Promoting science and technology education through spaceflight and weather balloons.

Asteroid Bennu Holds the Building Blocks of Life

By |2025-02-12T08:09:06-05:00February 12th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day What can a space rock tell us about life on Earth? NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a careful approach to the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu in October of 2020 to collect surface samples. In September 2023, the robotic spaceship returned these samples to Earth. A recent analysis has shown, surprisingly, that [...]

The Spider and the Fly

By |2025-02-11T08:09:15-05:00February 11th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , |

Photo of the Day Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga). The spider-shaped gas cloud in the image center is actually an emission nebula labelled IC 417, while the smaller fly-shaped cloud on the left is dubbed NGC 1931 and [...]

Milky Way over the Australian Pinnacles

By |2025-02-09T08:09:08-05:00February 9th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown. In the background, just past the end of the central [...]

Comet G3 ATLAS Setting over a Chilean Hill

By |2025-02-05T08:09:10-05:00February 5th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day Where is Comet ATLAS going? In the featured time-lapse video, the comet is not itself moving very much, but the Earth's rotation makes it appear to be setting over a hill. The Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) sequence was captured with an ordinary camera on January 22 from the Araucanía Region [...]

Anticrepuscular Rays: A Rainbow Fan over Spain

By |2025-02-04T08:09:06-05:00February 4th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day Yes, but can your rainbow do this? Late in the day, the Sun set as usual toward the west. However, on this day, the more interesting display was 180 degrees around -- toward the east. There, not only was a rainbow visible, but an impressive display of anticrepuscular rays from [...]

Wolf-Rayet Star 124: Stellar Wind Machine

By |2025-02-03T08:09:11-05:00February 3rd, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot that they are slowly disintegrating right before our telescopes. Glowing gas globs each typically over 30 times more massive than the Earth are being expelled by violent stellar winds. Wolf-Rayet star WR 124, visible near [...]

Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb

By |2025-01-29T08:09:06-05:00January 29th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , |

Photo of the Day What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research. Where they were created is well known: in a binary star system that lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Swan [...]

Comet G3 ATLAS over Uruguay

By |2025-01-28T08:09:07-05:00January 28th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day Comets can be huge. When far from the Sun, a comet's size usually refers to its hard nucleus of ice and rock, which typically spans a few kilometers -- smaller than even a small moon. When nearing the Sun, however, this nucleus can eject dust and gas and leave a [...]

The Many Tails of Comet G3 ATLAS

By |2025-01-26T08:09:08-05:00January 26th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day Why does this comet have so many tails? C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) has developed several long and intricate tails visible from Earth's southern hemisphere over the past two weeks. Many observers reported seeing the impressive comet without any optical aid above the western horizon just after sunset. At least six different [...]

Stardust in the Perseus Molecular Cloud

By |2025-01-25T08:09:06-05:00January 25th, 2025|Categories: NASA News, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |

Photo of the Day Clouds of stardust drift through this deep skyscape, across the Perseus molecular cloud some 850 light-years away. Dusty nebulae reflecting light from embedded young stars stand out in the nearly 4 degree wide field of view. With a characteristic bluish color reflection nebula NGC 1333 is prominent near center. Hints [...]

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