Category: Information and Update

  A team of NASA-funded researchers has measured for the first time water from the moon in the form of tiny globules of molten rock, which have turned to glass-like material trapped within crystals. Data from these newly-discovered lunar melt inclusions indicate the water content of lunar magma is 100… Read more“NASA-Funded Scientists Make Watershed Lunar Discovery”

  NASA will launch a spacecraft to an asteroid in 2016 and use a robotic arm to pluck samples that could better explain our solar system’s formation and how life began. The mission, called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from… Read more“NASA to Launch New Science Mission to Asteroid in 2016”

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and a European Southern Observatory ground-based telescope tracked the growth of a giant early-spring storm in Saturn’s northern hemisphere that is so powerful it stretches around the entire planet. The rare storm has been wreaking havoc for months and shooting plumes of gas high… Read more“Cassini and Telescope See Violent Saturn Storm”

Astronomers think that the expansion of the universe is regulated by both the force of gravity, which acts to slow it down, and a mysterious dark energy, which pushes matter and space apart. In fact, dark energy is thought to be pushing the cosmos apart at faster and faster speeds,… Read more“Dark Energy and Gravity – Yin and Yang of the Universe”

  PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has obtained its first image of the giant asteroid Vesta, which will help fine-tune navigation during its approach. Dawn is expected to achieve orbit around Vesta on July 16, when the asteroid is about 188 million kilometers (117 million miles) from Earth. The… Read more“NASA’s Dawn Captures First Image of Nearing Asteroid”

Have a blast exploring the universe at a FREE open house event at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Explore@NASA Goddard, on Saturday, May 14, from 11am to 5pm rain or shine, is full of family fun, music, food, and science. Free satellite parking and transportation to Goddard… Read more“xplore@NASA Goddard: Saturday, May 14, 2011, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. FREE!”

WASHINGTON — The famous Crab Nebula supernova remnant has erupted in an enormous flare five times more powerful than any flare previously seen from the object. On April 12, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope first detected the outburst, which lasted six days. The nebula is the wreckage of an exploded… Read more“NASA’s Fermi Spots ‘Superflares’ in the Crab Nebula”