lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Begins Asteroid Operations Campaign

From NASA: OSIRIS-REx is NASA’s first mission to visit a near-Earth asteroid, survey the surface, collect a sample and deliver it safely back to Earth. The spacecraft has traveled approximately 1.1 billion miles (1.8 billion km) since its Sept. 8, 2016, launch and is scheduled to arrive at Bennu on Dec. 3. “Now that OSIRIS-REx Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

Martian Dust Storm Grows Global: Curiosity Captures Photos of Thickening Haze

  From NASA: A storm of tiny dust particles has engulfed much of Mars over the last two weeks and prompted NASA’s Opportunity rover to suspend science operations. But across the planet, NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been studying Martian soil at Gale Crater, is expected to remain largely unaffected by the dust. While Opportunity is powered Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

Three New Crew Members on Voyage to International Space Station

Three crew members representing the United States, Russia and Japan are on their way to the International Space Station after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:21 a.m. EST Sunday (1:21 p.m. Baikonur time). The Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA’s Scott Tingle, Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Climbing Toward Ridge Top

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has begun the steep ascent of an iron-oxide-bearing ridge that’s grabbed scientists’ attention since before the car-sized rover’s 2012 landing. “We’re on the climb now, driving up a route where we can access the layers we’ve studied from below,” said Abigail Fraeman, a Curiosity science-team member at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

Cassini Spacecraft Makes Its Final Approach to Saturn

Cassini has begun transmitting data — including the final images taken by its imaging cameras — in advance of its final plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15. The spacecraft is in the process of emptying its onboard solid-state recorder of all science data, prior to reconfiguring for a near-real-time data relay during the final plunge. Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

NASA’s New Horizons, IAU Set Pluto Naming Themes

n 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft delivered the first close-up views of Pluto and its five moons – amazing images of distant and surprisingly complex worlds, showing a vast nitrogen glacier as well as ice mountains, canyons, cliffs, craters and more. The IAU’s action clears the way for the mission team to propose formal names Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Sharpens Paradox of Ancient Mars

Mars scientists are wrestling with a problem. Ample evidence says ancient Mars was sometimes wet, with water flowing and pooling on the planet’s surface. Yet, the ancient sun was about one-third less warm and climate modelers struggle to produce scenarios that get the surface of Mars warm enough for keeping water unfrozen. A leading theory Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

NASA Spacecraft Dives Between Saturn and Its Rings

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is back in contact with Earth after its successful first-ever dive through the narrow gap between the planet Saturn and its rings on April 26, 2017. The spacecraft is in the process of beaming back science and engineering data collected during its passage, via NASA’s Deep Space Network Goldstone Complex in California’s Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

NASA’s MAVEN Reveals Mars Has Metal in its Atmosphere

“MAVEN has made the first direct detection of the permanent presence of metal ions in the ionosphere of a planet other than Earth,” said Joseph Grebowsky of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Because metallic ions have long lifetimes and are transported far from their region of origin by neutral winds and electric Read More

lossy-page1-800px-Exomoon_Kepler-1625b-i_orbiting_its_planet_(artist’s_impression).tif

Asteroid to Fly Safely Past Earth on April 19

A relatively large near-Earth asteroid discovered nearly three years ago will fly safely past Earth on April 19 at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers), or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. Although there is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with our planet, this will Read More