Tag Archive for 'NASA'

This illustration reveals how the gravitation of the white dwarf Stein 2051B warps space and bends the light of a distant star behind it. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured images of Stein 2051B as it passed in front of the background star. During the close alignment, Stein 2051B deflected the starlight, which appeared offset by about 2 milli-arcseconds from its actual position. From this measurement, astronomers calculated that the white dwarf’s mass is roughly 68% of the Sun’s mass. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Field, STScI.

Hubble Measures Deflection of Star’s Light by Foreground White Dwarf

Jun 7, 2017 by News Staff

The first observation of displacement of a star due to bending of its light by another celestial body other than our Sun is revealed in new research. This...

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Could Pluto’s Orbital Wobbles Create Its Mysterious Glacial Crazy-Paving?

Jun 6, 2017 by James Romero

Strange fields of polygons seen during New Horizons’ visit to Pluto could be explained by million year variations in the dwarf planet’s orbit caused...

$This enhanced-color view of Enceladus is largely of the southern hemisphere and includes the south polar terrain at the bottom of the image. Ancient craters remain somewhat pristine in some locales, but have clearly relaxed in others. Northward-trending fractures, likely caused by a change in the moon’s rate of rotation and the consequent flattening of the moon’s shape, rip across the southern hemisphere. The south polar terrain is marked by a striking set of ‘blue’ fractures and encircled by a conspicuous and continuous chain of folds and ridges, testament to the forces within Enceladus that have yet to be silenced. The mosaic was created from 21 false-color frames taken during Cassini’s close approaches to Enceladus on March 9 and July 14, 2005. Images taken using filters sensitive to UV, visible and IR light (spanning wavelengths from 338 to 930 nm) were combined to create the individual frames. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.$

Enceladus May Have Tipped Over in Distant Past

Jun 5, 2017 by News Staff

While combing through data gathered by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during flybys of Enceladus, the sixth-largest of Saturn’s moons, researchers have...

This series of dots with varying distances between them shows the slow dance of two members of the brown-dwarf binary system Luhman 16AB. The image is a stack of 12 images made over the course of three years with Hubble. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Bedin et al.

Hubble Observes Graceful Dance of Luhman 16AB Brown Dwarfs

Jun 5, 2017 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to track the two components of Luhman 16AB, the third closest system to the Solar System. This...

Artist’s impression of a T-dwarf. Image credit: R. Hurt / NASA.

First Discovery for ‘Backyard Worlds: Planet 9’ Project: Cold Brown Dwarf

Jun 3, 2017 by Sergio Prostak

Professional and citizen astronomers with the NASA-funded ‘Backyard Worlds: Planet 9’ project have made their first significant discovery: a new brown...

A view of the Moon’s south pole showing where reflectance and temperature data indicate the possible presence of surface water ice. Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Finds New Evidence of Surface Water Ice on Moon

Jun 2, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers analyzing data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have found evidence of surface frost near the Moon’s south pole. A view of...

$Pale zones called ‘halos’ border bedrock fractures visible in this 2015 image (colorized) from the Curiosity rover. Measurements overlaid on the image offer a sense of scale for the size of these fractures. The rover team determined that the halos are rich in silica, a clue to the duration of wet environmental conditions long ago. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.$

High-Silica ‘Halos’ Found in Gale Crater Shed Light on Wet Ancient Mars

May 31, 2017 by News Staff

Fracture-associated ‘halos’ of lighter-toned bedrock have been found on the lower north slope of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp) in Gale crater, Mars, indicating...

The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This picture, captured on Feb. 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the planet. Some of the clouds moved south and got caught up in a current that flows to the east (to the right) relative to the storm head. This tail, which appears as slightly blue clouds south and west (left) of the storm head, can be seen encountering the storm head in this view. This storm is the largest, most intense storm observed on Saturn by NASA’s Voyager or Cassini spacecraft. It is still active today. As scientists have tracked this storm over several months, they have found it covers 500 times the area of the largest of the southern hemisphere storms observed earlier in the Cassini mission. The shadow cast by Saturn’s rings has a strong seasonal effect, and it is possible that the switch to powerful storms now being located in the northern hemisphere is related to the change of seasons after the planet’s August 2009 equinox. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

NASA’s Cassini Orbiter Watches as Saturn’s Solstice Arrives

May 30, 2017 by News Staff

Saturn’s solstice — the longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day of winter in the southern hemisphere — arrived...

The Sun-like star HD 107146 sits at the centre of this Hubble/STIS image. The position of the star is marked with a green circle. The Vermin Galaxy is visible as the smudge to the lower right. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Space Telescope Views Vermin Galaxy

May 29, 2017 by News Staff

A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a distant galaxy as it begins to align with and pass behind a Sun-like star sitting nearer to...

This pair of visible-light and near-infrared Hubble photos shows N6946-BH1 before and after it vanished out of sight by imploding to form a black hole. The left image shows the star as it looked in 2007. In 2009, the star shot up in brightness to become over 1 million times more luminous than our Sun for several months. But then it seemed to vanish, as seen in the right panel image from 2015. A small amount of IR light has been detected from where the star used to be. This radiation probably comes from debris falling onto a black hole. Image credit: NASA / ESA / C. Kochanek, Ohio State University.

Red Supergiant Fails to Explode as Supernova, Collapses into Black Hole

May 26, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have watched as N6946-BH1, a red supergiant with a mass of 25 solar masses in the spiral galaxy NGC 6946, was likely reborn as a black hole. This...

Artist’s impression of the Jovian aurora. Image credit: JAXA.

NASA’s Juno Mission Delivers Preliminary Science Results

May 26, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno mission is rewriting what planetary researchers thought they knew about Jupiter, the largest and most massive planet in our Solar System:...

TRAPPIST-1h is shown as covered in ice, similar to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Image credit: NASA.

Kepler’s K2 Mission Spies Details of Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1h

May 23, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have used data gathered by K2, the second mission of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, to confirm details of TRAPPIST-1h, the outermost of seven...

Very intense radiation from EZ Canis Majoris pushes Sh2-308 out further and further, blowing it bigger and bigger. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Spots Bubble-Like Cloud of Gas around EZ Canis Majoris

May 22, 2017 by News Staff

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows part of a bubble nebula, called Sh2-308, surrounding the massive star EZ Canis Majoris. Very...

This Hubble image shows a moon orbiting the dwarf planet 2007 OR10. Image credit: NASA / ESA / C. Kiss, Konkoly Observatory / J. Stansberry, STScI.

Astronomers Discover Moon Orbiting Dwarf Planet 2007 OR10

May 22, 2017 by News Staff

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Kepler and Herschel space observatories, astronomers have discovered a new moon in our Solar System,...

Juno captured this image 6,247 miles (10,053) km from Jupiter’s cloud tops during its close flyby on May 19, 2017. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Completes Sixth Jupiter Flyby

May 20, 2017 by Natali Anderson

NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully made its sixth close flyby of Jupiter on Friday, May 19, 2017, at 2 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. UTC; 11 p.m. PDT on May 18). Juno...

Humans have long been shaping Earth’s landscape, but now scientists know we can shape the near-Earth environment as well. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Genna Duberstein.

New Study Blames Humans for Disruptive Space Weather Events

May 17, 2017 by News Staff

Humans have long been shaping Earth’s landscape, but now scientists know we can shape the near-Earth environment as well. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard...

With a diameter of 57 miles (92 km), Occator crater is larger than Tycho crater on the Moon. Its steep walls stand tall at over 1.4 miles (2 km), higher than the North face of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps. The origin and nature of the bright spots in its interior is still not clear. Image credit: DLR.

New NASA Video Shows Dwarf Planet Ceres at Opposition from Sun

May 17, 2017 by News Staff

This video is made of images taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, from a position exactly between the Sun and the surface of Ceres. Dawn successfully observed...

This composite image of the Crab Nebula was assembled by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum: the VLA (radio) in red; Spitzer (infrared) in yellow; Hubble (visible) in green; XMM-Newton (ultraviolet) in blue; and Chandra (X-ray) in purple. Image credit: NASA / ESA / NRAO / AUI / NSF / G. Dubner, University of Buenos Aires.

Stunning New View of Crab Nebula

May 12, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers created this composite image of the Crab Nebula — a 10-light-year-wide remnant of a supernova explosion — by combining data from...

The atmosphere of the Neptune-mass exoplanet HAT-P-26b is unexpectedly primitive, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. By combining observations from Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, Wakeford et al determined that, unlike Neptune and Uranus, the exoplanet has relatively low metallicity. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

HAT-P-26b: Unexpectedly Primitive Atmosphere Discovered around Neptune-Mass Exoplanet

May 12, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered that HAT-P-26b — a ‘warm Neptune’ orbiting a dwarf star approximately 437 light-years from Earth — has an atmosphere...

This image was taken on May 7, 2017, at a distance of 316,000 miles (508,000 km). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Spots Bright Clouds of Methane in Titan’s Atmosphere

May 10, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini orbiter watched bright, feathery clouds of methane moving across the northern regions of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, on May 7,...

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