Planetary Alignments and Planet Parades
5 Min Read Planetary Alignments and Planet Parades A sky chart showing Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus in a “planet parade.” Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech On most nights, weather permitting, you can spot at least one bright planet in the night sky. While two or three planets are commonly visible in the hours around sunset, occasionally four […]
NASA Tests in Simulated Lunar Gravity to Prep Payloads for Moon
3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket system on Feb. 4, 2025. During the flight test, the capsule at the top detached from the booster and spun at approximately 11 rpm to simulate lunar gravity for the NASA-supported payloads inside. Blue Origin The […]
Bullseye!
LEDA 1313424, aptly nicknamed the Bullseye, is two and a half times the size of our Milky Way and has nine rings — six more than any other known galaxy. High-resolution imagery from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope confirmed eight rings, and data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii confirmed a ninth. Hubble and […]
Bullseye!
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope , released on Feb. 4, 2025, shows the gargantuan galaxy LEDA 1313424, aptly nicknamed the Bullseye. A far smaller blue dwarf galaxy went through the Bullseye’s center, leaving nine star-filled rings. Astronomers using Hubble identified eight visible rings, more than previously detected by any […]
NASA Demonstrates Software ‘Brains’ Shared Across Satellite Swarms
5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Jeremy Frank, left, and Caleb Adams, right, discuss software developed by NASA’s Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy project. The software runs on spacecraft computers, currently housed on a test rack at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and depicts a spacecraft swarm virtually flying […]
En Route to Jupiter, NASA’s Europa Clipper Captures Images of Stars
4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This mosaic of a star field was made from three images captured Dec. 4, 2024, by star tracker cameras aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. Showing part of the constel-lation Corvus, it’s the first imagery of space the orbiter has captured since its launch on […]
In the Starlight: Anika Isaac’s Mission to Counsel NASA’s Workforce
An interesting fact about Johnson Space Center’s Anika Isaac, MS, LPC, LMFT, LCDC, CEAP, NCC, is that there are more letters following her name than there are in it. A licensed professional counselor, marriage and family therapist, and chemical dependency counselor with several other certifications, Isaac has been a fixture of Johnson’s Employee Assistance Program […]
NASA’s Cloud-based Confluence Software Helps Hydrologists Study Rivers on a Global Scale
3 min read NASA’s Cloud-based Confluence Software Helps Hydrologists Study Rivers on a Global Scale The Paraná River in northern Argentina. Confluence, which is open-source and free to use, allows researchers to estimate river discharge and suspended sediment levels in Earth’s rivers at a global scale. NASA/ISS Rivers and streams wrap around Earth in complex […]
Straight Shot: Hubble Investigates Galaxy with Nine Rings
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science […]
ESA and Finland pave the way towards a supersite for Earth observation
Today, ESA, the Finnish government and the Finnish Meteorological Institute took the initial steps towards establishing a ‘supersite’ for Earth observation calibration and validation in Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland. Envisaged as a joint investment, this world-class site would bring benefits to both ESA, by helping to further ensure satellites deliver accurate data over high latitude […]
ESA’s Gaia finds a mysterious planet and brown dwarf
Video: 00:01:40 Using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, scientists have found a huge exoplanet and a brown dwarf. This is the first time a planet has been uniquely discovered by Gaia’s ability to sense the gravitational tug or ‘wobble’ the planet induces on a star. Both the planet and brown dwarf are […]
Webb investigates a dusty and dynamic disc
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month presents HH 30 in unprecedented detail. This target is an edge-on protoplanetary disc that is surrounded by jets and a disc wind, and is located in the dark cloud LDN 1551 in the Taurus Molecular Cloud. To source