UC Irvine and JPL glaciologists project up to 30 mm of Thwaites sea-level rise by 2100, twice earlier estimates, even with no added warming. Replacing the grounding line with a grounding zone made the model's reconstruction of past change four times more pronounced.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 32%
- Operator
- Operator 49%
- Investor
- Investor 19%
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives35
- Confidence64
Voyager's Griffin-1 lunar lander finishes JPL environmental tests ahead of a Falcon Heavy launch
Voyager's Griffin-1 lander passed environmental tests at JPL and is expected to fly 455 kg to Nobile Crater on a Falcon Heavy later this year. The tests covered launch vibration, acoustics, thermal vacuum and electromagnetic interference, NASA's release says.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives60
- Confidence70
NASA's Curiosity rover has climbed 1 km up Mount Sharp, by NASA's count the most elevation gained on Mars. Arm work on the wind-carved yardang cliffs ahead, the study meant to show how they formed, is hoped for in 2027.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 30%
- Operator
- Operator 60%
- Investor
- Investor 10%
Reality
- Evidence65
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives55
- Confidence70
Researchers warn an internal Kelvin wave from this year's super El Niño could lift California sea levels by up to 30 cm once it reaches the coast. The raised water would add to winter storm surges, though the oceanographer quoted expects it to distort tides for weeks.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 18%
- Operator
- Operator 69%
- Investor
- Investor 13%
Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence65
JPL-led study puts Earth's seasonal centre-of-mass swing at half the earlier estimate
JPL-led researchers estimate Earth's centre of mass swings back and forth each year about half as far as scientists believed eight years ago. That centre anchors satellite navigation and elevation measurements, so the size of its seasonal motion feeds into positions measured from orbit.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives30
- Confidence50
Idaho's Wildhorse fire produced the smoke storm NASA's INSPYRE jets spent weeks hunting
Idaho's Wildhorse grass fire threw up a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, a storm type that can lift smoke 15 km and that NASA's INSPYRE jets hunted for six weeks. Its measurements are meant to test weather and climate models that mostly omit these clouds. NASA has not yet reported results.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives60
- Confidence55
Jezero's Margin Unit proves to be igneous rock that water altered at least three times
Perseverance's SuperCam survey of more than 185 targets shows Jezero's Margin Unit is magma-formed olivine rock that met water at least three times. Groundwater and later hot fluids joined the crater lake in reworking it, so its carbonate is a harder record to read.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+8
- Incentives40
- Confidence62
Addis Ababa's soot baseline lands one year after Ethiopia banned combustion-engine imports
Ten NASA-funded monitors logged three years of black carbon in Ethiopia's capital. The peaks track rush hour and holidays, which is not what an annual average measures.
Reality
- Evidence60
- Adoption35
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives60
- Confidence58
NASA measured an 18-meter hole left by a spent upper stage on Aug. 5, and the hunt for it doubled as a live test of impact-prediction tools built for planetary defense.
Perspective Coverage
6 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 33%
- Operator
- Operator 58%
- Investor
- Investor 9%
Reality
- Evidence70
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives30
- Confidence72
A flaw in NASA's open-source AIT-GUI lets unauthenticated requests reach spacecraft command routes, and Cycode says a malicious web page can deliver them through an operator's browser.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 43%
- Operator
- Operator 50%
- Investor
- Investor 7%
Reality
- Evidence70
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives45
- Confidence65
Sentinel-6B's sea level data waits five months for NOAA's hurricane heat algorithm
The new altimeter has been sending low-latency measurements since July 15, but NOAA's operational ocean heat suite is only targeted to start using its ocean height data by the end of the year, so this El Nino is being forecast on the record that already existed.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption30
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives65
- Confidence60
PRIMA, a 1.8-metre far-infrared telescope managed by JPL, moves into preliminary design with a project cost ceiling of $1.2 billion that excludes launch, a 2033 launch target and a confirmation review still ahead.
Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives60
- Confidence75
Loft Orbital and Marlan Space put 40 more satellites behind a $1bn figure that four outlets describe four different ways. What a customer buys is a slot on a shared satellite running a model picked from an app store.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption15
- Hype gap+40
- Incentives75
- Confidence55
JPL's new tracking mix halves the estimated annual wander of Earth's center of mass
The last two international estimates of the annual motion disagreed by seven millimetres, nearly as much as the motion itself, so a JPL-led team rebuilt the measurement by adding GPS and low-orbit satellites to laser ranging.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives50
- Confidence55
Perseverance traces three separate water episodes through Jezero's igneous shoreline rock
Orbiters read the carbonate at Jezero's margin as lake chemistry; Perseverance found volcanic rock that water altered at least three times, in a sequence the team can order but cannot date.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives40
- Confidence62
GJ 3090 b runs backward around its M dwarf at 136 degrees to the star's equator
Planets inherit their direction of travel from the disk that formed them. A planet running backward around a small cool star is therefore a formation problem, and one team's answer is a second disk, tilted from the first.
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives38
- Confidence62
Six whales carrying temperature and salinity tags returned profiles from basins where research ships turn back, roughly matching everything previously archived for Scoresby Sound and giving melt models a measured input where they had estimates.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 44%
- Operator
- Operator 32%
- Investor
- Investor 24%
Reality
- Evidence74
- Adoption56
- Hype gap+14
- Incentives55
- Confidence71
A new dish at Goldstone buys NASA about nine percent more mid-size aperture
The fifth antenna of a project begun in 2009 entered service on Aug 3. It leaves 12 mid-size dishes serving more than 40 spacecraft, with part of that capacity already promised to backup duty.
Reality
- Evidence70
- Adoption78
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives72
- Confidence68
Roman's faint-end science is riding on a stray-light model built at Ames
Before the telescope's Aug. 30 launch, ground software named ROSALIA already helps decide which targets get scheduled and what the darkest pixels are allowed to mean.
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption30
- Hype gap+24
- Incentives72
- Confidence55
Europe's fifth heat wave of 2026 turns extreme heat into a summer operating condition
Buckled rail, record-low rivers and disrupted power and water are no longer tail risk. NASA's account of May to August 2026 reads like a description of normal service.
Reality
- Evidence76
- Adoption27
- Hype gap−12
- Incentives46
- Confidence61