Where are flood waters flowing after major storms? Where are the changes in tree and plant cover after droughts, wildfires, deforestation, or mining? How much did the land move during an earthquake or volcanic eruption? Scientists routinely rely on data-intensive analysis and visualization of satellite observations to track Earth’s ever-changing surface. A new project will make it possible for…
NASA has selected 10 researchers from institutions across the U.S. to join the Science Working Team of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission as NASA-supported participating scientists.
JAXA’s MMX mission, planned to launch in…
Icy Moonquakes: Surface Shaking Could Trigger Landslides
April 14, 2023
Many of the ice-encrusted moons orbiting the giant planets in the far reaches of our solar system are known to be geologically active. Jupiter and Saturn have such strong gravity that they stretch and pull the bodies orbiting them, causing moonquakes that can crack the…
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Completes 50th Flight
April 14, 2023
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed its 50th flight on Mars. The first aircraft on another world reached the half-century mark on April 13, traveling over 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds. The helicopter also achieved a new altitude record of 59 feet (18 meters) before alighting near the half-mile-wide (800-meter-wide) “Belva Crater.”
With Flight 50 in the mission…
NASA to Convene Mars Sample Return Review
April 14, 2023
NASA will convene a Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program independent review board, or IRB, to perform a review of current plans and goals for one of the most difficult missions humanity has ever undertaken: bringing samples from another planet to study on Earth.
Later this year…
Years in the making, a major software update that has been installed on NASA’s Curiosity rover will enable the Mars robot to drive faster and reduce wear and tear on its wheels. Those are just two of about 180 changes implemented during the update, which required the team…
NASA Receives Nine 2023 Webby Award Nominations
April 11, 2023
The last time NASA sent a spacecraft to the Moon that was built to carry people, the internet didn’t exist. Its predecessor was a small network that connected a handful of servers at universities and military bases. That was 1972, and the system had only just developed the capability to send what people were calling “e-mail.” Fifty years later, NASA took the world’s online population to…
Technology in development today could radically change the future of air and space exploration. Nearly silent electric aircraft could ferry people and packages around cities, a sprawling radio telescope array on the far side of the Moon could reveal new secrets about the…
Exotic cosmic objects known as ultra-luminous X-ray sources produce about 10 million times more energy than the Sun. They’re so radiant, in fact, that they appear to surpass a physical boundary called the Eddington limit, which puts a cap on how bright an object can be…
Using two decades of NASA satellite measurements stored in the cloud, scientists recently assessed the vulnerability of Belize’s renowned coral reefs to bleaching and collapse. The findings could help management authorities protect the reefs from human impacts such as development, overfishing, pollution, and climate change.
The 185-mile-long (298-kilometer-long) barrier reef system off the coast…
