NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite flew over the South China Sea and captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Nock-ten elongating as it continued getting weaker from wind shear. On Dec. 27 the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible-light image of the Nock-ten. The image showed that…
NASA Tracking a Stronger Tropical Storm Nock-Ten
NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Nock-ten as it continued to move west toward the Philippines where it is locally called “Nina.” On Dec. 23 at 12:13 a.m. EST (5:13 UTC) the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible-light image of the…
NASA Sees Some Strength in Tropical Cyclone Vardah’s Remnants
After moving into the very warm waters of the southeastern Arabian Sea the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Vardah seemed to have regained some life. Both NASA’s Aqua satellite and the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite saw some strong storms develop in the remnant low pressure area. The GPM core observatory satellite had…
A Look at the U.S. Cold Snap from NASA Infrared Imagery
Imagery and an animation of infrared imagery from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite showed the movement of cold, Arctic air over the U.S. from Dec. 1 to Dec. 11. That frigid air mass is expected to affect states from the north central to the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS…
Hubble Catches a Transformation in the Virgo Constellation
The constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) is especially rich in galaxies, due in part to the presence of a massive and gravitationally-bound collection of over 1300 galaxies called the Virgo Cluster. One particular member of this cosmic community, NGC 4388, is captured in this image, as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field…
NASA Sees Tropical Cyclone 05B Form
NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured an image of newly formed Tropical Cyclone 05B in the Bay of Bengal, Northern Indian Ocean. An area of tropical low pressure designated System 99B has consolidated and developed into Tropical Cyclone 05B. On Dec. 7 the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite…
NASA’s Navcube Could Support An X-Ray Communications Demonstration In Space — A NASA First
Two proven technologies have been combined to create a promising new technology that could meet future navigational challenges in deep space. It also may help demonstrate — for the first time — X-ray communications in space, a capability that would allow the transmission of gigabits per second throughout the solar system. The new technology, called…
New Instrument Could Search For Signatures Of Life On Mars
A sensing technique that the U.S. military currently uses to remotely monitor the air to detect potentially life-threatening chemicals, toxins, and pathogens has inspired a new instrument that could “sniff” for life on Mars and other targets in the solar system — the Bio-Indicator Lidar Instrument, or BILI. Branimir Blagojevic, a NASA technologist at the…
NASA Missions Harvest A Passel Of ‘Pumpkin’ Stars
Astronomers using observations from NASA’s Kepler and Swift missions have discovered a batch of rapidly spinning stars that produce X-rays at more than 100 times the peak levels ever seen from the sun. The stars, which spin so fast they’ve been squashed into pumpkin-like shapes, are thought to be the result of close binary systems…
Van Allen Probes Catch Rare Glimpse of Supercharged Radiation Belt
Our planet is nestled in the center of two immense, concentric doughnuts of powerful radiation: the Van Allen radiation belts, which harbor swarms of charged particles that are trapped by Earth’s magnetic field. On March 17, 2015, an interplanetary shock — a shockwave created by the driving force of a coronal mass ejection, or CME,…
NASA’s Fermi Mission Expands Its Search for Dark Matter
Dark matter, the mysterious substance that constitutes most of the material universe, remains as elusive as ever. Although experiments on the ground and in space have yet to find a trace of dark matter, the results are helping scientists rule out some of the many theoretical possibilities. Three studies published earlier this year, using six…
Dawn Maps Ceres Craters Where Ice Can Accumulate
Scientists with NASA’s Dawn mission have identified permanently shadowed regions on the dwarf planet Ceres. Most of these areas likely have been cold enough to trap water ice for a billion years, suggesting that ice deposits could exist there now. “The conditions on Ceres are right for accumulating deposits of water ice,” said Norbert Schorghofer,…
Satellites to See Mercury Enter Spotlight on May 9
It happens only a little more than once a decade and the next chance to see it is Monday, May 9, 2016. Throughout the U.S., sky watchers can watch Mercury pass between Earth and the sun in a rare astronomical event known as a planetary transit. Mercury will appear as a tiny black dot as…
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Secondary Mirror Installed
The sole secondary mirror that will fly aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was installed onto the telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, on March 3, 2016. The Webb telescope uses many mirrors to direct incoming light into the telescope’s instruments. The secondary mirror is called the secondary mirror because it…
Citizen Scientists Help NASA Researchers Understand Auroras
Space weather scientist Liz MacDonald has seen auroras more than five times in her life, but it was the aurora she didn’t see that affected her the most. On the evening of Oct. 24, 2011, MacDonald was sitting in front of her computer at her home in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Forecasts predicted a geomagnetic…
Solving the Mystery of Mars’ Moon, Phobos: Phobos in the Mid- and Far-Ultraviolet
In late November and early December 2015, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission made a series of close approaches to the Martian moon Phobos, collecting data from within 300 miles (500 kilometers) of the moon. Among the data returned were spectral images of Phobos in the ultraviolet. The images will allow MAVEN scientists…
Advanced NASA-developed Instrument Flies On Japan’s Hitomi
Now that Japan’s Hitomi spacecraft is safely in orbit, a team of NASA scientists is now ready to begin gathering data about the high-energy universe with an advanced instrument that carries never-before-flown technologies. The mission, formerly known as Astro-H, launched Feb. 17, 2016 from the Tanegashima Space Center aboard an H-IIA rocket. Hitomi is expected…
Hubble Directly Measures Rotation Of Cloudy ‘Super-Jupiter’
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have measured the rotation rate of an extreme exoplanet by observing the varied brightness in its atmosphere. This is the first measurement of the rotation of a massive exoplanet using direct imaging. “The result is very exciting,” said Daniel Apai of the University of Arizona in Tucson, leader of…
NASA-funded Balloon Launches To Study Sun
On Jan. 18, 2016, the GRIPS balloon team sent their instrument soaring towards the stratosphere above Antarctica, suspended underneath a helium-filled, football-field sized scientific balloon. GRIPS, short for Gamma-Ray Imager/Polarimeter for Solar flares, is studying extremely high-energy radiation released by solar flares. Solar flares are created by an explosive realignment of magnetic fields, known generally…
NASA’s Van Allen Probes Revolutionize View Of Radiation Belts
About 600 miles from Earth’s surface is the first of two donut-shaped electron swarms, known as the Van Allen Belts, or the radiation belts. Understanding the shape and size of the belts, which can shrink and swell in response to incoming radiation from the sun, is crucial for protecting our technology in space. The harsh…
By The Dozen: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Mirrors
One dozen flight mirrors are now installed on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, out of the eighteen mirror segments that make up the primary mirror. The assembly of the primary mirror is an important milestone for the Webb telescope, but is just one component of this huge and complex observatory. Since December 2015, the team…
NASA’s Spitzer, Hubble Find ‘Twins’ Of Superstar Eta Carinae In Other Galaxies
Eta Carinae, the most luminous and massive stellar system within 10,000 light-years, is best known for an enormous eruption seen in the mid-19th century that hurled at least 10 times the sun’s mass into space. This expanding veil of gas and dust, which still shrouds Eta Carinae, makes it the only object of its kind…
Rare Full Moon On Christmas Day
Not since 1977 has a full moon dawned in the skies on Christmas. But this year, a bright full moon will be an added gift for the holidays. December’s full moon, the last of the year, is called the Full Cold Moon because it occurs during the beginning of winter. The moon’s peak this year…
Missing Water Mystery Solved In Comprehensive Survey Of Exoplanets
A survey of 10 hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets conducted with NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has led a team to solve a long-standing mystery — why some of these worlds seem to have less water than expected. The findings offer new insights into the wide range of planetary atmospheres in our galaxy and how planets…
Studying X-ray Emissions In Space
The blackness of space. There isn’t much visible light in space – but there are numerous other wavelengths of light and scientists want to know what’s out there and where it comes from. Diffuse x-ray emissions have long been believed to be from remnants of a supernovae which formed the local hot bubble. However, the…