NASA News Today, December 4, 2025: Isaacman Hearing, Mars ‘Mini‑Lightning,’ Interstellar Comet, Tsunami from Space and a Cold Supermoon

As of Thursday, December 4, 2025, NASA is at the center of a busy news cycle that spans politics in Washington, discoveries on Mars, a new interstellar comet campaign, breakthroughs in tsunami science, fresh Earth imagery, and a sky show dominated by the year’s final supermoon. Here’s a detailed roundup of the key NASA‑related stories shaping the day.

1. NASA Leadership in the Spotlight: Isaacman’s Second Senate Hearing

Billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman is once again under the Capitol Hill microscope as President Donald Trump’s nominee for NASA administrator. Isaacman appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday, December 3, in a second confirmation hearing after his original nomination was withdrawn in May. ^[1]

Key points from the latest hearing:

Moon race urgency: Isaacman warned that if the United States falls behind China in returning astronauts to the Moon, it could “shift the balance of power here on Earth,” emphasizing the Artemis program as a strategic priority. ^[2]
Concerns over SpaceX ties: Senators, particularly Democrats, pressed him about his close relationship with Elon Musk and SpaceX, which holds roughly $15 billion in NASA contracts. Isaacman defended his independence, noting he flew with SpaceX because it was the only company capable of sending private crews to orbit, but he avoided specific questions about how much he personally spent on those missions. ^[3]
Budget and workforce pressure: If confirmed, Isaacman would inherit an agency of about 14,000 employees and a roughly $25 billion budget that the Trump administration has proposed cutting by about 25% for fiscal year 2026, following buyouts that have already reduced NASA’s headcount by roughly a fifth. ^[4]

Coverage from space‑industry outlets suggests that, despite lingering questions about conflicts of interest, Isaacman may now face a clearer path to confirmation than earlier in the year, with key senators signaling support while stressing the need to safeguard NASA’s independence and long‑term exploration goals. ^[5]

2. Perseverance Confirms Electric “Mini‑Lightning” Inside Martian Dust Devils

On the science front, one of the most striking new results comes from NASA’s Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater. A NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory article, published December 3, details how Perseverance has directly detected tiny electric discharges and associated shock waves inside Martian dust devils and dust storms. ^[6]

Using the rover’s SuperCam microphone and electromagnetic sensors, researchers recorded:

Crackling sounds corresponding to electrical sparks
Small pressure spikes akin to “mini‑sonic booms” as charged dust grains interacted inside passing vortices ^[7]

Scientists have long suspected that Mars dust devils could generate triboelectric charges—similar to rubbing a balloon on hair—but this is the first time such discharges have been captured in situ with audio and field measurements. ^[8]

Why it matters:

Atmospheric chemistry: Electrical discharges can create reactive molecules, potentially influencing the Martian atmosphere over time. ^[9]
Human and robotic safety: Understanding how often and how strong these sparks are will be critical for designing future surface systems and habitats, where static discharges could affect electronics or operations. ^[10]

External outlets from India to Europe are highlighting the story as a major step in understanding Martian weather and the risks of long‑duration human missions on the Red Planet. ^[11]

3. Psyche Mission Locks Onto Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

While Perseverance listens for sparks on Mars, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft—originally launched to study a metal‑rich asteroid—has added a new role: tracking the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

A new NASA blog post explains that Psyche used its multispectral imager to capture a series of observations of 3I/ATLAS over eight hours on September 8–9, when the comet was about 33 million miles (53 million km) from the spacecraft. The images, released this week, are being used to refine the comet’s trajectory. ^[12]

Highlights:

This is only the third known interstellar object to pass through our Solar System, after ‘Oumuamua and comet 2I/Borisov. ^[13]
Psyche’s observations give astronomers a better handle on the comet’s speed and path, improving models for how such objects move through interstellar space. ^[14]

A widely shared tech report frames Psyche’s role as part of a global planetary‑defense drill, in which space agencies practice how they would coordinate if a hazardous comet were discovered on a collision course with Earth—though to be clear, 3I/ATLAS itself is not a threat. TS2 Tech+1

4. Tsunami Seen from Space: SWOT Captures 2025 Kamchatka Wave in Unprecedented Detail

Another major story gaining traction today: NASA’s SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite has provided the first high‑resolution, wide‑swath view of a large tsunami from space, following the magnitude‑8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 29, 2025. ^[15]

New analyses, highlighted in outlets like SciTechDaily and The Times of India, show that SWOT:

Captured complex, braided wave patterns across a broad swath of the Pacific Ocean
Revealed that the tsunami behaved in a dispersive manner—breaking into a large leading wave followed by smaller trailing waves—challenging the common assumption that big tsunamis travel as simple, non‑dispersive waves ^[16]

Researchers argue that having this level of detail from space is like putting on “a new pair of glasses” for tsunami science, with the potential to improve hazard models and early‑warning systems for future events. ^[17]

5. Earth from Orbit: An Explosive Volcano and Pulsing Glaciers

Hayli Gubbi’s first recorded eruption

NASA’s Earth Observatory Image of the Day for December 4 focuses on Hayli Gubbi, a volcano in Ethiopia whose first documented eruption produced a striking plume of gas and ash that drifted across continents. ^[18]

Using data from instruments on Aqua (MODIS) and Landsat 9 (OLI‑2), scientists tracked the plume and mapped the surrounding volcanic terrain. The eruption provides a valuable case study for how remote‑sensing tools can detect and monitor volcanic hazards in remote regions. ^[19]

Seasonal “heartbeats” in glaciers

In a companion piece published December 3, the Earth Observatory describes how NASA scientists analyzed millions of optical and radar images from 2014–2022 to uncover seasonal speed‑ups and slow‑downs in glaciers worldwide. ^[20]

Key findings:

Glaciers from Alaska’s Malaspina to the Karakoram in Pakistan show distinct seasonal “pulses,” often accelerating in spring and easing in winter. ^[21]
The work, tied to NASA’s ITS_LIVE project, offers a global map of glacier motion that could help identify which ice masses are most vulnerable to a warming climate. ^[22]

Together, these Earth‑science stories underscore NASA’s dual role in monitoring sudden events (like eruptions) and slow‑burn changes (like glacier response to climate).

6. Planetary Defense: December Near‑Earth Asteroid Update

NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office has released its latest monthly snapshot of near‑Earth asteroids (NEAs) as of early December 2025. ^[23]

According to the update:

Astronomers have now cataloged over 39,000 NEAs of all sizes.
Roughly 870 are larger than 1 km, with an estimated few dozen still to be found.
More than 11,000 objects about 140 meters or larger are known, but models suggest that tens of thousands in this size range are still undiscovered. ^[24]

NASA’s “Next Five Approaches” page shows that one such object, designated 2025 VE6, is making a relatively close—but safe—pass today, flying by at a distance of about 1.5 million miles (well beyond the Moon’s orbit). ^[25]

These regular updates serve two purposes: they quantify how much of the hazardous‑asteroid population has been found, and they remind the public that NASA is actively tracking new discoveries and close approaches in near real‑time. ^[26]

7. International Space Station: 25 Years Afloat and a Full House in Orbit

As NASA debates its future leadership, its longest‑running crewed platform is celebrating major milestones:

On November 2, 2025, NASA marked 25 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station (ISS), tracing a legacy that stretches back to Expedition 1 in 2000 and includes more than 270 spacewalks, the first all‑female spacewalk in 2019, and record‑breaking missions like Frank Rubio’s 371‑day stay. ^[27]
A December 1 blog post notes that, for the first time in station history, all eight docking ports are simultaneously occupied, with eight spacecraft attached: two SpaceX Dragon vehicles, a Cygnus cargo ship, JAXA’s HTV‑X1, two Soyuz crew vehicles, and two Progress freighters. The station is currently hosting 10 crew members. ^[28]

The traffic jam in low Earth orbit reflects the ISS’s dual role as a research laboratory and a hub for multiple commercial and international vehicles, even as NASA prepares commercial space‑station concepts to eventually succeed it. ^[29]

8. Asteroid Bennu’s Chemistry: Sugars, “Gum” and Stardust

NASA’s OSIRIS‑REx mission continues to yield surprises from the samples it returned from the carbon‑rich asteroid Bennu. A new NASA article cites three papers in Nature Geoscience and Nature Astronomy that report: ^[30]

Detection of biologically important sugars, including ribose and, for the first time in an extraterrestrial sample, glucose.
A previously unseen, gum‑like sticky material that may represent a new class of organic matter in astromaterials.
An unexpectedly high abundance of dust produced by ancient supernovae, preserved within Bennu’s fine grains. ^[31]

Although these molecules are not evidence of life, NASA scientists emphasize that finding multiple building blocks of DNA, RNA, and other biomolecules in pristine asteroid material supports the idea that key ingredients for life were widespread in the early Solar System and could have been delivered to young planets via impacts. ^[32]

9. Testing Future Mars Explorers: Drones, Robot Dogs and Gliders

NASA also highlighted a series of Mars technology demos tested in some of Earth’s harshest landscapes:

In Death Valley National Park and the Mojave Desert, teams flew research drones over dune fields to test new autonomous navigation software designed for rotorcraft on Mars. ^[33]
At White Sands National Park, a robotic “dog” named LASSIE‑M was put through its paces, exploring rough terrain as a prototype for legged robots that could scout caves or steep slopes on Mars. ^[34]
Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center tested a half‑scale model of MERF (Mars Electric Reusable Flyer), a gliding robot intended to survey vast stretches of the Martian surface from the air. ^[35]

These projects are among 25 Mars‑focused technologies funded this year, illustrating how NASA is preparing a diverse toolbox—flying scouts, walkers, and gliders—to complement traditional rovers in future exploration campaigns. ^[36]

10. Roman Space Telescope, STEM Outreach and Public Participation in Artemis

Beyond near‑term missions, NASA continues to advance its next‑generation observatories and public‑engagement programs:

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission, has passed major vibration and acoustic tests for its outer structure and completed a 65‑day thermal‑vacuum campaign for its inner assembly, demonstrating it can survive the launch and space environment. Roman will study dark energy, exoplanets, and the distant universe with wide‑field imaging far beyond Hubble’s capabilities. ^[37]
NASA’s “Join Artemis” hub remains a central entry point for the public to get involved through internships, citizen‑science projects, STEM resources, and mission‑themed activities for students. ^[38]
International coverage today notes that NASA is again inviting people worldwide to send their names around the Moon on an upcoming Artemis mission, offering digital “boarding passes” that will be stored on spacecraft hardware—an outreach tactic the agency has successfully used for Mars missions as well. ^[39]

Together, these efforts aim to keep the next generation invested in lunar exploration and the long‑term goal of sending humans to Mars. ^[40]

11. Hubble vs. Satellite Constellations and Tonight’s Cold Supermoon

Two sky‑focused stories tie NASA to what people can see overhead tonight.

Hubble’s images increasingly marred by satellite streaks

A new NASA‑led study, covered by India Today and others, warns that satellite light contamination is becoming a growing problem for space observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. The fraction of Hubble images showing bright satellite trails has risen sharply in recent years, largely due to the proliferation of large communication satellite constellations in low Earth orbit. ^[41]

The findings raise concerns not just for Hubble, but also for future observatories such as Roman, which will rely on long, deep exposures that are particularly vulnerable to bright moving objects crossing the field of view. ^[42]

The year’s final “Cold Supermoon”

At the same time, the night sky is gearing up for a “Cold Supermoon”—the last full moon and third supermoon of 2025.

NASA’s supermoon guide lists December 4, 2025 (23:14 UTC) as the final supermoon of the year, when the full Moon coincides with a close approach to Earth. ^[43]
Media outlets note that the Moon will appear up to about 14% larger and 30% brighter than the faintest full Moon of the year, depending on location. ^[44]

NASA explains “supermoon” as a popular term for a full moon that occurs when the Moon is near perigee—its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit—making tonight an ideal opportunity for casual skywatchers to connect with the agency’s broader lunar and planetary science work. ^[45]

The Bottom Line

From Senate hearings that will shape NASA’s leadership, to new physics recorded on Mars, a once‑in‑a‑generation tsunami dataset, and fresh clues about life’s building blocks preserved in asteroid dust, December 4, 2025 finds NASA at the nexus of politics, cutting‑edge science, and public imagination.

Whether you’re watching the Cold Supermoon rise, following the fate of the Isaacman nomination, or marveling at Psyche’s interstellar comet snapshots, today’s headlines show an agency simultaneously grappling with Earth’s hazards, exploring distant worlds, and redefining humanity’s future in space.