NASA – Page 5 – Astronomy Now

Juno Post-Arrival News Conference

5 July 2016 Astronomy Now

Juno programme officials hold a news conference at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory following the successful orbital insertion of the space probe around the gas giant Jupiter.

Scientists on edge awaiting Juno’s perilous encounter with Jupiter

4 July 2016 Stephen Clark

Speeding toward Jupiter at nearly 40 miles per second, NASA’s Juno spacecraft must brave a field of computer-zapping radiation and Jupiter’s tenuous ring of ice and dust particles when it brakes into orbit around the planet Monday and zooms just 2,900 miles from the world’s turbulent cloud tops.

A ‘super Grand Canyon’ on Pluto’s moon Charon

24 June 2016 Astronomy Now

Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, is home to an unusual canyon system that’s far longer and deeper than Arizona’s Grand Canyon. As far as NASA’s New Horizons scientists can tell, the canyon informally named Argo Chasma has a total length of approximately 430 miles — one and a half times the length and five times the depth of the Grand Canyon on Earth.

“Electric wind” can strip Earth-like planets of oceans and atmospheres

21 June 2016 Astronomy Now

The space environment around a planet plays a key role in determining what molecules exist in the atmosphere – and whether the planet is habitable for life. New research shows that Venus has an “electric wind” strong enough to remove the components of water from its upper atmosphere, which may have played a significant role in stripping Earth’s twin planet of its oceans.

Hubble resolves globular cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud

20 June 2016 Astronomy Now

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the globular cluster NGC 1854, a gathering of white and blue stars in the southern constellation of Dorado. NGC 1854 is located about 135,000 light-years away, in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of our closest cosmic neighbours and a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

Watch NASA’s Juno News Conference

17 June 2016 Astronomy Now

Watch as NASA holds a news conference to discuss the Juno mission and the probe’s planned 4 July arrival at Jupiter. The spacecraft will be the first to visit the gas giant in almost a decade.

LISA Pathfinder success paves way for space-based gravitational wave detection

9 June 2016 Astronomy Now

LISA Pathfinder, a mission led by the European Space Agency with contributions from NASA, has successfully tested key technology needed to build a space-based observatory for detecting gravitational waves. These tiny ripples in the fabric of space, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago, were first seen last year by the ground-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Pluto’s “Twilight Zone” reveals its secrets

3 June 2016 Astronomy Now

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft took this stunning image mere minutes after closest approach on 14 July 2015. Seen here, sunlight filters through and illuminates Pluto’s complex atmospheric haze layers over portions of the nitrogen ice plains informally named Sputnik Planum, as well as mountains of the informally named Norgay Montes.

Kepler telescope recovered from spacecraft emergency

11 April 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Kepler planet-searching spacecraft is stable and out of emergency mode, officials said Monday, and the observatory is downlinking data to help engineers determine what caused it to suspend science operations last week.

Kepler space telescope in emergency mode

10 April 2016 Stephen Clark

Mission controllers are trying to diagnose a problem that put NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting observatory in emergency mode nearly 75 million miles from Earth this week.