Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 20, 2022
NASA's Near Space Network enables spacecraft exploring the solar system and Earth to send back essential science data for researchers and scientists to investigate and make profound discoveries. Now, the network has integrated four new global antennas to further support science and exploration missions. In December 2022, antennas in Fairbanks, Alaska; Wallops Island, Virginia; Punta Arenas

Durham UK (SPX) Dec 20, 2022
Astronomers say they have solved an outstanding problem that challenged our understanding of how the Universe evolved - the spatial distribution of faint satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. These satellite galaxies exhibit a bizarre alignment - they seem to lie on an enormous thin rotating plane - called the "plane of satellites" This seemingly unlikely arrangement had puzzled

Houston TX (SPX) Dec 20, 2022
Rice University astronomer Megan Reiter and colleagues took a "deep dive" into one of the first images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and were rewarded with the discovery of telltale signs from two dozen previously unseen young stars about 7,500 light years from Earth. The published research in the December issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society offers a gli

Edwards AFB CA (SPX) Dec 18, 2022
Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE: NOC) RQ-4 RangeHawk supported the first flight of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket during the recent Artemis I mission. RangeHawk is part of SkyRange, the Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center's uncrewed high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE), responsive mobile flight test initiative. "Supporting the Artemis I uncrewed flight test

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 20, 2022
Scientists have completed the longest-ever study tracking temperatures in Jupiter's upper troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere where the giant planet's weather occurs and where its signature colorful striped clouds form. The work, conducted over four decades by stitching together data from NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescope observations, found unexpected patterns in how temperatures

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 20, 2022
Sometimes, I think Mars rocks are just a bunch of toddlers whom we have told to tidy their play room. And the more we want something, the more resistance we get. The latest episode of 'This-rock-is-too-hard-to-drill, says the rock,' reminded me of our drill attempt at Vera Rubin Ridge. In June 2018, we had drilled Duluth and also weathered the dust storm. We then tried to drill a specific type o

Space companies in Europe that could create telecommunications and navigation services for missions to the Moon will be invited to bid for the work, following the completion of two feasibility studies.

Image:

Webb's picture of the month December is dominated by NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90 000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. 

This spiral galaxy has recently been studied as part of the Great Observatories All-sky LIRGs Survey (GOALS), which aims to study the physics of star formation, black hole growth, and feedback in four nearby, merging luminous infrared galaxies. Other galaxies studied as part of the survey include previous ESA Webb Pictures of the Month II ZW 096 and IC 1623.

NGC 7469 is home

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image shows the wide-coverage of snowfall in the Alps, which hopefully bodes well for the coming year.

Year in images 2022

Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2022