Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 04, 2022
Nearby black holes and their stellar companions form an astrophysical rogues' gallery in this new NASA visualization. Stars born with more than about 20 times the Sun's mass end their lives as black holes. As the name implies, black holes don't glow on their own because nothing can escape them, not even light. Until 2015, when astronomers first detected merging black holes through the spac

San Antonio TX (SPX) May 04, 2022
As the scientific community searches for worlds orbiting nearby stars that could potentially harbor life, new Southwest Research Institute-led research suggests that younger rocky exoplanets are more likely to support temperate, Earth-like climates. In the past, scientists have focused on planets situated within a star's habitable zone, where it is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid s

Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 04, 2022
Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, recently received samples of the lunar surface that have been curated in a freezer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston since Apollo 17 astronauts returned them to Earth in December 1972. This research is part of the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program, or ANGSA, an eff

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 04, 2022
On sol 3415 we encountered what we unofficially dubbed 'Gator Back' terrain and decided to not fight the "creature" on the expense of our wheels but rather to turn around and go back. For those of you who like looking back into the events: the first encounter with that terrain that made us turn around was reported here on the blog on sols 3419-3420, blog 3421 showed a beautiful close up of the "

Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 04, 2022
As the spring season continues, May could prove to be of great interest for stargazers and space enthusiasts - with a pair of potentially active meteor showers opening and closing the month. "Meteors aren't uncommon," Bill Cooke said, who leads NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "Earth is bombarded every day by millions of bit

Chapel Hill NC (SPX) May 04, 2022
Are astronauts more likely to develop blood clots during space missions due to zero gravity? That's the question NASA is trying to answer with help from UNC School of Medicine's Stephan Moll, MD, professor in the UNC Department of Medicine. A new publication in Vascular Medicine shows the results of an occupational surveillance program spurred by the development of a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) i

Beijing, China (SPX) May 01, 2022
The BRICS Forum on Big Data for Sustainable Development was held both in Beijing and online on April 26, 2022. The two-day event was hosted by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Academy of Science of South Africa, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Indian National Science Academy. The forum was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his remarks at the

Aalborg East, Denmark (SPX) May 03, 2022
GomSpace to deliver the Mission Control System that KSAT will use to operate the Arctic Weather Satellite Today, GomSpace signed a contract to develop, deliver and support the Mission Control System that KSAT will use to operate the Arctic Weather Satellite mission. The contract value is 10 MSEK and the majority of work will be done this year and next year. The Arctic Weather S

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 04, 2022
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently surveyed an intriguing ridgeline near the ancient river delta in Jezero Crater. The images - captured on April 23, during the tiny helicopter's 27th flight - were taken at the request of the Perseverance Mars rover science team, which wanted a closer look at the sloping outcrop. "Ingenuity not only provides imagery from an aerial perspective, but a

Stanford CA (SPX) May 04, 2022
In the time since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1992, astronomers have detected more than 5,000 planets orbiting other stars. But when astronomers detect a new exoplanet, we don't learn a lot about it: we know that it exists and a few features about it but the rest is a mystery. To sidestep the physical limitations of telescopes, Stanford University astrophysicists have been workin