PASADENA, CA – From a distance, most of the Saturnian moon Dione resembles a bland cueball. Thanks to close-up images of a 500-mile-long (800-kilometer-long) mountain on the moon from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists have found more evidence for the idea that Dione was likely active in the past. It could still be active now. “A […]
Space Exploration
NASA’s WISE Mission Finds Lost Asteroid Family Members
WASHINGTON, DC – Data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to a new and improved family tree for asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers used millions of infrared snapshots from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE all-sky survey, called NEOWISE, to identify 28 new asteroid families. The snapshots […]
Do You Want To Send Your Name To Mars? Here’s Your Chance!
NASA is inviting members of the public to submit their names and a personal message online for a DVD to be carried aboard a spacecraft that will study the Martian upper atmosphere. Scheduled for launch in November, the DVD will be in NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft. The DVD is part of […]
NASA Wins Prestigious Aerospace Industry Awards
Two prominent aerospace industry organizations are recognizing the contributions of NASA, especially the achievements of the team that landed NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars in August, with coveted awards. The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) will present its Robert J. Collier Trophy to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Team of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in […]
Curiosity’s Second Drill Target Identified By NASA’s Rover Team
The team operating NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on Mars has selected a second target rock for drilling and sampling. The rover will set course to the drilling location in coming days. This second drilling target, called “Cumberland,” lies about nine feet (2.75 meters) west of the rock where Curiosity’s drill first touched Martian stone in […]
NASA’s NuSTAR Helps Solve Riddle of Black Hole Spin
Two X-ray space observatories, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton, have teamed up to measure definitively, for the first time, the spin rate of a black hole with a mass 2 million times that of our sun. The supermassive black hole lies at the dust- and gas-filled heart of […]
Comet PANSTARRS To Be Visible From The Northern Hemisphere
Comets visible to the naked eye are a rare delicacy in the celestial smorgasbord of objects in the nighttime sky. Scientists estimate that the opportunity to see one of these icy dirtballs advertising their cosmic presence so brilliantly they can be seen without the aid of a telescope or binoculars happens only once every five […]
Scientists Create 3-D Image Of Buried Mars Channels With NASA’s MRO
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has provided images allowing scientists for the first time to create a 3-D reconstruction of ancient water channels below the Martian surface. The spacecraft took numerous images during the past few years that showed channels attributed to catastrophic flooding in the last 500 million years. Mars during this period had […]
Cassini Spies Bright Venus From Saturn Orbit
PASADENA, CA – A distant world gleaming in sunlight, Earth’s twin planet, Venus, shines like a bright beacon in images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. One special image of Venus and Saturn was taken last November when Cassini was placed in the shadow of Saturn. This allowed Cassini to look in […]
“Inspiration Mars” To Pursue Human Mission To The Red Planet In 2018
New nonprofit foundation to move U.S. farther and faster toward its destiny as world leader in technical innovation, science, exploration and discovery. A unique window of opportunity for humankind will open in January 2018, and the Inspiration Mars Foundation intends to seize it, announcing plans today to pursue a challenging manned mission to Mars and […]