NewsSpace

NASA’s Webb Telescope Captures Rarely Seen Prelude to Supernova

The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star – among the most luminous, most massive, and most briefly detectable stars known – was one of the first observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in June 2022. Webb shows the star, WR 124, in unprecedented detail with its powerful infrared instruments. The star is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Massive stars race…
Read more
NewsSpace

Pi Day Challenge: Solve Stellar Math Problems With NASA

Pi Day is the annual tribute to the mathematical constant pi, whose infinite number of decimals is usually rounded to 3.14. So what better day to celebrate than March 14? To find pi, aka the Greek letter π, you simply divide any circle’s circumference by its diameter. It’s a ratio that’s indispensable to NASA missions studying Earth, Mars, and beyond. This Pi Day marks the 10th year that…
Read more
NewsSpace

NASA Space Mission Takes Stock of Carbon Dioxide Emissions by Countries

A NASA Earth-observing satellite has helped researchers track carbon dioxide emissions for more than 100 countries around the world. The pilot project offers a powerful new look at the carbon dioxide being emitted in these countries and how much of it is removed from the atmosphere by forests and other carbon-absorbing “sinks” within their borders. The findings demonstrate how space-based…
Read more
NewsSpace

NASA’s Curiosity Views First ‘Sun Rays’ on Mars

Martian sunsets are uniquely moody, but NASA’s Curiosity rover captured one last month that stands out. As the Sun descended over the horizon on Feb. 2, rays of light illuminated a bank of clouds. These “sun rays” are also known as crepuscular rays, from the Latin word…
NewsSpace

NASA’s Quantum Detector Achieves World-Leading Milestone

Quantum computers hold the promise of operating millions of times faster than conventional computers. But to communicate over long distances, quantum computers will need a dedicated quantum communications network. To help form such a network, a device has been developed by…
NewsSpace

Removing Traces of Life in Lab Helps NASA Scientists Study Its Origins

In the Origins and Habitability Lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, you can find a world in a test tube – specifically, a simplified simulation of early Earth. By re-creating the conditions that would have been found on our planet roughly 4 billion years ago, scientists can narrow down the possible chemical reactions that could have taken place then – including those that may have been…
Read more