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NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After Years of Science

December 22, 2022
NASA’s InSight mission has ended after more than four years of collecting unique science on Mars. Mission controllers at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California were unable to contact the lander after two consecutive attempts, leading them to conclude the spacecraft’s solar-powered batteries have run out of energy – a state engineers refer to as “dead bus.” NASA…
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NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Sentinel-6B Mission

December 21, 2022
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the Sentinel-6B mission. Sentinel-6B will continue the long-term global sea level data record begun in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon followed by Jason 1, 2, 3, and…
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NASA Gets Unusually Close Glimpse of Black Hole Snacking on Star

December 21, 2022
Multiple NASA telescopes recently observed a massive black hole tearing apart an unlucky star that wandered too close. Located about 250 million light-years from Earth in the center of another galaxy, it was the fifth-closest example of a black hole destroying a star ever…
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40-Year Study Finds Mysterious Patterns in Temperatures at Jupiter

December 20, 2022
Scientists have completed the longest-ever study tracking temperatures in Jupiter’s upper troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere where the giant planet’s weather occurs and where its signature colorful striped clouds form. The work, conducted over four decades by stitching together data from NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescope observations, found unexpected patterns in how…
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NASA Launches International Mission to Survey Earth’s Water

December 16, 2022
A satellite built for NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) to observe nearly all the water on our planet’s surface lifted off on its way to low-Earth orbit at 3:46 a.m. PST on Friday. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT)…
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Two Exoplanets May Be Mostly Water, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Find

December 16, 2022
A team led by of researchers at the University of Montreal has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are “water worlds,” where water makes up a large fraction of the entire planet. These worlds, located in a planetary system 218 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, are unlike any planets found in our solar system. The team, led by Caroline Piaulet of the Institute…
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NASA Sensors to Help Detect Methane Emitted by Landfills

December 15, 2022
Observations from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) and other NASA science instruments will be part of a global survey of point-source emissions of methane from solid waste sites such as landfills. The multiyear effort is being developed and…
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NASA’s Juno Exploring Jovian Moons During Extended Mission

December 15, 2022
NASA’s Juno mission is scheduled to obtain images of the Jovian moon Io on Dec. 15 as part of its continuing exploration of Jupiter’s inner moons. Now in the second year of its extended mission to investigate the interior of Jupiter, the solar-powered spacecraft…
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Latest International Water Satellite Packs an Engineering Punch

December 13, 2022
Set for a Thursday, Dec. 15 launch, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite promises to provide an extraordinary accounting of water over much of Earth’s surface. Its measurements of fresh water and the ocean will help researchers address some of the most pressing climate questions of our time and help communities prepare for a warming world. Making this possible is a scientific…
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