NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has photographed a flash of sunlight reflecting from a lake on Saturn’s moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid hydrocarbons on a part of the moon dotted with many lake-shaped basins.
Cassini scientists had been looking for the glint, also known as a specular reflection, since the spacecraft began orbiting Saturn in 2004. But until recently Titan’s … Read the rest of this article
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The LCROSS mission operations team initiated power-up of the LCROSS science payload and saw this view of the moon. |
NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, created twin impacts on the moon’s surface early on October 9, 2009 in a search for water ice. Scientists will analyze data from the spacecraft’s instruments to assess whether water ice is … Read the rest of this article
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Close up image of crater Cabeus A near the moon’s south pole and show crater elevation. Yellow represents lower elevations. Credit: NASA/JPL |
NASA has selected a final destination for its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, after a journey of nearly 5.6 million miles that included several orbits around Earth and the moon. The mission team announced Wednesday … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions’ lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon’s surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules’ locations evident.
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Apollo 11 lunar module, “Eagle”. Image width: 282 meters (about 925 ft.) |
The Lunar Reconnaissance … Read the rest of this article
The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, successfully completed its most significant early mission milestone Tuesday with a lunar swingby and calibration of its science instruments. The satellite will search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s south pole.
With the assist of the moon’s gravity, LCROSS and its attached Centaur booster rocket successfully … Read the rest of this article
About three times a second, a 10,000-year-old stellar corpse sweeps a beam of gamma-rays toward Earth. Discovered by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the object, called a pulsar, is the first one known that only “blinks” in gamma rays.
“This is the first example of a new class of pulsars that will give us fundamental insights into how these collapsed … Read the rest of this article
Members of the public can send their names around Earth on NASA’s Glory satellite, the first mission dedicated to understanding the effects of particles in the atmosphere and the sun’s variability on our climate.
The “Send Your Name Around the Earth” Web site (now offline) enables everyone to take part in the science mission and place their names in orbit … Read the rest of this article
Data from the Ulysses spacecraft, a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission, show the sun has reduced its output of solar wind to the lowest levels since accurate readings became available. The sun’s current state could reduce the natural shielding that envelops our solar system.
“The sun’s million mile-per-hour solar wind … Read the rest of this article
Picture this: A spaceship swoops in from the void, plunging toward a cloudy planet about the size of Earth. A laser beam lances out from the ship; it probes the planet’s clouds, striving to reach the hidden surface below. Meanwhile, back on the craft’s home world, scientists perch on the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens.
Sounds … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
(Northern Hemisphere) |
Aurora Oval
(Southern Hemisphere) |
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