Starting this week, K-12 students in U.S. public, private and home schools can enter the Mars 2020 Name the Rover essay contest. One grand prize winner will name the rover and be invited to see the spacecraft launch in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Name the Rover contest is […]
Astronomers Discover Third Planet In The Kepler-47 Circumbinary System
(Newswise)–Astronomers have discovered a third planet in the Kepler-47 system, securing the system’s title as the most interesting of the binary-star worlds. Using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, a team of researchers, led by astronomers at San Diego State University, detected the new Neptune-to-Saturn-size planet orbiting between two previously known planets. With its three […]
2019: A Space Organoid
(Newswise)–From the science fiction of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke to the cinematic worlds of Star Wars and galaxies far, far away, humans have imagined life in space. But among the myriad challenges to colonizing other worlds lie fundamental questions of biology: Can a human embryo grow naturally outside the nurturing embrace of Earth? […]
NASA Selects Flying Mission To Study Titan For Origins, Signs Of Life
NASA has announced that their next destination in the solar system is the unique, richly organic world Titan. Advancing their search for the building blocks of life, the Dragonfly mission will fly multiple sorties to sample and examine sites around Saturn’s icy moon. Dragonfly will launch in 2026 and arrive in 2034. The rotorcraft will […]
A New Filter To Better Map The Dark Universe
(Newswise)–The earliest known light in our universe, known as the cosmic microwave background, was emitted about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The patterning of this relic light holds many important clues to the development and distribution of large-scale structures such as galaxies and galaxy clusters. Distortions in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), caused by […]
NASA’s InSight Lander Captures Audio Of First Likely ‘Quake’ On Mars
NASA’s Mars InSight lander has measured and recorded for the first time ever a likely “marsquake.” The faint seismic signal, detected by the lander’s Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, was recorded on April 6, the lander’s 128th Martian day, or sol. This is the first recorded trembling that appears to have come from […]
SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashdown Marks Success Of First NASA Commercial Crew Flight Test
Hawthorn, CA–NASA passed a major milestone Friday in its goal to restore America’s human spaceflight capability when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon returned to Earth after a five-day mission docked to the International Space Station. About 6 hours after departing the space station, Crew Dragon splashed down at 8:45 a.m. EST approximately 230 miles off the coast […]
NASA Renames Facility In Honor Of ‘Hidden Figure’ Katherine Johnson
NASA has redesignated its Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in Fairmont, West Virginia, as the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility, in honor of the West Virginia native and NASA “hidden figure.” “I am thrilled we are honoring Katherine Johnson in this way as she is a true American icon who overcame incredible […]
First Evidence Discovered Of A Gigantic Remnant Around An Exploding Star
(Newswise)–A San Diego State University astrophysicist has helped discover evidence of a gigantic remnant surrounding an exploding star–a shell of material so huge, it must have been erupting on a regular basis for millions of years. When a white dwarf, the core of a dead star, is in a close orbit with another star, it […]
NASA’s Opportunity Rover Mission On Mars Comes To End
One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA’s Opportunity rover mission is at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA’s return to the Red Planet. The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its […]