NASA’s Juno spacecraft will on Saturday, Dec. 30, make the closest flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io that any spacecraft has made in over 20 years. Coming within roughly 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the surface of the most volcanic world in our solar system, the pass is expected to allow Juno instruments to generate a firehose of data.
“By combining data from this flyby with our previous…
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Deciphers Ancient History of Martian Lake
December 22, 2023
Marking its 1,000th Martian day on the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently completed its exploration of the ancient river delta that holds evidence of a lake that filled Jezero Crater billions of years ago. The six-wheeled scientist has to date collected a total…
NASA’s NEOWISE Celebrates 10 Years, Plans End of Mission
December 22, 2023
NASA’s NEOWISE has had a busy decade. Since its reactivated mission began on Dec. 13, 2013, the space telescope has discovered a once-in-a-lifetime comet, observed more than 3,000 near-Earth objects, bolstered international planetary defense strategies, and supported…
Scientists have known that the giant plume of ice grains and water vapor spewing from Saturn’s moon Enceladus is rich with organic compounds, some of which are important for life as we know it. Now, scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Cassini mission are taking the evidence for habitability a step further: They’ve found strong confirmation of hydrogen cyanide, a molecule that is key to the…
NASA’s Tech Demo Streams First Video From Deep Space via Laser
December 22, 2023
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment beamed an ultra-high definition streaming video on Dec. 11 from a record-setting 19 million miles away (31 million kilometers, or about 80 times the Earth-Moon distance). The milestone is part of a NASA technology…
As the Arctic Warms, Its Waters Are Emitting Carbon
December 22, 2023
When it comes to influencing climate change, the world’s smallest ocean punches above its weight. It’s been estimated that the cold waters of the Arctic absorb as much as 180 million metric tons of carbon per year – more than three times what New York City emits…
NASA’s EMIT mission has created the first comprehensive maps of the world’s mineral dust-source regions, providing precise locations of 10 key minerals based on how they reflect and absorb light. When winds loft these substances into the air, they either cool or warm the atmosphere and Earth’s surface, depending on their composition. Understanding their abundance around the globe will help…
NASA Helps Study One of the World’s Most Diverse Ecosystems
December 9, 2023
An international team of researchers spent October and November 2023 in the field studying one of the world’s most biologically diverse areas – South Africa’s Greater Cape Floristic Region. As part of the effort, researchers used NASA airborne and space-based…
Students Create Elaborate Homemade Machines for JPL Competition
December 9, 2023
Some 250 students hauled homemade machines they’d spent weeks honing to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Friday, Dec. 8, for the 24th annual JPL Invention Challenge.
The rules for the creative engineering competition change every year, but the…
NASA’s Psyche Delivers First Images and Other Data
December 6, 2023
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This mosaic of a star field in the constellation Pisces was made from “first light” images acquired Dec. 4 by both of the cameras on NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. Use the slider to view the star field with and without star names labeled. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is on a roll. In the eight weeks since it left Earth on Oct.
