Albuquerque NM (SPX) Jul 21, 2023
Remember what it's like to twirl a sparkler on a summer night? Hold it still and the fire crackles and sparks but twirl it around and the light blurs into a line tracing each whirl and jag you make. A new patented software system developed at Sandia National Laboratories can find the curves of motion in streaming video and images from satellites, drones and far-range security cameras and t

Austin TX (SPX) Jul 21, 2023
Keith Hawkins, assistant professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, has used chemical cartography - also known as chemical mapping - to identify regions of the Milky Way's spiral arms that have previously gone undetected. His research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, demonstrates the value of this pioneering technique in understanding the sha

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 21, 2023
Engineers and scientists have shipped NASA's ComPair instrument to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, ahead of its scheduled August flight early in NASA's 2023 fall balloon campaign. ComPair's goal is to test new technologies for studying gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. It was assembled and tested at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The gamma-ray energy

Solar eclipse - April 8, 2024
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 21, 2023 NASA has awarded funding for three science teams to conduct citizen science investigations as a total solar eclipse sweeps across North America on April 8, 2024. In these experiments, volunteers will help study the Sun and its ethereal outer atmosphere, called the corona, which is revealed when the Moon completely covers the Sun's bright disk. "During next

San Antonio TX (SPX) Jul 21, 2023
A Southwest Research Institute-led team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth's sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics. The team compared the early collision histories of the two bodies and determined that Venus likely experienced higher-speed, higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core that promoted extended volcanism

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 21, 2023
Earth planning date: Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Curiosity is, first and foremost, a robotic geologist. As an atmospheric scientist who is a member of the environmental science team, this often means that I'm just along for the ride, guided by the needs of the geology team. Besides the fact that geology is our primary mission, observations requested by GEO are often more temporally-constrained tha

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 21, 2023
In its first 400 days on Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover may have found a diverse collection of organics - carbon-based molecules considered the building blocks of life - thanks to SHERLOC, an innovative instrument on the rover's robotic arm. Scientists with the mission, which is searching for evidence that the planet supported microbial life billions of years ago, aren't sure whether biological

Beijing (XNA) Jul 21, 2023
China is currently developing a new carrier rocket and manned spacecraft as part of its goal to land astronauts on the moon by 2030, the country's space experts said. The new carrier rocket Long March-10 is mainly developed for the purpose of sending spacecraft and moon lander into the Earth-moon transfer orbit, said Rong Yi, a rocket expert with the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technol

Washington DC (UPI) Jul 21, 2021
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will travel to South America on Monday to promote international cooperation on multiple space-related topics. During his trip, Nelson will meet space officials in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. NASA says Nelson will meet the officials, including Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez, "to deepen bilateral cooperation across a broad range of innova

Washington DC (UPI) Jul 22, 2021
SpaceX, the space exploration company led by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, is scheduled to launch more Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit late Saturday after delays earlier in the evening. The company is now targeting 10:56 p.m. ET for a Falcon 9 launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida, according to a news release from the business