NASA is investing more than $14 million in 19 U.S. colleges and universities to grow their STEM capacity to participate in critical spaceflight research and prepare a new generation of diverse students for careers in the nation’s science, technology, engineering, and math workforce.
“These awards help NASA reach students and institutions that traditionally have had fewer opportunities in…
When NASA’s Juno mission flies by Jupiter’s fiery moon Io on Sunday, July 30, the spacecraft will be making its closest approach yet, coming within 13,700 miles (22,000 kilometers) of it. Data collected by the Italian-built JIRAM (Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper) and…
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sees Mars in a New Light
July 21, 2023
In its first 400 days on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover may have found a diverse collection of organics – carbon-based molecules considered the building blocks of life – thanks to SHERLOC, an innovative instrument on the rover’s robotic arm. Scientists with the…
In mid-June, a team of freshwater researchers spent their nights drifting down Alaska’s Yukon River in an area that straddles the Arctic Circle. The hydrologists were using a GPS unit installed on their boat to measure the slope of the river at the same time that the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite passed overhead, collecting its own data on the waterway. The midnight…
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover sealed the tube containing its 20th rock core sample on June 23 (the 832nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission), and the mission’s science team is excited about its potential. That’s because this sample was drilled by the rover from an…
With less than 100 days to go before its Oct. 5 launch, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is undergoing final preparations at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Teams of engineers and technicians are working almost around the clock to ensure the orbiter is ready to journey 2.5 billion miles…
From our cosmic backyard in the solar system to distant galaxies near the dawn of time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered on its promise of revealing the universe like never before in its first year of science operations. To celebrate the completion of a successful first year, NASA has released Webb’s image of a small star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.
“In…
The ESA (European Space Agency) Euclid spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:12 a.m. EDT on Saturday, July 1, beginning its mission to study why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Astronomers use the term “dark…
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Phones Home
July 1, 2023
The 52nd flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is now in the official mission logbook as a success. The flight took place back on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California lost contact with the helicopter as it…
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…