3 min read Sols 4159-4160: A Fully Loaded First Sol This image was taken by Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4158 (2024-04-17 07:52:27 UTC). NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL Earth planning date: Wednesday, April 17, 2024 Curiosity continues to make progress along the margin of upper Gediz Vallis ridge, investigating the broken [...]
The ocean holds about 97 percent of Earth’s water and covers 70 percent of our planet’s surface. According to the United Nations, the ocean may be home to 50 to 80 percent of all life on Earth. Even if you live hundreds of miles from a coast, what happens in the ocean is fundamental to [...]
This animation is an artist’s concept of Loki Patera, a lava lake on Jupiter’s moon Io, made using data from the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. With multiple islands in its interior, Loki is a depression filled with magma and rimmed with molten lava. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Imagery from the solar-powered spacecraft provides close-ups [...]
The rapid pace of preparations for the first Moon landing continued in April 1969. The successful Apollo 9 mission in March cleared the way for Apollo 10 to test all three components of the spacecraft in lunar orbit in May, in a dress rehearsal for the landing itself. Apollo 10 astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, John [...]
1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Two Black Brant IX sounding rockets launched from Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, April 17, 2024, during an M-class solar flare for NASA’s sounding rocket solar flare campaign. The first rocket launched at 2:13 p.m. local Alaska time for the Focusing Optics [...]
6 Min Read Climate Change Research The Kibo laboratory module from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (comprised of a pressurized module and exposed facility, a logistics module, a remote manipulator system and an inter-orbit communication system unit) pictured as the International Space Station orbits over the southern Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand. Credits: [...]
5 min read Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids Like boulders, rocks, and pebbles scattered across a landscape, asteroids come in a wide range of sizes. Cataloging asteroids in space is tricky because they are faint and they don’t stop to be photographed as they zip along their orbits around the Sun. [...]
Open Science Data Repository Team Hosts Blue Origin’s Dr Erika Wagner at the Meet the Expert Seminar Series Focused on Flight Integrators Friday, March 29, 2024—The Open Science Data Repository hosted the sixth presentation showcasing flight integrators in the “Meet the Expert” series. This series is targeted for the Open Science Analysis Working Group [...]
2 min read NASA’s TESS Returns to Science Operations NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has returned to work after science observations were suspended on April 8, when the spacecraft entered into safe mode. All instruments are powered on and, following the successful download of previously collected science data stored in the mission’s recorder, [...]
Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone and other mission team members gave a framed copy of an iconic Voyager 1 solar system image that includes Earth as a “Pale Blue Dot” to President George H.W. Bush on June 7, 1990. The presentation was made at the White House in the Oval Office. White House [...]
