The motion of black holes and other massive objects through space can create ripples in the fabric of the universe, called gravitational waves. On June 28 scientists announced the first evidence of a background of long-wavelength gravitational waves that fills the cosmos. These waves are thought to have been created over eons by supermassive black holes, up to billions of times the mass of our…
A new space telescope named Euclid, an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with important contributions from NASA, is set to launch in July to explore why the universe’s expansion is speeding up. Scientists call the unknown cause of this cosmic acceleration “dark…
The ESA (European Space Agency) and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 11:11 a.m. EDT (8:11 a.m. PDT) Saturday, July 1, to launch the Euclid spacecraft. Euclid is an ESA mission with contributions from NASA that will shed light on the nature of dark matter and dark energy…
While NASA’s Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter are busy exploring Mars, one-tenth-scale buildable models of them have begun touching down in homes around the globe.
Developed in cooperation with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, a new LEGO Technic building set is based on the real rover and helicopter, which have been roaming through Mars’ Jezero Crater since…
An international team of researchers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to calculate the amount of heat energy coming from the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c.
The result suggests that the planet’s atmosphere – if it exists at all – is extremely thin.
With a…
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is well known for landing rovers on Mars, exploring the solar system with robotic probes, and developing sensitive science instruments that observe Earth and other planets. But less well-known is the lab’s cutting-edge work in the digital…
Using data collected by NASA’s Cassini mission, an international team of scientists has discovered phosphorus – an essential chemical element for life – locked inside salt-rich ice grains ejected into space from Enceladus.
The small moon is known to possess a subsurface ocean, and water from that ocean erupts through cracks in Enceladus’ icy crust as geysers at its south pole, creating a…
After years of intense drought and diminishing groundwater, California just saw its greatest year-over-year water gains in two decades, according to data from the GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On) satellite mission, a partnership between NASA and…
Steps taken by NASA, the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and Caltech, to put the Psyche mission on track for an October 2023 launch have been outstanding, according to an independently appointed review board. NASA and JPL convened the board last…
Triggered by earthquakes, undersea volcanoes, and other Earth-shaking forces, tsunamis can devastate coastal communities. And when it comes to providing advance warning, every second counts. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are testing a novel approach to detect – from the far reaches of the atmosphere – the ocean’s deadliest waves.
Called GUARDIAN (GNSS Upper Atmospheric…
