Tag Archive for 'NASA'

This artist’s rendering illustrates a conceptual design for a potential future mission to land a robotic probe on the surface of Europa. The lander is shown with a sampling arm extended, having previously excavated a small area on the surface. The circular dish on top is a dual-purpose high-gain antenna and camera mast, with stereo imaging cameras mounted on the back of the antenna. Three vertical shapes located around the top center of the lander are attachment points for cables that would lower the rover from a sky crane, which is envisioned as the landing system for this mission concept. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / M. Carroll.

Science Report on NASA’s Europa Lander Concept Released

Feb 10, 2017 by News Staff

In a new report to NASA released this week, a 21-member team of scientists assess the scientific value and engineering design of a future mission to the...

This image of Saturn’s moon Epimetheus was taken on January 30, 2017 and received on Earth February 1, 2017. The image was taken using the CL1 and GRN filters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI.

Cassini Orbiter Zooms Past Two Saturnian Moons: Epimetheus and Mimas

Feb 10, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA’s Cassini robotic orbiter captured these images of Mimas and Epimetheus during a close flyby on January 30, 2017. This image of Saturn’s moon...

This artist’s impression shows a massive, comet-like object falling towards a white dwarf. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Z. Levy, STScI.

Hubble Finds Extrasolar Kuiper Belt Object Ripped Apart by White Dwarf

Feb 9, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have found the first evidence of the remains of a Kuiper Belt object analog scattered around a white dwarf star. The research was published...

NASA’s Cassini robotic orbiter obtained this image of Saturn’s moon Enceladus on November 27, 2016. This view looks toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere of the moon. North on Enceladus is up and rotated 6 degrees to the right. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Captures Stunning View of Enceladus

Feb 7, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a new image of Enceladus, the sixth-largest of Saturn’s moons, taken by the agency’s Cassini orbiter. NASA’s Cassini robotic orbiter...

This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7640, which lies in the constellation Andromeda, about 38.8 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Space Telescope Observes NGC 7640

Feb 6, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the galaxy NGC 7640. This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7640, which lies in...

Cyclones swirl around the south pole, and white oval storms can be seen near the limb -- the apparent edge of the planet -- in this image of Jupiter’s south polar region taken by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The image was acquired on February 2, 2017, from an altitude of 47,600 miles (76,600 km) above Jupiter’s swirling cloud deck. Prior to the Feb. 2 flyby, the public was invited to vote for their favorite points of interest in the Jovian atmosphere for JunoCam to image. The point of interest captured here was titled ‘Jovian Antarctica’ by a member of the public, in reference to Earth’s Antarctica. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Completes Its Fourth Flyby of Jupiter

Feb 4, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully completed a close flyby of Jupiter on February 2, 2017. Cyclones swirl around the south pole, and white oval storms...

Ahuna Mons, Ceres’ lonely mountain, is seen in this simulated perspective view. The elevation has been exaggerated by a factor of two. The view was made using enhanced-color images from NASA’s Dawn orbiter. Images taken using blue (440 nm), green (750 nm) and infrared (960 nm) spectral filters were combined to create the view. The spacecraft’s framing camera took the images from Dawn’s low-altitude mapping orbit, from an altitude of 240 miles (385 km) in August 2016. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI.

Ceres May Have Vanishing Cryovolcanoes

Feb 3, 2017 by News Staff

Ahuna Mons, a 2.5-mile- (4 km) tall mountain on Ceres interpreted as a geologically young cryovolcano, may have some hidden older siblings, according to...

In the heart of an active galaxy, matter falling toward a supermassive black hole creates jets of particles traveling near the speed of light. For active galaxies classified as blazars, one of these jets beams almost directly toward Earth. Image credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.

NASA’s Fermi Spacecraft Finds Five High Redshift Blazars

Feb 1, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has spotted the five most distant gamma-ray blazars — a type of galaxy whose intense emissions are powered...

This Cassini image features a density wave in Saturn’s A ring (at left) that lies around 83,575 miles (134,500 km) from Saturn. Density waves are accumulations of particles at certain distances from the planet. This feature is filled with clumpy perturbations, which researchers informally refer to as ‘straw.’ The wave itself is created by the gravity of Saturn’s moons Janus and Epimetheus, which share the same orbit around the gas giant. Elsewhere, the scene is dominated by ‘wakes’ from a recent pass of the ring moon Pan. The image was taken in visible light with Cassini’s wide-angle camera on December 18, 2016. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 34,000 miles (56,000 km) from the rings and looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Saturn’s Main Rings Up Close

Jan 31, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took these stunning photos of Saturn’s rings on December 18, 2016, while it was performing one of its ‘ring-grazing’...

This Hubble image shows the Calabash Nebula, which lies in the constellation of Puppis, about 5,000 light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Space Telescope Spots ‘Cosmic Calabash’

Jan 30, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

A stunning new image of a little-known protoplanetary nebula, the Calabash Nebula, has been captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This Hubble...

Juno snapped this shot of Jupiter’s northern latitudes on Dec. 11, 2016, as the orbiter performed a close flyby of the gas giant. The spacecraft was at an altitude of 10,300 miles (16,600 km) above Jupiter’s cloud tops. The image was processed by citizen astronomers Gerald Eichstaedt and John Rogers. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstaedt / John Rogers.

Juno Sees Massive Storm on Jupiter

Jan 28, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has spotted a huge anticyclonic storm in Jupiter’s high north temperate latitudes. Juno snapped this shot of Jupiter’s northern...

HE0435-1223, located in the centre of this wide-field image, is among the five best lensed quasars discovered to date. The foreground galaxy creates four almost evenly distributed images of the distant quasar around it. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / S.H. Suyu et al.

Astronomers Use Gravitational Lensing to Measure Hubble Constant

Jan 27, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers from the international H0LiCOW (H0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL’s Wellspring) collaboration have made a new measurement of the Hubble constant —...

Cassini’s narrow-angle camera took this image of Tethys on November 10, 2016. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 228,000 miles (367,000 km) from Tethys. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini’s New Breathtaking Image of Tethys

Jan 26, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has sent back a breathtaking image of Tethys, a small, icy moon of Saturn. Cassini’s narrow-angle camera took this image...

This composite color full-disk visible image of the Western Hemisphere was captured from NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite on Jan. 15, 2017. Image credit: NOAA / NASA.

NOAA’s GOES-16 Weather Satellite Captures Its First Images of Earth

Jan 25, 2017 by News Staff

NOAA’s GOES-16 (formerly known as GOES-R), the first spacecraft in a new series of NASA-built advanced geostationary weather satellites, has sent the...

Cross section of Ceres showing the surface layers that are the subject of this study plus a watery mantle and a rocky-metallic core. The column of material at and just below Ceres’ surface (box) – the top layer contains anhydrous (dry) pyroxene dust accumulated from space mixed in with native hydrous (wet) dust, carbonates, and water ice. Image credit: Pierre Vernazza, LAM-CNRS / AMU.

NASA’s SOFIA Observatory Collects New Data on Composition of Dwarf Planet Ceres

Jan 23, 2017 by News Staff

New observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) show that Ceres does not appear to have the carbon-rich surface...

This Hubble image shows the cometary dwarf galaxy NGC 4861, which lies in the constellation of Canes Venatici, about 22.8 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Spies Cometary Galaxy NGC 4861

Jan 23, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the cometary dwarf galaxy NGC 4861. This Hubble image shows the cometary dwarf...

This image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on January 16, 2017, at a distance of about 17,000 miles (28,000 km) from Daphnis. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Provides New View of Saturn’s Wave-Making Moon Daphnis

Jan 20, 2017 by News Staff

A new image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows Saturn’s small moon Daphnis and the waves it raises in the surrounding ring material. This image was...

This view of a Martian rock slab called ‘Old Soaker,’ which has a network of cracks that may have originated in drying mud, comes from the Mast Camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. The location is within an exposure of Murray formation mudstone on lower Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. Mud cracks would be evidence of a time more than 3 billion years ago when dry intervals interrupted wetter periods that supported lakes in the area. Several images from Mast Camera’s left-eye camera are combined into this mosaic view. They were taken on Dec. 20, 2016, during the 1,555th sol of Curiosity’s work on Mars. The Old Soaker slab is about 4 feet (1.2 m) long. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Finds Possible Signs of Ancient Drying on Mars

Jan 18, 2017 by News Staff

A grid of small polygons spotted by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover may have originated as cracks in drying mud more than 3 billion years ago, according...

This composite image shows IC 3639, a galaxy with an active galactic nucleus. Image credit: ESO / NASA / JPL-Caltech / STScI.

NuSTAR Finds Two Enormous Black Holes in Milky Way’s Neighborhood

Jan 17, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission has identified two gas-enshrouded supermassive black holes, located at the centers of nearby...

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft obtained this image of Mimas on Oct. 22, 2016. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Captures Breathtaking View of Saturn’s Moon Mimas

Jan 16, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

This image of Saturn’s seventh largest moon, Mimas, was photographed when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was approximately 115,000 miles (185,000 km) away. NASA’s...

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