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NASA’s Perseverance rover is well into its second science campaign, collecting rock-core samples from features within an area long considered by scientists to be a top prospect for finding signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. The rover has collected four samples from an ancient river delta in the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater since July 7, bringing the total count of scientifically compelling rock samples to 12.
Twenty-eight miles (45 kilometers) wide, Jezero Crater hosts a delta – an ancient fan-shaped feature that formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the convergence of a Martian river and a lake. Perseverance is currently investigating the delta’s sedimentary rocks, formed when particles of various sizes settled in the once-watery environment. During its first science campaign, the rover explored the crater’s floor, finding igneous rock, which forms deep underground from magma or during volcanic activity at the surface.
In this image, NASA’s Perseverance rover puts its robotic arm to work around a rocky outcrop called “Skinner Ridge” in Mars’ Jezero Crater. Composed of multiple images, this mosaic shows layered sedimentary rocks in the face of a cliff in the delta, as well as one of the locations where the rover abraded a circular patch to analyze a rock’s composition.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
#NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #SolarSystemandBeyond #Mars #planet #Perseverance
I re-created a multiple image composite showing the trail of NASA's satellite launch earlier this week, deleting the extra images of the background stars and foreground, so everything is more crisp and the result isn't so busy with star trails.
Each of the individual exposures in this sequence was 30 seconds, so the 8 shown in the flight path in this sequence represent 4 minutes of flight. The 3 solid fuel rocket boosters you can just see in this image, dropping near the end of the first and brightest segment to the right, were dropped at 1:30 into the flight, so this sequence of 30 second images shows roughly 1:00 to 5:00 in the overall launch sequence.
Workers set up exhibits around NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to prepare for the May 14 and 15 free Open House event, which features exhibits and demonstrations about the Laboratory's ongoing research and space exploration.
› Learn more about the 2011 JPL Open House event | ›Post your 2011 JPL Open House photos | › Join the conversation on Facebook
Workers set up exhibits around NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to prepare for the May 14 and 15 free Open House event, which features exhibits and demonstrations about the Laboratory's ongoing research and space exploration.
› Learn more about the 2011 JPL Open House event | ›Post your 2011 JPL Open House photos | › Join the conversation on Facebook
Before dawn in the fall there is a beam of light from the sun shining on dust in our solar system. I included the prior few hours of Orionid Meteors in this composite image from a stationary camera that I left shooting on a tripod overnight.
NASA JPL sent out a link to a video with October sky watching tips, and they used this image in it: www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/whats-up-october-2022?utm_source=...
This image from NASA's Juno spacecraft provides a never-before-seen perspective on Jupiter's south pole.
The JunoCam instrument acquired the view on August 27, 2016, when the spacecraft was about 58,700 miles (94,500 kilometers) above the polar region. At this point, the spacecraft was about an hour past its closest approach, and fine detail in the south polar region is clearly resolved.
Unlike the equatorial region's familiar structure of belts and zones, the poles are mottled by clockwise and counterclockwise rotating storms of various sizes, similar to giant versions of terrestrial hurricanes. The south pole has never been seen from this viewpoint, although the Cassini spacecraft was able to observe most of the polar region at highly oblique angles as it flew past Jupiter on its way to Saturn in 2000 (see PIA07784).
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena.
For more information about NASA's Juno Mission, click here.
A comet landed in Brooklyn over the weekend!
NASA JPL partnered with the World Science Festival and StudioKCA in Brooklyn to create a 1:1000 scale model of the comet the Rosetta spacecraft expects to rendezvous with later this year.
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The core of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft has taken center stage in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Standing 10 feet (3 meters) high and 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide, the craft’s main body will for the next two years be the focus of attention in the facility’s ultra-hygienic High Bay 1 as engineers and technicians assemble the spacecraft for its launch to Jupiter’s moon Europa in October 2024.
Scientists believe the ice-enveloped moon harbors a vast internal ocean that may have conditions suitable for supporting life. During nearly 50 flybys of Europa, the spacecraft’s suite of science instruments will gather data on the moon’s atmosphere, surface, and interior – information that scientists will use to gauge the depth and salinity of the ocean, the thickness of the ice crust, and potential plumes that may be venting subsurface water into space.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with APL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#nasa #NASAMarshall #msfc #NASAGoddard #NASAJPL #solarsystem #jupiter #Europa #EuropaClipper #moon
"Marathon Valley," slicing through a large crater's rim on Mars, has provided fruitful research targets for NASA's Opportunity rover since July 2015, but the rover may soon move on.
Opportunity recently collected a sweeping panorama from near the western end of this east-west valley. The vista shows an area where the mission investigated evidence about how water altered the ancient rocks and, beyond that, the wide floor of Endeavour Crater and the crater's eastern rim about 14 miles (22 kilometers) away.
Marathon Valley lured the mission because researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had mapped water-related clay minerals at this area of the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The rover team chose the valley's informal name because Opportunity's arrival at this part of the rim coincided closely with the rover surpassing marathon-footrace distance in total driving since its January 2004 Mars landing.
To read the full article, click here.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights, click here.
NASA's Juno mission successfully executed its first of 36 orbital flybys of Jupiter today. The time of closest approach with the gas-giant world was 6:44 a.m. PDT (9:44 a.m. EDT, 13:44 UTC) when Juno passed about 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) above Jupiter's swirling clouds. At the time, Juno was traveling at 130,000 mph (208,000 kilometers per hour) with respect to the planet. This flyby was the closest Juno will get to Jupiter during its prime mission.
"Early post-flyby telemetry indicates that everything worked as planned and Juno is firing on all cylinders," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
There are 35 more close flybys of Jupiter planned during Juno's mission (scheduled to end in February 2018). The August 27 flyby was the first time Juno had its entire suite of science instruments activated and looking at the giant planet as the spacecraft zoomed past.
"We are getting some intriguing early data returns as we speak," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "It will take days for all the science data collected during the flyby to be downlinked and even more to begin to comprehend what Juno and Jupiter are trying to tell us."
While results from the spacecraft's suite of instruments will be released down the road, a handful of images from Juno's visible light imager -- JunoCam -- are expected to be released the next couple of weeks. Those images will include the highest-resolution views of the Jovian atmosphere and the first glimpse of Jupiter's north and south poles.
"We are in an orbit nobody has ever been in before, and these images give us a whole new perspective on this gas-giant world," said Bolton.
The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.
For more information about NASA's Juno Mission, click here.
This is the final view taken by the JunoCam instrument on NASA's Juno spacecraft before Juno's instruments were powered down in preparation for orbit insertion. Juno obtained this color view on June 29, 2016, at a distance of 3.3 million miles (5.3 million kilometers) from Jupiter.
After an almost five-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet, Juno successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 8:53 p.m. PDT (11:53 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 4.
To read the full article, click here.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights, click here.
Astronomers have discovered the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected. The discovery was made using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and its extended K2 mission, as well as the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars beyond our sun.
The newfound planet, K2-33b, is a bit larger than Neptune and whips tightly around its star every five days. It is only 5 to 10 million years old, making it one of a very few newborn planets found to date.
"Our Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old," said Trevor David of Caltech in Pasadena, lead author of a new study published online June 20, 2016, in the journal Nature. "By comparison, the planet K2-33b is very young. You might think of it as an infant." David is a graduate student working with astronomer Lynne Hillenbrand, also of Caltech.
Planet formation is a complex and tumultuous process that remains shrouded in mystery. Astronomers have discovered and confirmed roughly 3,000 exoplanets so far; however, nearly all of them are hosted by middle-aged stars, with ages of a billion years or more. For astronomers, attempting to understand the life cycles of planetary systems using existing examples is like trying to learn how people grow from babies to children to teenagers, by only studying adults.
To read the full article, click here.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights, click here.
August 8, 2017
#Bethlehem, PA, USA
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Wishing you clear skies! -Marty McGuire 🔭
#NASA #JPL #SolarSystemAmbassador 🚀
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In 1936, the young star FU Orionis began gobbling material from its surrounding disk of gas and dust with a sudden voraciousness. During a three-month binge, as matter turned into energy, the star became 100 times brighter, heating the disk around it to temperatures of up to 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit (7,000 Kelvin). FU Orionis is still devouring gas to this day, although not as quickly.
This brightening is the most extreme event of its kind that has been confirmed around a star the size of the sun, and may have implications for how stars and planets form. The intense baking of the star's surrounding disk likely changed its chemistry, permanently altering material that could one day turn into planets.
"By studying FU Orionis, we're seeing the absolute baby years of a solar system," said Joel Green, a project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland. "Our own sun may have gone through a similar brightening, which would have been a crucial step in the formation of Earth and other planets in our solar system."
To read the full article, click here.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights, click here.
NASA’s newest astrophysics space telescope launched in March on a mission to create an all-sky map of the universe. Now settled into low-Earth orbit, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) has begun delivering its sky survey data to a public archive on a weekly basis, allowing anyone to use the data to probe the secrets of the cosmos.
NASA’s SPHEREx mission will map the entire sky in 102 different wavelengths, or colors, of infrared light. This image of the Vela Molecular Ridge was captured by SPHEREx and is part of the mission’s first ever public data release. The yellow patch on the right side of the image is a cloud of interstellar gas and dust that glows in some infrared colors due to radiation from nearby stars.
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #SPHEREx #astrophysics #science #universe
This 2013 image taken by NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, captures a nebula that looks like a witch screaming. Perhaps that imagined scream is a creation spell, for the Witch Hat nebula’s billowy clouds are a star nursery. We can see these clouds thanks to massive stars lighting them up; dust in the cloud is being hit with starlight, causing it to glow with infrared light, which was picked up by WISE’s detectors.
Credit: NASA
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASA #astronomy #nearearthobjects #WISE #NASAJPL
Read more about the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)
Deep Space Station 23’s 133-ton reflector dish was recently installed, marking a key step in strengthening NASA’s Deep Space Network.
NASA’s Deep Space Network, an array of giant radio antennas, allows agency missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from spacecraft venturing to the Moon and beyond. NASA is adding a new antenna, bringing the total to 15, to support increased demand for the world’s largest and most sensitive radio frequency telecommunication system.
Installation of the latest antenna took place on Dec. 18, when teams at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, installed the metal reflector framework for Deep Space Station 23, a multifrequency beam-waveguide antenna. When operational in 2026, Deep Space Station 23 will receive transmissions from missions such as Perseverance, Psyche, Europa Clipper, Voyager 1, and a growing fleet of future human and robotic spacecraft in deep space.
In this image, a crane lowers the steel reflector framework for Deep Space Station 23 into position Dec. 18 on a 65-foot-high (20-meter) platform above the antenna’s pedestal that will steer the reflector. Panels will be affixed to the structure create a curved surface to collect radio frequency signals.
Credit: NASA
#NASAMarshall #NASA #NASAJPL #DeepSpaceNetwork
🚀🌙 NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission is ready to live up to its name!
The small satellite is riding along on Int_Machines’ IM-2 launch, part of NASA’s CLPS initiative, which is slated to launch no earlier than Feb. 26.
Approximately 48 minutes after launch, Lunar Trailblazer will separate from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and begin its independent flight to the Moon. Once there, it will map the distribution of water on the Moon - helping scientists to better understand the lunar water cycle.💧
Observations gathered during Lunar Trailblazer's two-year prime mission will contribute to the understanding of water cycles on airless bodies throughout the solar system and support future missions to the Moon. 🌌
📺 Make sure to tune in to NASA+ to watch live launch coverage and prelaunch events starting Tuesday, Feb. 25.
Visual description: The Intuitive Machines lunar lander, that NASA's Lunar Trailblazer is hitching a ride on, is encapsulated in the fairing of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Credit: SpaceX
Lunar Trailblazer is part of NASA's Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, which provides opportunities for low-cost, high-risk science missions that are responsive to requirements for flexibility. SIMPLEx mission investigations are managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as part of the Discovery Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #SpaceX #IntuitiveMachines #IM2 #CLPS #LunarTrailblazer #Moon #NASAMoon #LunarScience #Space #MoonScience #LunarLander
Headed for Jupiter’s moon Europa, the spacecraft did some sightseeing, using a flyby of Mars to calibrate its infrared imaging instrument.
On its recent swing by Mars, NASA’s Europa Clipper took the opportunity to capture infrared images of the Red Planet. The data will help mission scientists calibrate the spacecraft’s thermal imaging instrument so they can be sure it’s operating correctly when Europa Clipper arrives at the Jupiter system in 2030.
The mission’s sights are set on Jupiter’s moon Europa and the global ocean hidden under its icy surface. A year after slipping into orbit around Jupiter, Europa Clipper will begin a series of 49 close flybys of the moon to investigate whether it holds conditions suitable for life.
A key element of that investigation will be thermal imaging — global scans of Europa that map temperatures to shed light on how active the surface is. Infrared imaging will reveal how much heat is being emitted from the moon; warmer areas of the ice give off more energy and indicate recent activity.
This picture of Mars is a composite of several images captured by Europa Clipper’s thermal imager on March 1. Bright regions are relatively warm, with temperatures of about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Darker areas are colder. The darkest region at the top is the northern polar cap and is about minus 190 F (minus 125 C).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #NASAjpl #nasamarshall #Europa #EuropaClipper #Mars
The instrument enclosure of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor is prepared for critical environmental tests inside the historic Chamber A at the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in December 2024. Wrapped in silver thermal blanketing, the 12-foot-long (3.7-meter-long) angular structure was subjected to the frigid, airless conditions that the spacecraft will experience when in deep space. The cavernous thermal-vacuum test facility is famous for testing the Apollo spacecraft that traveled to the Moon in the 1960s and ’70s.
The instrument enclosure is designed to protect the spacecraft’s infrared telescope while also removing heat from it during operations. After environmental testing was completed, the enclosure returned to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for further work, after which it will ship to the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) in Logan, Utah, and be joined to the telescope. Both the instrument enclosure and telescope were assembled at JPL. As NASA’s first space-based detection mission specifically designed for planetary defense, NEO Surveyor will seek out, measure, and characterize the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that might pose a hazard to Earth.
Credit: NASA
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASA #astronomy #nearearthobjects #NEOSurveyor #NASAJPL
Read more about the Near-Earth Object Surveyor
Read more about the Solar System Exploration Program of NASA's Planetary Missions Program Office
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft took this image of Ceres’ south polar region on May 17, 2017. Launched on Sept. 27, 2007, Dawn was NASA’s first truly interplanetary spaceship. The mission featured extended stays at two extraterrestrial bodies: giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, both in the debris-strewn main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The spacecraft’s name was meant to present a simple view of the mission’s purpose: to provide information on the dawn of the solar system. The three principal scientific drivers for the mission were to capture the earliest moments in the origin of the solar system, determine the nature of the building blocks from which the terrestrial planets formed, and contrast the formation and evolution of two small planets that followed very different evolutionary paths.
Dawn completed the first order exploration of the inner solar system, addressed NASA’s goal of understanding the origin and evolution of the solar system, and complemented investigations of Mercury, Earth, and Mars. Dawn’s mission ended on Nov. 1, 2018, after two extended missions.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #PlanetaryMissionsProgramOffice #PMPO #DiscoveryProgram #DawnSpacecraft #Ceres
A crane lowers the 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) steel framework for the Deep Space Station 23 (DSS-23) reflector dish into position on Dec. 18, 2024, at the Deep Space Network’s (DSN) Goldstone Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California. Once online in 2026, DSS-23 will be the fifth of six new beam waveguide antennas to be added to the network; DSS-23 will boost the DSN’s capacity and enhance NASA’s deep space communications capabilities for decades to come.
The DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from faraway spacecraft. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on the DSN and Near Space Network, including supporting astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, supporting lunar exploration, and uncovering the solar system and beyond.
Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAJPL #NASAMarshall #space #DeepSpaceNetwork
Watch a time-lapse video of construction activities on Dec. 18.
A comet landed in Brooklyn over the weekend!
NASA JPL partnered with the World Science Festival and StudioKCA in Brooklyn to create a 1:1000 scale model of the comet the Rosetta spacecraft expects to rendezvous with later this year.
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Scientists find that cometary dust affects interpretation of spacecraft measurements, reopening the case for comets like 67P as potential sources of water for early Earth.
Researchers have found that water on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has a similar molecular signature to the water in Earth’s oceans. Contradicting some recent results, this finding reopens the case that Jupiter-family comets like 67P could have helped deliver water to Earth.
This image, taken by ESA’s Rosetta navigation camera, was taken from a about 53 miles from the center of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on March 14, 2015. The image resolution is 24 feet per pixel and is cropped and processed to bring out the details of the comet's activity.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #NASAGoddard #Moon #comet #water #Earth
About 250 million light-years away, there's a neighborhood of our universe that astronomers had considered quiet and unremarkable. But now, scientists have uncovered an enormous, bizarre galaxy possibly formed from the parts of other galaxies.
A new study to be published in the Astrophysical Journal reveals the secret of UGC 1382, a galaxy that had originally been thought to be old, small and typical. Instead, scientists using data from NASA telescopes and other observatories have discovered that the galaxy is 10 times bigger than previously thought and, unlike most galaxies, its insides are younger than its outsides, almost as if it had been built using spare parts.
"This rare, 'Frankenstein' galaxy formed and is able to survive because it lies in a quiet little suburban neighborhood of the universe, where none of the hubbub of the more crowded parts can bother it," said study co-author Mark Seibert of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Pasadena, California. "It is so delicate that a slight nudge from a neighbor would cause it to disintegrate."
Seibert and Lea Hagen, a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, came upon this galaxy by accident. They had been looking for stars forming in run-of-the-mill elliptical galaxies, which do not spin and are more three-dimensional and football-shaped than flat disks. Astronomers originally thought that UGC 1382 was one of those.
To read the full article, click here.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights, click here.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and there’s no holding back now. Navigators are firing its futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which emit a blue glow, nearly nonstop as the orbiter zips farther into deep space. The spacecraft already is beyond the distance of Mars and is using ion propulsion to accelerate toward a metal-rich asteroid, where it will orbit and collect science data. This photo captures an operating electric thruster identical to those being used to propel NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The blue glow comes from the charged atoms, or ions, of xenon.
The spacecraft launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on Oct. 13, 2023. After leaving our atmosphere, Psyche made the most of its rocket boost and coasted beyond the orbit of Mars.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#SolarSystemandBeyond #NASAJPL #NASAMarshall #jpl #psyche #asteroid #Psyche #DSN #TDM
Partial eclipse of the sun, framed by the branches of typical tree of brazilian savannah. 02/07/2019
Capable of receiving both radio frequency and optical signals, the DSN's hybrid antenna has tracked and decoded the downlink laser from DSOC, aboard NASA's Psyche mission.
An experimental antenna has received both radio frequency and near-infrared laser signals from NASA's Psyche spacecraft as it travels through deep space. This shows it's possible for the giant dish antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), which communicate with spacecraft via radio waves, to be retrofitted for optical, or laser, communications.
By packing more data into transmissions, optical communication will enable new space exploration capabilities while supporting the DSN as demand on the network grows.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#SolarSystemandBeyond #NASAJPL #NASAMarshall #jpl #psyche #asteroid #Psyche #DSN #TDM
More about NASA’s optical communications projects
Engineers on NASA’s NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission commanded the spacecraft to turn its transmitter off for the last time Thursday. This concludes more than 10 years of its planetary defense mission to search for asteroids and comets, including those that could pose a threat to Earth.
The final command was sent from the Earth Orbiting Missions Operation Center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, with mission members past and present in attendance alongside officials from the agency’s headquarters in Washington. NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System then relayed the signal to NEOWISE, decommissioning the spacecraft. As NASA previously shared, the spacecraft’s science survey ended on July 31, and all remaining science data was downlinked from the spacecraft.
In addition to leaving behind a trove of science data, the spacecraft has helped inform the development of NASA’s first infrared space telescope purpose-built for detecting near-Earth objects: NEO Surveyor.
This final image captured by NASA’s NEOWISE shows part of the Fornax constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. Processed by IPAC at Caltech, this is the mission’s 26,886,704th exposure. It was taken by the spacecraft just before 3 a.m. EDT on Aug. 1, when the mission’s survey ended.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC/UCLA
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASA #astronomy #nearearthobjects #NEOWISE #NASAJPL
Read more about the Near-Earth Object Surveyor
Read more about the Solar System Exploration Program of NASA's Planetary Missions Program Office
A 16.5-inch-long prototype of a robot designed to explore subsurface oceans of icy moons is reflected in the water’s surface during a test in a competition swimming pool in September 2024. Conducted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the testing showed the feasibility of a mission concept called SWIM, short for Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers. The project envisions a swarm of dozens of self-propelled, cellphone-size robots looking for signs of life on ocean worlds. SWIM is funded by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program under the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #moon #robot
Work on NASA’s purpose-built asteroid hunter, Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, is progressing toward a targeted late 2027 launch. A major component of the mission, the spacecraft’s instrument enclosure journeyed back to the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in early March after completing environmental testing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Built at JPL, the angular 12-foot-long (3.7-meter-long) structure will protect the spacecraft’s infrared telescope and remove heat from it during space operations. Infrared telescopes essentially detect heat, so they need to be kept cool to avoid heat from the spacecraft interfering with observations.
As NASA’s first space-based detection mission specifically designed for planetary defense, NEO Surveyor is sensitive to the heat emitted by near-Earth objects that are warmed by the Sun, allowing it to spot even those with dark surfaces. The observatory will use its infrared capabilities to detect and characterize the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that might pose an impact hazard to Earth.
In this image, in March 2025, components for NASA’s NEO Surveyor, left, and the agency’s ASTHROS mission are seen sharing the same clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory while work continues on both missions.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASA #astronomy #nearearthobjects #NEOSurveyor #NASAJPL #asteroids #NEO #NearEarthObject
Read more about the Near-Earth Object Surveyor
Read more about the Solar System Exploration Program of NASA's Planetary Missions Program Office
As Saturn's northern hemisphere summer approaches, the shadows of the rings creep ever southward across the planet. Here, the ring shadows appear to obscure almost the entire southern hemisphere, while the planet's north pole and its six-sided jet stream, known as "the hexagon," are fully illuminated by the sun.
When NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn 12 years ago, the shadows of the rings lay far to the north on the planet (see PIA06077). As the mission progressed and seasons turned on the slow-orbiting giant, equinox arrived and the shadows of the rings became a thin line at the equator (see PIA11667).
This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 16 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in red light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 19, 2016.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.7 million miles (2.7 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 92 degrees. Image scale is 100 miles (160 kilometers) per pixel.
The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
To read the full article, click here.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights, click here.
With its crushing atmospheric pressure, clouds of sulfuric acid, and searing surface temperature, Venus is an especially challenging place to study. But scientists know that observing its surface can provide key insights into the habitability and evolution of rocky planets like our own. So to get a global perspective of Venus while staying well above its hellish atmosphere, NASA’s VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio science, InSAR, Topography, And Spectroscopy) mission is scheduled to launch within a decade to survey the planet’s surface from orbit, uncovering clues about the nature of its interior.
To lay the groundwork for the mission, members of the international VERITAS science team traveled to Iceland for a two-week campaign in August to use the volcanic island as a Venus stand-in, or analog. Locations on our planet often are used as analogs for other planets, especially to help prepare technologies and techniques intended for more uninviting environments.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASA #NASAMarshall #JPL #NASAJPL #VERITAS #Venus #Iceland #volcano
When the first astronauts land on Mars, they may have the descendants of a microwave-oven-size device to thank for the air they breathe and the rocket propellant that gets them home. That device, called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), has generated oxygen for the 16th and final time aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover. After the instrument proved far more successful than its creators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) expected, its operations are concluding.
Since Perseverance landed on Mars in 2021, MOXIE has generated a total of 122 grams of oxygen – about what a small dog breathes in 10 hours. At its most efficient, MOXIE was able to produce 12 grams of oxygen an hour – twice as much as NASA’s original goals for the instrument – at 98% purity or better. On its 16th run, on Aug. 7, the instrument made 9.8 grams of oxygen. MOXIE successfully completed all of its technical requirements and was operated at a variety of conditions throughout a full Mars year, allowing the instrument’s developers to learn a great deal about the technology.
In this image, MOXIE is lowered into the chassis of NASA’s Perseverance in 2019.
Image credit: NASA
#NASAMarshall #NASA #space #TDM #NASAJPL #TechnologyDemonstrationMissions #MOXIE #Mars #Perseverance
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., hosted a Tweetup on Monday, June 6 with more than 100 NASA Twitter followers, who registered in April to attend the event.
With four NASA/JPL space missions launching in 2011 and an asteroid belt encounter nearly underway, this year will be one of the busiest ever in planetary exploration. Tweetup participants interacted with JPL scientists and engineers about these upcoming missions: Aquarius, to study ocean salinity; Grail, to study the moon's gravity field; Juno to Jupiter; and the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity rover. Tweetup participants also learned about the Dawn mission and its planned encounter with the asteroid Vesta.
To learn more about the NASAJPL Tweetup, visit www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-168b
Quite a bit of sunspot activity today on our Sun, for Labor Day! 5 active regions visible... I took these photos around 1:20pm ET.
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Wishing you clear skies! -Marty McGuire 🔭
NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador 🚀
Bethlehem, PA, USA
Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/YouTube/Flickr ——————————————
#astronomy #astrophotography #backyardastronomyguy #backyardastronomy #telescope #space #solarsystem #science #nasa #jpl #nasajpl #solarsystemambassador #Sun #sunspot #sunspots #laborday #labor #day
Created for Make It Interesting ~ Challenge #3
Starter image with thanks to Wonderlane
Also for AwardTree Cosmic Spring Challenge.
With many thanks to Clangla for sharing the beautiful rose.
Cassiopeia, courtesy of NASA JPL-Caltech.
Birds brush from www.obsidiandawn.com
Texture - TTV 3, mine.
My closeup of #Jupiter and 3 moons visible tonight: #Europa, #Ganymede and #Callisto. ——————————————
Wishing you clear skies! -Marty 🔭
NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador www.BackyardAstronomyGuy.com ——————————————
#astronomy #astrophotography #backyardastronomyguy #backyardastronomy #telescope #space #solarsystem #science #nasa #nasajpl
@NASAGoddard : RT @NASAJPL: .@NASAJuno We read you loud + clear Showing antennas receiving data via t.co/V3WGqQrrvJ t.co/Adhup80EIg (via Twitter twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/750150917794570241)
These displays were created by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Oct. 30, 2019. The 26 teams supplied their own tools and supplies. Carving and decorating was completed during a one-hour work break. For more information, visit jpl.nasa.gov/news
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Get tips from NASA engineers on how to create your own space-inspired pumpkin: go.nasa.gov/2h04g5i
These displays were created by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Oct. 30, 2019. The 26 teams supplied their own tools and supplies. Carving and decorating was completed during a one-hour work break. For more information, visit go.nasa.gov/36pidP9
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) is our connection to space. Consisting of a series of giant antennas located at 120-degree intervals around the world (in Goldstone, California; Canberra, Australia; and Madrid) the DSN is our communications link to distant spacecraft. Without it, space exploration would not be possible.
Throughout the summer, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory brings hundreds of its interns to the DSN facility in Goldstone, California, to get a look at these marvels of engineering and to learn just how important they are to our exploration of space.
These photos (and videos) are from an August 2014 tour to the Goldstone facility, which got students up-close-and-personal with a 26-meter, 34-meter, and the impressive 70-meter antenna.
To learn more about the DSN, visit: deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/
Learn more about NASA/JPL Internships and apply at: www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kim Orr
On the Bedrock Beauty within Verlaine Crater
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (1 km across; www.uahirise.org/ESP_013213_1705)
Participants in the 2018 "State of NASA" NASA social gathered in the mission support area of the historic Spaceflight Operations Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The room is currently configured to support the InSight mission to Mars, which is slated to launch no earlier than May 5, 2018.
These displays were created by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Oct. 30, 2019. The 26 teams supplied their own tools and supplies. Carving and decorating was completed during a one-hour work break. For more information, visit go.nasa.gov/36pidP9
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech