• Station Immunology Insights For Earth and Space

    Station Immunology Insights For Earth and Space

    06.17.13 - 
    When we get sick, our immune systems kick into gear to tell our bodies how to heal. Our T cells -- white blood cells that act like tiny generals -- order an army of immune cells to organize and attack the enemy. Microgravity studies aboard the International Space Station are helping researchers pinpoint what drives these responses, leading to future medical treatments on Earth.

  • Webb Telescope's Last Backbone Component Completed

    Webb Telescope's Last Backbone Component Completed

    06.14.13 - 
    Assembly of the backbone of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is a step closer to completion with the recent addition of the backplane support frame, a fixture that will be used to connect all the pieces of the telescope together.

    The backplane support frame will bring together Webb's center section and wings, secondary mirror support structure, aft optics system and integrated science instrument module.

  • Study Explains Decades of Black Hole Observations

    Study Explains Decades of Black Hole Observations

    06.14.13 - 
    A new study by astronomers at NASA, Johns Hopkins University and the Rochester Institute of Technology confirms long-held suspicions about how stellar-mass black holes produce their highest-energy light.

    By analyzing a supercomputer simulation of gas flowing into a black hole, the team finds they can reproduce a range of important X-ray features long observed in active black holes.

  • HS3 Hurricane Mission to Delve into Saharan Dust

    HS3 Hurricane Mission to Delve into Saharan Dust

    06.14.13 - 
    NASA's 2013 Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel or HS3 mission will investigate whether Saharan dust and its associated warm and dry air, known as the Saharan Air Layer or SAL, favors or suppresses the development of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean. The effects of Saharan dust on tropical cyclones is a controversial area of science.

  • Warm Ocean Causing Most Antarctic Ice Shelf Loss

    Warm Ocean Causing Most Antarctic Ice Shelf Loss

    06.13.13 - 
    Ocean waters melting the undersides of Antarctic ice shelves are responsible for most of the continent's ice shelf mass loss, a new study by NASA and university researchers has found.

    This study - the first comprehensive survey of all Antarctic ice shelves - found basal melt accounted for 55 percent of all Antarctic ice shelf mass loss from 2003 to 2008, an amount much higher than previously thought.

  • Mars Water-Ice Clouds Key to Odd Thermal Rhythm

    Mars Water-Ice Clouds Key to Odd Thermal Rhythm

    06.12.13 - 
    Researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found that temperatures in the Martian atmosphere regularly rise and fall not just once each day, but twice.

    Temperatures swing by as much as 58 degrees Fahrenheit (32 kelvins) in this odd, twice-a-day pattern, as detected by the orbiter's Mars Climate Sounder instrument.

  • Evidence of Planet Forming Far Away From Its Star

    Evidence of Planet Forming Far Away From Its Star

    06.13.13 - 
    Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found compelling evidence of a planet forming 7.5 billion miles away from its star, a finding that may challenge current theories about planet formation.

    Of the almost 900 planets outside our solar system that have been confirmed to date, this is the first to be found at such a great distance from its star. If the suspected planet were orbiting in our solar system, it would be roughly twice Pluto's distance from the sun.

  • Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in Arctic?

    Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in Arctic?

    06.11.13 - 
    Flying low and slow above the wild, pristine terrain of Alaska's North Slope in a specially instrumented NASA plane, research scientist Charles Miller of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., surveys the endless whiteness of tundra and frozen permafrost below. On the horizon, a long, dark line appears. The plane draws nearer, and the mysterious object reveals itself to be a massive herd of migrating caribou, stretching for miles.

  • Martian Dune Marks May Be Tracks of Dry-Ice Sleds

    Martian Dune Marks May Be Tracks of Dry-Ice Sleds

    06.11.13 - 
    NASA research indicates hunks of frozen carbon dioxide -- dry ice -- may glide down some Martian sand dunes on cushions of gas similar to miniature hovercraft, plowing furrows as they go.

    Researchers deduced this process could explain one enigmatic class of gullies seen on Martian sand dunes by examining images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and performing experiments on sand dunes in Utah and California.

  • Astronomers Identify Black Holes With Chandra Data

    Astronomers Identify Black Holes With Chandra Data

    06.12.13 - 
    Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have discovered an unprecedented bonanza of black holes in the Andromeda Galaxy, one of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way.

    The black hole candidates belong to the stellar mass category, meaning they formed in the death throes of very massive stars and typically have masses five to 10 times that of our sun.