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A NASA study based on an innovative technique for crunching torrents of satellite data provides the clearest picture yet of changes in Antarctic ice flow into the ocean. The findings confirm accelerating ice losses from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and reveal surprisingly steady rates of flow from its much larger neighbor to the east.
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Portal origin URL: NASA Television Coverage Set for Weather Satellite Science Briefing, LaunchPortal origin nid: 418856Published: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 - 14:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) newest weather satellite, Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S (GOES-S),...
Portal origin URL: Pulsating Aurora Mysteries Uncovered with Help from NASA’s THEMIS MissionPortal origin nid: 418834Published: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 - 14:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: The precise mechanism driving pulsating auroras, long unknown, has now been identified with help from NASA's THEMIS mission.Portal...
The planet Mars has fascinated scientists for over a century. Today, it is a frigid desert world with a carbon dioxide atmosphere 100 times thinner than Earth’s. But evidence suggests that in the early history of our solar system, Mars had an ocean’s worth of water. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will study Mars to learn more about the planet’s transition from wet to dry, and what...
This blog post originated in the 2016 Science Mission Directorate Technology Highlights Report (20 MB PDF).
Technology Development
Global wind and temperature measurements in the lower thermosphere (100-150 km above Earth) are the two most important variables needed to accurately predict space weather and climate change. An innovative technique is being developed jointly by the Johns...
Last year was a record-breaking one for Operation IceBridge, NASA’s aerial survey of the state of polar ice. For the first time in its nine-year history, the mission, which aims to close the gap between two NASA satellite campaigns that study changes in the height of polar ice, carried out seven field campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctic in a single year.
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NASA’s next planet-hunting mission has arrived in Florida to begin preparations for launch. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station nearby NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than April 16, pending range approval.
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This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy cluster PLCK G004.5-19.5. It was discovered by the ESA Planck satellite through the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect — the distortion of the cosmic microwave background radiation in the direction of the galaxy cluster by high-energy electrons in the intracluster gas.
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The biggest black holes in the Universe are growing faster than the rate of stars being formed in their galaxies, according to two new studies using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.
News Article Type: Homepage ArticlesPublished: Thursday, February 15, 2018 -...
Portal origin URL: New NASA Space Sensors to Address Key Earth Science QuestionsPortal origin nid: 418082Published: Monday, February 5, 2018 - 15:51Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: Why is the Arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet? Does mineral dust warm or cool the atmosphere? NASA has selected two new, creative research proposals to...
Portal origin URL: NASA’s Newly Rediscovered IMAGE Mission Provided Key Aurora ResearchPortal origin nid: 417919Published: Friday, February 2, 2018 - 11:13Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: A long-lost NASA satellite, IMAGE, has recently been rediscovered. The mission's nearly six years in operation provided robust research about the space around...
Portal origin URL: NASA Mission Launched; Will Revolutionize Our Understanding of Space WeatherPortal origin nid: 417936Published: Friday, February 2, 2018 - 10:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: NASA's first mission to provide unprecedented measurements of, and changes in, the temperature and composition of Earth's upper atmosphere launched...
New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern talks about what we’ve learned about Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 and the remarkable story of how -- against all odds -- the New Horizons team captured MU69’s fleeting shadow on Earth as the object passed in front of a distant star.
News Article Type: Homepage ArticlesPublished: Thursday, February 1, 2018 -...
Portal origin URL: Studying the Van Allen Belts 60 Years After America’s First SpacecraftPortal origin nid: 417713Published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 - 14:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: The U.S.' first satellite in space, launched Jan. 31, 1958, heralded the emergence of space physics and ushered in a new era of technology and...
Video Length: 4:09On January 31, 1958, the United States joined the "space race" with the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite, marking the birth of space science.
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Video Links: America's Debut in Space -...
If you live in the western part of North America, Alaska, and the Hawaiian islands, you might set your alarm early the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 31 for a lunar trifecta: a pre-dawn “super blue blood moon.”
News Article Type: Homepage ArticlesPublished: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 -...
Portal origin URL: NASA’s GOLD Powers on for the First TimePortal origin nid: 417657Published: Monday, January 29, 2018 - 15:14Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, or GOLD, mission powered on the GOLD instrument for the first time after launch on Jan. 28, 7:23 p.m. EST.Portal...
NASA astrophysicist Dr. Colleen Wilson-Hodge and the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, or GBM, team are recipients of the top prize in high-energy astronomy this year.
News Article Type: Homepage ArticlesPublished: Monday, January 29, 2018 -...
Portal origin URL: NASA Invites Media to Upcoming NOAA GOES-S Satellite Launch Portal origin nid: 417627Published: Monday, January 29, 2018 - 11:10Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: Media accreditation is open for the launch Thursday, March 1, of the second in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) series of next-generation...
EARTH-OBSERVING SATELLITES ARE REDUCING OUR IMPACTS ON THREATENED MARINE MAMMALS
The largest animal ever to have lived on Earth is not a longextinct dinosaur, but a mammal that’s found throughout the world’s oceans—the blue whale. An adult can weigh up to 180 metric tons and stretch nearly 6 full-sized cars in length. Despite its massive size, this gentle giant is listed as endangered...
Portal origin URL: Attempting to Contact NASA’s IMAGEPortal origin nid: 417570Published: Friday, January 26, 2018 - 14:49Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: In mid-January, an amateur astronomer reported they believed they had made contact with a NASA satellite called Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE). IMAGE launched on March...
In this episode of Gravity Assist, Jim Green talks with New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute about what the July 2015 flyby of Pluto revealed about this mysterious and diverse world.
News Article Type: Homepage ArticlesPublished: Friday, January 26, 2018 -...
This blog post originated in the 2016 Science Mission Directorate Technology Highlights Report (20 MB PDF).
Technology Development
Researchers at NASA JPL have successfully built and demonstrated the first instrument capable of taking simultaneous measurements of ocean surface winds and water currents. DopplerScatt, a spinning Ka-band Doppler scatterometer, conducted several validation...
Portal origin URL: NASA GOLD Mission to Image Earth’s Interface to SpacePortal origin nid: 417348Published: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 - 13:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: On Jan. 25, 2018, NASA launches Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, or GOLD, a hosted instrument aboard SES-14 that will inspect the dynamic intermingling of space...
Like Earth, space has weather. Except instead of swirling winds and downpours of precipitation, space weather is defined by shifting electric and magnetic fields and rains of charged particles. At the very beginning of space, starting just 60 miles above Earth’s surface, there’s a layer of the atmosphere that shifts and changes in concert with both types of weather.
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