The first of two NASA spacecraft to study the moon in unprecedented detail has entered lunar orbit. NASA’s Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)-A spacecraft successfully completed its planned main engine burn at 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST). As of 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST), GRAIL-A is in a 56-mile (90-kilometer) by 5,197-mile [...]
NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket occurred at 10:02 a.m. EST. “We are very excited about sending the world’s most advanced scientific laboratory to [...]
NASA is kicking off its second annual NASA OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Video Contest to raise student awareness of how NASA technologies provide benefits to the public. Registration for the contest is open until January 3, 2012. The NASA OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Video Contest emphasizes the similarities between the popular OPTIMUS PRIME character from Hasbro’s TRANSFORMERS [...]
NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif., has captured new radar images of Asteroid 2005 YU55 passing close to Earth. The asteroid safely will fly past our planet slightly closer than the moon’s orbit on Nov. 8. The last time a space rock this large came as close to Earth was in 1976, although [...]
Last month the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean declined to the second-lowest extent on record. Satellite data from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder showed that the summertime sea ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low. The Arctic ice [...]
NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, the first to achieve orbit around Mercury, is providing scientists new information about the planet. The data show widespread flood volcanism similar to Earth, clearer views of Mercury’s surface, the first measurements of its elemental composition, and details about charged particles near the planet. MESSENGER, or the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, [...]
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on Saturday became the first probe ever to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn will study the asteroid, named Vesta, for a year before departing for a second destination, a dwarf planet named Ceres, in July 2012. Observations will provide unprecedented data to [...]
NASA will launch a University of Colorado experiment to image the sun on a NASA suborbital sounding rocket February 23, from the White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) will support measurements by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite. EVE is headed by Dr. Thomas Woods of the University of Colorado [...]
NASA announced an $18.7 billion budget request for fiscal year 2012 that supports a reinvigorated path of innovation, technological development and scientific discovery. The budget supports all elements of NASA’s 2010 Authorization Act, which was passed by a strong bipartisan majority of Congress and signed into law by President Obama. “This budget requires us to [...]
NASA’s Stardust-NExT spacecraft is nearing a celestial date with comet Tempel 1 at approximately 11:37 p.m. EST, on Feb. 14. The mission will allow scientists for the first time to look for changes on a comet’s surface that occurred following an orbit around the sun. The Stardust-NExT, or New Exploration of Tempel, spacecraft will take [...]