Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, set to carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station, passes in front of the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA teams joined Boeing on [...]
3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) As NASA focuses on exploring the Moon, Mars, and the solar system for the benefit of humanity, the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) is shifting how it prioritizes technology development. As part of this refinement effort, NASA is asking the American aerospace community [...]
Photo of the Day The explosion is over, but the consequences continue. About eleven thousand years ago, a star in the constellation of Vela could be seen to explode, creating a strange point of light briefly visible to humans living near the beginning of recorded history. The outer layers of the star crashed into [...]
4 min read A Solar Neighborhood Census, Thanks to NASA Citizen Science This artist’s concept by citizen scientist William Pendrill shows, at left, a cool brown dwarf called a T Dwarf, and, at right, a warmer brown dwarf passing in front of a distant star. Pendrill, also an illustrator, participates in Backyard Worlds: Planet [...]
19 min read The next full Moon is the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, the Pesach or Passover Moon The next full Moon is the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, the Pesach or Passover Moon, the Hanuman Jayanti Festival Moon, and Bak Poya. The next full [...]
Water depths in Death Valley’s temporary lake ranged between about 3 feet (or 1 meter, shown in dark blue) to less than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters, light yellow) from February through early March. By measuring water levels from space, SWOT enabled research to calculate the depth.NASA/JPL-Caltech Data from the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography [...]
This spectacular image showing the Moon’s shadow on Earth’s surface was acquired during a 20-second period starting at 2:59 p.m. EDT (18:59:19 UTC) on April 8, 2024, by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse from hundreds of thousands of miles away. The camera [...]
Swiss Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, right, shakes hands with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, after signing the Artemis Accords, Monday, April 15, 2024, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. Switzerland is the 37th country to sign the Artemis Accords, which establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation [...]
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson shared on Monday the agency’s path forward on the Mars Sample Return program, including seeking innovative designs to return valuable samples from Mars to Earth. Such samples will not only help us understand the formation and evolution of our solar system but can be used to prepare for future human [...]
1 min read Voyager 1 Light-Sensing Instrument Non-operational Artist’s concept of a Voyager spacecraft in deep space. NASA/JPL-Caltech Project officials report light-sensing instrument aboard NASA’s Voyager 1, that had difficulty during encounter with the planet Jupiter March 5th, has been confirmed as no longer being able to record useful data. Tests conducted last week [...]
