Artist’s concept of a young, newly discovered planet, exposed to observation by a warped debris disk. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC) The Discovery A huge planet with a long name – IRAS 04125+2902 b – is really just a baby: only 3 million years old. And because such infant worlds are usually hidden [...]
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llustration of BioSentinel’s spacecraft flying past the Moon.NASA/Daniel Rutter Editor’s Note: This article was updated Nov. 20, 2024 shortly after BioSentinel’s mission marked two years of operation in deep space. Astronauts live in a pretty extreme environment aboard the International Space Station. Orbiting about 250 miles above the Earth in the weightlessness of microgravity, they rely on commercial [...]
5 min read 5 Surprising NASA Heliophysics Discoveries Not Related to the Sun With NASA’s fleet of heliophysics spacecraft, scientists monitor our Sun and investigate its influences throughout the solar system. However, the fleet’s constant watch and often-unique perspectives sometimes create opportunities to make discoveries that no one expected, helping us to solve mysteries [...]
Earth (ESD) Earth Home Explore Climate Change Science in Action Multimedia Data For Researchers 14 Min Read NASA’s Brad Doorn Brings Farm Belt Wisdom to Space-Age Agriculture This image shows corn cultivation patterns across the U.S. Midwest in 2020, with lands planted in corn marked in yellow. Credits: NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin Bradley [...]
On Nov. 6, 2024, NASA Night brought cosmic excitement to the Toyota Center, where Johnson Space Center employees joined 16,208 fans who interacted with NASA as they watched the Houston Rockets claim victory over the San Antonio Spurs. Energy soared as International Space Station Program Manager Dana Weigel stepped up to take the first shot. [...]
5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) A prototype of a robot designed to explore subsurface oceans of icy moons is reflected in the water’s surface during a pool test at Caltech in September. Conducted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the testing showed the feasibility of a mission concept for a [...]
5 Min Read Making Mars’ Moons: Supercomputers Offer ‘Disruptive’ New Explanation A NASA study using a series of supercomputer simulations reveals a potential new solution to a longstanding Martian mystery: How did Mars get its moons? The first step, the findings say, may have involved the destruction of an asteroid. The research team, led by Jacob [...]
5 min read NASA’s Swift Reaches 20th Anniversary in Improved Pointing Mode After two decades in space, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is performing better than ever thanks to a new operational strategy implemented earlier this year. The spacecraft has made great scientific strides in the years since scientists dreamed up a new way to [...]
Technicians carefully install a piece of equipment to house Gateway’s xenon fuel tanks, part of its advanced electric propulsion system. Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element, which will make the lunar space station the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown, recently received the xenon and liquid fuel tanks for its journey to and around the [...]
