Discover how we're driving the Nation's scientific progress through world-class research across Earth and Space sciences at Goddard’s Sciences and Exploration Directorate.
Earth Sciences
The Earth Sciences Division is the nation's technical innovator and essential data provider to support national infrastructure, scientific leadership, and economic resilience.
Go to Division
Astrophysics
The Astrophysics Science Division leads America's quest to answer our most profound scientific questions, developing technologies with transformative applications in medicine, national security, and intelligence.
Go to Division
Heliophysics
The Heliophysics Science Division advances understanding of the Sun and its interactions with Earth and the solar system, providing the foundational science that drives space weather research and solutions in collaboration with government, industry, and academia.
Go to Division
Planetary Sciences
The Solar System Exploration Division powers space missions and leads human space exploration to the Moon and Mars through revolutionary research that charts the frontiers of our solar system and deepens our understanding of planetary system formation and evolution.
Go to Division
Hello World
From pole to pole our fair planet is captured in this snapshot from space, an evocative image from a window of the Orion spacecraft Integrity. From the spacecraft's perspective the Sun is moving behind Earth's bright limb along the lower right. Africa and the Iberian peninsula are in view on the pale blue planet's surface, while aurorae crown Earth's south and north poles at top right and bottom left. Commander Reid Wiseman took the historic picture on Artemis II mission flight day 2 (April 2), after the completion of the planned translunar injection burn. That burn boosted the spacecraft out of Earth orbit, sending Integrity and crew on a trajectory that will take them around the Moon and back again. That's a journey humans last made over 50 years ago.