The Ring Nebula’s distinctive shape makes it a popular illustration for astronomy books. But new observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of the glowing gas shroud around an old, dying, sun-like star reveal a new [...]
Tag Archives | nasa
NASA Builds Unusual Testbed for Analyzing X-ray Navigation Technologies
Pulsars have a number of unusual qualities. Like zombies, they shine even though they’re technically dead, and they rotate rapidly, emitting powerful and regular beams of radiation that are seen as flashes of light, blinking [...]
Volcano’s Heat Lights Up Satellite Sensors
Like a maw into the pits of hell, the Paluwej volcano in Indonesia has caught even NASA’s attention. As the Landsat Data Continuity Mission satellite flew over Indonesia’s Flores Sea April 29, it captured an [...]
The Day NASA’s Fermi Dodged a 1.5-ton Bullet
NASA scientists don’t often learn that their spacecraft is at risk of crashing into another satellite. But when Julie McEnery, the project scientist for NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, checked her email on March 29, [...]
Kepler finds three new Earth-like planets
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the “habitable zone,” the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be [...]
Human Asteroid Initiative Builds on NASA History
NASA’s FY2014 budget proposal includes a plan to robotically capture a small near-Earth asteroid and redirect it safely to a stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it. Performing these [...]
Suzaku ‘Post-mortem’ Yields Insight into Kepler’s Supernova
An exploding star observed in 1604 by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler held a greater fraction of heavy elements than the sun, according to an analysis of X-ray observations from the Japan-led Suzaku satellite. The [...]
Hubble sees supernova a record distance away
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found the farthest supernova so far of the type used to measure cosmic distances. Supernova UDS10Wil, nicknamed SN Wilson after American President Woodrow Wilson, exploded more than 10 billion years [...]
Scientists to Io: Your Volcanoes Are in the Wrong Place
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains up to 250 miles high. However, concentrations of volcanic activity are significantly displaced from [...]
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Team Publishes First Findings
Until the launch of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment in 2011, scientists had compiled a mere anthill of information about the kinds of charged particles, or cosmic rays, that shoot around the universe. Two [...]
NASA to U.S. Universities: Let’s Grow Some Tech
NASA is seeking innovative, early-stage space technology proposals from accredited U.S. universities that will enable NASA’s future missions and America’s leadership in space. Proposals are sought for science instruments, cryogenic propellant storage for long-duration space [...]
NASA Flies Dragon Eye Unmanned Aircraft Into Volcanic Plume
NASA Earth science researchers last month traveled to Turrialba Volcano, near San Jose, Costa Rica, to fly a Dragon Eye unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — a small electric aircraft equipped with cameras and sensors — [...]
Hubble takes a gander at secret depths of Messier 77
Messier 77 is a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. Also known as NGC 1068, it is one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies. It is a [...]
NASA membrane can split water from waste
A newly developed membrane used to separate waste from water could become key in the treatment of pollutants ranging from acid mine drainage to oil-containing wastewater, as well as in processes ranging from desalination to [...]
NASA’s SDO and STEREO Spot Something New On the Sun
One day in the fall of 2011, Neil Sheeley, a solar scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., did what he always does – look through the daily images of the sun from [...]
UFOs Help Monster Black Holes Shape Their Galaxies
A curious correlation between the mass of a galaxy’s central black hole and the velocity of stars in a vast, roughly spherical structure known as its bulge has puzzled astronomers for years. An international team [...]
Just where is ‘here’? NASA knows
Before our Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation devices can tell us where we are, the satellites that make up the GPS need to know exactly where they are. For that, they rely on a network [...]
Surface of Mars an unlikely place for life after 600 million year drought
Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet’s surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task [...]
Fighting fires in outer space
Improving fire-fighting techniques in space and getting a better understanding of fuel combustion here on Earth are the focus of a series of experiments on the International Space Station, led by a professor at the Jacobs [...]
Asteroid Likely Cold and Dark Enough for Ice
Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions [...]
Catching a comet death on camera
On July 6, 2011, a comet was caught doing something never seen before: die a scorching death as it flew too close to the sun. That the comet met its fate this way was no [...]
LAMP sees water frost on dark side of the Moon
New maps produced by the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal features at the Moon’s northern and southern poles in regions that lie in perpetual darkness. LAMP, developed by Southwest Research [...]
Hubble Breaks New Ground with Discovery of Distant Exploding Star
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago. The sighting is the first finding of an [...]
NASA 2011 Year in Review
In 2011, NASA began developing a heavy-lift rocket for the human exploration of deep space, helped foster a new era of commercial spaceflight and technology breakthroughs, fully utilized a newly complete space station, and made [...]
Scientists find microbes in lava tube living in conditions like those on Mars
A team of scientists from Oregon has collected microbes from ice within a lava tube in the Cascade Mountains and found that they thrive in cold, Mars-like conditions.
The microbes tolerate temperatures near freezing and low levels…
NASA’s Fermi shows that Tycho’s star shines in gamma rays
In early November 1572, observers on Earth witnessed the appearance of a “new star” in the constellation Cassiopeia, an event now recognized as the brightest naked-eye supernova in more than 400 years. It’s often called “Tycho’s supernova” after the gr…
Using many instruments to track a comet
In 16 years of data observations, the Solar Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO) — a joint European Space Agency and NASA mission — – made an unexpected claim for fame: the sighting of new comets at an alarming rate. SOHO has spotted over 2100 comets, mo…
NASA Developing Comet Harpoon for Sample Return
The best way to grab a sample of a rotating comet that is racing through the inner solar system at up to 150,000 miles per hour while spewing chunks of ice, rock and dust may [...]
Measuring radiation exposure for a journey to Mars
The Radiation Assessment Detector, the first instrument on NASA’s next rover mission to Mars to begin science operations, was powered up and began collecting data Dec. 6, almost two weeks ahead of schedule. RAD is the only instrument scheduled to colle…
NASA’s Voyager spacecraft that toured outer planets nearing solar system edge
In 1977, Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president, Elvis died, Virginia park ranger Roy Sullivan was hit by lightning a record seventh time, and two NASA space probes destined to turn planetary science on its head launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The …