Tag Archive for 'NASA'

Phosphorus in the form of orthophosphate (e.g., HPO4-2) is likely abundant in the subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus; a soda or alkaline ocean (containing NaHCO3 and/or Na2CO3) inside of Enceladus interacts geochemically with a rocky core; modeling indicates that this interaction promotes the dissolution of phosphate minerals, making orthophosphate readily available to possible life in the ocean; because phosphorus is an essential ingredient for life, this finding bolsters mounting evidence for habitability within this small Saturnian moon. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.

Subsurface Ocean of Enceladus is Rich in Phosphorus, Suggests Study

Sep 20, 2022 by News Staff

Enceladus is one of the prime targets in the search for life in our Solar System. Observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show that this small...

These craters were formed by a meteoroid impact on Mars on September 5, 2021, the first to be detected by NASA’s InSight lander; taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this enhanced-color image highlights the dust and soil disturbed by the impact in blue in order to make details more visible to the human eye. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

NASA’s InSight Lander Detects Seismic and Acoustic Waves from Meteoroid Impacts on Mars

Sep 20, 2022 by News Staff

The Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure (SEIS) seismometer on NASA’s InSight lander picked up vibrations and sounds from four space rocks that...

This image shows a rocky outcrop called Wildcat Ridge, where NASA’s Perseverance rover extracted two rock cores and abraded a circular patch to investigate the rock’s composition. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS.

Perseverance Detects Organics in New Samples from Martian Jezero Crater

Sep 19, 2022 by News Staff

In 2014, NASA’s Curiosity rover found evidence of organic matter in rock-powder samples from Gale crater, and NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected...

This Hubble image shows IRAS 05506+2414, a young stellar object located over 12,000 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Sahai.

Hubble Looks at Very Young Protostar and Its Environment

Sep 19, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a stunning image of IRAS 05506+2414, an enigmatic stellar object surrounded by a shroud...

Composite of a true color image of Saturn, observed by Cassini in 2016, overlaid with a false color representation of the ultraviolet aurora in the northern hemisphere as observed on August 20, 2017. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute / A. Bader, Lancaster University.

Destroyed Moon Could Explain Saturn’s Young Rings and Present-Day Tilt

Sep 16, 2022 by News Staff

Saturn’s rings — thought to have formed a mere 100 million years ago — are one of the most distinctive planetary features in our Solar System....

This Hubble image shows NGC 1961, an intermediate spiral galaxy some 197 million light-years away in the constellation of Camelopardalis. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Dalcanton, University of Washington / R. Foley, University of California, Santa Cruz / G. Kober, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Catholic University of America.

Hubble Focuses on Enormous Spiral Galaxy: NGC 1961

Sep 15, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a stunning photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the intermediate spiral galaxy NGC 1961. This Hubble image shows NGC...

This composite image shows SNR 0519-69.0, a Type Ia supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud: X-ray data from Chandra with low, medium and high energies are shown in green, blue, and purple respectively, with some of these colors overlapping to appear white; optical data from Hubble shows the perimeter of the remnant in red and stars around the remnant in white. Image credit: NASA / CXC / GSFC / Williams et al. / STScI.

Astronomers Determine Age of Supernova Remnant in Large Magellanic Cloud

Sep 14, 2022 by News Staff

Light from a Type Ia supernova explosion that created the supernova remnant SNR 0519-69.0 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky...

Bohn et al. identified a new set of previously undetected star-forming regions that are heavily obscured by dust in a starburst ring in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7469. The area of this image from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is shown by a box in the image of NGC 7469 below. Image credit: Bohn et al., arXiv: 2209.04466

Webb Observes Powerful Starburst Ring in NGC 7469

Sep 14, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered 36 new star-forming regions in a circumnuclear starburst ring in the barred...

The inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by the NIRCam instrument on board the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This is a composite image from several filters that represents emission from ionized gas, hydrocarbons, molecular gas, dust and scattered starlight. Most prominent is the Orion Bar, a wall of dense gas and dust that runs from the top left to the bottom right in this image, and that contains the bright star θ2 Orionis A. The scene is illuminated by a group of hot, young massive stars -- known as the Trapezium Cluster -- that is located just off the top right of the image. The strong and harsh ultraviolet radiation of the Trapezium cluster creates a hot, ionized environment in the upper right, and slowly erodes the Orion Bar away. Molecules and dust can survive longer in the shielded environment offered by the dense Bar, but the surge of stellar energy sculpts a region that displays an incredible richness of filaments, globules, young stars with disks and cavities. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / PDRs4All ERS Team / Salomé Fuenmayor.

Webb Captures Breathtaking Images of Orion Nebula

Sep 12, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have delivered the most detailed images ever taken of the inner region of the Orion Nebula. The...

This Hubble image shows Terzan 4, a globular cluster some 26,100 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Cohen.

Hubble Space Telescope Zooms in on Terzan 4

Sep 12, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a densely packed, crowded field of stars in the center of the globular cluster Terzan 4. This...

The unusual shape of the open cluster NGC 346 is partly due to stars and gas spiraling into the center of the cluster in a river-like motion; the red spiral superimposed on NGC 346 traces the movement of stars and gas toward the center; this spiraling motion is the most efficient way to feed star formation from the outside toward the center of the cluster. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Andi James, STScI.

Astronomers Find Spiraling Stars in NGC 346

Sep 8, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope...

An artist’s impression of the triple brown dwarf system VHS J1256. Image credit: Sci.News.

Webb Detects Silicate Clouds on Nearby Brown Dwarf

Sep 7, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Using the spectral data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found evidence for silicate clouds as well as water, methane,...

This image of the light from asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos is a composite of 243 images taken by the DRACO camera on board NASA’s DART spacecraft on July 27, 2022. Image credit: NASA / JPL / DART Navigation Team.

NASA’s DART Spacecraft Gets First Look at Binary Asteroid Didymos

Sep 7, 2022 by News Staff

The Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) aboard NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has captured...

The LP 890-9 system is much more compact than our Solar System: its two planets could easily fit inside the orbit of Mercury. Image credit: Adeline Deward, RISE-Illustration.

Two Temperate Super-Earths Found Circling Ancient Red Dwarf Star

Sep 7, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescopes...

Crocker et al. reveal that the Fermi cocoon is actually due to emission from the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy. Image credit: O. Macias.

Astronomers Detect Gamma Rays from Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

Sep 6, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The significant gamma-ray emission is coming from a population of millisecond pulsars within the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy, an elliptical loop-shaped...

This 340-light-year-wide image from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) shows the Tarantula Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Webb ERO Production Team.

Webb Takes Close Look at Tarantula Nebula

Sep 6, 2022 by News Staff

The Tarantula Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, hosts thousands of young and still-forming stars, many revealed...

This Hubble image shows two overlapping spiral galaxies: LEDA 2073461 and SDSS J115331.86+360024.2. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / W. Keel.

Two Spiral Galaxies Appear to Overlap in New Hubble Image

Sep 5, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

LEDA 2073461 and SDSS J115331.86+360024.2 look like they’re interacting, but they are actually separated by millions of light-years. This Hubble image...

This Webb/MIRI image shows the super-Jupiter exoplanet HIP 65426b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / A. Carter, University of California, Santa Cruz / ERS 1386 team / A. Pagan, STScI / DSS.

Webb Directly Images Super-Jupiter Exoplanet

Sep 2, 2022 by Sergio Prostak

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have captured a direct image of HIP 65426b, an extrasolar gas giant about 6 to 12 times...

The newly-discovered lensed star in the Abell 2744 galaxy-cluster field. Image credit: Chen et al., arXiv: 2207.11658.

Webb Detects Blue Supergiant Star in Early Universe

Sep 1, 2022 by Natali Anderson

The newly-discovered blue supergiant is much hotter than the Sun, and existed when the Universe was about 2.6 billion years old. Left panel shows the color...

Patchy proton aurora on Mars. Image credit: EMM / EMUS / UAE Space Agency.

MAVEN and EMM Orbiters Observe ‘Patchy’ Proton Aurora on Mars

Aug 31, 2022 by News Staff

Even though Mars does not have a global magnetic field like the Earth, it still possesses multiple kinds of aurora. One of these is proton aurora, which...

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