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  • NASA Missions Help Identify What Powers Auroral ‘Space Battery’

    Scouring archived observations from NASA missions, scientists may have solved a mystery about what powers a type of aurora called auroral arcs. The answer, they say, is space waves. From the ground, auroral arcs look like green, glowing curtains of light sweeping across the night sky. From space, they appear as thin, green lines — or arcs — slicing across the […]

  • NASA’s Galileo Mission Points to Ammonia at Europa, Recent Study Shows

    New analysis of decades-old data has turned up a significant result: the first discovery of ammonia-bearing compounds on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Ammonia is a nitrogen-bearing molecule, and nitrogen — like carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen — is key to life as we know it. As the first such detection at Europa, the finding […]

  • NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Begins Quarantine for Space Station Mission

    Four side-by-side astronauts in white spacesuits look toward the camera.

    The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission began their routine two-week quarantine on Wednesday at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston ahead of their upcoming launch to the International Space Station. The earliest opportunity for Crew-12 to launch to the orbital complex is 6 a.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 11, from Space Launch Complex 40 at […]

  • NASA’s Arcstone Instrument Successfully Completes Primary Mission 

    Earth fills the bottom half of the image, against the black expanse of space. A satellite — consisting of a thin rectangle, with a long, flat rectangular solar panel attached perpendicularly to one side — orbits above the planet. From the left, an orange beam points to the upper left in space. On the right, a green beam points to the upper right in space.

    NASA’s Arcstone instrument, designed to improve the accuracy of lunar calibration, successfully completed its technology demonstration, and now begins extended operations.   Arcstone launched on June 23 on a SpaceX Transporter-14 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, on a six-month mission to measure light reflected by the Moon, which is a stable and potentially highly-accurate calibration source, for satellite sensors.  The mission, led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, uses a specially designed spectrometer system and is the first on-orbit instrument solely dedicated […]

  • Crew Studies Robotics and Virtual Reality Advancing Space Tech

    iss070e038773 (Dec. 13, 2023) --Two free-flying robotic helpers, Astrobee, float in microgravity. The robots are designed to help crews aboard the International Space Station complete daily tasks and reduce the time spent on routine duties.

    Robotics and virtual reality filled the science schedule aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday as the Expedition 74 crew promoted education and explored human research. The orbital trio also inspected safety equipment, worked on cargo swaps, and conducted Earth observations.

  • NASA’s TESS Reobserves Comet 3I/ATLAS

    NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS during a special observation run from Jan. 15 to 22. Scientists will use the data to study the comet’s activity and rotation.   Using TESS data from Jan. 15 and Jan. 18 to 19, Daniel Muthukrishna, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of […]

  • NASA Moves Steps Closer to Artemis II Fueling Test Ahead of Launch

    Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue to prepare the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground infrastructure in advance of the Artemis II test flight. Engineers have remained on track or ahead of schedule as they work through planned activities at the launch pad and are getting ready to conduct […]