Pauli Exclusion Principle: Why You Don't Implode

Why doesn't matter just bunch up? The same principle that keeps neutron stars and white dwarf stars from imploding also keeps people from imploding and makes normal matter mostly empty space. The observed reason is known as the Pauli Exclusion Principle. The principle states that identical fermions -- one type of fundamental matter -- cannot be in the same place at the same time and

Dawn's Endeavour

On February 21st, the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station (ISS) flew through the sky near dawn over Whitby, Ontario, Canada. Along with star trails, both were captured in this single time exposure. Glinting in sunlight 350 kilometers above the Earth, Endeavour slightly preceeded the ISS arcing over the horizon. But the brighter trail and the brighter flare belongs to

Dawn's Endeavour

On February 21st, the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station (ISS) flew through the sky near dawn over Whitby, Ontario, Canada. Along with star trails, both were captured in this single time exposure. Glinting in sunlight 350 kilometers above the Earth, Endeavour slightly preceeded the ISS arcing over the horizon. But the brighter trail and the brighter flare belongs to

Chasing Carina

A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, aka NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years. Near the upper right of this expansive skyscape, it is much larger than the more northerly Orion Nebula. In fact, the Carina Nebula is one of our galaxy's largest star-forming regions and home to young, extremely massive stars, including the still enigmatic variable Eta Carinae, a star with well over

Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars

When the Moon rose in predawn skies on February 23rd, it sported a sunlit crescent. It also offered early morning risers a tantalizing view of earthshine, the dark portion of the lunar disk illuminated by sunlight reflected from the Earth. Of course, on that morning a remarkable conjunction with three wandering planets added an impressive touch to the celestial scene. Recorded just before

Chasing Carina

A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, aka NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years. Near the upper right of this expansive skyscape, it is much larger than the more northerly Orion Nebula. In fact, the Carina Nebula is one of our galaxy's largest star-forming regions and home to young, extremely massive stars, including the still enigmatic variable Eta Carinae, a star with well

Edge-on Spiral Galaxy NGC 891

This beautiful cosmic portrait features NGC 891. The spiral galaxy spans about 100 thousand light-years and is seen almost exactly edge-on from our perspective. In fact, about 30 million light-years distant in the constellation Andromeda, NGC 891 looks a lot like our Milky Way. At first glance, it has a flat, thin, galactic disk and a central bulge cut along the middle by regions of dark

Edge-on Spiral Galaxy NGC 891

This beautiful cosmic portrait features NGC 891. The spiral galaxy spans about 100 thousand light-years and is seen almost exactly edge-on from our perspective. In fact, about 30 million light-years distant in the constellation Andromeda, NGC 891 looks a lot like our Milky Way. At first glance, it has a flat, thin, galactic disk and a central bulge cut along the middle by regions of dark

ICESat's Notable Moments in Science

Over the last decade, NASA has launched a series of satellites to monitor the health of our planet. One such satellite -- the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) -- has provided a sustained, big-picture look at ice thickness at Earth's polar regions.Now, after seven years in orbit and 15 laser-operation campaigns, ICESat has stopped collecting science data. The last of three

SDO Launches

The Atlas V roared to life Thursday morning to send the Solar Dynamics Observatory into space on its mission to evaluate the complex mechanisms of the sun. Liftoff came on-time at 10:23 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida's Atlantic Coast.The SDO spacecraft is in good shape midway through the launch phase that will eventually place it in an elongated

Astronaut Installs Panoramic Space Window

This space job was almost complete. Floating just below the International Space Station, astronaut Nicholas Patrick put some finishing touches on the newly installed cupola space windows last week. Patrick was a mission specialist onboard the recently completed space shuttle Endeavor's STS-130 mission to the ISS. Pictured, Patrick floats near the outermost of seven windows on the new cupola of

Piecing Together the Temperature Puzzle

NASA has released a new video and image gallery that illustrate how NASA satellites enable scientists to observe climate change today and make predictions for the future.The video, “Piecing Together the Temperature Puzzle,” explores possible causes for rising global temperatures.It explains what role fluctuations in the solar cycle, changes in snow and cloud cover, and rising levels of

Cold Snaps Plus Global Warming Do Add Up

That feeling of numbness in your toes, even inside your thickest boots, is not lying to you. It’s been very cold so far this winter in most of the U.S. and many places at middle latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Washington, D.C., London and Seoul have already shoveled themselves out from major snowfalls. And over the course of 2009, average temperatures across some parts of the U.S. were

Temperature Trackers Watch Our Watery World

Climatologists have long known that human-produced greenhouse gases have been the dominant drivers of Earth's observed warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution. But other factors also affect our planet's temperature. Of these, the ocean plays a dominant role. Its effects helped nudge global temperatures slightly higher in 2009, and, according to NASA scientists, could well

Cassini Finds Plethora of Plumes, Hotspots at Enceladus

Newly released images from last November's swoop over Saturn's icy moon Enceladus by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a forest of new jets spraying from prominent fractures crossing the south polar region and yield the most detailed temperature map to date of one fracture. The new images from the imaging science subsystem and the composite infrared spectrometer teams also include the best

NASA Unveils New Space-Weather Science Tool

When NASA’s satellite operators need accurate, real-time space-weather information, they turn to the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) of the Space Weather Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The CCMC’s newest and most advanced space-weather science tool is the Integrated Space Weather Analysis (iSWA) system.The iSWA is a robust, integrated system

Exceptional Rocket Waves Destroy Sun Dog

What created those rocket waves, and why did they destroy that sun dog? Close inspection of the above image shows not only a rocket rising near the center, but unusual air ripples around it and a colorful sundog to the far right. The rocket, carrying the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), lifted off two weeks ago from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA into a cold blue sky. The SDO is designed to

Galaxy Group Hickson 31

Will the result of these galactic collisions be one big elliptical galaxy? Quite possibly, but not for another billion years. Pictured above, several of the dwarf galaxies of in the Hickson Compact Group 31 are seen slowly merging. Two of the brighter galaxies are colliding on the far left, while an elongated galaxy above is connected to them by an unusual bridge of stars. Inspection

NGC 2440: Cocoon of a New White Dwarf

Like a butterfly, a white dwarf star begins its life by casting off a cocoon that enclosed its former self. In this analogy, however, the Sun would be a caterpillar and the ejected shell of gas would become the prettiest of all! In the above cocoon, the planetary nebula designated NGC 2440, contains one of the hottest white dwarf stars known. The white dwarf can be seen as the bright dot

Geostationary Highway

Put a satellite in a circular orbit about 42,000 kilometers from the center of the Earth (36,000 kilometers or so above the surface) and it will orbit once in 24 hours. Because that matches Earth's rotation period, it is known as a geosynchronous orbit. If that orbit is also in the plane of the equator, the satellite will hang in the sky over a fixed location in a geostationary orbit. As

Can Air Pollution Cause Lightning Storms?

Strange as it may seem, the most recent Image of the Week entry from the Climate and Radiation Branch at Goddard Space Flight Center suggests that air pollution does indeed exacerbate lightning storms. The graphic, created by Goddard meteorologist Thomas Bell, shows that rainfall and lightning rarely peaks over the weekend in the southeastern United States. In fact, lightning hasn't peaked on a

How Do Global Soot Models Measure Up?

A image from a simulation that shows the spread of black carbon aerosols in Asia. Areas where the air was thick with the pollution particles are white, while lower concentrations are transparent purple. (Credit: Earth Observatory)As NASA atmospheric scientist Eric Wilcox recently told Time magazine, emerging evidence suggests that a short-lived type of air pollution called black carbon—known

WISE Infrared Andromeda

This sharp, wide-field view features infrared light from the spiral Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Dust heated by Andromeda's young stars is shown in yellow and red, while its older population of stars appears as a bluish haze. The false-color skyscape is a mosaic of images from NASA's new Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite. With over twice the diameter of our Milky Way, Andromeda

Behold the Violent History of Saturn's White Whale Moon

Like the battered white whale Moby Dick taunting Captain Ahab, Saturn's moon Prometheus surges toward the viewer in a 3-D image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The image exposes the irregular shape and circular surface scars on Prometheus, pointing to a violent history. These craters are probably the remnants from impacts long ago. Prometheus is one of Saturn's innermost moons. It

NASA's Chandra Reveals Origin of Key Explosions

New findings from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have provided a major advance in understanding a type of supernova critical for studying the dark energy that astronomers think pervades the universe. The results show mergers of two dense stellar remnants are the likely cause of many of the supernovae that have been used to measure the accelerated expansion of the universe. These supernovae --

Vesta Near Opposition

Main belt asteroid 4 Vesta is at its brightest now. The small world is near opposition (opposite the Sun in the sky) and closest to Earth. But even at its brightest, Vesta is just too faint to spot with the naked-eye. Still, over the next few days it will be relatively easy to find in the constellation Leo, sharing a typical binocular field of view with bright star Gamma Leonis (aka Algieba).

Missing 'Ice Arches' Contributed to 2007 Arctic Ice Loss

In 2007, the Arctic lost a massive amount of thick, multiyear sea ice, contributing to that year's record-low extent of Arctic sea ice. A new NASA-led study has found that the record loss that year was due in part to the absence of "ice arches," naturally-forming, curved ice structures that span the openings between two land points. These arches block sea ice from being pushed by winds

NASA Scientist Nadine Unger Discusses Which Sectors of the Economy Impact the Climate

Nadine Unger, a climatologist with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, spoke with NASA's Earth Science News Team about her recent study that analyzed how different human activities impact climate. The study appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February.NASA's Earth Science News Team: Your research suggests that the climate science

Jurassic Space: Ancient Galaxies Come Together after Billions of Years

Imagine finding a living dinosaur in your backyard. Astronomers have found the astronomical equivalent of prehistoric life in our intergalactic back yard: a group of small, ancient galaxies that has waited 10 billion years to come together. These "late bloomers" are on their way to building a large elliptical galaxy.Such encounters between dwarf galaxies are normally seen billions of

3D Sun for the iPhone

Imagine holding the entire sun in the palm of your hand. Now you can. A new iPhone app developed by NASA-supported programmers delivers a live global view of the sun directly to your cell phone. Users can fly around the star, zoom in on active regions, and monitor solar activity."This is more than cool," says Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington DC. "It's

An Unusually Smooth Surface on Saturns Calypso

Why is this moon of Saturn so smooth? This past weekend, humanity's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft passed as close to Saturn's small moon Calypso as it ever has, and imaged the small moon in unprecedented detail. Pictured above is an early return, raw, unprocessed image of the 20-km long irregularly shaped moon. Like its sister moon Telesto and the shepherd moon Pandora, Calypso has shown

NASA's Chandra Reveals Origin of Key Cosmic Explosions

New findings from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have provided a major advance in understanding a type of supernova critical for studying the dark energy that astronomers think pervades the universe. The results show mergers of two dense stellar remnants are the likely cause of many of the supernovae that have been used to measure the accelerated expansion of the universe.These supernovae,

NASA's WISE Mission Releases Medley of First Images

A diverse cast of cosmic characters is showcased in the first survey images NASA released Wednesday from its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. Since WISE began its scan of the entire sky in infrared light on Jan. 14, the space telescope has beamed back more than a quarter of a million raw, infrared images. Four new, processed pictures illustrate a sampling of the mission's

President Obama Calls Station, Shuttle Crews

The 11 astronauts aboard the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Endeavour chatted with President Barack Obama Wednesday at 5:14 p.m. EST -- along with Maryland Democratic Congressional member Dutch Ruppersberger and 12 middle school students from Michigan, Florida, North Carolina and Nebraska. Calling from the Roosevelt Room in the White House, the President congratulated the two

Lighting the Way Home

While space shuttle Endeavour's six-member crew prepares for a night landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the Shuttle Landing Facility, or SLF, will be ready to light the way home.Gregory Bordeaux, the electrical power production supervisor with InDyne Inc., at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, is looking forward to witnessing his first night landing from a unique vantage point.Bordeaux

Dark Shuttle Approaching

What's that approaching? Astronauts on board the International Space Station first saw it far in the distance. Soon it enlarged to become a dark silhouette. As it came even closer, the silhouette appeared to be a spaceship. Finally, at just past 11 pm (CST) last Tuesday, the object, revealed to be the Space Shuttle Endeavor, docked as expected with the Earth-orbiting space station. Pictured above

NASA Finds Warmer Ocean Speeding Greenland Glacier Melt

Glaciers in west Greenland are melting 100 times faster at their end points beneath the ocean than they are at their surfaces, according to a new NASA/university study published online Feb. 14 in Nature Geoscience. The results suggest this undersea melting caused by warmer ocean waters is playing an important, if not dominant, role in the current evolution of Greenland's glaciers, a factor

NASA's Fermi Closes on Source of Cosmic Rays

New images from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope show where supernova remnants emit radiation a billion times more energetic than visible light. The images bring astronomers a step closer to understanding the source of some of the universe's most energetic particles -- cosmic rays.Cosmic rays consist mainly of protons that move through space at nearly the speed of light. In their

Get Set for a Possible Glimpse of an Asteroid

The most prominent asteroid in the sky is currently yours for the perusing with binoculars -- and perhaps even the naked eye. Tomorrow night, Wednesday, Feb. 17, Vesta, the second most massive object in the asteroid belt, reaches what astronomers like to call "opposition." An asteroid (or planet or comet) is said to be "in opposition" when it is opposite to the sun as seen from Earth. In

Cassini Shoots New Close-Ups of Death Star-like Moon

Blazing through its closest pass of the Saturnian moon Mimas on Feb. 13, Cassini sent back striking close-ups of the moon likened to the Death Star from "Star Wars" and the enormous crater scarring its surface. The flyby also yielded solid data on the moon's thermal signature and surface composition. Some of the raw, unprocessed images sent back from the flyby show the bright, steep slopes

Space Rocks Moon and Mt. Everest Rocks Find a Home in Orbit

Moon rocks, collected during the historic Apollo 11 mission, will find a new residence aboard the International Space Station alongside a piece of Mt. Everest.On May 20, 2009, during his second attempt to reach the highest point on Earth’s continental crust, former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski successfully carried the moon rocks with him to the summit of Mt. Everest. Part of the Himalaya

International Space Station Media focus

Media focus may currently be centred on the space shuttle’s latest supply run to the International Space Station (ISS), but NASA’s important module-delivery mission isn’t the only stargazing poker the U.S. space administration has in the fire this week. More pointedly, Thursday morning saw the sky over Florida illuminated once again as NASA successfully launched its Solar Dynamics Observatory (

Cassini Spacecraft Crosses Saturn's Ring Plane

If this is Saturn, where are the rings? When Saturn's "appendages" disappeared in 1612, Galileo did not understand why. Later that century, it became understood that Saturn's unusual protrusions were rings and that when the Earth crosses the ring plane, the edge-on rings will appear to disappear. This is because Saturn's rings are confined to a plane many times thinner, in proportion, than a

Field of Rosette

What surrounds the florid Rosette nebula? To better picture this area of the sky, the famous flowery emission nebula on the far right has been captured recently in a deep and dramatic wide field image that features several other sky highlights. Designated NGC 2237, the center of the Rosette nebula is populated by the bright blue stars of open cluster NGC 2244, whose winds and energetic light are

Waterway to Orbit

The 32nd shuttle mission to the International Space Station, STS-130, left planet Earth on February 8. Its early morning launch to orbit from Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A followed the long, graceful, eastward arc seen in this 2 minute time exposure. Well composed, the dramatic picture also shows the arc's watery reflection from the Intracoastal Waterway Bridge, in Ponte Vedra, Florida, about

Teide Sky Trails

The snow capped Teide volcano is reflected in a pool of water in this nearly symmetric night sky view from the Canary Island Tenerife. Bright north star Polaris stands above the peak in an exposure that also captures the brilliant trail of a polar orbiting Iridium satellite. Of course, with the camera fixed to a tripod, the stars themselves produce concentric trails in long exposures, a

Star Cluster M34

This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years. Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young. But like any open star

Mission That Mapped Earth Marks 10th Anniversary

On Feb. 11, 2000, two radar antennas built by JPL launched aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour on an 11-day mission to create the first-ever near-global high-resolution database of Earth's topography. The international Shuttle Radar Topography Mission collected topographic data over nearly 80 percent of Earth's land surfaces, revealing for the first time large, detailed swaths of Earth's

WISE Spies a Comet with its Powerful Infrared Eye

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has discovered its first comet, one of many the mission is expected to find among millions of other objects during its ongoing survey of the whole sky in infrared light. Officially named "P/2010 B2 (WISE)," but known simply as WISE, the comet is a dusty mass of ice more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) in diameter. It probably formed

Layers Piled in a Mars Crater Record a History of Changes

Near the center of a Martian crater about the size of Connecticut, hundreds of exposed rock layers form a mound as tall as the Rockies and reveal a record of major environmental changes on Mars billions of years ago. The history told by this tall parfait of layers inside Gale Crater matches what has been proposed in recent years as the dominant planet-wide pattern for early Mars, according

Cassini Set to Do Retinal Scan of Saturnian Eyeball

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its closest examination yet of Mimas, an eyeball-shaped moon of Saturn that has also been likened to the Death Star of "Star Wars." The spacecraft will be returning the highest-resolution images yet of this battered satellite. Mimas bears the mark of a violent, giant impact from the past - the 140-kilometer-wide (88-mile-wide) Herschel Crater - and

Sakurajima Volcano with Lightning

Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting early last month. Magma bubbles so hot they glow shoot away as liquid rock bursts through the Earth's surface from below. The above image is particularly notable, however, for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano's summit. Why lightning occurs even in common

Night Launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour

Sometimes, the space shuttle launches at night. Pictured above, the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off in yesterday's early morning hours from Launch Pad 39A in Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA, bound for the International Space Station (ISS). A night launch, useful for reaching the space station easily during some times of the year, frequently creates vivid launch imagery. The shuttle, as

Spitzer Goes to the Olympics

Artwork inspired by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is making an appearance at this year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. No, it's not battling other telescopes for the "gold," but its observations are now on display as part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad Festival. The Spitzer art project, called "We are Stardust," was created by George Legrady, a professor at the

Astronaut's Home Away from Home

A team of flight crew support specialists is looking forward to cheering and waving as space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 crew members exit the Operations and Checkout Building, board the Astrovan and head to Launch Complex 39 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.Later, many of them will watch as Endeavour lifts off from pad 39A on Feb. 7 at 4:39 a.m. EST. The team's thoughts and good wishes will go

A Sun Halo Over Cambodia

Have you ever seen a halo around the Sun? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius

The Puffin: A Passion for Personal Flight

Meet the Puffin. It's an airplane concept conjured up by the mind of aerospace engineer Mark Moore. The unusual looking, vertical take-off and landing tailsitter is only an idea, but you'd never know that from the attention the Puffin has gotten on the Internet.Moore came up with the design for the electric powered, 12-foot (3.7 m) long, 14.5-foot (4.4 m) wingspan personal air vehicle as part

NASA Helps Launch Bold New Era of Open Government

On Saturday, February 6, 2010, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched its Open Government Webpage at:http://www.nasa.gov/openIn line with the Directive, the NASA Open Government Webpage serves as a portal to agency activities related to the Open Government Directive.The portal provides an interface for users to get the latest news as it relates to open government at NASA;

The Einstein Cross Gravitational Lens

Most galaxies have a single nucleus -- does this galaxy have four? The strange answer leads astronomers to conclude that the nucleus of the surrounding galaxy is not even visible in this image. The central cloverleaf is rather light emitted from a background quasar. The gravitational field of the visible foreground galaxy breaks light from this distant quasar into four distinct images. The quasar

Endeavour to Deliver a Room With a View

The International Space Station has been moving steadily closer to completion for the past several years. But what house is complete without a utility room, a gym and a picture window?During the STS-130 mission, space shuttle Endeavour will deliver the Tranquility node and its cupola, a dome-shaped extension from Tranquility made up of seven windows. They will be the last major U.S. modules

Hong Kong Sky

This remarkable scene combines multiple exposures recorded on the evening of January 18th from a waterside perspective in Hong Kong, China. It follows a young crescent Moon, with brilliant planet Jupiter to its left, as they set together in the western sky. Their two luminous trails are faintly paralleled by trails of background stars. But easier to pick out are the short, bright airplane

Dust Storm on Mars

It's spring for the northern hemisphere of Mars and spring on Mars usually means dust storms. So the dramatic brown swath of dust (top) marking the otherwise white north polar cap in this picture of the Red Planet is not really surprising. Taking advantage of the good views of Mars currently possible near opposition and its closest approach to planet Earth in 2010, this sharp image shows the

New Hubble Maps of Pluto Show Surface Changes

NASA today released the most detailed set of images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show an icy and dark molasses-colored, mottled world that is undergoing seasonal changes in its surface color and brightness. Pluto has become significantly redder, while its illuminated northern hemisphere is getting brighter. These changes

Stardust in Perseus

This cosmic expanse of dust, gas, and stars covers close to 3 degrees on the sky in the heroic constellation Perseus. Right of center in the gorgeous skyscape is the dusty blue reflection nebula NGC 1333, about 1,000 light-years away. At that estimated distance, the field of view is about 50 light-years across. Next to NGC 1333 is the reddish glow of shocked hydrogen gas created by energetic

Progress 36 Docks to Station

The ISS Progress 36 unpiloted spacecraft docked to the aft port of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station on Thursday, Feb. 4 at 11:26 p.m. EST using the automated Kurs docking system. The new resupply ship brings to the orbiting laboratory 1,940 pounds of propellant, 106 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 2,683 pounds of spare parts and supplies for

A Little Telescope Goes a Long Way

NASA astronomers have successfully demonstrated that a David of a telescope can tackle Goliath-size questions in the quest to study Earth-like planets around other stars. Their work, reported today in the journal Nature, provides a new tool for ground-based observatories, promising to accelerate by years the search for prebiotic, or life-related, molecules on planets orbiting stars beyond our

NASA Extends Cassini's Tour of Saturn

NASA will extend the international Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its moons to 2017. The agency's fiscal year 2011 budget provides a $60 million per year extension for continued study of the ringed planet."This is a mission that never stops providing us surprising scientific results and showing us eye popping new vistas," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science

NASA Extends Safety and Mission Assurance Contract at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama

NASA has exercised a second one-year option with Bastion Technologies Inc. of Houston for continued services in support of the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The extension runs through Jan. 31, 2011.The contract is a cost plus award fee with award term arrangements. The current potential value of the contract, including this $36

NASA, GM Take Giant Leap in Robotic Technology

Robonaut is evolving. NASA and General Motors are working together to accelerate development of the next generation of robots and related technologies for use in the automotive and aerospace industries. Engineers and scientists from NASA and GM worked together through a Space Act Agreement at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston to build a new humanoid robot capable of working side

P/2010 A2: Unusual Asteroid Tail Implies Powerful Collision

What is this strange object? First discovered on ground based LINEAR images on January 6, the object appeared unusual enough to investigate further with the Hubble Space Telescope last week. Pictured above, what Hubble saw indicates that P/2010 A2 is unlike any object ever seen before. At first glance, the object appears to have the tail of a comet. Close inspection, however, shows a

Mystery of the Fading Star

sing NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have found a likely solution to a centuries-old riddle of the night sky.Every 27 years, a bright star called Epsilon Aurigae fades over period of two years, then brightens. Although amateur and professional astronomers have observed the system extensively, the nature of both the bright star and the companion object that periodically eclipses it

Straight Arrow - Wayne

Last Sunday I got to sit with a respected retired NASA executive who just happens to be a Canadian transplant to the steamy gulf coast. After the service was over we had a chat about his early experience with the Avro Arrow. His brief assessment: “Devastating at the time; but it was the best thing that ever happened to me personally. It led to a marvelous career.” That is something to

Solar Dynamics Observatory Set For Launch

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is set to launch from Florida no earlier than 10:30 a.m. EST on Feb. 9, on an unprecedented mission to study the sun and its dynamic behavior.Onboard telescopes will scrutinize sunspots and solar flares using more pixels and colors than any other observatory in the history of solar physics. And SDO will reveal the sun’s hidden secrets in a prodigious rush

Mars and a Colorful Lunar Fog Bow

Even from the top of a volcanic crater, this vista was unusual. For one reason, Mars was dazzlingly bright two weeks ago, when this picture was taken, as it was nearing its brightest time of the entire year. Mars, on the far upper left, is the brightest object in the above picture. The brightness of the red planet peaked last week near when Mars reached opposition, the time when Earth and

ISS Progress 36 Launches to Space Station

A new Progress cargo carrier launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday at 10:45 p.m. EST (9:45 a.m. Wednesday, Baikonur time). The ISS Progress 36 unpiloted spacecraft brings to the International Space Station 1,940 pounds of propellant, 106 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 2,683 pounds of spare parts and supplies. On Thursday shortly before 11:30 p.m.,

An Infrared View of the Galaxy

This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core and offers a laboratory for how massive stars form and influence their environment in the

Suspected Asteroid Collision Leaves Odd X-Pattern of Trailing Debris

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. Astronomers have long thought the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never been seen before.Asteroid collisions are energetic, with an average impact speed of more than 11,000 miles per

A New Era of Innovation and Discovery

NASA enters a new era through commercial partnerships and cutting-edge technology research designed to enable us to explore new worlds and increase our understanding of the Earth and our universe.› FY 2011 Budget Overview (387 Kb PDF)

NASA Announces Tuesday News Teleconferences with Directorate Leaders

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the administration's fiscal year 2011 budget request Monday by calling for change and a new era of innovation in America's approach to science and space exploration. On Tuesday, Feb. 2, the associate administrators of the mission directorates will hold teleconferences to discuss the budget's impact on their specific areas. The teleconference schedule is

NASA Announces News Telecon To Discuss Hubble Images Of Pluto

NASA will hold a news media telecon at 1 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 4, to discuss the latest Hubble images of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. These detailed images will help astronomers better interpret more than three decades of Pluto observations from other telescopes.The panelists are: - Marc Buie, scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.- Mike Brown, professor of

Shepherd Moon Prometheus from Cassini

Another moon of Saturn has been imaged in detail by the Cassini spacecraft. Orbiting Saturn since 2004, the robotic Cassini got its closest look yet at Saturn's small moon Prometheus last week. Visible above in an unprocessed image from 36,000 kilometers away, Prometheus' 100-km long surface was revealed to have an interesting system of bulges, ridges, and craters. These features, together

M51 Hubble Remix

The 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog is perhaps the original spiral nebula--a large galaxy with a well defined spiral structure also cataloged as NGC 5194. Over 60,000 light-years across, M51's spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy, NGC 5195. Image data from the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys was reprocessed to produce this alternative

NASA Radar Captures its First Haiti Image

JPL’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) captured this false-color composite image of the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the surrounding region on Jan. 27, 2010. Port-au-Prince is visible near the center of the image. The large dark line running east-west near the city is the main airport. UAVSAR left NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., Jan. 25,

The Fiscal Year 2011 Budget

The Fiscal Year 2011 BudgetNASA enters this new era through new commercial partnerships and cutting-edge technology research designed to spark American innovation and enable us to explore new worlds, develop more innovative technologies, foster new industries, and increase our understanding of the Earth and our universe. NASA will pursue a more affordable and sustainable approach to spaceflight