Newport News VA (SPX) Aug 03, 2022
Much ado was made about the Higgs boson when this elusive particle was discovered in 2012. Though it was touted as giving ordinary matter mass, interactions with the Higgs field only generate about 1 percent of ordinary mass. The other 99 percent comes from phenomena associated with the strong force, the fundamental force that binds smaller particles called quarks into larger particles called pr

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 02, 2022
Curiosity is making its way through the stunning "Paraitepuy Pass," the little canyon that runs between the "Deepdale" and "Bolivar" buttes to our east and west, respectively. The canyon floor is filled with aeolian bedforms, or sand ripples, as wind is likely funneled through the pass, mobilizing sand grains - a lovely modern process, active on Mars today! Today's two-sol plan contains our norm

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Aug 04, 2022
Following the successful launch of NASA's Lucy spacecraft on Oct. 16, 2021, a group of engineers huddled around a long conference table in Titusville, Florida. Lucy was mere hours into its 12-year flight, but an unexpected challenge had surfaced for the first-ever Trojan asteroids mission. Data indicated that one of Lucy's solar arrays powering the spacecraft's systems - designed to unfurl

Tustin CA (SPX) Aug 04, 2022
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) has secured land to move forward with a new astronaut campus and training facility in the State of New Mexico, near the Company's commercial operations headquarters. The land, located in Sierra County, will be home to a new, first of its kind astronaut campus, for exclusive use by Virgin Galactic Future Astronauts and up to three of their guests

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 03, 2022
The Giant Magellan Telescope, the most powerful telescope ever engineered using the world's largest mirrors, today announced it has secured a $205 million investment from its international consortium to accelerate construction. This investment marks one of the largest funding rounds for the telescope since its founding and includes leading commitments from the Carnegie Institution for Science, H

Washington DC (UPI) Aug 3, 2021
Sounding like an excited new parent, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson declared during a press briefing Wednesday that the agency's Artemis mission is ready to take its first physical steps to return to the moon and sometime later head to Mars. Laying out an effort that will include international and commercial partners, Nelson said Artemis I will take off for months-long orbiting around t

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 03, 2022
Newly installed on the space station, the instrument, called EMIT, will help answer questions about how mineral dust from Earth's arid regions affects climate. After being installed on the exterior of the International Space Station, NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission has provided its first view of Earth. The milestone, called "first light," took place at

Baltimore MD (SPX) Aug 03, 2022
A new study in Science Advances led by UMBC's Tianle Yuan used satellite data from 2003 - 2020 to determine the effect of fuel regulations on pollution from cargo ships. The research team's data revealed significant changes in sulfur pollution after regulations went into effect in 2015 and 2020. Their extensive data set can also contribute to answering a bigger question: How do pollutants and ot

Huntsville AL (SPX) Aug 03, 2022
NASA data scientist Dr. Manil Maskey has a calm demeanor and a ready smile. He's also a trailblazer. With peers from around the world, he has created an unprecedented tool to bring our planet down to Earth. The Earth Observing Dashboard is a user-friendly interactive computer interface for exploring the planet and tracking its changes over time. This knowledge can help us understand our ow

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 03, 2022
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth's stratosphere - enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to t