Moon Joy June may be over, but Moon Joy never dies!
NASA’s Artemis missions represent the future of space exploration. We choose to go to the Moon to inspire a new generation of explorers, to prepare for the first crewed missions to Mars, and to make discoveries for the benefit of all.
Thank you for sharing your Moon Joy with us — we feel it, too.
If you are interested in feeling even more Moon Joy, check out International Observe the Moon Night coming up on Sept. 19, 2026. You can join a community, attend an event, and meet up with other lunar observers.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
This is the Veil Nebula, which Hubble saw on July 1, 2020.
Have you ever looked up what our Hubble Space Telescope saw on your birthday? (Or your anniversary, or your pet's adoption day, or...)
We've given our popular interactive page a new look — and, just as importantly, it now shows you five different cosmic sights Hubble was checking out on the day that you picked.
It’s the last week of Moon Joy June, and we’re feeling the love for our home planet.
This week’s prompt is “Earth,” so we’ve compiled some previously unreleased images of Earth captured by our Artemis II crew this past April. If you’re feeling inspired, share your creations on Tumblr with the #ArtemisArtShow hashtag!
On Sunday, June 21, NASA’s Pegasus barge arrived at the Launch Complex 39 turn basin at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
Our next major space telescope has arrived at the launch site! On Sunday, June 21, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope completed its voyage from our Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland down to our Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Now, the observatory will undergo final preparations before liftoff on Sunday, Aug. 30.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was carefully packed into a protective container for its eight-day voyage to the launch site.
Engineers loaded Roman into a protective container and drove it to the Port of Baltimore. Over the course of the next eight days, the observatory traveled over 800 nautical miles down the Atlantic coast on NASA’s Pegasus barge to its new temporary home in Florida. Roman also brought a buddy along for the ride: a weather cover for the Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) core stage.
A variety of specialists attended the Roman observatory’s journey from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to the port it shipped from at Baltimore. That includes tree trimmers who periodically cleared the path for the large transportation vehicle to pass through.
Upon arrival, technicians moved Roman into a massive airlock within Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. This facility has an air filtration system that removes the contaminants that entered the building when the massive door opened. This step protects the spacecraft when it comes out of its transportation container.
Fittingly, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope traveled to the launch site in a special transport vehicle called the CHARIOT (Conditioned Housing for Air, Road, Imaging optics assembly, and Observatory Transport) on a barge known as the Pegasus.
Next up is a grand unboxing! Technicians will use powerful cranes to move Roman to its work platform, called the Pantheon. The team will test Roman’s solar panels and inspect its insulation and thermal blankets to ensure the observatory is fully protected and flight ready. Then they’ll load about 290 gallons (roughly 1,100 liters) of hydrazine fuel into the tanks.
Once in space, Roman will deliver mind-boggling observations at a rapid rate. The mission will pair a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to scan vast, deep swaths of sky. That will help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, exoplanets, and much more. Since each of Roman’s surveys will sample such a large volume of the cosmos, very little will be beyond Roman’s reach.
Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
If you live north of the Equator, June 21 marks the summer solstice for you. This date is when the Northern Hemisphere reaches its maximum tilt toward the Sun and has its longest stretch of daylight all year.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true today! Today is the start of winter and the shortest day for friends south of the Equator.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Moon Joy June artists!
The prompt for this week is “Crew.” Coincidentally, we announced the Artemis III crew last week! These four astronauts will practice docking the Orion spacecraft with two lunar landers in low Earth orbit. While Artemis III will not land on the Moon, this mission will test the complex capabilities we need to return humanity there — this time to stay.
Meet the Artemis III crew:
Commander Randy Bresnik was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2004. Bresnik completed his first spaceflight on STS-129 in 2009 — this was the 31st shuttle flight to the International Space Station. In 2017, Bresnik served as Flight Engineer aboard the Soyuz 51S and Expedition 52 as well as Commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 53.
Pilot Luca Parmitano was selected as a European Space Agency astronaut in May 2009. In 2011, he served as a flight engineer to Italian space agency ASI's first long-duration mission on the International Space Station. He was also the third European and first Italian to command the space station during Expedition 61, which began in 2019 and ended in 2020.
Mission specialist Andre Douglas was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2021. Upon selection, Douglas was a senior professional staff member at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab working on maritime robotics, planetary defense, and space exploration missions. He served as a backup crew member for NASA’s Artemis II mission. Artemis III will be Douglas’ first spaceflight.
Mission specialist Frank Rubio was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2017. He lived and worked aboard the International Space Station between 2022 and 2023, breaking the record for the longest single duration spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut with a mission duration of 371 days. Dr. Rubio is a board-certified family physician and flight surgeon.
If you would like to share some crew-inspired artwork, you can share your creations on Tumblr with the #ArtemisArtShow hashtag!
Applications for the Roman NASA Social Are Now Open!
In this photo, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is blasting off to space on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. On Aug. 30, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch from our Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Calling all digital creators! Ever wanted to see a rocket launch up close? Here’s your chance! Social storytellers are invited to apply to attend the NASA social for the launch of our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This flagship mission will explore the universe's dark side, discover troves of strange new worlds, and much more.
Participants will:
Tour NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida
Learn directly from astrophysics subject matter experts
Meet fellow digital creators and social media users
Spend time with members of NASA’s social media team
View the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
Interested? The clock’s ticking! Applications close June 28 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Learn more about how to apply.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Send your name to fly on Roman and download a boarding pass like this one with your name on it!
What’s the farthest you’ve ever traveled from home? Want to beat your record by about a million miles? Submit to have your name added to a memory card that will be attached to a plaque on our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope traveling a million miles away!
Prior to Roman’s launch, an SD card loaded with submitted names will be attached to this plaque where the square outline is.
After launch on August 30, Roman will journey way out to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), the same orbit as our James Webb Space Telescope. At L2, the gravity of the Sun and Earth, together with an object’s motion around the Sun, let it stay lined up with Earth as they orbit. That will give Roman a relatively steady orbit without using much fuel. Like Webb, Roman will trace out a large orbit around the actual L2 point — much larger than the Moon’s orbit around Earth — and the two will easily be kept far apart.
Telescopes at L2 also have a constant, unobstructed view of a wide swath of the sky. Earth won't block much of Roman's view since it will be so distant! And at L2, heat from Earth, the Sun, and the Moon have less effect on infrared telescopes, which “see” heat.
The Roman Telescope model has its boarding pass! Do you have yours?
Send your name here. Submissions close July 16. Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman!
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Moon Joy June artists!
This is the second week of Moon Joy June, and the prompt is “Moon.” If you’re an artist looking for some inspiration, we have a treat for you: four new and previously unseen images from our Artemis II mission!
All four of these images were captured on April 6, 2026, during flight day 6 of the mission, when the four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft conducted the lunar flyby of their ten-day journey. During the lunar flyby, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen captured photographs and collected scientific observations of the Moon in meticulous detail.
You can find more images from the lunar flyby here.
If you’re feeling inspired to make some art dedicated to our celestial neighbor, you can share your creations on Tumblr with the #ArtemisArtShow hashtag!
Moon Joy June artists! Looking for a little inspiration?
The prompt for this week is “Launch.” Here is a small collection of photos of the launch of the Artemis II mission, which took place on April 1, 2026. What followed was ten days of our Artemis astronauts circling the Moon, returning to Earth, and experiencing pure Moon joy all throughout.
You can find more launch photos here.
If you’re feeling inspired to make some art, you can share your creations on Tumblr with the #ArtemisArtShow hashtag!
This illustration shows the relative scale of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and a Tyrannosaurus rex. Roman is over 42 feet (12.7 meters) long — about the length of a T. rex — and over 14 feet (4.4 meters) wide when fully deployed. Roman also weighs around 18,000 pounds, or 8,000 kilograms (dry mass), which is the approximate mass of a T. rex as well.
Did you know NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is both roughly as long and as massive as a Tyrannosaurus rex? This observatory, which will move to the launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida very soon, is over 42 feet (12.7 meters) long and weighs around 18,000 pounds (8,000 kilograms), not including the fuel. Let’s explore some of the components that bring Roman to T. rex proportions.
Artist's concepts of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (left) and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (right), highlighting the 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirrors that sit in the heart of each observatory.
At the observatory’s heart sits a mirror that’s 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) across and 410 pounds (186 kilograms), or about the length and weight of a protoceratops! Roman’s primary mirror is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope’s main mirror, but less than one-fourth the weight thanks to major improvements in technology.
Technicians installed Roman’s primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument (pictured at left), in the fall of 2025.
The mission’s 300-megapixel infrared camera, called the Wide Field Instrument, is over 8 feet (about 2.5 meters) tall, which is about the length of a triceratops skull. It will give Roman the same angular resolution as Hubble while capturing an area of sky at least 100 times larger. The mission will gather data up to 1,000 times faster than Hubble.
Its sweeping cosmic surveys will help scientists discover new information about planets beyond our solar system, untangle mysteries like dark energy, and map how both normal matter and dark matter are structured and distributed throughout the universe. Casting such a wide, deep “net” into space will give astronomers plenty of cosmic bycatch as well; Roman’s crisp, panoramic views will offer practically limitless opportunities for astronomers to do all kinds of exciting science.
The Coronagraph Instrument was installed on Roman’s instrument carrier in October 2024.
Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument is about as wide (5.5 feet, or 1.7 meters) as a velociraptor is long. The Coronagraph is designed to demonstrate new technologies for directly imaging planets around other stars. It will block the glare from a star and make it possible for scientists to see the faint reflected light from planets in orbit around them.
The Coronagraph aims to photograph worlds and dusty disks around nearby stars in visible light to help us see giant worlds that are older, colder, and in closer orbits than the hot, young super-Jupiters direct imaging has mainly revealed so far.
This photo shows Roman’s 18 detectors, which are the heart of the mission’s 300-megapixel camera.
Roman’s “eyes,” 18 saltine cracker-sized detectors in its primary instrument, are each about as tall as an allosaurus tooth. They each have about 16.8 million tiny pixels for a total of 300 million, which means Roman’s images will be super hi-res. Each detector is made of millions of mercury-cadmium-telluride photodiodes (sensors that convert light into an electrical current), one for each pixel.
Principal technician Billy Keim installs a cover plate over Roman’s detectors.
The detectors are secured to a silicon electronics board that will help process the light signals using indium, a soft metal that has roughly the same consistency as chewing gum. Together, these ultra-sensitive detectors can capture vast areas of sky in a single shot while still revealing incredibly fine detail, allowing Roman to map the cosmos faster and more precisely than ever before.
Roman’s electrical wiring was installed on the spacecraft flight structure in the summer of 2023.
There are 1,000 pounds, or 450 kilograms, (the weight of a pachycephalosaurus) of electrical cabling, made up of about 32,000 wires and 900 connectors, laced throughout the observatory. If the wires were laid out end-to-end they would span 45 miles — nearly enough to trace the entire perimeter fence in the imagined Jurassic Park! Functioning as the Roman’s “nervous system,” the cabling enables different parts of the observatory to communicate with one another, provides power, and helps the central computer monitor the observatory’s function.
The Roman observatory was fully integrated on Nov. 25, 2025, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Roman’s six solar panels each measure about 7 by 10 feet (2 by 3 meters), collectively giving Roman a “wingspan” similar to a pteranodon’s! Together, they will provide a total of 4 kilowatts of power, which is about the same rate that a modest rooftop solar panel system produces during the daytime.
Over the course of two days in June 2025, eight technicians installed Roman’s solar panels onto the outer portion of the observatory.
The panels are covered in a total of 3,902 solar cells that will convert sunlight directly into electricity much like plants convert sunlight to chemical energy. When tiny bits of light, called photons, strike the cells, some of their energy transfers to electrons within the material. This jolt excites the electrons, which start moving more or jump to higher energy levels. In a solar cell, excited electrons create electricity by breaking free and moving through a circuit, sort of like water flowing through a pipe. The panels are designed to channel that energy to power the observatory.
Roman’s high-gain antenna will provide the primary communication link between the spacecraft and the ground.
The radio dish that will send data across a million miles of intervening space back to Earth spans 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) in diameter. That’s about the size of the largest known dinosaur footprints, yet it weighs only 24 pounds (10.9 kilograms). Its large size will help Roman send radio signals across a million miles of intervening space to Earth. The dual-band antenna will use one frequency band to receive commands and send back information about the spacecraft’s health and location. It will use another frequency band to transmit a deluge of data at up to 500 megabits per second.
We’re only a few months out from launch, and so close to a completely new understanding of the universe and our place within it. Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at nasa.gov/roman, and virtually tour the Roman observatory here.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Are you in need of some serious Moon joy? Get ready for Moon Joy June.
NASA is hosting a month-long art challenge and we would love for you to participate! For every week of June, NASA will introduce a new prompt to inspire artists and creators of all kinds:
June 1-7: Launch
June 8-14: Moon
June 15-21: Crew
June 22-30: Earth
To share your Moon joy-inspired art on Tumblr, use the hashtag #ArtemisArtShow.
The sky is (not) the limit! We encourage all forms of art, including but not limited to: paintings, drawings, sculptures, dances, music, animations, nail art, latte foam art, poetry, fashion. Choose your favorite medium and share it with us!
Learn more about the challenge in our FAQ. Happy Moon Joy June to all who celebrate!
This artist’s impression pinpoints many cosmic voids –– relatively empty bubbles of space.
The universe is home to trillions of galaxies, each chock full of smaller cosmic objects like stars and planets. Since galaxies gravitate together in a web-like pattern, there are also immense open spaces called cosmic voids in between. In those growing, gloomy places, dark energy dominates.
Galaxies in this animation are structured a bit like a Hoberman sphere (a lattice-like toy ball that expands and collapses), growing farther apart as the universe expands.
Zoomed out maps of the universe show that galaxies often cluster together in bright city-like regions. Each cosmic metropolis is connected to others by interstate highways – vast filaments of dark matter, gas, and dust, along which additional galaxies can be found. This large-scale structure is called the cosmic web.
Way out in the boondocks – far from the galaxies and filaments – are the cosmic voids. They’ve been growing larger for billions of years, emptying out as gravity pulls matter elsewhere.
This animation visualizes the early universe, when the cosmic was full of a hot plasma soup.
Cosmic voids were born when the universe looked extremely different than it does today. Instead of being speckled with stars and galaxies, the cosmos was filled with a sea of plasma (charged particles) that formed a dense, almost uniform fluid.
There were slightly denser kernels of matter, like a single ounce of cinnamon sprinkled into about 13,000 cups of cookie dough! Since the clumps had more mass, their gravity attracted additional material. Those areas grew and grew, drawing more matter together to form stars, galaxies, and galaxy clusters as the universe expanded over billions of years. Meanwhile, the spaces in between became ever emptier.
A simulation of large-scale structure forming under the influence of gravity.
Cosmic voids aren’t completely empty, though. They do have sparse galaxies, though they seem to have delayed development. Since there’s less matter, there’s weaker gravity pulling things together so stars and galaxies form more slowly. And those galaxies are isolated so they’re less likely to interact with others, which fuels growth in denser places like galaxy clusters.
But voids are mostly filled with things we can’t see. They contain a thin mist of dark matter along with a relatively larger amount of WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles) like ghostly neutrinos than we find elsewhere in the universe. Since there’s not very much stuff in voids to create gravity, a different force reigns supreme: dark energy, the mysterious cosmic pressure that seems to be speeding up the universe’s expansion. Since cosmic voids are influenced primarily by dark energy, they offer clues about its behavior.
Astronomers haven’t thoroughly studied cosmic voids yet, but our upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be wide-eyed enough to reveal those desert patches of space like we’ve never seen them before. Studying them will show how the universe is put together and how dark energy is pushing galaxies apart.
If you could fly through the cosmic web at hyperspeed, you might see a view like this simulated one!
So far, scientists have found around 1,000 cosmic voids. Roman’s 3D surveys should find tens of thousands more, both large and small, scattered throughout earlier cosmic eras than previous large sky surveys could see. That means we’ll be able to watch how the most vacant places get even emptier over billions of years. And astronomers can trace any changes in dark energy’s might by seeing how it stretches voids, where dark energy dominates, across cosmic time.
Follow along with Roman’s journey to launch at nasa.gov/roman.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
This image, released in celebration of Earth Day, shows the terminator – the line between night and day – on Earth. The Artemis II astronauts captured this view on April 2, 2026, during their journey to the Moon.
NASA science improves life on Earth every day. We provide insights on our home planet that can only be gathered from space, which can then be used for disaster response, farming, and more. In addition, our observations of Earth and the technologies we develop provide the foundation needed to explore and sustain human life on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Download this year's Earth Day poster.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
After being assembled, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has passed final tests, and is being prepared to move to our Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where teams will work to prepare it for a launch in early September 2026.
With a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, Roman can potentially measure light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime. It will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.
The observatory is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer who made cosmic vistas readily accessible to all by paving the way for telescopes based in space.
Want to learn more about Roman? Check out our #Roman Space Telescope tag and visit our mission page.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
This view from the Artemis II Orion spacecraft reveals a heavily cratered portion of the far side of the Moon. They vary in size, and in some areas, there are even craters within craters. The lighting here enhances contrast across the terrain, highlighting differences in surface features and giving insight into the Moon’s geologic history.
For more imagery from the mission, visit our Artemis II Multimedia Page.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Over approximately 10 days, our Artemis II crew successfully completed a voyage around the Moon. They gave us stunning photos of the far side of the Moon, Earth, and a solar eclipse, along with inspirational messages, laughs, and even a few tears. Let's recap the Artemis II mission.
First step: fit check.
Artemis II astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen got suited up and had their spacesuits checked to make sure they were ready to go to space.
Once their custom-fit suits were checked and the astronauts were ready, they walked out to greet the crowd at our Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After saying hi to everyone, including their families, the quartet made their way onto the Orion spacecraft that would carry them to the Moon.
The astronauts entered Orion and completed more checks. Next, the closeout crew closed the final hatch on Orion.
Then, it was time for the big moment – well, the first big moment of the mission: Liftoff!
Orion was on its way to the Moon, and the astronauts aboard had plenty to do.
They exercised…
and conducted interviews…
all while showing the camaraderie and collaboration that make missions possible.
And that means Rise, too! The little plush zero gravity indicator was a constant companion throughout the mission.
Finally, it was time for them to go around the Moon and observe its far side. As the astronauts began to describe features of the Moon that they saw, they had a heartfelt moment when suggesting that a crater be named after Reid's late wife, Carroll.
During the lunar flyby, the foursome experienced a solar eclipse that only they could see!
All throughout the mission, there were many moments of "Moon Joy."
After the crew completed their observation duties, it was time to start the journey back home.
On April 10, the Artemis II astronauts safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, bringing the mission to a triumphant end.
These GIFs are just a taste of the amazing imagery and memorable moments from Artemis II. Relive it all on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/NASA
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
