Martha Chaffee, widow of Roger Chaffee, Sheryl Chaffee, daughter, and Roger Purvenas, son of Sheryl Chaffee, left, along with acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot, right, place wreaths at the graves of Apollo 1 crewmembers Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Roger Chaffee as part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. To source
In a first, several components of the Orion spacecraft project were combined for a vibrations test. Test subjects, modified advanced crew escape suits and the most current seat design for the crew impact attenuation system underwent simultaneous testing so the human factors engineers can begin understanding how the Space Launch System may affect astronaut performance. […]
Concept artwork of the holographic image that was created with the ANU invention. Princess Leia’s holographic plea in the classic film “Star Wars” inspired researchers to work toward a device that could project real-life sci-fi holograms. Now, the futuristic 3D imaging may be one step closer to reality. A team of physicists at the Australian […]
Satellite image shows a location in Peru. If you find the artifact-hunting adventures of Indiana Jones thrilling but a little too gritty, a new online tool will allow you to remotely analyze images of ancient sites taken from space. You can discover their hidden secrets and even protect them from looting and damage. Welcome to […]
Human spaceflight and robotic explorations image of the week: ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet feeling objects in the Netherlands from space To source
Venus, Mars and the crescent moon will form a brilliant triangle in the southwestern night sky on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. To compensate for its unfriendly chill, the coming night offers the unusual beauty of two twilight spectacles: Skywatchers are right in the midst of a nearly two-week-long duet of Venus and Mars at dusk, […]
Artist’s conception of Earth’s solar system (not to scale). Approximately 4.5 billion years ago, gravity pulled a cloud of dust and gas together to form our solar system. While scientists aren’t certain of the exact nature of the process, observations of young stellar systems combined with computer simulations have allowed them to develop three models […]
Solar eruptions hidden by the light of the sun are releasing bursts of energy roughly 30 times more powerful than ever seen before, and for the first time, an international team of scientists has associated these hidden flares with high-energy gamma-rays. Using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in combination with its Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory […]
“Traffic is driving me nuts,” tech mogul Elon Musk tweeted last December. “Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging…” It says something about Musk that most of us weren’t sure whether he was joking. He quickly replied to his own tweet : “I am actually going to do this.” He mentioned […]
This image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory captures an unusual supernova called SN 2014C in the spiral galaxy NGC 7331. A perplexing “chameleon supernova” is challenging the way astronomers study massive star explosions. When some stars reach the end of their lives, they explode in a bright stellar event called a supernova, releasing material created […]
Wouldn’t it be great if, when landing a robotic mission on another planet, the lander or rover could just scoop a sample, drop it into a chemical analyzer and get a “positive” or “negative” result for extraterrestrial life? Well, this chemistry test isn’t so far fetched and scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, […]
Chimpanzees are in crisis, but NASA may be able to help: The agency recently announced a partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute, in hopes of helping chimpanzee conservation efforts. One hundred years ago, more than 2 million chimpanzees were in the world. Now, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that only 345,000 […]
The Landsat 8 satellite captured infrared hot spots representing two distinct lava flows on the volcano. Known as the “smoking mountain” and the “gateway to hell,” Ethiopia’s most active volcano is spilling large amounts of lava, and a NASA satellite recently snapped a photo of the eruption. On Jan. 26, Landsat 8, a satellite operated […]