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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA Uses Colorado Mountains for Simulated Artemis Moon Landing Course
NASA has certified a new lander flight training course using helicopters, marking a key milestone in crew training for Artemis missions to the Moon. Through Artemis, NASA explore the lunar South Pole, paving the way for human exploration farther into the solar system, including Mars.
The mountains in northern Colorado offer similar visual illusions and flight environments to the Moon. NASA partnered with the Colorado Army National Guard at the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site near Gypsum, Colorado, to develop the foundational flight training course.
“Artemis astronauts who will land on the Moon will need to master crew coordination and communication with one another,” said Paul Felker, acting deputy director of flight operations at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Much like they will on the Moon, astronaut teams are learning how to work together efficiently in a stressful environment to identify hazards, overcome degraded visual environments, and evaluate risks to successfully land.”
During the two-week certification run in late August, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Matthew Dominick participated in flight and landing training to help certify the course. The pair took turns flying a helicopter and navigating to landing zones. Artemis flight crew trainers, mission control leads, and lunar lander operational experts from NASA Johnson joined them on each helicopter flight to assess the instruction, training environment, and technical applications for crewed lunar missions.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick (left) and Mark Vande Hei (right) prepare to fly out to a landing zone in the Rocky Mountains as part of the certification run for the NASA Artemis course at the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site in Gypsum, Colorado, Aug. 26. NASA/Michael DeMocker A LUH-72 Lakota helicopter stirs up dust at the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site in Gypsum, Colorado, Aug. 28. NASA/Charles Beason A member of the Colorado Army National Guard peers out of a CH-47 Chinook in preparation for landing Aug. 22. NASA and trained instructors from the Army National Guard use a range of aircraft during flight training. Chinooks are used to demonstrate challenges with landing on the Moon. NASA/Charles Beason NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick (left) and Mark Vande Hei (right) celebrate after returning from a training flight Aug. 26 during a certification run for a lander flight training course for crewed Artemis missions. NASA/Michael DeMocker Paired with trained instructors with the Army National Guard, astronauts fly to mountaintops and valleys in a range of aircraft, including LUH-72 Lakotas, CH-47 Chinooks, and UH-60 Black Hawks. NASA/Charles Beason NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei lands a helicopter as part of flight and landing training at the High Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site Aug. 28. NASA/Michael DeMocker A member of the Colorado Army National Guard looks out of a CH-47 Chinook as it lands at a steep angle Aug. 29. A crater on the Moon could have a similar incline, posing landing challenges for future crewed Artemis missions. NASA/Michael DeMocker A LUH-72 Lakota helicopter flies over the mountains of northern Colorado Aug. 28 during a certification run for a lander flight training course for crewed Artemis missions. The mountains and valleys in Colorado have similar visual illusions to the Moon. NASA/Michael DeMocker The patch for the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site is pictured in the cupola of the International Space Station in 2023. NASA and the Colorado Army National Guard began working together in 2021 to develop a foundational lunar lander simulated flight training course for Artemis. NASA The NASA astronauts and trained instructor pilots with the Army National Guard flew to progressively more challenging landing zones throughout the course, navigating the mountainous terrain, and working together to quickly and efficiently land the aircraft.
Teams can train year-round using the course. Depending on the season, the snowy or dusty conditions can cause visual obstruction. Lunar dust can cause similar visual impairment during future crewed missions.
“Here in Colorado, we have specifically flown to dusty areas, so we know and understand just how important dust becomes during the final descent phase,” Vande Hei said. “Dust will interact with the lander thrusters on the Moon. During our flight training, we have had to revert to our instruments – just like we would on the Moon – because astronauts may lose all their visual cues when they’re near the surface.”
During Artemis III, four astronauts inside the agency’s Orion spacecraft on top of the SLS (Space Launch System rocket) will launch to meet SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System in lunar orbit. Orion will then dock with the Starship system and two astronauts will board the lander. Astronauts will use the Starship lander to safely transport themselves from lunar orbit to the lunar surface. Following surface operations, the two astronauts will use Starship to launch from the lunar surface, back to lunar orbit, and dock with Orion to safely journey back to Earth.
The NASA-focused course has been in development since 2021. Vande Hei and Dominick are the 24th and 25th NASA astronauts to participate in and evaluate the course based on functionality and Artemis mission needs. One ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut has also participated in the course.
“This course will likely be one of the first group flight training opportunities for the Artemis III crew,” said NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock, who helped to develop the foundational training course for the agency. “While the astronauts will also participate in ground and simulation training in Ohio and Texas, the real-world flight environment in Colorado at offers astronauts an amazing simulation of the problem solving and decision making needed to control and maneuver a lunar lander across an equally dynamic landscape.”
Though the course is now certified for Artemis, teams will continue to evaluate the training based on astronaut and technical feedback to ensure mission success and crew safety.
Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars for the benefit of all.
For more information about Artemis visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
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Last Updated Sep 10, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayContactCorinne M. Beckingercorinne.m.beckinger@nasa.govLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
Close-Up Views of NASA’s DART Impact to Inform Planetary Defense
Photos taken by the Italian LICIACube, short for the LICIA Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids. These offer the closest, most detailed observations of NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) impact aftermath to date. The photo on the left was taken roughly 2 minutes and 40 seconds after impact, as the satellite flew past the Didymos system. The photo on the right was taken 20 seconds later, as LICIACube was leaving the scene. The larger body, near the top of each image is Didymos. The smaller body in the lower half of each image is Dimorphos, enveloped by the cloud of rocky debris created by DART’s impact. NASA/ASI/University of Maryland On Sept. 11, 2022, engineers at a flight control center in Turin, Italy, sent a radio signal into deep space. Its destination was NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft flying toward an asteroid more than 5 million miles away.
The message prompted the spacecraft to execute a series of pre-programmed commands that caused a small, shoebox-sized satellite contributed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), called LICIACube, to detach from DART.
Fifteen days later, when DART’s journey ended in an intentional head-on collision with near-Earth asteroid Dimorphos, LICIACube flew past the asteroid to snap a series of photos, providing researchers with the only on-site observations of the world’s first demonstration of an asteroid deflection.
After analyzing LICIACube’s images, NASA and ASI scientists report on Aug. 21 in the Planetary Science Journal that an estimated 35.3 million pounds (16 million kilograms) of dust and rocks spewed from the asteroid as a result of the crash, refining previous estimates that were based on data from ground and space-based observations.
While the debris shed from the asteroid amounted to less than 0.5% of its total mass, it was still 30,000 times greater than the mass of the spacecraft. The impact of the debris on Dimorphos’ trajectory was dramatic: shortly after the collision, the DART team determined that the flying rubble gave Dimorphos a shove several times stronger than the hit from the spacecraft itself.
“The plume of material released from the asteroid was like a short burst from a rocket engine,” said Ramin Lolachi, a research scientist who led the study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The important takeaway from the DART mission is that a small, lightweight spacecraft can dramatically alter the path of an asteroid of similar size and composition to Dimorphos, which is a “rubble-pile” asteroid — or a loose, porous collection of rocky material bound together weakly by gravity.
“We expect that a lot of near-Earth asteroids have a similar structure to Dimorphos,” said Dave Glenar, a planetary scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who participated in the study. “So, this extra push from the debris plume is critical to consider when building future spacecraft to deflect asteroids from Earth.”
The tail of material that formed behind Dimorphos was prominent almost 12 days after the DART impact, giving the asteroid a comet-like appearance, as seen in this image captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in October 2022. Hubble’s observations were made from roughly 6.8 million miles away. NASA, ESA, STScI, Jian-Yang Li (PSI); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale DART’s Star Witness
NASA chose Dimorphos, which poses no threat to Earth, as the mission target due to its relationship with another, larger asteroid named Didymos. Dimorphos orbits Didymos in a binary asteroid system, much like the Moon orbits Earth. Critically, the pair’s position relative to Earth allowed astronomers to measure the duration of the moonlet’s orbit before and after the collision.
Ground and space-based observations revealed that DART shortened Dimorphos’ orbit by 33 minutes. But these long-range observations, made from 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers) away, were too distant to support a detailed study of the impact debris. That was LICIACube’s job.
After DART’s impact, LICIACube had just 60 seconds to make its most critical observations. Barreling past the asteroid at 15,000 miles (21,140 kilometers) per hour, the spacecraft took a snapshot of the debris roughly once every three seconds. Its closest image was taken just 53 miles (85.3 km) from Dimorphos’ surface.
The short distance between LICIACube and Dimorphos provided a unique advantage, allowing the cubesat to capture detailed images of the dusty debris from multiple angles.
The research team studied a series of 18 LICIAcube images. The first images in the sequence showed LICIACube’s head-on approach. From this angle, the plume was brightly illuminated by direct sunlight. As the spacecraft glided past the asteroid, its camera pivoted to keep the plume in view.
This animated series of images was taken by a camera aboard LICIACube 2 to 3 minutes after DART crashed into Dimorphos. As LICIACube made its way past the binary pair of asteroids Didymos, the larger one on top, and Dimorphos, the object at the bottom. The satellite’s viewing angle changed rapidly during its flyby of Dimorphos, allowing scientists o get a comprehensive view of the impact plume from a series of angles. ASI/University of Maryland/Tony Farnham/Nathan Marder As LICIACube looked back at the asteroid, sunlight filtered through the dense cloud of debris, and the plume’s brightness faded. This suggested the plume was made of mostly large particles — about a millimeter or more across — which reflect less light than tiny dust grains.
Since the innermost parts of the plume were so thick with debris that they were completely opaque, the scientists used models to estimate the number of particles that were hidden from view. Data from other rubble-pile asteroids, including pieces of Bennu delivered to Earth in 2023 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, and laboratory experiments helped refine the estimate.
“We estimated that this hidden material accounted for almost 45% of the plume’s total mass,” said Timothy Stubbs, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard who was involved with the study.
While DART showed that a high-speed collision with a spacecraft can change an asteroid’s trajectory, Stubbs and his colleagues note that different asteroid types, such as those made of stronger, more tightly packed material, might respond differently to a DART-like impact. “Every time we interact with an asteroid, we find something that surprises us, so there’s a lot more work to do,” said Stubbs. “But DART is a big step forward for planetary defense.”
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, managed the DART mission and operated the spacecraft for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office.
By Nathan Marder, nathan.marder@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Aug 21, 2025 Related Terms
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By USH
In March 2025, a perfectly smooth metallic sphere crashed near the city of Buga, Colombia, setting in motion a chain of revelations that could rewrite the story of human history. Weighing just 4.5 pounds, the object has no visible seams, joints, or welds. It remains icy cold to the touch and shows no sign of conventional propulsion or manufacturing methods known to science.
Buga Sphere
Its surface is etched with intricate markings eerily similar to symbols from ancient Mesopotamia, as well as other civilizations separated by oceans and thousands of years. AI-assisted analysis suggests the glyphs carry profound themes—unity, transformation, and the origins of consciousness, concepts that cannot easily be reconciled within the framework of standard physics.
Advanced scans have revealed hidden internal structures and an unusually dense core. Even more unsettling, researchers have detected the sphere emitting very low frequency (VLF) and low frequency (LF) radio waves—signals capable of traveling hundreds of kilometers over terrain and far beyond the horizon, often used in navigation, communications, and precise timing synchronization.
Whispers are now spreading about the discovery of a second, even older sphere, quietly stored in a forgotten museum collection. Meanwhile, the glyphs on the Buga sphere appear to be slowly evolving, forming what some believe are coordinates pointing toward remote and mysterious sites: deep within the Amazon, along the shores of Lake Titicaca, and in the highlands of Peru.
This has led to a question, is it just an elaborate hoax or are these spheres fragments of a hidden planetary network, and if so… what happens when it awakens?
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By European Space Agency
More than one star contributes to the irregular shape of NGC 6072 – Webb’s newest look at this planetary nebula in the near- and mid-infrared shows what may appear as a very messy scene resembling splattered paint. However, the unusual, asymmetrical scene hints at more complicated mechanisms underway, as the star central to the scene approaches the very final stages of its life and expels shells of material, losing up to 80 percent of its mass.
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By NASA
Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Webb’s First Images Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 5 Min Read NASA’s Webb Traces Details of Complex Planetary Nebula
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 in the near-infrared shows a complex scene of multiple outflows expanding out at different angles from a dying star at the center of the scene. In this image, the red areas represent cool molecular gas, for example, molecular hydrogen. Full image below. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Since their discovery in the late 1700s, astronomers have learned that planetary nebulae, or the expanding shell of glowing gas expelled by a low-intermediate mass star late in its life, can come in all shapes and sizes. Most planetary nebula present as circular, elliptical, or bi-polar, but some stray from the norm, as seen in new high-resolution images of planetary nebulae by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Webb’s newest look at planetary nebula NGC 6072 in the near- and mid-infrared shows what may appear as a very messy scene resembling splattered paint. However, the unusual, asymmetrical appearance hints at more complicated mechanisms underway, as the star central to the scene approaches the very final stages of its life and expels shells of material, losing up to 80 percent of its mass. Astronomers are using Webb to study planetary nebulae to learn more about the full life cycle of stars and how they impact their surrounding environments.
Image A: NGC 6072 (NIRCam Image)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 in the near-infrared shows a complex scene of multiple outflows expanding out at different angles from a dying star at the center of the scene. In this image, the red areas represent cool molecular gas, for example, molecular hydrogen. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI First, taking a look at the image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), it’s readily apparent that this nebula is multi-polar. This means there are several different elliptical outflows jetting out either way from the center, one from 11 o’clock to 5 o’clock, another from 1 o’clock to 7 o’clock, and possibly a third from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock. The outflows may compress material as they go, resulting in a disk seen perpendicular to it.
Astronomers say this is evidence that there are likely at least two stars at the center of this scene. Specifically, a companion star is interacting with an aging star that had already begun to shed some of its outer layers of gas and dust.
The central region of the planetary nebula glows from the hot stellar core, seen as a light blue hue in near-infrared light. The dark orange material, which is made up of gas and dust, follows pockets or open areas that appear dark blue. This clumpiness could be created when dense molecular clouds formed while being shielded from hot radiation from the central star. There could also be a time element at play. Over thousands of years, inner fast winds could be ploughing through the halo cast off from the main star when it first started to lose mass.
Image B: NGC 6072 (MIRI Image)
The mid-infrared view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope show expanding circular shells around the outflows from the dying central star. In this image, the blue represents cool molecular gas seen in red in the image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) due to color mapping. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The longer wavelengths captured by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) are highlighting dust, revealing the star researchers suspect could be central to this scene. It appears as a small pinkish-whitish dot in this image.
Webb’s look in the mid-infrared wavelengths also reveals concentric rings expanding from the central region, the most obvious circling just past the edges of the lobes.
This may be additional evidence of a secondary star at the center of the scene hidden from our view. The secondary star, as it circles repeatedly around the original star, could have carved out rings of material in a bullseye pattern as the main star was expelling mass during an earlier stage of its life.
The rings may also hint at some kind of pulsation that resulted in gas or dust being expelled uniformly in all directions separated by say, thousands of years.
The red areas in NIRCam and blue areas in MIRI both trace cool molecular gas (likely molecular hydrogen) while central regions trace hot ionized gas.
As the star at the center of a planetary nebula cools and fades, the nebula will gradually dissipate into the interstellar medium — contributing enriched material that helps form new stars and planetary systems, now containing those heavier elements.
Webb’s imaging of NGC 6072 opens the door to studying how the planetary nebulae with more complex shapes contribute to this process.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Jul 30, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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