November 20, 2014 Over the past decade, NASA’s Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer has proven itself to be one of the most versatile astrophysics missions ever flown. It remains the only satellite capable of precisely locating gamma-ray bursts — the universe’s most powerful explosions — and monitoring them across a broad… Read more“NASA’s Swift: 10 Years of Game-changing Astrophysics”
Sanctuary’: How View from Space is Protecting Earth
Efforts to conserve parks and protected areas around the world are being aided by Earth observations from space-based sensors operated by NASA and other space agencies as well as commercial providers. A new book released this week highlights how the view from space is being used to protect some… Read more“Sanctuary’: How View from Space is Protecting Earth”
NASA X-ray Telescopes Find Black Hole May Be a Neutrino Factory
Image Credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Wisconsin/Y.Bai. et al. The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be producing mysterious particles called neutrinos. If confirmed, this would be the first time that scientists have traced neutrinos back to a black hole.The evidence for this came from three NASA… Read more“NASA X-ray Telescopes Find Black Hole May Be a Neutrino Factory”
Exploring Comets and Asteroids: Time Capsules of the Solar system
On Nov. 12, 2014, space history was made with the first soft landing of a spacecraft on a comet. Following a 10-year chase, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft had rendezvoused with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, sending its Philae lander down to the surface, where it will begin conducting science. The Philae… Read more“Exploring Comets and Asteroids: Time Capsules of the Solar system”
NASA Reveals Mysteries of ‘Interstellar’ Space
NASA Reveals Mysteries of ‘Interstellar’ Space October 31, 2014 This enormous mosaic of the Milky Way galaxy from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows dozens of dense clouds, called nebulae. Many nebulae seen here are places where new stars are forming, creating bubble like structures that can be… Read more“NASA Reveals Mysteries of ‘Interstellar’ Space”
Rocket to Gather 1,500 Sun Images in Five Minutes
A sounding rocket outfitted with technology to gather 1,500 images of the sun over its five-minute mission is preparing to launch in early November 2014. Capturing five images per second, the RAISE mission will focus in on the split-second changes that occur near active regions on the sun – areas… Read more“Rocket to Gather 1,500 Sun Images in Five Minutes”
IRIS Helps Explain Heating of Solar Atmosphere
NASA’s newest sun-watcher, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, launched in 2013 with a specific goal: track how energy and heat coursed through a little understood region of the sun called the interface region. Sandwiched between the solar surface and its outer atmosphere, the corona, the interface region is where the… Read more“IRIS Helps Explain Heating of Solar Atmosphere”