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Heartbreak.

White Sands National Park has white sands, confirmed. ✔️

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of White Sands National Park in south-central New Mexico. The park is situated in the Tularosa Basin and spans roughly the southern half of a 275-square-mile (712-square-kilometer) dune field. The dunes appear white in the otherwise reddish-brown landscape.

The White Sands region has a rich history in the aerospace industry. NASA utilized three runways built on the northern part of the lakebed for rocket testing and shuttle pilot training. The White Sands Space Harbor was used for one space shuttle landing when STS-3 returned from its eight-day mission to space. NASA continues to operate its White Sands Test Facility located just outside the bottom left of the photo.

More recently, White Sands served a critical role in the commercial space industry as the landing location for Boeing CST-100 Starliner’s Orbit Flight Test-1 in December 2019 and Boeing CST-100 Starliner’s Orbit Flight Test-2 in May 2022. The space harbor is also designated as the landing location for Boeing’s first crewed mission (Boeing Starliner-1) scheduled to fly to the space station later in 2023.

In addition to NASA operations, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) operates nearby sites including the Holloman Air Force Base. https://go.nasa.gov/3MBEAXs

Giant news from a giant planet!

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured a new view of Jupiter, uncovering clues to the planet’s inner life in a new image processed by citizen scientist Judy Schmidt. Moons, rings and distant galaxies are also visible. Get the details: https://go.nasa.gov/3R0EglE