The Cassini orbiter has been working overtime during the holidays to deliver a cartload of gifts from Saturn and its moons. Highlights include fresh views of frost-spewing Enceladus and yam-shaped Prometheus, plus a “Nutcracker”-style ballet of Saturnian satellites. The excitement began last week with the animated images of moonsimage advisory, … Continue reading
NASA‘s recently launched Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer opened its eyes to the starry sky today, after ejecting its protective cover. Engineers and scientists say the maneuver went off without a hitch, and everything is working properly. The mission’s “first-light” images of the sky will be released to the public in … Continue reading
NASA has selected Science and Technology Corp. of Hampton, Va., to provide fabrication support services to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton. The value of the indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract is not to exceed $35 million. The period of performance is five years from the effective date, including a … Continue reading
It’s going to take infrared eyes to see farther back in time than even the Hubble Space Telescope, and that’s what the James Webb Space Telescope‘s MIRI or Mid-Infrared Instrument detectors will do. Now there’s a new short movie that shows what the MIRI detectors are all about and what … Continue reading
Stately Saturn Saturn, stately and resplendent in this natural color view, dwarfs its icy moon Rhea.Rhea (949 miles in diameter) orbits beyond the rings on the right of the image. The moon Tethys is not shown here, but its shadow is visible on the planet on the left of the … Continue reading
From top to bottom, pictured (not to scale) are the moon, Venus, and an asteroid. These three celestial bodies from our solar system are possible candidates for NASA’s next space venture. NASA has selected three proposals as candidates for the agency’s next space venture to another celestial body in our … Continue reading
At a very early age, children learn how to classify objects according to their shape. Now, new research suggests studying the shape of the aftermath of supernovas may allow astronomers to do the same. A new study of images from NASA‘s Chandra X-ray Observatory on supernova remnants — the debris … Continue reading
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft has captured the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn’s moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid on the part of the moon dotted with many large, lake-shaped basins. Cassini scientists had been looking for the glint, also known as a specular reflection, since … Continue reading
Ominous black smoke rose over California‘s high desert on a crisp, cold December morning in 1962, and there was no sign of a parachute. Della Mae Bowling, the pilot’s office secretary at NASA‘s Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, was crying as fire trucks raced across the vast … Continue reading
The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009. The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft with Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer of the U.S., Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia and Flight Engineer Soichi … Continue reading