observations. “However, with the longevity of the Hubble Space Telescope, even an object like the Crab Nebula is revealed to be in motion, still expanding from the explosion nearly a millennium ago.”

The supernova remnant was discovered in the mid-18th century, and in the 1950s Edwin Hubble was among several astronomers who noted the close correlation between Chinese astronomical records of a supernova and the position of the Crab Nebula. The discovery that the heart of the Crab contained a pulsar — a rapidly rotating neutron star — that was powering the nebula’s expansion finally aligned modern observations and ancient records.

In its new image, Hubble captured the nebula’s intricate filamentary structure, as well as the considerable outward movement of those filaments over 25 years, at a pace of 3.4 million miles per hour. Hubble is the only telescope with the combination of longevity and resolution capable of capturing these detailed changes.

For better comparison with the new image, Hubble’s 1999 image of the Crab was re-processed. The variation of colors in both of the Hubble images shows a combination of changes in local temperature and density of the gas as well as its chemical composition.

Image: NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

“Even though I’ve worked with Hubble quite a bit, I was still struck by the amount of detailed structure we can see and the increased resolution with the Wide Field Camera 3, as compared to 25 years ago,” Blair said. Wide Field Camera 3 was installed in 2009, the last time Hubble instruments were updated by astronauts.

Blair noted that filaments around the periphery of the nebula appear to have moved more compared to those in the center, and that rather than stretching out over time, they appear to have simply moved outward. This is due to the nature of the Crab as a pulsar wind nebula powered by synchrotron radiation, which is created by the interaction between the pulsar’s magnetic field and the nebula’s material. In other well-known supernova remnants, the expansion is instead driven by shockwaves from the initial explosion, eroding surrounding shells of gas that the dying star previously cast off.

The new, higher-resolution Hubble observations are also providing additional insights into the 3D structure of the Crab Nebula, which can be difficult to determine from a 2D image, Blair said. Shadows of some of the filaments can be seen cast onto the haze of synchrotron radiation in the nebula’s interior. Counterintuitively, some of the brighter filaments in the latest Hubble images show no shadows, indicating they must be located on the far side of the nebula.

According to Blair, the real value of Hubble’s Crab Nebula observations is still to come. The Hubble data can be paired with recent data from other telescopes that are observing the Crab in different wavelengths of light. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope released its infrared-light observations of the Crab Nebula in 2024. Comparison of the Hubble image with other contemporary multiwavelength observations will help scientists put together a more complete picture of the supernova’s continuing aftermath, centuries after astronomers first wondered at a new little star twinkling in the sky.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at NASA Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

2024

1999

Image: NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

A colorful nebula of thick filaments of cosmic dust and gas appears to splash outward from a hazy white center. Colors include bright pink, blue, and orange. Small white stars dot the background.

This newly processed image of the Crab Nebula comes from data originally captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1999 and 2000.

Image: NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

This newly processed image of the Crab Nebula comes from data originally captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1999 and 2000.

Image: NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2024

1999

2024 and 1999

Tracking 25 Years of Expansion

2024 and 1999

Sliding or toggling between these two Hubble images, captured 25 years apart, reveals changes in the position of the nebula’s filaments relative to more distant background stars. Energy from the rapidly spinning pulsar at the nebula’s core is driving the filaments outward. Some differences between the images likely relate to the change in instruments on Hubble. The 1999 image was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 instrument, which NASA astronauts replaced with the Wide Field Camera 3 in 2009 during Hubble’s last servicing mission. Each instrument took several shots to create a mosaic image of the full nebula. Wide Field Camera 3 has a slightly greater range of detection, both in surface area and filters for imaging.

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Related Images & Videos

Crab Nebula (2024)

Crab Nebula (1999)

This newly processed image of the Crab Nebula comes from data originally captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1999 and 2000.

Hubble Space Telescope image of the Crab nebula, annotated with additional information. At the bottom right are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The north arrow points in the 12 ou2019clock direction. The east arrow points toward 9 ou2019clock. At the lower left is one scale bar labeled 4 light-years and 2 arcminutes. The length of the scale bar is about one third the total width of the image. At the upper left is label text reading Crab Nebula M1, HST WFC3/UVIS - 2024. Below this is the color key, with filter names appearing in the color assigned to them in the image. F502N is blue, F547M is cyan, F631N is green, and F673N is red.

Crab Nebula (2024 Compass Image)

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope 2024 image of the Crab Nebula, with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference.

Crab Nebula (1999 Compass Image)

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope 1999 image of the Crab Nebula, with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference.

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Tour the Crab Nebula

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