Tag Archive for NASA

This view from Cassini looks toward Dione, with giant Saturn and its rings in the background, just prior to the mission’s final close approach to the moon on August 17. The view was acquired at distances ranging from approximately 106,000 miles (170,000 km) to 39,000 miles (63,000 km) from the icy moon and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 35 degrees. At lower right is the large, multi-ringed impact basin Evander, which is about 220 miles (350 km) wide. The canyons of Padua Chasma, features that form part of Dione’s bright, wispy terrain, reach into the darkness at left. Scientists combined nine visible light images to create this mosaic view: eight from Cassini’s narrow-angle camera and one from the wide-angle camera, which fills in an area at lower left. The scene is an orthographic projection centered on terrain at 0.2 degrees north latitude, 179 degrees west longitude on Dione. An orthographic view is most like the view seen by a distant observer looking through a telescope. North on Dione is up. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Stunning Images from Cassini’s Final Close Flyby of Dione

Aug 21, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft returned new images of Saturn’s moon Dione during its flyby of 17 August 2015. The probe zoomed in as close as 295 miles...

Moon. Image credit: Gregory H. Revera / CC BY-SA 3.0.

LADEE Confirms Presence of Neon in Lunar Exosphere

Aug 18, 2015 by News Staff

While planetary researchers have speculated on the presence of the noble gas neon in the Moon’s atmosphere (called a surface boundary exosphere) for...

This image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows a part of Dione’s surface that is covered by linear, curving features, called chasmata. The Voyager spacecrafts observed Dione in 1980 showing a complex surface structure, with wispy features on its trailing hemisphere. The nature of these features was unclear until 2004, when the Cassini spacecraft showed that they weren’t surface deposits of frost, as some had suspected, but rather a pattern of bright icy cliffs among myriad fractures. One possibility is that this stress pattern may be related to Dione’s orbital evolution and the effect of tidal stresses over time. This view looks toward the trailing hemisphere of Dione. Cassini obtained the image with its narrow-angle camera on April 11, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of 68,000 miles (110,000 km) from Dione. North on Dione is up. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft to Make Final Close Flyby of Saturn’s Moon Dione

Aug 17, 2015 by News Staff

Cassini’s closest approach, within 295 miles (474 km) of Dione’s surface, will occur today, August 17. This flyby will be the fifth targeted encounter...

This Hubble image shows the nebula M1-67 around the Wolf-Rayet star WR 124. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, geckzilla.com.

Hubble Snaps Stunning Image of Wolf-Rayet Star

Aug 17, 2015 by News Staff

The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a beautiful image of a Wolf-Rayet star surrounded by a nebula of...

These Hubble images show elliptical galaxies with dark, wispy dust lanes, the signature of a recent galaxy merger. The dust is the only relic of a smaller galaxy that was consumed by the larger elliptical galaxy. The X in the images marks the location of supernova explosions that are associated with the galaxies. Each supernova may have been gravitationally kicked out of its host galaxy by a pair of central supermassive black holes. When two galaxies merge, so do their supermassive black holes. Prof Foley suggests the supernovae were stars that were once part of double-star systems. These systems wandered too close to the binary black holes, which ejected them from their galaxies. Eventually, the stars in each system moved close enough together to trigger a supernova blast. These outcast supernovae are located at various distances from their home galaxies. SN 2000ds (left) is at least 12,000 light-years from its galaxy, NGC 2768; SN 2005cz (right) is at least 7,000 light-years from its galaxy, NGC 4589. NGC 2768 resides 75 million light-years from Earth, and NGC 4589 is 108 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / R. Foley, University of Illinois.

Astronomer Throws Light on Origins of Outcast Supernovae

Aug 16, 2015 by News Staff

Outcast supernovae that explode all alone in space present a scientific mystery. Prof Ryan Foley from the University of Illinois has developed a theory...

This mosaic provides the best view ever obtained of the dwarf planet Pluto. The lower right edge of the planet in this view currently lacks high-resolution color coverage. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto’s Atmospheric Nitrogen Likely Has Internal Origin, Scientists Say

Aug 12, 2015 by News Staff

Researchers at Southwest Research Institute are studying the data collected by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft to discover what is pumping up the nitrogen...

RGG 118: Astronomers Find Smallest Known Supermassive Black Hole

Aug 12, 2015 by News Staff

A team of astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the 6.5-m Clay Telescope in Chile has found the smallest supermassive black hole ever...

Kepler-453b (right) orbits a pair of stars. Image credit: Mark Garlick, markgarlick.com.

Kepler-453b: Astronomers Discover New Circumbinary Exoplanet

Aug 11, 2015 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from Israel, Europe, Korea and the United States has announced the discovery of a circumbinary gas giant in the habitable zone of...

The object in this Hubble image is a barred spiral galaxy called NGC 428. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / S. Smartt, Queen’s University Belfast.

Hubble Space Telescope Observes Barred Spiral NGC 428

Aug 10, 2015 by News Staff

The Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured this image of part of an...

Scientists Find Evidence for Ancient Lake in Meridiani Planum on Mars

Aug 7, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists – led by Dr Brian Hynek from the University of Colorado Boulder – has discovered evidence of an ancient lake that likely...

The mysterious bright spots on Ceres lie in the Occator crater, which is about 60 miles (90 km) across and two miles (4 km) deep. This image comes from the animation, generated using data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft; vertical relief has been exaggerated by a factor of five; exaggerating the relief helps scientists understand and visualize the topography much more easily, and highlights features that are sometimes subtle. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / LPI.

NASA Dawn’s Flight over Dwarf Planet Ceres

Aug 7, 2015 by News Staff

Explore the craters, bright spots, mountains and other features of Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The data for this...

The asteroid 31 Euphrosyne glides across a field of background stars in this time-lapse view from NASA’s WISE spacecraft. WISE obtained the images used to create this view over a period of about a day around May 17, 2010, during which it observed the asteroid four times. The moving asteroid appears as a string of orange dots because it is much cooler than the distant background stars. Stars have temperatures in the thousands of degrees, but the asteroid is cooler than room temperature. Thus the stars are represented by shorter wavelength blue colors in this view, while the asteroid is shown in longer wavelength reddish colors. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Researchers Track Down Origins of Some Near-Earth Objects

Aug 6, 2015 by News Staff

A new study using data from NASA’s NEOWISE space telescope has traced some dark Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) back to their likely source – a family...

The far side of the Moon and Earth as seen on July 16, 2015 from a distance of one million miles by NASA’s EPIC camera. Image credit: NASA / NOAA.

DSCOVR Satellite Captures Far Side of Moon Passing over Earth

Aug 6, 2015 by News Staff

The Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) – a four megapixel CCD camera aboard the DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) satellite –...

This collage of radar images of 1999 JD6 was collected by NASA scientists on July 25, 2015. The asteroid appears to be a contact binary. These views, which are radar echoes, were obtained by pairing NASA's 230-foot-wide Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, with the 330-foot Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. Using this approach, the Goldstone antenna beams a radar signal at an asteroid and Green Bank receives the reflections. The technique, referred to as a bistatic observation, dramatically improves the amount of detail that can be seen in radar images. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / GSSR.

Astronomers Capture Radar Images of Near-Earth Asteroid 1999 JD6

Aug 4, 2015 by News Staff

Using NSF’s Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, astronomers bounced radar signals...

This Hubble image shows the center of the Lagoon Nebula. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Trauger, JPL.

Hubble Space Telescope Snaps Amazing Image of Lagoon Nebula

Aug 3, 2015 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning new image of the Lagoon Nebula, one of the finest and brightest star-forming regions known...

This Hubble image of the planetary nebula NGC 6818 (Little Gem Nebula) shows two layers of gas (with dust): a spherical outer region and a brighter, vase-shaped interior bubble. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / Judy Schmidt, geckzilla.com.

Hubble Captures Amazing Photo of Little Gem Nebula

Aug 3, 2015 by News Staff

The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of a planetary nebula called NGC 6818. This...

Global map of Charon as of July 30, 2015. The map is in simple cylindrical projection, with zero longitude (the Pluto-facing direction) in the center. It includes all available resolved images of the moon’s surface captured between July 7-14, 2015 on the anti-Pluto facing hemisphere. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

NASA Releases Global Map of Pluto’s Moon Charon

Aug 3, 2015 by News Staff

NASA scientists have created the best-ever global map of Charon, using images taken by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager in July 2015. Global...

This graphic illustrates how a star can magnify and brighten the light of a background star when it passes in front of the distant star. If the foreground star has planets, then the planets may also magnify the light of the background star, but for a much shorter period of time than their host star. Astronomers use this method, called gravitational microlensing, to identify planets. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Field, STScI.

Astronomers Confirm Failed-Jupiter Exoplanet around Distant Star

Jul 31, 2015 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, two teams of astronomers have independently confirmed the existence of...

Reddish streaks cut across the surface of Tethys in this image. The streaks are narrow, curved lines on the moon’s surface, only a few miles wide but several hundred miles long. The yellowish tones on the left side of the view are a result of alteration of the moon’s surface by high-energy particles from Saturn’s magnetosphere. This particle radiation slams into the moon’s trailing hemisphere, modifying it chemically and changing its appearance in enhanced-color views like this one. The area of Tethys shown here is centered on 30 degrees north latitude, 187 degrees west longitude, and measures 305 by 258 miles (490 by 415 km) across. The original color images were obtained at a resolution of about 2,300 feet (700 m) per pixel on April 11, 2015. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Spots Strange Red ‘Arcs’ on Saturn’s Moon Tethys

Jul 30, 2015 by News Staff

This enhanced-color mosaic of Tethys shows a range of features including mysterious arc-shaped streaks. This mosaic of Tethys is an orthographic projection...

NASA Scientists Produce New Topographic Maps of Ceres

Jul 29, 2015 by News Staff

Researchers at NASA have just released colorful new topographic maps of the dwarf planet Ceres, based on data gathered by the agency’s Dawn spacecraft. This...

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