Archive for 2009
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Amase-ing Life on the Ice
August 31, 2009
News and Features -
Far north in the arctic, the AMASE 2009 expedition team is collecting samples of unique life that inhabits the glacial ice of Svalbard, Norway. The expedition is a test for technology that could one day be used in the search for life on Mars.
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JPL Wildfires Update
August 31, 2009
News and Features -
Fire conditions around JPL have continued to improve throughout the day, and the Lab is no longer threatened by the Station Fire.
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Warped Debris Disks Around Stars Are Blowin’ in the Wind
August 31, 2009
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The dust-filled disks where new planets may be forming around other stars occasionally take on some difficult-to-understand shapes.
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Orbiter in Safe Mode Increases Communication Rate
August 31, 2009
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Engineers for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project have stepped up the communication rate being received from the orbiter as an early step in the process of determining why the spacecraft spontaneously rebooted its computer on Aug. 26.
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The Case of the Missing Ice
August 28, 2009
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By modeling ice sheets in Antarctica, scientists have changed the way we think about Earth's transition 34 million years ago from warm 'greenhouse' to the current, cool 'icehouse'. The new study has important implications for how we understand climate change and its affects on the biosphere.
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From the Moon to Marine Measurements
August 28, 2009
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A discovery about the moon made in the 1960s is helping researchers with NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment unlock secrets about Earth's ocean today.
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Science Instruments Ready for SOFIA Airborne Telescope
August 28, 2009
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Scientists are busy preparing for the "First Light" flight of NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, a highly modified Boeing 747SP.
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Cygnus X-1: Still a "Star" After All Those Years
August 28, 2009
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Chandra Studies Mysterious X-Ray Source
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How Close Was That Lightning to the Shuttle?
August 27, 2009
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If you're wondering why the first launch attempt for space shuttle Discovery was scrubbed early Tuesday morning, here's your answer.
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Notes from the field: ‘North Woods, Maine 2009’
August 27, 2009
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NASA's Dr. Jon Ranson is on an expedition in the forests of central Maine to validate recent radar and lidar measurements which will help create more accurate and sensitive sensors to better understand the vegetation of the Earth and to balance the carbon budget.
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Death Rays from Space
August 27, 2009
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Life may have been significantly affected in the past by a cosmic ray blast, but researchers are still looking for the smoking gun.
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Mars Reconnissance Orbiter Goes Into Safe Mode Again
August 27, 2009
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a safe mode Wednesday morning, Aug. 26, for the fourth time this year.
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Climate Simulation Computer Becomes More Powerful
August 26, 2009
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More powerful computers needed to process the sophisticated computer models used in climate forecasts are now being developed at Goddard.
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Honey Bees Turned Data Collectors Help Scientists Understand Climate Change
August 26, 2009
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Estimates are that there are somewhere between six and ten million species of insects on the planet, yet few are as charismatic as the honey bee.
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Map Characterizes Active Lakes Below Antarctic Ice
August 26, 2009
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Lakes in Antarctica, concealed under miles of ice, require scientists to come up with creative ways to identify and analyze these hidden features.
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Ice Ages Follow the Sun
August 26, 2009
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Scientists have shed new light on the processes behind the Ice Ages experienced by Earth over the past 2.5 million years. Research indicates that they are ultimately linked to shifts in solar radiation caused by changes in the Earth's rotation and axis.
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The 40-Year-Old Dream
August 25, 2009
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Mark Sykes, CEO and director of the Planetary Science Institute, believes that it's time to find out if humans can permanently live and work in space. In a recent article for the Arizona Daily Star, he discussed what needs to be done to ensure that Earth-life has a future beyond its home planet.
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The AMASEing Adventure Continues
August 25, 2009
News and Features -
Coverage of the 2009 AMASE Expedition to Norway's Svalbard island continues. In this installment, Adrienne Kish discusses the steps that were taken to prepare the FIDO rover for its first appearance on Svalbard, where it is collecting samples and looking for signs of life in preparation for Mars.
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How Close Did Hurricane Bill Come to the US East Coast?
August 25, 2009
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Hurricane Bill kept its distance from the US mainland, seemingly skirting along the eastern seaboard and fitting perfectly within the coastline curves on this NASA satellite image.
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Flying Steady: Mission Control Tunes Up Aqua’s Orbit
August 25, 2009
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It takes work to maintain a satellite’s orbit. In the spring of 2009, mission controllers pilot NASA's Aqua satellite through a series of orbital maneuvers to correct the angle of the satellite’s flight path.
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Podcast: Astronomy and New Media
August 24, 2009
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Astronomy is one of the scientific fields that have been completely shaken up by new media.
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Ancient Booms and Busts
August 24, 2009
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Research suggests that a period of global warming strongly influenced plants and animals some 53 million to 47 million years ago during the Eocene epoch. The study could help scientists understand the effects that climate change will have in Earth's future.
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NASA Heads Out to Sea
August 24, 2009
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Scientists combine satellite data with local water samples to help the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program.
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Free Spirit: Second Test Rover Added to Driving Experiment
August 24, 2009
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A second, lighter-weight test rover has entered the testing setup at JPL where rover team members are assessing strategy for getting Spirit out of soft soil where it is embedded on Mars.
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First Measure of Africa's Coastal Forests
August 21, 2009
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NASA researchers finds that African mangrove forests are being destroyed by worsening pollution, encroaching real estate development, and deforestation.
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Chandra's Top 10 Scientific Contributions
August 21, 2009
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NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is celebrating 10 years of exploring the invisible universe.
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Hurricanes and Tropical Cyclones
August 21, 2009
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Latest Storm Images and Data From NASA
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Latest LRO Image Solves Apollo 14 Mystery
August 21, 2009
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During the second EVA of the Apollo 14 mission on the moon, astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell had a goal of hiking to the rim of nearby Cone Crater in the Fra Maura highlands.
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Galaxies Demand a Stellar Recount
August 20, 2009
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Research finds proof that small stars come in bigger bundles than previously believed.
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NASA Research Reveals Major Insight Into Evolution of Life on Earth
August 20, 2009
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Humans might not be walking on Earth today if not for the ancient fusing of two microscopic, single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, NASA-funded research has found.
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LRO, Chandrayaan-1 Team Up For Unique Search for Water Ice
August 20, 2009
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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and India's Chandrayaan-1 will team up on August 20 to perform a Bi-Static radar experiment to search for water ice in a crater on the Moon's north pole
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The Origin of Solar Systems
August 20, 2009
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A cosmic cloud that is crowded with budding stars and planetary systems is teaching scientists about the environment that our own solar system may have emerged from.
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Glycine in the Grid
August 19, 2009
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Scientists have discovered a fundamental building block of life in samples of a comet that were returned to Earth by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. The research supports the theory that some of the ingredients for life were delivered to the Earth by comet and meteorite impacts.
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Cassini's Last Earthly Date Was 10 Years Ago Today
August 19, 2009
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A decade ago today, NASA's Cassini spacecraft flew past Earth at a distance of 1,171 kilometers (727 miles) on its way to an appointment with the solar system's second largest occupant - Saturn.
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The Ultimate Long Distance Communication
August 19, 2009
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Over the next year, the LRO will collect more information about the moon's surface and environment than any previous mission. It takes a powerful system to send all of this information more than 238,800 miles back to Earth.
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First IR Image from Newest Weather Satellite Captures Hurricane Bill
August 19, 2009
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Remote-sensing scientists call a satellite image that captures an entire hemisphere of the Earth in one view a “full-disk” image.
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Weather Report for Titan
August 18, 2009
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New evidence suggests that the parched, dry deserts of Saturn's moon, Titan, can support large-scale storms. Significant cloud formation has been witnessed over Titan's tropical zone near the moon's equator.
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Watch Satellite Data In Action
August 18, 2009
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Ever wonder about all the different data that satellites are collecting as they orbit Earth?
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NASA's WISE Mission Arrives at Launch Site
August 18, 2009
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NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has arrived at its last stop on Earth -- Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
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NASA Researchers Make First Discovery of Life's Building Block in Comet
August 18, 2009
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NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.
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Tiny Flares Responsible for Outsized Heat of Sun's Atmosphere
August 17, 2009
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New observations made with instruments aboard Japan's Hinode satellite reveal the answer to why the Sun's corona is so darned hot.
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Planck Sees Light Billions of Years Old
August 17, 2009
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The Planck space telescope has begun to collect light left over from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe.
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Roving the AMASEing Arctic
August 17, 2009
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On a remote arctic island, scientists are assembling a rover to test technologies that will one day be used to search for life on Mars. The 2009 AMASE expedition to Norway's Svalbard island is now underway.
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New Planet Orbits Backwards
August 17, 2009
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Scientists have discovered a new planet that orbits its host star backwards. The finding casts new light on how planetary systems form and evolve.
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Mars Meteorite Points to Thicker Atmosphere
August 14, 2009
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The Mars Rover Opportunity has discovered a metallic meteorite on the surface of Mars that is providing important information about Mars' environmental history. The information could help astrobiologists understand whether or not the planet supported habitable environments in its past.
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Naked Saturn
August 14, 2009
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Here's one of the first raw images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft just after equinox, on August 12, 2009.
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Tropics of Saturn's Moon No Tropical Paradise On Some Days
August 14, 2009
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Astronomers have identified a storm cell on Titan the size of the country of India. The storm system appeared in April 2008 in the moon's tropical region, an area not known for its cloudiness.
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Charcot Island, Antarctica
August 14, 2009
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The Wilkins Ice Shelf on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula used to connect to two small islands off the Antarctic coast, Latady and Charcot.
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Fresh Craters on the Moon and Earth
August 13, 2009
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Impacts have shaped the Earth and Moon since early in the history of the solar system. In fact, the Moon was likely formed when a planetoid the size of Mars crashed into the Earth over 4.5 billion years ago.
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NASA Satellites Unlock Secret to Northern India's Vanishing Water
August 13, 2009
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Groundwater beneath northern India’s farms and cities has been disappearing. Hydrologists, like NASA's Matt Rodell, have been hunting for it.
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Variability in Type 1A Supernovae Has Implications for Studying Dark Energy
August 13, 2009
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The discovery of dark energy, a mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe, was based on observations of type 1a supernovae, and these stellar explosions have long been used as "standard candles" for measuring the expansion.
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Gets New View of Victoria Crater
August 13, 2009
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The oblique view highlights interesting exposures of geological strata in the steep walls of the crater, difficult to see from straight overhead.
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First Black Holes Kept to a Strict Diet, Study Shows
August 12, 2009
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A new supercomputer simulation designed to track the fate of the universe's first black holes finds that, counter to expectations, they couldn't efficiently gorge themselves on nearby gas.
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Stars Choose the Life Around Them
August 12, 2009
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New research shows that stars of varying ages could have profound consequences for the development of emerging life forms. Newly formed stars spin faster than midde-aged stars, generating strong magnetic fields and emitting more intense radiation. This could have a dramatic effect on any life developing is such systems.
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Biggest Exoplanet Yet Orbits the Wrong Way
August 12, 2009
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Planet hunters from the UK have discovered the largest exoplanet yet, and its uniqueness doesn't end there. Dubbed WASP-17, this extra large world is twice the size of Jupiter but is super-lightweight, "as dense as expanded polystyrene" one astronomer said.
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Meteorite Found on Mars Yields Clues About Planet's Past
August 12, 2009
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NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity is investigating a metallic meteorite the size of a large watermelon that is providing researchers more details about the Red Planet's environmental history.
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Slow-Moving Typhoon Morakot Inundates Taiwan
August 11, 2009
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Though its winds were not particularly powerful when it made landfall in Tawian, slow-moving Typhoon Morakot soaked the southern part of the island with heavy rain between August 3 and 9, 2009.
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Stream of Craters
August 11, 2009
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String of secondary craters formed by debris thrown out from a larger impact, most likely Giordano Bruno.
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Into the Mouth of a Volcano
August 11, 2009
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NASA scientists are using high-tech 'spider' robots to monitor volcanoes on Earth. The low-cost sensors provide real-time monitoring of one of Earth's most challenging environments. The technology will help scientists studying processes on Earth - and could be used in locations beyond our own planet.
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Planet Smash-Up Sends Vaporized Rock, Hot Lava Flying
August 11, 2009
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Spitzer has found evidence of a high-speed collision between two burgeoning planets -- one as least as big as our moon and the other at least as big as Mercury -- slammed into each other within the last few thousand years or so.
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2009 Perseid Meteor Shower – Double Peaks This Year!
August 10, 2009
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Are you ready for this year's Perseid Meteor Shower? What will be the best place to watch and when will be the best date to see the most "shooting stars"?
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NASA Goes Inside a Volcano, Monitors Activity
August 10, 2009
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Scientists have placed high-tech "spiders" inside and around the mouth of Mount St. Helens, one of the most active volcanoes in the United States. Networks such as these could one day be used to respond rapidly to an impending eruption.
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Saturn to Pull Celestial Houdini on August 11
August 10, 2009
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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, the planet Saturn, with no help from either Jupiter or Uranus, will make its 170,000-mile-wide ring system disappear.
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GeoEngineering
August 10, 2009
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'Geoengineering' refers to human-made changes to the Earth's land, seas or atmosphere that are intended to help slow climate change. However, some scientists are worried that geoengineering techniques may cause more harm than good.
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Relative Amounts of Bad Ozone Ingredients Across the U.S.
August 07, 2009
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When ozone forms at ground level, it can cause respiratory illness and damage crops and other plants. At the Earth’s surface, the ingredients for making ozone are nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (organic chemicals that vaporize easily).
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Earth, With a Frigid Twist
August 07, 2009
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The surface of Saturn's moon Titan has many features that appear similar to Earth, such as lakes, weather and mountains. Scientists even wonder if Titan could harbor a prebiotic chemistry that is similar to the early Earth when life first arose.
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Avalanche! The Incredible Data Stream of SDO
August 07, 2009
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When NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) leaves Earth in November 2009 onboard an Atlas V rocket, the thunderous launch will trigger an avalanche...of data.
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Kepler Spies Changing Phases on a Distant World
August 07, 2009
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NASA's new exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope has detected the atmosphere of a known giant gas planet, demonstrating the telescope's extraordinary scientific capabilities.
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NASA'S Kepler Mission Spies Changing Phases in a Distant World
August 06, 2009
NASA Breaking News -
NASA's new exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope has detected the atmosphere of a known giant gas planet, demonstrating the telescope's extraordinary scientific capabilities. The discovery will be published Friday in the journal Science.
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Half Comet-Half Asteroid a Fluke? Nope
August 06, 2009
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Back in 1996, astronomers discovered a strange object in the asteroid belt. They decided it was either a "lost" comet or an icy asteroid, as it ejected dust like a comet but had an orbit like an asteroid.
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NASA's Spitzer Sees the Cosmos Through 'Warm' Infrared Eyes
August 06, 2009
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New images taken with two of Spitzer's infrared detector channels -- two that work at the new, warmer temperature -- demonstrate the observatory remains a powerful tool for probing the dusty universe.
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Sharpest views of Betelgeuse reveal how supergiant stars lose mass
August 06, 2009
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Using different state-of-the-art techniques on ESO's Very Large Telescope, two independent teams of astronomers have obtained the sharpest ever views of the supergiant star Betelgeuse.
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Astronomers Find Hyperactive Galaxies in the Early Universe
August 06, 2009
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Looking almost 11 billion years into the past, astronomers have clocked stars in a very distant galaxy at speeds upwards of one million miles per hour, about twice the speed of our Sun through the Milky Way.
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Plains of Titan to be Named for "Dune" Novels
August 05, 2009
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Titan's mysterious dark plains will be named after planets in the series of "Dune" science fiction novels by author Frank Herbert.
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The Rise and Fall of Species
August 05, 2009
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A new study shows that new species of life on Earth emerge just as often as they die out, and that most evolution occurs in small bursts. The research has implications in understanding the history of life on our planet and the evolutionary processes that will shape the biosphere's future on Earth.
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Ares I-X Comes Together (and it is BIG)
August 05, 2009
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The Ares I-X rocket is being stacked on the Mobile Launch Platform in NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for the rocket's first test flight, scheduled for October 31, 2009.
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New View Toward Carina Reveals Star Fest, Exploding "Engine"
August 05, 2009
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A remarkable new view of the Milky Way toward the constellation Carina is alive with a flurry of stars — and the pièce de résistance is a binary star that's all dressed up in a nebula of its own making.
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How Many Galaxies Have We Discovered?
August 04, 2009
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Astronomers think that there are hundreds of billions galaxies in the universe, however the exact number is not known.
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Hundreds of Thousands of Acres Burning in Interior Alaska
August 04, 2009
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Large wildfires that began in July continued to burn in interior Alaska in the first week of August 2009.
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Acquitting Comets of Catastrophes
August 04, 2009
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Scientists have long debated the role of asteroid and comet impacts in mass extinctions on Earth. New research may indicate that it is highly unlikely that comets caused any mass extinctions. The findings could have implications in determining the likelihood of globally-damaging impacts in our planet's future.
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NASA's Moon Mapper Sees Home Planet
August 04, 2009
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This image of Earth taken from 124 miles above the lunar surface was taken by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, one of two NASA instruments onboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
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Opportunity Spies Unusual Rock — Large Meteorite?
August 03, 2009
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The Opportunity rover has come across an odd-shaped, large, dark rock, about 0.6 meters (2 feet) across on the surface of Mars, which may be a meteorite.
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Objects Approaching Earth
August 03, 2009
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NASA is introducing a new web site that provides information on near-Earth objects, such as asteroids and comets. Impact events have played an important role in shaping the habitability of Earth, and future impacts could have a profound effect on our planet's biosphere.
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The 2009 Perseid Meteor Shower
August 03, 2009
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Earth is entering a stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, setting the stage for the 2009 Perseid meteor shower.
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What Hit Jupiter?
August 03, 2009
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Two weeks after something slammed into Jupiter, creating a cloud of debris that is still easy to see through backyard telescopes, researchers are wondering ... what was the impactor?
