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 summer after the Psyche mission team requested to delay the spacecraft’s August 2022 launch to a metal-rich asteroid of the…
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…
Four composite images deliver dazzling views from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope of two galaxies, a nebula, and a star cluster. Each image combines Chandra’s X-rays – a form of high-energy light – with infrared data from previously…
The Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently collected 152 images while looking deep into Belva Crater, a large impact crater within the far larger Jezero Crater. Stitched into a dramatic mosaic, the results are not only eye-catching, but also provide the rover’s science team some deep insights into the interior of Jezero.
“Mars rover missions usually end up…
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight to Fly by Earth
May 17, 2023
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission to the Moon has ended, but the briefcase-size spacecraft will soon fly past Earth before heading into deep space. On Tuesday, May 16, at 9:44 p.m. PDT (Wednesday, May 17, at 12:44 a.m. EDT), the CubeSat will pass about 40,000 miles (65,000…
New images taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover may show signs of what was once a rollicking river on Mars, one that was deeper and faster-moving than scientists have ever seen evidence for in the past. The river was part of a network of waterways that flowed into Jezero…
How do you create a robot that can go places no one has ever seen before – on its own, without real-time human input? A team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that’s creating a snake-like robot for traversing extreme terrain is taking on the challenge with the mentality of a startup: Build quickly, test often, learn, adjust, repeat.
Called EELS (short for Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor)…
Astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of our solar system in infrared light. But to their surprise, the dusty structures are much more…
Re-analysis of data from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, along with new computer modeling, has led NASA scientists to conclude that four of Uranus’ largest moons likely contain an ocean layer between their cores and icy crusts. Their study is the first to detail the evolution…
NASA has taken to the seas and skies to study the unique environment at the ocean’s surface, where marine ecosystems intersect with our planet’s complex atmosphere. On April 7, scientists participating in the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) embarked on the RV Sally Ride from San Diego on the last of three field expeditions to understand the ocean’s role in the Earth’s…
