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By NASA
Hydrocarbon lake and methane rain clouds on Titan Jenny McElligott/eMITS NASA research has shown that cell-like compartments called vesicles could form naturally in the lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan.
Titan is the only world apart from Earth that is known to have liquid on its surface. However, Titan’s lakes and seas are not filled with water. Instead, they contain liquid hydrocarbons like ethane and methane.
On Earth, liquid water is thought to have been essential for the origin of life as we know it. Many astrobiologists have wondered whether Titan’s liquids could also provide an environment for the formation of the molecules required for life – either as we know it or perhaps as we don’t know it – to take hold there.
New NASA research, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, outlines a process by which stable vesicles might form on Titan, based on our current knowledge of the moon’s atmosphere and chemistry. The formation of such compartments is an important step in making the precursors of living cells (or protocells).
The process involves molecules called amphiphiles, which can self-organize into vesicles under the right conditions. On Earth, these polar molecules have two parts, a hydrophobic (water-fearing) end and a hydrophilic (water-loving) end. When they are in water, groups of these molecules can bunch together and form ball-like spheres, like soap bubbles, where the hydrophilic part of the molecule faces outward to interact with the water, thereby ‘protecting’ the hydrophobic part on the inside of the sphere. Under the right conditions, two layers can form creating a cell-like ball with a bilayer membrane that encapsulates a pocket of water on the inside.
When considering vesicle formation on Titan, however, the researchers had to take into account an environment vastly different from the early Earth.
Uncovering Conditions on Titan
Huygens captured this aerial view of Titan from an altitude of 33,000 feet. ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and the second largest in our solar system. Titan is also the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere.
The hazy, golden atmosphere of Titan kept the moon shrouded in mystery for much of human history. However, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, our views of Titan changed forever.
Thanks to Cassini, we now know Titan has a complex meteorological cycle that actively influences the surface today. Most of Titan’s atmosphere is nitrogen, but there is also a significant amount of methane (CH4). This methane forms clouds and rain, which falls to the surface to cause erosion and river channels, filling up the lakes and seas. This liquid then evaporates in sunlight to form clouds once again.
This atmospheric activity also allows for complex chemistry to happen. Energy from the Sun breaks apart molecules like methane, and the pieces then reform into complex organic molecules. Many astrobiologists believe that this chemistry could teach us how the molecules necessary for the origin of life formed and evolved on the early Earth.
Building Vesicles on Titan
The new study considered how vesicles might form in the freezing conditions of Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes and seas by focusing on sea-spray droplets, thrown upwards by splashing raindrops. On Titan, both spray droplets and the sea surface could be coated in layers of amphiphiles. If a droplet then lands on the surface of a pond, the two layers of amphiphiles meet to form a double-layered (or bilayer) vesicle, enclosing the original droplet. Over time, many of these vesicles would be dispersed throughout the pond and would interact and compete in an evolutionary process that could lead to primitive protocells.
If the proposed pathway is happening, it would increase our understanding of the conditions in which life might be able to form.
“The existence of any vesicles on Titan would demonstrate an increase in order and complexity, which are conditions necessary for the origin of life,” explains Conor Nixon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’re excited about these new ideas because they can open up new directions in Titan research and may change how we search for life on Titan in the future.”
NASA’s first mission to Titan is the upcoming Dragonfly rotorcraft, which will explore the surface of the Saturnian moon. While Titan’s lakes and seas are not a destination for Dragonfly (and the mission won’t carry the light-scattering instrument required to detect such vesicles), the mission will fly from location to location to study the moon’s surface composition, make atmospheric and geophysical measurements, and characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment.
News Media Contacts
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
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202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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By NASA
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker This image, taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015, is the most accurate natural color image of Pluto. This natural-color image results from refined calibration of data gathered by New Horizons’ color Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The processing creates images that would approximate the colors that the human eye would perceive, bringing them closer to “true color” than the images released near the encounter. This single color MVIC scan includes no data from other New Horizons imagers or instruments added. The striking features on Pluto are clearly visible, including the bright expanse of Pluto’s icy, nitrogen-and-methane rich “heart,” Sputnik Planitia.
Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker
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By Amazing Space
Massive Solar Prominence "The Beast" Threatens Eruption? Space Weather Update July 14 2025 NASA SDO
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By NASA
The Axiom Mission 4 and Expedition 73 crews join together for a group portrait inside the International Space Station’s Harmony module. In the front row (from left) are Ax-4 crewmates Tibor Kapu, Peggy Whitson, Shubhanshu Shukla, and Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski with Expedition 73 crewmates Anne McClain and Takuya Onishi. In the rear are, Expedition 73 crewmates Alexey Zubritskiy, Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, Jonny Kim, and Nichole Ayers.Credit: NASA NASA will provide live coverage of the undocking and departure of the Axiom Mission 4 private astronaut mission from the International Space Station.
The four-member astronaut crew is scheduled to undock from the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at approximately 7:05 a.m. EDT Monday, July 14, pending weather, to begin their return to Earth and splashdown off the coast of California.
Coverage of departure operations will begin with hatch closing at 4:30 a.m. on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and HUNOR (Hungarian to Orbit) astronaut Tibor Kapu of Hungary, will have spent about two weeks in space at the conclusion of their mission.
The Dragon spacecraft will return with more than 580 pounds of cargo, including NASA hardware and data from over 60 experiments conducted throughout the mission.
NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
Monday, July 14
4:30 a.m. – Hatch closing coverage begins on NASA+.
4:55 a.m. – Crew enters spacecraft followed by hatch closing.
6:45 a.m. – Undocking coverage begins on NASA+, Axiom Space, and SpaceX channels.
7:05 a.m. – Undocking
NASA’s coverage ends approximately 30 minutes after undocking when space station joint operations with Axiom Space and SpaceX conclude. Axiom Space will resume coverage of Dragon’s re-entry and splashdown on the company’s website.
A collaboration between NASA and ISRO allowed Axiom Mission 4 to deliver on a commitment highlighted by President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to send the first ISRO astronaut to the station. The space agencies participated in five joint science investigations and two in-orbit science, technology, engineering, and mathematics demonstrations. NASA and ISRO have a long-standing relationship built on a shared vision to advance scientific knowledge and expand space collaboration.
The private mission also carried the first astronauts from Poland and Hungary to stay aboard the space station.
The International Space Station is a springboard for developing a low Earth orbit economy. NASA’s goal is to achieve a strong economy off the Earth where the agency can purchase services as one of many customers to meet its science and research objectives in microgravity. NASA’s commercial strategy for low Earth orbit provides the government with reliable and safe services at a lower cost, enabling the agency to focus on Artemis missions to the Moon in preparation for Mars while also continuing to use low Earth orbit as a training and proving ground for those deep space missions.
Learn more about NASA’s commercial space strategy at:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-space
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Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Anna Schneider
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 11, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
International Space Station (ISS) Commercial Crew Commercial Space Commercial Space Programs Humans in Space ISS Research Johnson Space Center Space Operations Mission Directorate View the full article
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By NASA
7 min read
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun
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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has taken the closest ever images to the Sun, captured just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface. The new close-up images show features in the solar wind, the constant stream of electrically charged subatomic particles released by the Sun that rage across the solar system at speeds exceeding 1 million miles an hour. These images, and other data, are helping scientists understand the mysteries of the solar wind, which is essential to understanding its effects at Earth. On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured stunning new images from within the Sun’s atmosphere. These newly released images — taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before — are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events that can affect Earth.
“Parker Solar Probe has once again transported us into the dynamic atmosphere of our closest star,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models. This new data will help us vastly improve our space weather predictions to ensure the safety of our astronauts and the protection of our technology here on Earth and throughout the solar system.”
Parker Solar Probe started its closest approach to the Sun on Dec. 24, 2024, flying just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface. As it skimmed through the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, in the days around the perihelion, it collected data with an array of scientific instruments, including the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe, or WISPR.
Parker Solar Probe has revolutionized our understanding of the solar wind thanks to the spacecraft’s many passes through the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng The new WISPR images reveal the corona and solar wind, a constant stream of electrically charged particles from the Sun that rage across the solar system. The solar wind expands throughout of the solar system with wide-ranging effects. Together with outbursts of material and magnetic currents from the Sun, it helps generate auroras, strip planetary atmospheres, and induce electric currents that can overwhelm power grids and affect communications at Earth. Understanding the impact of solar wind starts with understanding its origins at the Sun.
The WISPR images give scientists a closer look at what happens to the solar wind shortly after it is released from the corona. The images show the important boundary where the Sun’s magnetic field direction switches from northward to southward, called the heliospheric current sheet. It also captures the collision of multiple coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — large outbursts of charged particles that are a key driver of space weather — for the first time in high resolution.
“In these images, we’re seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another,” said Angelos Vourlidas, the WISPR instrument scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which designed, built, and operates the spacecraft in Laurel, Maryland. “We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together, which can be important for space weather.”
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This video, made from images taken by Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument during its record-breaking flyby of the Sun on Dec. 25, 2024, shows the solar wind racing out from the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Lab When CMEs collide, their trajectory can change, making it harder to predict where they’ll end up. Their merger can also accelerate charged particles and mix magnetic fields, which makes the CMEs’ effects potentially more dangerous to astronauts and satellites in space and technology on the ground. Parker Solar Probe’s close-up view helps scientists better prepare for such space weather effects at Earth and beyond.
Zooming in on Solar Wind’s Origins
The solar wind was first theorized by preeminent heliophysicist Eugene Parker in 1958. His theories about the solar wind, which were met with criticism at the time, revolutionized how we see our solar system. Prior to Parker Solar Probe’s launch in 2018, NASA and its international partners led missions like Mariner 2, Helios, Ulysses, Wind, and ACE that helped scientists understand the origins of the solar wind — but from a distance. Parker Solar Probe, named in honor of the late scientist, is filling in the gaps of our understanding much closer to the Sun.
At Earth, the solar wind is mostly a consistent breeze, but Parker Solar Probe found it’s anything but at the Sun. When the spacecraft reached within 14.7 million miles from the Sun, it encountered zig-zagging magnetic fields — a feature known as switchbacks. Using Parker Solar Probe’s data, scientists discovered that these switchbacks, which came in clumps, were more common than expected.
When Parker Solar Probe first crossed into the corona about 8 million miles from the Sun’s surface in 2021, it noticed the boundary of the corona was uneven and more complex than previously thought.
As it got even closer, Parker Solar Probe helped scientists pinpoint the origin of switchbacks at patches on the visible surface of the Sun where magnetic funnels form. In 2024 scientists announced that the fast solar wind — one of two main classes of the solar wind — is in part powered by these switchbacks, adding to a 50-year-old mystery.
However, it would take a closer view to understand the slow solar wind, which travels at just 220 miles per second, half the speed of the fast solar wind.
“The big unknown has been: how is the solar wind generated, and how does it manage to escape the Sun’s immense gravitational pull?” said Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. “Understanding this continuous flow of particles, particularly the slow solar wind, is a major challenge, especially given the diversity in the properties of these streams — but with Parker Solar Probe, we’re closer than ever to uncovering their origins and how they evolve.”
Understanding Slow Solar Wind
The slow solar wind, which is twice as dense and more variable than fast solar wind, is important to study because its interplay with the fast solar wind can create moderately strong solar storm conditions at Earth sometimes rivaling those from CMEs.
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This artist’s concept shows a representative state of Earth’s magnetic bubble immersed in the slow solar wind, which averages some 180 to 300 miles per second. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Prior to Parker Solar Probe, distant observations suggested there are actually two varieties of slow solar wind, distinguished by the orientation or variability of their magnetic fields. One type of slow solar wind, called Alfvénic, has small-scale switchbacks. The second type, called non-Alfvénic, doesn’t show these variations in its magnetic field.
As it spiraled closer to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe confirmed there are indeed two types. Its close-up views are also helping scientists differentiate the origins of the two types, which scientists believe are unique. The non-Alfvénic wind may come off features called helmet streamers — large loops connecting active regions where some particles can heat up enough to escape — whereas Alfvénic wind might originate near coronal holes, or dark, cool regions in the corona.
In its current orbit, bringing the spacecraft just 3.8 million miles from the Sun, Parker Solar Probe will continue to gather additional data during its upcoming passes through the corona to help scientists confirm the slow solar wind’s origins. The next pass comes Sept. 15, 2025.
“We don’t have a final consensus yet, but we have a whole lot of new intriguing data,” said Adam Szabo, Parker Solar Probe mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jul 10, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Missions NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Directorates Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Solar Wind Space Weather Explore More
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