Tag: "nasa"

Operation Vesta: Pluto's Devious Plan to Regain Status?

Operation Vesta: Pluto's Devious Plan to Regain Status?

With the New Horizons spacecraft hurtling toward its 2014 encounter with Pluto, and with the Dawn spacecraft now at its most up-close and personal encounter with Vesta, we are in the process of learning scads of information about two objects that are among the least understood and most under-explored bodies in the Solar System.

 
Kepler 22B: Exoplanet Dress-up Doll

Kepler 22B: Exoplanet Dress-up Doll

It's 600 light years from Earth, orbits a star very similar to our Sun in a period of about 290 days, and has a diameter about two and a half times that of Earth. What is it? It's the NASA Kepler mission's most recent exciting confirmed discovery, the extrasolar-planet Kepler 22B.

 
Dumpster Diving on Mars

Dumpster Diving on Mars

Ready for another great adventure to that fabled world, Mars? How about an interplanetary dumpster dive? Curious? Come with us to Gale Crater.

 
Opportunity's Endeavour

Opportunity's Endeavour

NASA's Opportunity rover has reached the goal of its three-year slog across the landscape of Mars!

 
Armchair Astronomy Takes Off On The Web

Armchair Astronomy Takes Off On The Web

Take a look at some of the best resources on the Web for armchair astronomers.

 
NASA’s WISE Spots Ys

NASA’s WISE Spots Ys

NASA’s WISE spacecraft has revealed something new lurking in the dark: Y Dwarfs.

 
Dawn of A New Era

Dawn of A New Era

We have achieved orbit – that is, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is now orbiting and studying the large asteroid Vesta.

 
A Year in the Life of an Ice Giant

A Year in the Life of an Ice Giant

Would you believe we discovered the planet Neptune only one year ago?

 
Dawn: Mission to Explore Strange New Worlds

Dawn: Mission to Explore Strange New Worlds

We are soon to explore a new world, one that we haven't seen up close before: the asteroid Vesta. What will we find, and why are we even interested in what amounts to a mega-mountain of rock hurtling through space?

 
Dark Endeavours

Dark Endeavours

When NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off on its 25th and final mission to space on Monday morning, it carried a bus-sized, two billion dollar observatory that will probe some of our Universe's deepest, darkest secrets: dark matter, and the unaccounted antimatter.

 
Celebrating 50 Years with Yuri

Celebrating 50 Years with Yuri

50 years ago the launch of a bell-shaped capsule called “Vostok 1” on April 12th, 1961 by Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history as the first human to enter outer space. Yuri’s Night was created to connect and inspire the globe about human spaceflight.

 
The Word From Mercury:  MESSENGER Has Been Delivered

The Word From Mercury: MESSENGER Has Been Delivered

History has been made yet again: NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft is now in orbit around the solar system's innermost planet!

 
Mastodons, Mummies, and Meteorites:  Evidence of Life Out There?

Mastodons, Mummies, and Meteorites: Evidence of Life Out There?

A recent publishing of the investigation of a rare class of meteorite (the CI1 Carbonaceous Chondrite) by Dr. Richard Hoover of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has caused another stir among scientists and the news media regarding possible origins of life on Earth and life in the Universe in general.

 
NASA's Cosmic Two-For-One Deal:  A Return to Comet Tempel 1

NASA's Cosmic Two-For-One Deal: A Return to Comet Tempel 1

On February 14, 2011, NASA encountered the comet Tempel 1 using the recycled Stardust spacecraft. For the first time in history, they visited the same comet twice – affording them the opportunity to observe changes in the icy body.

 
Behind-The-Scenes at NASA Ames Research Center

Behind-The-Scenes at NASA Ames Research Center

NASA invites social media fans on Twitter to get an inside look at its research centers and speak with scientists and astronauts.

 
Kepler's Smokin' Performance: Zero to 68 in 4 Months!

Kepler's Smokin' Performance: Zero to 68 in 4 Months!

NASA's Kepler mission announces the results from its first four months of observations: 1235 possible planets around other stars!

 

Volcano Slushies and Floating Robots: Titanic Possibilities

Saturn’s little moon, Titan, just keeps getting more and more interesting.

 
It's a Long, Long Way to Alderaan, but Kepler 10B is a Sight Closer

It's a Long, Long Way to Alderaan, but Kepler 10B is a Sight Closer

Among the thousands of vivid and unique Earth-sized planets we have come to know through Science Fiction, NASA's Kepler mission has now given us our first real one: meet Kepler 10b.

 
Arsenic and Old Lakes: NASA Finds Life NOT As We Know It

Arsenic and Old Lakes: NASA Finds Life NOT As We Know It

NASA announces finding "life NOT as we know it" in the arsenic-laced waters of Mono Lake.

 
Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Expands Definition of Life

Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Expands Definition of Life

A Bay Area biochemist has found a new strain of bacteria living in the briny shores of Mono Lake that can not only eat arsenic, a substance highly toxic to most organisms, but thrive on it.