Captured on January 28, 2020, this is the first image of a sunspot by the National Science Foundation’s Inouye Solar Telescope located near the summit of Haleakalā in Maui, Hawaiʻi. The image reveals striking details of the sunspot’s structure as seen at the Sun’s surface, and has over twice the detail previously achieved by any…
Hubble Image Directly Shows How Gravity Bends Space
You may have heard of this phenomenon already but it’s still amazing to see it in action! The image here, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and shared by NASA on Nov. 17, 2020, shows not individual stars but rather entire galaxies, each of them billions of light-years away from Earth. The brightest ones at…
Juno Spots Sprites and Elves Dancing On Jupiter
NASA’s Juno spacecraft may have captured some of the most fleeting phenomena associated with powerful lightning storms here on Earth—400 million miles away on Jupiter! Nicknamed sprites and elves these amazingly brief yet beautiful flashes of light occur miles above powerful lightning discharges in thunderstorms. They’ve only fairly recently been well-documented on Earth through digital…
NASA’s Flying Observatory Found Water on the Moon During Its First Look
NASA and DLR’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy—a telescope-on-an-airplane called SOFIA for short—has detected yet more evidence of water on the Moon, this time in the form of H2O molecules possibly trapped within pieces of glass that form when meteorites strike the Moon’s surface. These particular findings, announced on October 26, 2020, focus on an…
To Bennu and Back: A Pre-TAG Interview with Thomas Zurbuchen and Lori Glaze
After almost two years in orbit at asteroid Bennu it’s nearly go time for OSIRIS-REx—or, should I say, Touch-and-Go time! Later today, October 20, starting at 1:50 p.m. EDT (17:50 UTC) the van-sized spacecraft will begin its descent toward the surface of Bennu, culminating in the attempt to siphon up at least 60 grams of…
Get to Know Bennu Better Before OSIRIS-REx’s Sample Grab
It’s almost TAG time! On October 20, 2020 NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will slowly descend from its orbit 2,500 feet (770 meters) above Bennu to briefly touch the asteroid’s pebbly surface with its TAGSAM instrument, quickly sucking in and filter-capturing a small amount of material which will be returned to Earth for scientific study in 2023….
Astronomers Spot the Bright Blast from a Spaghettified Star
Spaghettification — it may sound like a cartoon wizard’s spell effect but it’s actually a term scientists use for what happens to massive objects that get too close to a black hole…they’re literally pulled apart into long strands of material by the black hole’s immense gravity. “Massive objects” can mean planets, asteroids, spaceships, or even…
They’ve Found Water on Mars Again
In what seems to have become somewhat of an annual event researchers have announced the discovery of water on Mars yet again—although this time it’s more of a confirmation of a previous announcement (with a bit extra for good measure) but not everyone is agreeing on the interpretation of the evidence… then again, that’s how…
NASA Satellite Data Show “Greening” of the Arctic as Sea Ice Levels Remain Low
NASA’s Landsat program—which will see its newest satellite launched in 2021—has given us a view from space of forests, farms, fresh water resources, and cities across our planet since the early 1970s — the longest scientific record of its kind. Now, researchers have used high-resolution Landsat data acquired since 1985 to show how the Arctic…
Hubble’s Newest View of Jupiter Shows New Storms Brewing
News from NASA: This latest image of Jupiter, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on August 25, 2020, was captured when the planet was 406 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s sharp view is giving researchers an updated weather report on the monster planet’s turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of…
Phosphine Discovery in Venus’ Atmosphere Raises the Big Question of Life
Today an international team of scientists led by Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in the UK announced the discovery of phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of our neighboring planet Venus — a detection made using data from ground-based telescopes located in Hawaii and Chile. On Earth, phosphine is created for industrial uses in labs and by…
NASA Rocket Trails Trace Twisting Waves at the Border of Space
Glowing vapor clouds released from NASA research rockets launched in Alaska in January 2018 trace curling waves high in Earth’s atmosphere, at the very boundary of space, revealing fluid flow structures known as Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.
Lights in the Dark 