Category: Space-Earth
NuSTAR spacecraft arrives in California
NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, mission arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Jan. 27 after a cross-country trip by truck from the Orbital Sciences Corporation’s manufacturing plant in Dulles, Va. The mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 14.
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NuSTAR spacecraft arrives in California
NASA’s Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 planets
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.
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NASA’s Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 planets
Cosmology in a Petri dish
Scientists have found that micron-size particles which are trapped at fluid interfaces exhibit a collective dynamic that is subject to seemingly unrelated governing laws. These laws show a smooth transitioning from long-ranged cosmological-style gravitational attraction down to short-range attractive and repulsive forces.
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Cosmology in a Petri dish
Photo from NASA Mars orbiter shows wind’s handiwork
Some images of stark Martian landscapes provide visual appeal beyond their science value, including a recent scene of wind-sculpted features from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Photo from NASA Mars orbiter shows wind’s handiwork
Giant asteroid Vesta 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 of years, according to the first published models of Vesta’s average global temperatures and illumination by the sun.
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Giant asteroid Vesta likely cold and dark enough for ice
NASA’s NuSTAR ships to Vandenberg for March 14 launch
NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Jan. 24, 2012, to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
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NASA’s NuSTAR ships to Vandenberg for March 14 launch
World’s most powerful X-ray laser creates 2-million-degree matter
Researchers working at the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used the world’s most powerful X-ray laser to create and probe a 2-million-degree piece of matter in a controlled way for the first time. This feat takes scientists a significant step forward in understanding the most extreme matter found in the hearts of stars and giant planets, and could help experiments aimed at recreating the nuclear fusion process that powers the sun.
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World’s most powerful X-ray laser creates 2-million-degree matter
Classifying solar eruptions
Solar flares are giant explosions on the sun that send energy, light and high speed particles into space. These flares are often associated with solar magnetic storms known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). While these are the most common solar events, the sun can also emit streams of very fast protons — known as solar energetic particle (SEP) events — and disturbances in the solar wind known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs). All of these can produce a variety of “storms” on Earth that can — if strong enough — interfere with short wave radio communications, GPS signals, and Earth’s power grid, among other things.
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Classifying solar eruptions
Durable NASA rover beginning ninth year of Mars work
Eight years after landing on Mars for what was planned as a three-month mission, NASA’s enduring Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is working on what essentially became a new mission five months ago.
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Durable NASA rover beginning ninth year of Mars work
Cassini sees the two faces of Titan’s dunes
A new analysis of radar data from NASA’s Cassini mission, in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, has revealed regional variations among sand dunes on Saturn’s moon Titan. The result gives new clues about the moon’s climatic and geological history.
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Cassini sees the two faces of Titan’s dunes