NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory News and Features
13 Dec 2018, 18:46 UTC
On Nov. 26, NASA's InSight mission knew the spacecraft touched down within an 81-mile-long (130-kilometer-long) landing ellipse on Mars. Now, the team has pinpointed InSight's exact location using images from HiRISE, a powerful camera onboard another NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Mars InSight Lander Seen in First Images from Space
13 Dec 2018, 18:46 UTC
On Nov. 26, NASA's InSight mission knew the spacecraft touched down within an 81-mile-long (130-kilometer-long) landing ellipse on Mars. Now, the team has pinpointed InSight's exact location using images from HiRISE, a powerful camera onboard another NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array)
12 Dec 2018, 13:58 UTC
Astronomers have already cataloged nearly 4,000 exoplanets in orbit around distant stars. Though we have learned much about these newfound worlds, there is still much we do not know about the steps of planet formation and the precise cosmic recipes that spawn the wide array of planetary bodies we have already uncovered, including so-called hot Jupiters, massive rocky worlds, icy dwarf planets, and – hopefully someday soon – distant analogs of Earth.
ALMA Campaign Provides Unprecedented Views of the Birth of Planets
12 Dec 2018, 13:58 UTC
Astronomers have already cataloged nearly 4,000 exoplanets in orbit around distant stars. Though we have learned much about these newfound worlds, there is still much we do not know about the steps of planet formation and the precise cosmic recipes that spawn the wide array of planetary bodies we have already uncovered, including so-called hot Jupiters, massive rocky worlds, icy dwarf planets, and – hopefully someday soon – distant analogs of Earth.
ESO Top News
12 Dec 2018, 13:00 UTC
While testing a new subsystem on the SPHERE planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers were able to capture dramatic details of the turbulent stellar relationship in the binary star R Aquarii with unprecedented clarity — even compared to observations from Hubble.
Dancing with the Enemy
12 Dec 2018, 13:00 UTC
While testing a new subsystem on the SPHERE planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers were able to capture dramatic details of the turbulent stellar relationship in the binary star R Aquarii with unprecedented clarity — even compared to observations from Hubble.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory News and Features
11 Dec 2018, 20:12 UTC
NASA's InSight lander isn't camera-shy. The spacecraft used a camera on its robotic arm to take its first selfie - a mosaic made up of 11 images. This is the same imaging process used by NASA's Curiosity rover mission, in which many overlapping pictures are taken and later stitched together. Visible in the selfie are the lander's solar panel and its entire deck, including its science instruments.
NASA's InSight Takes Its First Selfie
11 Dec 2018, 20:12 UTC
NASA's InSight lander isn't camera-shy. The spacecraft used a camera on its robotic arm to take its first selfie - a mosaic made up of 11 images. This is the same imaging process used by NASA's Curiosity rover mission, in which many overlapping pictures are taken and later stitched together. Visible in the selfie are the lander's solar panel and its entire deck, including its science instruments.
Carnegie Science
11 Dec 2018, 14:43 UTC
New work from the Carnegie Supernova Project provides the best-yet calibrations for using type Ia supernovae to measure cosmic distances, which has implications for our understanding of how fast the universe is expanding and the role dark energy may play in driving this process. Led by Carnegie astronomer Chris Burns, the team’s findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Calibrating cosmic mile markers
11 Dec 2018, 14:43 UTC
New work from the Carnegie Supernova Project provides the best-yet calibrations for using type Ia supernovae to measure cosmic distances, which has implications for our understanding of how fast the universe is expanding and the role dark energy may play in driving this process. Led by Carnegie astronomer Chris Burns, the team’s findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Most Recent News
- 13 Dec 2018
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The shrinking planet
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Case study: Soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS)
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An astronaut returns to Earth
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Mike and the Moon
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- 12 Dec 2018
Blogs
Universe Today
13 Dec 2018, 18:35 UTC
Ever since the Apollo missions explored the lunar surface, scientists have known that the Moon’s craters are the result of a long history of meteor and asteroid impacts. But it has only been in the past few decades that we have come to understand how regular these are. In fact, every few hours, an impact on the lunar surface is indicated by a bright flash. These impact flashes are designed as a “transient lunar phenomena” because they are fleeting.
Every Few Hours There’s a Flash of Light Coming From the Moon. Another Impact.
13 Dec 2018, 18:35 UTC
Ever since the Apollo missions explored the lunar surface, scientists have known that the Moon’s craters are the result of a long history of meteor and asteroid impacts. But it has only been in the past few decades that we have come to understand how regular these are. In fact, every few hours, an impact on the lunar surface is indicated by a bright flash. These impact flashes are designed as a “transient lunar phenomena” because they are fleeting.
Starts With a Bang!
13 Dec 2018, 15:01 UTC
The Universe is expanding, and every scientist in the field agrees with that. The observations overwhelmingly support that straightforward conclusion, and every alternative has failed to match its successes since the late 1920s. But in scientific endeavors, success cannot simply be qualitative; we need to understand, measure, and quantify the Universe’s expansion. We need to know how much the Universe is expanding by. For generations, astronomers, astrophysicists and cosmologists attempted to refine our measurements of the rate of the Universe’s expansion: the Hubble constant. After many decades of debates, the Hubble Space Telescope key project appeared to solve the issue: 72 km/s/Mpc, with just a 10% uncertainty. But now, 17 years later, scientists can’t agree. One camp claims ~67 km/s/Mpc; the other claims ~73 km/s/Mpc, and the errors do not overlap. Something, or someone, is wrong, and we cannot figure out where.
Scientists Can’t Agree On The Expanding Universe
13 Dec 2018, 15:01 UTC
The Universe is expanding, and every scientist in the field agrees with that. The observations overwhelmingly support that straightforward conclusion, and every alternative has failed to match its successes since the late 1920s. But in scientific endeavors, success cannot simply be qualitative; we need to understand, measure, and quantify the Universe’s expansion. We need to know how much the Universe is expanding by. For generations, astronomers, astrophysicists and cosmologists attempted to refine our measurements of the rate of the Universe’s expansion: the Hubble constant. After many decades of debates, the Hubble Space Telescope key project appeared to solve the issue: 72 km/s/Mpc, with just a 10% uncertainty. But now, 17 years later, scientists can’t agree. One camp claims ~67 km/s/Mpc; the other claims ~73 km/s/Mpc, and the errors do not overlap. Something, or someone, is wrong, and we cannot figure out where.
Bad Astronomy
13 Dec 2018, 14:00 UTC
I was pretty intrigued when I got a question from Bad Reader Dean Lewis about meteors. During the Perseid meteor shower in 2018 he was away from his family, separated by about 1,000 kilometers. If he saw a meteor, was it possible they could see the same one from their more distant locale? The short answer is: Yes! The long answer is… math. Cool, fun math.
How far away can you see a meteor?
13 Dec 2018, 14:00 UTC
I was pretty intrigued when I got a question from Bad Reader Dean Lewis about meteors. During the Perseid meteor shower in 2018 he was away from his family, separated by about 1,000 kilometers. If he saw a meteor, was it possible they could see the same one from their more distant locale? The short answer is: Yes! The long answer is… math. Cool, fun math.
Backreaction
13 Dec 2018, 07:48 UTC
To correctly fit observations, physicists’ best current theory for the universe needs a new type of matter, the so-called “dark matter.” According to this theory, our galaxy – as most other galaxies – is contained in a spherical cloud of this dark stuff. Exactly what dark matter is made of, however, we still don’t know.
New experiment cannot reproduce long-standing dark matter anomaly
13 Dec 2018, 07:48 UTC
To correctly fit observations, physicists’ best current theory for the universe needs a new type of matter, the so-called “dark matter.” According to this theory, our galaxy – as most other galaxies – is contained in a spherical cloud of this dark stuff. Exactly what dark matter is made of, however, we still don’t know.
Universe Today
12 Dec 2018, 20:46 UTC
The Voyager 2 spacecraft recently crossed the outer edge of the heliopause – the boundary between our Solar System and the interstellar medium – and has joined Voyager 1 in interstellar space. But unlike its sibling, the Voyager 2 spacecraft carries a working instrument that will provide the first-ever observations of the boundary that exists between the Solar System and interstellar space.
Finally! Voyager 2 is Now in Interstellar Space
12 Dec 2018, 20:46 UTC
The Voyager 2 spacecraft recently crossed the outer edge of the heliopause – the boundary between our Solar System and the interstellar medium – and has joined Voyager 1 in interstellar space. But unlike its sibling, the Voyager 2 spacecraft carries a working instrument that will provide the first-ever observations of the boundary that exists between the Solar System and interstellar space.
Centauri Dreams
12 Dec 2018, 18:10 UTC
The science return from OSIRIS-REx has been surprisingly swift as the spacecraft returns data on near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu. We’re aided here by the timing, as early results are being discussed at the ongoing conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington, DC. The imagery we’ve received of Bennu’s surface has scientists buzzing.
Early Returns from Bennu
12 Dec 2018, 18:10 UTC
The science return from OSIRIS-REx has been surprisingly swift as the spacecraft returns data on near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu. We’re aided here by the timing, as early results are being discussed at the ongoing conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington, DC. The imagery we’ve received of Bennu’s surface has scientists buzzing.
Most Recent Blogs
- 14 Dec 2018
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Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity Reaches Space!
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Exploring the Ever-Changing Nature of R Aquarii
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HiRISE Views InSight Lander on the Martian Surface
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- 13 Dec 2018
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DARPA’s next project: Design a Space Development Agency
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Virgin Galactic Sends SpaceShipTwo Above 50 Miles
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Galactic rocket reaches space
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Historic Virgin Galactic Flight Reminds Us That ‘Space’ Is Just a C...
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Exclusive Photos of SpaceShipTwos’s Flight
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Dragon 2 and CST-100 Starliner Spacecraft Compared
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