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NASA’s
47 posts
Mining Old Data From NASA’s Voyager 2 Solves Several Uranus Mysteries
NASA’s Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus decades ago shaped scientists’ understanding of the planet but also introduced unexplained oddities. A recent data dive has offered answers. When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, it provided scientists’ first — and, so far, only — close glimpse of this strange, sideways-rotating outer planet. Alongside
What it takes to keep NASA’s flagship Chandra observatory flying for a quarter century
On July 23, 1999, NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory was released into space by five astronauts aboard space shuttle Columbia as it flew over the Indonesian island chain. (Image credit: NASA) For the past 25 years, NASA's flagship Chandra X-ray Observatory has recorded X-ray emissions from exploded stars, supermassive black holes, galaxy clusters and other exotic
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility to Launch Student Experiments
Update June 20, 2024: A Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket carrying student experiments for the RockOn mission successfully launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Thursday, June 20 at 5:30 a.m. EDT. The rocket reached an altitude of 114 km (70 miles). The payload was successfully recovered, and the experiments will be returned to the student teams
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye … for Now
The final downlink shift by the Ingenuity team was a time to reflect on a highly successful mission — and to prepare the first aircraft on another world for its new role. Engineers working on NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter assembled for one last time in a control room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
NASA’s Search for Life on Mars Faces Issues With Rovers and Budget
Is or was there life on Mars? That profound question is so complex that it will not be fully answered by the two NASA rovers now exploring it.But because of the literal groundwork the rovers are performing, scientists are finally investigating, in-depth and in unprecedented detail, the planet’s evidence for life, known as its “biosignatures.”
NASA’s tiny CAPSTONE probe celebrates 450 days in orbit around the moon
Artist's illlustration of NASA's CAPSTONE cubesat mission in orbit around the moon. (Image credit: Illustration by NASA/Daniel Rutter) NASA's experimental CAPSTONE cubesat mission has been circling the moon for more than 450 days, testing a unique orbit that will be used for NASA's future moon-orbiting space station. According to the cubesat's maker, the mission is
On February 3, 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft made a second close flyby of Io, the fifth of Jupiter’s moons and the third largest. Like the previous flyby on December 30, 2023, this second pass was at a distance of about 1,500 km (930 miles). During the twin flybys, the spacecraft’s JunoCam instrument returned spectacular, high-resolution
NASA’s PACE Mission Faces Another Launch Delay Due to Weather Challenges
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft stands vertical at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Monday, February 5, 2024. PACE is NASA’s newest earth-observing satellite that will help increase our understanding of Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, and climate by delivering hyperspectral
NASA’s Perseverance rover may already have found signs of life on Mars, discovery of ancient lake sediments reveals
An artist's depiction of NASA's Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, storing samples of Martian rocks in tubes for future delivery to Earth. Perseverance will land inside Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) NASA's Perseverance rover has found that Mars' Jezero crater was at one point filled with water, offering a tantalizing hope
NASA’s Hubble Finds Water Vapor in Small Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observed the smallest exoplanet where water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere. At only approximately twice Earth's diameter, the planet GJ 9827d could be an example of potential planets with water-rich atmospheres elsewhere in our galaxy.However, it remains too early to tell whether Hubble spectroscopically measured a small