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NASA Research Proposes Technology to Seek Earth-Like Exoplanets

2026-03-24 14:18

2 Min Read

NASA Research Proposes Technology to Seek Earth-Like Exoplanets

Caltech Keck Institute of Space Studies (KISS) team during a March 2026 workshop.

Credits: KISS

As NASA seeks to understand the mysteries of the universe, the agency is advancing technologies to locate and explore Earth-like planets far beyond our solar system. A key element of this research involves observing reflected light from exoplanets, which can reveal indicators of Earth-like features such as water and oxygen. However, detecting this faint reflected light with current telescope technology remains a significant challenge due to the overwhelming brightness of nearby stars and other celestial objects.

NASA’s Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets (HOEE) concept presents a potential solution by combining an orbiting starshade with a large ground-based telescope to suppress starlight and enable direct imaging of exoplanets.

We have pioneered a transformative approach to the search for life beyond our solar system by deploying a space-borne starshade to cast a near perfect shadow over Earth’s largest telescopes, we suppress stellar glare before it ever enters the atmosphere.

John Mather

HOEE principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

Recent research, published earlier this year and featured on the cover of Monday’s Nature Astronomy March issue, suggests the HOEE concept could produce much sharper images allowing us to see entire exoplanetary systems and to clearly separate planet images from each other as well as from interference of dust clouds, the host star, and from the starshade itself. Its extreme sensitivity could enable the detection of small planets, and even large dwarf planets. Most notably, it could enable high-fidelity, wide-band spectroscopy, a scientific technique that can be used to study the interaction between matter and light, improving the path to identifying the chemical signatures of life.

For decades, the starshade was a novel concept. Now, NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is turning that idea into a buildable reality. Through a series of targeted studies, NASA researchers are investigating whether it could be practical to build and develop an engineering roadmap.

Team leading NASA’s Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets concept pictured with the cover of Nature Astronomy featuring their research “The observation of Earth-like exoplanets with ground-based telescopes and a shared orbiting starshade.” From left NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center researchers Dr. John Mather and Dr. Eliad Peretz, followed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers Dr. Ahmed Soliman and Dr. Stuart Shaklan.

KISS

NASA’s Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets (HOEE) is a three-time NIAC award recipient, having received Phase I awards in 2022 and 2025. The HOEE concept is supported by researchers at NASA Goddard, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

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Mar 24, 2026

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NASA’s Water-Hunting Tool Will Help Scout Moon’s South Pole

2026-03-24 13:59

Harrison Schmitt stands next to a giant boulder on the Moon in this photo taken from a distance.

Apollo 17 geologist and astronaut Harrison Schmitt next to a large bolder on the Taurus-Littrow landing site on the Moon.

NASA

NASA is joining international partners to hunt for ice on the Moon in support of future human exploration. The agency is providing a water-detecting instrument, the Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS), to the Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) mission led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation).

The instrument, which detects ice under the lunar surface, will be installed on LUPEX’s lunar rover planned to arrive at the Moon no earlier than 2028. NASA’s support of LUPEX is part of an ongoing effort to identify and characterize lunar water and other materials that easily evaporate near the Moon’s South Pole.

Water is a critical material for NASA’s plans to develop an enduring presence on the Moon. Instead of relying solely on resources carried from Earth, astronauts could use the Moon’s water for breathable air, rocket fuel, and more. The first step is to find deposits of meaningful quantities of water close to the surface to mark potential landing areas for future astronauts. The water on the Moon is mostly found as molecules within lunar regolith, the dusty and rocky material that covers the Moon’s surface, but there may be ice deposits below the surface of the lunar South Pole. Once we better understand the quantity and quality of the available resources, we can learn how to harness it for exploration.

“There is currently a gap in our understanding of how lunar ice is distributed at small scales, from 10s of centimeters up to 10s of kilometers,” said Rick Elphic, NSS lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, where the instrument was developed in collaboration with Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California. “The only way to understand the ‘where’ and ‘how much’ of lunar ice is by exploring on the surface at these scales.”

How neutrons signal water

NASA’s Neutron Spectrometer System instrument will search for signs of water ice on the Moon’s surface aboard a lunar rover belonging to the Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) mission led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation).

NASA/Warren Davis

Scientists can search for water on the Moon without drilling into the surface. Instead, they hunt for concentrations of hydrogen, the H in H₂O. Past missions in lunar orbit have found signs of water at the Moon’s poles, but ground missions are needed to build detailed maps of location and quantity.

Instruments like NSS can infer the presence of hydrogen by detecting interactions with particles called neutrons. Neutrons are constantly rattling around in the lunar soil, and they’re about the same size as hydrogen atoms. When these two particles interact, fewer medium-energy neutrons are ejected from the soil. The absence of medium-energy neutrons suggests more of the particles are interacting with hydrogen underground, a deficit that can be measured with the right tools.

The NSS instrument uses a “gas proportional counter” to detect neutrons bouncing out of the lunar soil. It features two tubes that contain a rare gas called helium-3 that is very sensitive to neutrons. When neutrons strike the helium-3 gas atoms, the gas produces electrical pulses that can be counted to infer the presence and quantity of hydrogen up to three feet underground.

Series of water-hunters

Ongoing investigation of the Moon’s water will inform how astronauts might access it in the future. To that end, NASA researchers at Ames have developed a series of NSS instruments intended to ride aboard different missions to investigate sites at the Moon’s South Pole.

The first Moon-bound NSS instrument in the series was carried aboard Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, Astrobotic Peregrine Mission One, which launched in January 2024. That mission came to an end without touching down on the lunar surface, but the NSS aboard powered on and operated on multiple days over the course of the 10-day mission. These operations successfully captured data about the particle background of deep space, which strongly supported NSS operations on future missions.

NASA’s VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) mission, part of the agency’s Artemis campaign, will carry another NSS. As part of NASA’s ongoing Commercial Lunar Payload Services effort, a fourth NSS instrument will ride aboard the MoonRanger “micro rover” developed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

“The three upcoming NSS rover expeditions will tell us what kinds of places on the Moon are most likely to host ice,” Elphic said. “Missions to the lunar surface can then be planned to similar sites where ice can be found.”

The Neutron Spectrometer System was jointly developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California.

For more information on the science of water on the Moon, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/moon/moon-water-and-ices

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 240-419-1732
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov

Arezu Sarvestani
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley 
650-613-2334
arezu.sarvestani@nasa.gov

NASA Unveils Initiatives to Achieve America’s National Space Policy

2026-03-24 13:01

Artist’s concept of Phase 3 of NASA’s Moon Base.

Credit: NASA

As part of its “Ignition” event on Tuesday, NASA announced a series of transformative agencywide initiatives designed to achieve President Donald J. Trump’s National Space Policy and advance American leadership in space. These actions reflect the urgency of the moment, but also the tremendous opportunity ahead for world-changing science and discovery.

“NASA is committed to achieving the near‑impossible once again, to return to the Moon before the end of President Trump’s term, build a Moon base, establish an enduring presence, and do the other things needed to ensure American leadership in space. This is why it is essential we leave an event like Ignition with complete alignment on the national imperative that is our collective mission. The clock is running in this great‑power competition, and success or failure will be measured in months, not years,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “If we concentrate NASA’s extraordinary resources on the objectives of the National Space Policy, clear away needless obstacles that impede progress, and unleash the workforce and industrial might of our nation and partners, then returning to the Moon and building a base will seem pale in comparison to what we will be capable of accomplishing in the years ahead.”

NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said, “Today we are aligning NASA around the mission. On the Moon, we are shifting to a focused, phased architecture that builds capability landing by landing, incrementally, and in alignment with our industrial and international partners. In low Earth orbit (LEO), we are recognizing where the market is and where it isn’t, recognizing the incredible value of the International Space Station, and building a transition that builds a competitive commercial ecosystem rather than forcing a single outcome the market cannot support. In our science missions, we are opening the lunar surface to researchers and students nationwide, and with Space Reactor‑1 Freedom, we are finally putting nuclear propulsion on a trajectory out of the laboratory and into deep space. And this is all possible by investing in our people, bringing critical skills back into the agency, putting our teams where the machines are being built, and creating real pathways for the next generation of NASA leaders. Our workforce is the jewel of NASA, and from their leaders, they need clear mission goals, the tools to execute, and to get out of their way. This is what Ignition is about.”

Going back to the Moon

The announcements build on recent updates to the Artemis program, including standardizing the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket configuration, adding an additional mission in 2027, and undertaking at least one surface landing every year thereafter. Under this previously updated architecture, Artemis III – scheduled for 2027 – will focus on testing integrated systems and operational capabilities in Earth orbit in advance of the Artemis IV lunar landing.

Looking beyond Artemis V, NASA announced March 24 it will begin to incorporate more commercially procured and reusable hardware to undertake frequent and affordable crewed missions to the lunar surface, initially targeting landings every six months, with the potential to increase cadence as capabilities mature.

To achieve an enduring human presence on the Moon, NASA also announced a phased approach to building a lunar base. As part of this strategy, the agency intends to pause Gateway in its current form and shift focus to infrastructure that enables sustained surface operations. Despite challenges with some existing hardware, the agency will repurpose applicable equipment and leverage international partner commitments to support these objectives.

In the coming days, NASA will release Requests for Information (RFIs) and draft Requests for Proposals (RFPs) to ensure continued progress in meeting national objectives.

Building the Moon Base

NASA’s plan for establishing a sustained lunar presence will roll out in three deliberate phases.

Phase One: Build, Test, Learn
NASA shifts from bespoke, infrequent missions to a repeatable, modular approach. Through CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) deliveries and the LTV (Lunar Terrain Vehicle) program, the agency will increase the tempo of lunar activity, sending rovers, instruments, and technology demonstrations that advance mobility, power generation (including radioisotope heater units and radioisotope thermoelectric generators), communications, navigation, surface operations, and a wide range of scientific investigations.

Phase Two: Establish Early Infrastructure
With lessons from early missions in hand, NASA moves toward semi‑habitable infrastructure and regular logistics. This phase supports recurring astronaut operations on the surface and incorporates major international contributions, including JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) pressurized rover, and potentially other partner scientific payloads, rovers, and infrastructure/transportation capabilities.

Phase Three: Enable Long‑Duration Human Presence
As cargo‑capable human landing systems (HLS) come online, NASA will deliver heavier infrastructure needed for a continuous human foothold on the Moon, marking the transition from periodic expeditions to a permanent lunar base. This will include ASI’s (Italian Space Agency) Multi-purpose Habitats (MPH), CSA’s (Canadian Space Agency) Lunar Utility Vehicle, and opportunities for additional contributions in habitation, surface mobility and logistics.

Ensuring American presence in low Earth orbit

While building a sustainable lunar architecture, NASA is also reaffirming its commitment to low Earth orbit. For more than two decades, the International Space Station has served as a world‑class orbital laboratory, enabling more than 4,000 research investigations, supporting more than 5,000 researchers, and hosting visitors from 26 countries. The space station required 37 shuttle flights, 160 spacewalks, two decades, and more than $100 billion to design, develop, and build. The orbital laboratory cannot operate indefinitely. The transition to commercial stations must be thoughtful, deliberate, and structured to support long‑term industry success.

NASA is introducing and seeking industry feedback on an additional LEO strategy that preserves all current pathways while adding a phased, International Space Station‑anchored approach to avoid any gap in U.S. human presence and mature a robust commercial ecosystem. Under this alternative approach, NASA would procure a government‑owned Core Module that attaches to the space station, followed by commercial modules that are validated using International Space Station capabilities and later detach into free flight. After maturing technical and operational capabilities and market demand is realized, the stations would detach and NASA would be one of many customers purchasing commercial services. To stimulate the orbital economy, NASA would expand industry opportunities, including private astronaut missions, commander seat sales, joint missions, multiple module competitions, and prize‑based awards.

An industry RFI opens Wednesday, March 25, to inform partnership structures, financing, and risk mitigation.

Advancing world-changing discovery with current, developing science missions

In a Golden Age of exploration and discovery, NASA takes full advantage of every opportunity to get science into space. The James Webb Space Telescope continues to transform our understanding of the early universe, Parker Solar Probe has flown through the atmosphere of the Sun, NASA has shown it can defend the planet by deflecting asteroids, and Earth science data is used extensively by American companies, U.S. agriculture, and disaster relief. On the International Space Station, NASA is conducting groundbreaking experiments in quantum science.

Future opportunities will advance U.S. leadership in space science. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching as early as this fall, will advance our understanding of dark energy, and has created a new standard for the management of large science missions. Dragonfly will launch a nuclear-powered octocopter in 2028, arriving at Saturn’s moon Titan in 2034 to explore its complex, organic-rich environment. In 2028, NASA will launch and deliver ESA’s (European Space Agency) Rosalind Franklin Rover to Mars, with NASA’s contributed mass spectrometer for the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) instrument, which may result in the most advanced detection and analysis of organic matter ever conducted on Mars. A new Earth science mission launching next year will measure for the first time the evolution of the dynamics within convective storms to improve the prediction of extreme weather events up to six hours before the storm occurs.

The agency detailed how advancements in lunar science also will be afforded by the build out of the Moon Base and underpin future Moon and Mars exploration. With an accelerated CLPS cadence, targeting up to 30 robotic landings starting in 2027, NASA is expediting delivery of science and technology to the lunar surface. There will be many opportunities for payload delivery including rovers, hoppers, and drones with contributions welcomed from industry, academia, and international partners. Near-term payloads include the VIPER rover and the LuSEE‑Night mission. An RFI will be released March 24 that calls for payloads capable of supporting NASA’s science and technology goals for additional 2027 and 2028 flights. It will enable students and researchers across the country to work on scientific instruments for use on the surface of the Moon in the years ahead. This RFI also will solicit payloads incorporated on future missions to Mars including the Mars Telecom Network (MTN) and a nuclear technology demonstration mission.

The agency intends to partner with philanthropic and privately funded research organizations with shared objectives in space science.

Other RFIs released March 24 will strengthen “Science as a Service” partnerships and commercial capabilities, allowing NASA to streamline legacy operations and focus investment on the transformational missions only the agency can lead.

Finally, NASA will unveil a previously unseen pair of images from the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes. These images show the planet Saturn in unprecedented detail in both infrared and visible wavelengths.

America underway on nuclear power in space

In addition to these scientific missions, after decades of study and in response to the National Space Policy, NASA announced a major step forward in bringing nuclear power and propulsion from the lab to space.

NASA will launch the Space Reactor‑1 Freedom, the first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft, to Mars before the end of 2028, demonstrating advanced nuclear electric propulsion in deep space. Nuclear electric propulsion provides an extraordinary capability for efficient mass transport in deep space and enables high power missions beyond Jupiter where solar arrays are not effective.

When SR-1 Freedom reaches Mars, it will deploy the Skyfall payload of Ingenuity‑class helicopters to continue exploring the Red Planet. SR-1 Freedom will establish flight heritage nuclear hardware, set regulatory and launch precedent, and activate the industrial base for future fission power systems across propulsion, surface, and long‑duration missions. NASA and its U.S. Department of Energy partner will unlock the capabilities required for sustained exploration beyond the Moon and eventual journeys to Mars and the outer solar system.

None of these endeavors can succeed without the NASA workforce. As previously announced, the agency is rebuilding its core competencies, converting thousands of contractor positions to civil service, and restoring the engineering, technical, and operational strengths expected of the world’s premier space organization.

NASA is expanding opportunities for interns and early‑career professionals and, in partnership with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and NASA Force, is creating new pathways for experienced industry talent to serve through term‑based appointments. The agency also is seeking to open opportunities for NASA employees to gain valuable experience working within the most technologically advanced space industry in history.

The changes announced on March 24 will be implemented during the coming months, with teams agencywide ensuring a smooth transition while advancing key programs and partnerships.

NASA will embed subject‑matter experts across the supply chain – at every major vendor, subcontractor, and critical‑path component – to challenge assumptions, solve problems, accelerate production, and help ensure the right outcomes are achieved.

Through these reforms, NASA is strengthening its ability to deliver on the President’s National Space Policy and ensure continued American superiority in space.

Learn more about NASA’s Ignition news online:

https://www.nasa.gov/ignition

-end-

Camille Gallo / George Alderman
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
camille.m.gallo@nasa.gov / george.a.alderman@nasa.gov

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Last Updated

Mar 24, 2026

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NASA Headquarters

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Optical Vortex Phase Masks for the Detection of Habitable Worlds

2026-03-24 13:00

A team of NASA researchers is developing new types of optical masks that could help enable the many orders of magnitude of starlight suppression needed for future space observatories to pick out very faint habitable exoplanets from the far brighter glare of their stellar hosts.

Artist’s conception of an exoplanet reflecting the light from its nearby star.

NASA

One of the goals of NASA’s Astrophysics Division is to carry out a census of nearby solar systems to search for habitable worlds around nearby stars, and ultimately, to determine whether life might be present outside our own solar system. Because other stars are so far away, we must rely on remote observations of these systems, and in particular, on the spectroscopy of any planets present (i.e., on the examination of their color characteristics to determine their atmospheric characteristics). NASA’s future Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) mission will be the first telescope designed specifically to search for signs of life on planets orbiting other stars.

Significant progress has been made over the past couple of decades in observing the brightest and often largest exoplanets, especially those that happen to pass in front of their stars, allowing us to see the planet’s atmospheric constituents that absorb particular colors of the host star’s light. However, most exoplanets are not so favorably aligned; to detect them, HWO must be able to distinguish the very small bit of light coming from an exoplanet from the overwhelming glare of the very bright nearby host star. For example, an Earth-like planet orbiting a star similar to our Sun would be only about 1 ten billionth as bright as its host star. An apt analogy is the light from a firefly flying right next to a lighthouse!

To see faint potentially habitable worlds in nearby solar systems, we must remove the incoming starlight to such an extent that the much smaller bit of light arriving from the exoplanet can be distinguished. Unfortunately, telescopes don’t produce perfect point-like images of stars. Two contributing factors–scattering and diffraction—blur and spread the starlight across the region of the image where exoplanets are likely to be found.

Scattering of starlight is caused by surface irregularities in the mirrors that make up the telescope’s optical system. These irregularities can be mitigated by using a high-performance adaptive optics system to correct the wavefront errors. But even with a perfectly corrected optical system, diffraction must also be mitigated.

Diffraction is the angular spread of a light beam (or of any type of wave, including water or sound waves) that occurs as the wave passes through an aperture, such as a telescope’s light-collecting mirror. Diffraction causes the starlight to spread across the focal plane into a ringed light distribution called an Airy pattern (see figure below). Since this Airy pattern can be many times brighter than the light emitted from an exoplanet, it also needs to be removed.

Concentric white circles on a black background, with two circles around the center at 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock

A logarithmically scaled simulation of the image of a star with two nearby exoplanets, as seen by a telescope with a circular aperture. The centered multi-ringed Airy pattern is due to diffraction of the starlight. Off-axis exoplanets fainter by 100 times and 1000 times are seen at 3 o’clock on the 3rd Airy ring, and at 12 o’clock on the 4th Airy ring, respectively. An Earth-like exoplanet would be 10 million times fainter than the dimmer of the two exoplanets shown.

Gene Serabyn, NASA JPL

Suppression of the Airy pattern’s rings is usually done with an optical instrument known as a coronagraph. The coronagraph was invented a century ago to allow astronomers to see the faint solar corona that surrounds the Sun. When applied to other stars, a coronagraph can enable us to see faint exoplanets near their much brighter stars.

The core component of most coronagraphs is an optical mask—a small piece of glass with a special surface coating or surface shape that is designed to either selectively attenuate or delay the light distribution making up the stellar image. One particularly promising type of optical mask is the optical vortex phase mask, which applies a phase delay that increases in proportion to the azimuthal angle around the center of the mask (see figure below). When centered on the stellar Airy pattern, the mask thus applies delays that increase along the Airy rings.

The colors in this image depict the phase delay pattern that a vortex phase mask applies to the incoming starlight in the focal plane: the phase delay increases azimuthally around the center of the mask. The colors indicate a phase delay range from -2 pi to 2 pi (-6.28 to 6.28) radians.

Gene Serabyn, NASA JPL

This delay pattern, which is somewhat analogous to the helical surface of a screw thread, causes the starlight to destructively interfere in such a way that if one reimages the telescope aperture downstream of the vortex mask, no starlight remains inside that aperture image. Instead, the starlight is only seen outside of where the filled telescope aperture image is expected to be, where it can then be easily blocked by a simple aperture stop, as is used in photography. (The figure below depicts images of a telescope aperture in advance of and downstream of the vortex mask.) Since the light from the exoplanet typically hits the vortex mask off-center, it propagates unchanged through the aperture stop to reach the detector, where it can be successfully imaged.

Side by side black rectangles, left one with solid white circle and right one with a black circle with white hazy outline reminiscent of a total eclipse

The left-hand panel shows a normal image of a telescope aperture that is filled with starlight. After passing through the vortex phase mask, the starlight is expelled from that circular region (as shown in the right-hand image) where it can be blocked by an aperture stop, leaving only exoplanet light inside the bright rim of starlight.

Gene Serabyn, NASA JPL

Fabricating vortex masks is challenging since they must be able to simultaneously reject starlight over a wide range of wavelengths. A team of technologists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is investigating a number of different technologies that could be used make optical vortex masks with the desired characteristics. To date, the most promising approach uses a flat layer of a specially prepared liquid crystal polymer (LCP) to provide the required optical delay pattern. The long molecular polymer chains making up the LCP layer can be specifically oriented to induce different delays in the two polarization directions of light. (Polarization refers to the direction of oscillation of the electric field vector in a propagating light wave, i.e., whether it is up-down or left-right). Depending on whether the electric field vector lies along or perpendicular to the long LCP axis, the light experiences different delays.

Moreover, if the LCP layer is laid down in a pattern wherein the long LCP axis rotates while following a circular path around the mask’s center (reaching a multiple of a full molecular rotation in a full circuit around the center), the desired delay pattern can be achieved (see figure below). The main advantage of such masks is that since their phase delays are induced geometrically (i.e., by a purely geometric orientation pattern) they are wavelength-independent to first order, and can reject starlight over a wide range of wavelengths.

The JPL team has recently advanced these masks to the point where the light from an artificial “star” can be rejected in the laboratory to about one part in a billion (with the single-wavelength rejection even better), which is within about an order of magnitude of the ultimate 10 billion-to-one rejection needed for the HWO. The team is currently working on further mask improvements to achieve that last factor of ten.

Orientation pattern of the liquid crystal polymer (LCP) molecules in an optical vortex layer. Center: The output electric (E) field directions such a mask produces. Right, an LCP vortex mask seen through crossed polarizers. Note that the mask is dark at all angles at which the output light is horizontally polarized (horizontal lines in the center panel), verifying its functionality.

Gene Serabyn, NASA JPL

At the same time, the team is also looking into alternative mask approaches with different advantages and disadvantages. In particular, they have been revisiting the idea of shaping the surface of a piece of glass to look like a helical turn of a screw. However, this design will only work across multiple wavelengths if one combines several different pieces of glass, each with its own screw height, and if further deformations of the surface shape are also implemented. Moreover, since only a rather small number of materials seem to have the characteristics required for this design, it is not yet clear what ultimate performance can be achieved by this technique. As a result, the team is also looking into fabricating their own artificial materials (i.e., metamaterials) for use in such masks. Metamaterials are thin layers of tiny nanoposts (see figure below) in which the nanopost heights, widths, shapes, and spacings can be selected to generate material properties that do not exist in nature. While this approach is very new, it is conceivable that it could be used to tailor materials that have the characteristics needed to make optical vortex masks work over a wide range of wavelengths.

Electron microscope image of nanoposts.

Lorenzo König, NASA JPL

Optical vortex coronagraphs are becoming increasingly popular in the hunt for larger (brighter) exoplanets using ground-based telescopes, but seeing dimmer Earth-like exoplanets with a space-based telescope such as HWO will require vortex masks with vastly improved starlight rejection capabilities. While the liquid crystal polymer approach is the clear frontrunner, such masks also have limitations, so it is good that other possibilities are being investigated. These candidate technologies will be fully vetted and tested over the next few years to enable the fabrication of the optical vortex masks needed to be able to pick out and characterize nearby Earth-like exoplanets with HWO.

For additional details, see the entry for this project on NASA TechPort.

Project Lead(s): Eugene Serabyn, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and Dimitri Mawet, California Institute of Technology

Sponsoring Organization(s): NASA Astrophysics Division Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) and Astrophysics Research and Analysis (APRA) programs.

Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA (80NM0018D0004)

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Last Updated

Mar 24, 2026

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Tropical Cyclone Narelle Crosses Australia

2026-03-24 04:01

A tropical cyclone with spiraling clouds and a well-defined eye sits off the coast of Queensland, Australia.

Tropical Cyclone Narelle approaches northern Queensland, Australia, in this image acquired on March 19, 2026, with the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21 satellite.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

Tropical Cyclone Narelle traced a long path across the northern edge of Australia, bringing damaging winds and rain to areas already saturated with abundant precipitation. The system made separate landfalls in three different states and territories between March 20 and 23, 2026.

These satellite images show Narelle at about 2 p.m. local time (04:00 Universal Time) on March 19. By that time, the tropical cyclone was poised to make its first and most powerful landfall after intensifying over the Coral Sea. Sea surface temperatures along its path were 0.5–1.0 degrees Celsius above average, experts noted, which helped fuel its rapid intensification.

As it approached Queensland, the storm intensified to a category 5 on Australia’s tropical cyclone scale with maximum sustained winds up to 225 kilometers (140 miles) per hour—equivalent to a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale. However, because Narelle’s structure was compact by cyclone standards, the most damaging winds extended a relatively short distance from its core. Narelle reached the Cape York Peninsula, a sparsely populated region in northern Queensland, on the morning of March 20.

Tropical Cyclone Narelle churns over the Coral Sea in this image acquired on March 19, 2026, with the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21 satellite.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

Narelle re-emerged over the Gulf of Carpentaria as a weakened cyclone, and wind speeds continued to decline as it neared the Northern Territory’s coast. The storm made its second landfall on the afternoon of March 21 with maximum sustained winds up to 148 kilometers (92 miles) per hour. It traversed the territory’s “Top End” until March 22.

More than 100 millimeters (4 inches) of rain fell across a wide area of the Northern Territory during Narelle’s passage, according to news reports. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) warned of minor to major flooding of several rivers. The storm arrived amid a severe wet season in the region that had already caused damaging floods and prompted evacuations.

After exiting the Northern Territory, the storm briefly crossed water and reached the northern Kimberley region of Western Australia as a tropical low on March 23. Even after Narelle’s multiple strikes in northern Australia, the storm may keep going. On March 23, the BOM said Narelle could potentially re-intensify into a tropical cyclone off the coast of Western Australia, curve south, and track along the coastline toward Perth.

Cyclones with several landfalls on mainland Australia are rare but not unheard of. In 2005, Ingrid followed a similar path to Narelle. That “triple-strike” storm, however, made landfall each time as a category 3 tropical cyclone or higher.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Lindsey Doermann.