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Low Water at San Carlos Reservoir

✇NASA Breaking News




June 7, 2023
May 22, 2026

The reservoir appears lake-like and expansive in an image acquired in June 2023.
The reservoir appears lake-like and expansive in an image acquired in June 2023.
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

The reservoir is nearly empty by May 2026. The Gila River's natural channel is now visible and flanked with green vegetation in what had been the bottom of the reservoir.
The reservoir is nearly empty by May 2026. The Gila River’s natural channel is now visible and flanked with green vegetation in what had been the bottom of the reservoir.
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

The reservoir appears lake-like and expansive in an image acquired in June 2023.
The reservoir appears lake-like and expansive in an image acquired in June 2023.
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison
The reservoir is nearly empty by May 2026. The Gila River's natural channel is now visible and flanked with green vegetation in what had been the bottom of the reservoir.
The reservoir is nearly empty by May 2026. The Gila River’s natural channel is now visible and flanked with green vegetation in what had been the bottom of the reservoir.
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

June 7, 2023

May 22, 2026


Little water remains in the San Carlos Reservoir in May 2026 (right) compared to fuller conditions in June 2023 (left). Images were captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 9 and 8 satellites, respectively. NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison.

The Gila River is among the Southwest’s most important rivers, delivering water for people, farms, and wildlife while linking the snow-fed mountains of southwestern New Mexico to the desert lowlands of southwestern Arizona.

In wetter years, seasonal snowfall on the Mogollon Mountains and Black Range provides much of the river’s spring flow and helps refill San Carlos Reservoir, which is formed by the Coolidge Dam. When filled to capacity, the reservoir is one of Arizona’s largest bodies of water.

However, in 2026, lackluster snowfall left the mountain snowpack in the Gila River watershed at 2 percent of the 1991-2020 March median. The limited snowpack pushed April streamflow to 39 percent of normal. By June, after mandatory water releases for downstream agriculture, the reservoir held less than 400 acre-feet of water.

The Landsat image above (right) shows the near-empty reservoir on May 22, 2026, when it stored 389 acre-feet of water—less than 1 percent full; the other image (left) shows the same area in June 2023, when it was about 60 percent full. The green vegetation growing along the river channel and reservoir edge includes a mixture of tamarisk, willow, cottonwood, sedges, and grasses.

Officials closed the reservoir indefinitely on June 5, 2026, after the declining water levels contributed to low oxygen levels—hypoxia—that killed virtually all of its fish. Species living in the reservoir included largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill, channel catfish, flathead catfish, and several stocked species, including brown trout and rainbow trout. The decomposing fish may pose health risks to people attempting to boat or fish, the San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Department warned.

The reservoir has hit similarly low water levels in the past, running out of water at least 20 times since it was filled in 1930, according to news reports. Even when the dam and reservoir were first dedicated, there was enough grass growing on the dried reservoir bottom that humorist Will Rogers famously quipped to President Calvin Coolidge: “If that was my lake, I’d mow it.”

Other years with major fish kills include 1976 and 2018. After more than 5 million fish died during a similar event in 1976, the Gila Herald reported that it took five years for the lake’s ecosystem to rebound.

The region is currently in the midst of a multi-year dry period that has left much of the Gila River’s headwaters in New Mexico in a state of severe drought, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

However, the river’s flow is highly variable, and heavy rains during the coming wet season could help the reservoir recover. A seasonal monsoon outlook released by NOAA in May 2026 projected a 33 to 50 percent chance that an above-average amount of rain would fall in the region that summer. El Niño in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, which was strengthening in late spring 2026, can make heavy rains in the U.S. Southwest more likely.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

Downloads

The reservoir appears lake-like and expansive in an image acquired in June 2023.

June 7, 2023

JPEG (16.60 MB)

The reservoir is nearly empty by May 2026. The Gila River's natural channel is now visible and flanked with green vegetation in what had been the bottom of the reservoir.

May 22, 2026

JPEG (16.85 MB)

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NASA’s Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

✇NASA Breaking News
 
4 Min Read

NASA’s Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

Illustration of a planet and a star, labeled artist’s concept at the bottom left. The planet fills more than a quarter of the image to the upper right, with the bright star to its lower left. The planet is white hot on the star side, fading to yellow that mixes with swirls of bright red across its middle, and eventually fading to black on the side most distant from the star. Distant stars dot the background of space, which is black near the edges of the frame.
This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.
Credits:
Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

4 min read

NASA’s Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

One well-done gas giant, coming right up! That’s the latest from researchers analyzing NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of HD 80606 b, an exoplanet four times the mass of Jupiter with an extremely elliptical orbit that sweeps close by its Sun-like star. The research team is presenting their study and preliminary findings Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.

“Hot Jupiters are already considered some of the most extreme exoplanets we know of, but even among that population, HD 80606 b is one of the most extreme,” said Tiffany Kataria, the study’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We typically think of hot Jupiters as hot gas giants sitting right next to their stars, but this planet’s highly eccentric orbit creates a completely different beast.”

As the planet plunges close to its star, Webb shows its temperature skyrockets by 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Previous studies have shown that radical temperature swings can cause an exoplanet’s chemistry and clouds to change in real time. According to the research team, the dynamic conditions of HD 80606 b make the planet an ideal target to observe these changes with Webb’s powerful instruments.

Image: Artist’s concept exoplanet HD 80606 b

Illustration of a planet and a star, labeled artistu2019s concept at the bottom left. The planet fills more than a quarter of the image to the upper right, with the bright star to its lower left. The planet is white hot on the star side, fading to yellow that mixes with swirls of bright red across its middle, and eventually fading to black on the side most distant from the star. Distant stars dot the background of space, which is black near the edges of the frame.
This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.
Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

“Observing a planet like HD 80606 b is actually very efficient because its unusual orbit, with the corresponding swings in temperature and chemical composition, allow us to gather data under varying conditions in just hours and apply those findings to other hot Jupiters or more conventional exoplanets,” said Laura C. Mayorga, co-investigator on the study and an exoplanet astronomer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Measurements of temperature and chemical composition were done with spectroscopy, a technique scientists use to break light into its component colors to reveal information about the composition, temperature, motion, and physical properties of objects in space. The team used Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) for an extended observation of HD 80606 b before, during, and after its periastron, or closest pass by its star. During periastron, the planet also passed behind the star from Webb’s perspective in what’s known as a secondary eclipse. The observation was years in the planning, as scheduling the time to catch the planet at this point was complex given its extremely elliptical 111-day orbit, and Webb’s own restrictions on where it can look during specific times of the year, based on Earth’s position in orbit around the Sun.

Researchers say they have only begun to peel back the layers of an incredibly rich dataset, but they can clearly see a dramatic shift in the exoplanet’s temperature. “Webb has shown that the planet’s increase in temperature was even more extreme than we anticipated based on Spitzer data,” said Kataria.

In fact, the planet had already been dubbed the “roasted exoplanet” and even got its own poster in NASA’s popular series. NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope laid the groundwork of infrared observations of HD 80606 b, showing that more detailed spectroscopic data from Webb would be especially compelling.

“Spitzer did amazing work on this exoplanet, and now Webb is building on that legacy by enabling us to drill down to distinguish specific chemical signatures like methane and carbon dioxide, which is just amazing progress,” said Ryan Challener, co-author and research associate at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science. “There’s so much to learn from this one dataset here — we really are just getting started deciphering what Webb has to tell us.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

For more information on Webb, visit:

science.nasa.gov/webb

Downloads & Related Information

The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.

Related Images & Videos

Illustration of a planet and a star, labeled artistu2019s concept at the bottom left. The planet fills more than a quarter of the image to the upper right, with the bright star to its lower left. The planet is white hot on the star side, fading to yellow that mixes with swirls of bright red across its middle, and eventually fading to black on the side most distant from the star. Distant stars dot the background of space, which is black near the edges of the frame.

HD 80606 b (Artist’s Concept)

This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.

Related Links

Este Artículo en Español – “Telescopio Webb de la NASA Detecta un Exoplaneto Asandose”

Read:  Webb’s Impact on Exoplanet Research

Watch:  How to Study Exoplanets: Webb and Challenges

Explore:  Eyes on Exoplanets

Print: The Roasted Exoplanet Poster

More Webb: News | Images | Science | Home Page


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Last Updated
Jun 16, 2026
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Leah Ramsay
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Hannah Braun
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

✇On the Station - Latest News
2 Min Read

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

A woman in a black T-shirt with a headlamp affixed to her head and her hair floating up above her wears latex gloves to handle cabling that she’s working on. Wires, a laptop computer, and other equipment surround her.
PIA26725
Credits:
NASA

Downloads

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

JPEG (4.91 MB)

Description

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir inspects optical fibers while installing hardware updates to the agency’s Cold Atom Lab, or CAL, aboard the International Space Station on May 8, 2026.

About the size of a minifridge and operated from Earth, CAL chills atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), so close to absolute zero that they form a large quantum object called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) — a fifth state of matter distinct from solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. In a BEC, scientists can observe the quantum properties of atoms at a scale visible to the naked eye. For instance, atoms and particles sometimes behave like solid objects and sometimes behave like waves, a quantum property called “wave-particle duality.”

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, built, and operates Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The BPS division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations that are not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefiting life on Earth. 

To learn more about Cold Atom Lab, visit:

https://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/

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Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

✇Space Station News
2 Min Read

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

A woman in a black T-shirt with a headlamp affixed to her head and her hair floating up above her wears latex gloves to handle cabling that she’s working on. Wires, a laptop computer, and other equipment surround her.
PIA26725
Credits:
NASA

Downloads

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

JPEG (4.91 MB)

Description

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir inspects optical fibers while installing hardware updates to the agency’s Cold Atom Lab, or CAL, aboard the International Space Station on May 8, 2026.

About the size of a minifridge and operated from Earth, CAL chills atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), so close to absolute zero that they form a large quantum object called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) — a fifth state of matter distinct from solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. In a BEC, scientists can observe the quantum properties of atoms at a scale visible to the naked eye. For instance, atoms and particles sometimes behave like solid objects and sometimes behave like waves, a quantum property called “wave-particle duality.”

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, built, and operates Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The BPS division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations that are not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefiting life on Earth. 

To learn more about Cold Atom Lab, visit:

https://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/

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↗️

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

✇NASA Breaking News
2 Min Read

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

A woman in a black T-shirt with a headlamp affixed to her head and her hair floating up above her wears latex gloves to handle cabling that she’s working on. Wires, a laptop computer, and other equipment surround her.
PIA26725
Credits:
NASA

Downloads

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

JPEG (4.91 MB)

Description

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir inspects optical fibers while installing hardware updates to the agency’s Cold Atom Lab, or CAL, aboard the International Space Station on May 8, 2026.

About the size of a minifridge and operated from Earth, CAL chills atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), so close to absolute zero that they form a large quantum object called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) — a fifth state of matter distinct from solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. In a BEC, scientists can observe the quantum properties of atoms at a scale visible to the naked eye. For instance, atoms and particles sometimes behave like solid objects and sometimes behave like waves, a quantum property called “wave-particle duality.”

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, built, and operates Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The BPS division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations that are not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefiting life on Earth. 

To learn more about Cold Atom Lab, visit:

https://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/

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