NASA’s embrace of Twitter, Facebook and other social media applications helped the U.S. space agency place first in the Digital IQ Index for the Public Sector, a new annual survey released Nov. 23 by the George Washington University School of Business and digital think tank L2.

NASA was assigned a Digital IQ score of 184 and praised by the study’s authors as being “in its own stratosphere” when it comes to using social media and the Internet to engage the public.

The White House, which was praised for its embrace of YouTube and using open-source contests to solicit ideas for balancing the budget, ranked second in the survey with a Digital IQ score of 158.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals came in third with a score of 149, and the U.S. Army, recognized for a highly rated iPhone application, came in fourth with a score of 145.