Jet Propulsion Laboratory – Page 5

Ride with NASA’s Juno orbiter over turbulent Jupiter

30 May 2017 Stephen Clark

Take a trip around Jupiter with NASA’s Juno spacecraft in a time-lapse animation created from a sequence of images taken during the probe’s last close-up flyby of the gas giant May 19.

Cassini survives closest brush with Saturn’s inner ring

30 May 2017 Stephen Clark

Barreling through space near the inner edge of Saturn’s wispy D ring, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shielded itself from bits of ice and dust Sunday as the probe made its most dangerous plunge close to the planet, collecting spectacular edge-on views of Saturn’s rings with an on-board camera.

Earlier launch of NASA’s Psyche mission touted as cost-saving measure

26 May 2017 Stephen Clark

A NASA spacecraft set to explore a metallic asteroid for the first time will launch in 2022, a year earlier than originally planned, and reach its destination in 2026, four years ahead of schedule, giving ground teams a shorter wait for the mission’s scientific payoff and shaving $100 million off the project’s total cost, officials said Wednesday.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft aims to skirt Saturn’s innermost ring

22 May 2017 Stephen Clark

Fresh off its fifth passage through a gap between Saturn’s atmosphere and rings, NASA’s robotic Cassini spacecraft is looping toward a close brush with the planet’s innermost ring next week, when the probe will again use its high-gain antenna as a shield against icy particles that may lie in its path.

Juno spacecraft makes another pass by Jupiter

20 May 2017 Stephen Clark

Making its fifth science pass close to Jupiter’s turbulent cloud tops, NASA’s Juno spacecraft sailed by the Solar System’s king planet Friday to collect another treasure trove of data on the giant world’s atmosphere, internal structure, and magnetic field.

Movie shows Ceres at opposition from Sun

17 May 2017 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft successfully observed Ceres at opposition on April 29, taking images from a position exactly between the Sun and Ceres’ surface. Mission specialists had carefully maneuvered Dawn into a special orbit so that the spacecraft could view Occator Crater, which contains the brightest area of Ceres, from this new perspective.

‘Warm Neptune’ has unexpectedly primitive atmosphere

15 May 2017 Astronomy Now

A study combining observations from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes reveals that the distant planet HAT-P-26b has a primitive atmosphere composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. Located about 437 light-years away, HAT-P-26b orbits a star roughly twice as old as the Sun.

Merging galaxies have enshrouded black holes

10 May 2017 Astronomy Now

Black holes get a bad rap in popular culture for swallowing everything in their environments. In reality, stars, gas and dust can orbit black holes for long periods of time, until a major disruption pushes the material in.

Cassini downlinks view of Titan’s methane clouds on third loop inside rings

10 May 2017 Stephen Clark

The Cassini spacecraft captured captivating images of wispy methane clouds suspended above Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes as the probe headed for its third shot through Saturn’s ring gap Tuesday.

First aerial colour photo of Mars rover’s “hole-in-one” landing site

3 May 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA has released the first high-resolution aerial colour image of the Opportunity rover’s landing site on a sprawling Martian plain, where the airbag-cushioned robot fortuitously rolled into a Eagle Crater in January 2004, putting its scientific instruments face-to-face with a block of sedimentary rock that gave ground teams confirmation Mars was once a warmer, wetter, and habitable planet.