We are the stewards of over 400 years of scientific exploration of our Solar System, which it could be said began in earnest when Galileo Galilei first observed the motions of Jupiter’s moons in his homemade telescope in 1610. Over the centuries our knowledge—and our curiosity—about the seemingly endless variety of worlds in the Solar System…
Tag: NASA
Juno Just Hours from Jupiter Arrival
After nearly 5 years of traveling through space NASA’s Juno spacecraft is just a few dozen hours away from entering orbit around Jupiter, the Solar System’s largest, most massive, and most extreme planet. “We are ready,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). “The science team is incredibly excited…
Does Earth Have a New Moon? Kinda But Not Really
This week NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced news of an object traveling around the Sun in an orbit that keeps it relatively close to our own planet. The object, a near-Earth asteroid (NEO) less than 300 feet (100 m) across, is designated 2016 HO3 and has in some reports been called a “new” or “mini”…
Icy Nix Indicates Pluto’s Moons Are Leftovers From a KBO Collision
Recent findings from the New Horizons team reveal that Pluto’s third-largest satellite Nix is covered in the purest water ice yet observed in the dwarf planet system, even purer in spectra than what was seen on its slightly larger sibling Hydra. This analysis further supports the hypothesis that Pluto’s moons were created in an impact event…
New Planet and Pluto Stamps Available Today!
They’re here and they’re from outer space! The U.S. Postal Service has two new sets of Forever® stamps based on NASA’s exploration of the Solar System: the Views of Our Planets and Pluto—Explored! series, both of which become available for purchase on May 31, 2016. Designed by Antonio Alcalá, the Views of Our Planets stamps feature…
Dawn Sees Landslides and a Central Ridge in a Young Crater on Ceres
Ceres’ Haulani Crater, with a diameter of 21 miles (34 km), shows evidence of landslides from its crater rim. Smooth material and a central ridge stand out on its floor. This image was made using data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft when it was in its high-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of 915 miles (1,470…
NASA Sets Sail to Study Ocean and Climate
NASA has launched on another mission of exploration, except this time it wasn’t on a rocket ship from Cape Canaveral but rather on a research ship from Cape Cod. NASA’s North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study—aka NAAMES—is a five-year-long investigation to resolve key processes controlling ocean system function, their influences on atmospheric aerosols and clouds…
Hail Hydra: Pluto’s Moon is Covered in Almost Pure Water Ice
Discovered in June 2005, distant Pluto’s outermost moon Hydra it thought to have formed during the same collision four billion years ago that created the Pluto-Charon system that we see today. Yet despite its age this 31-mile (50-km) -long moon appears remarkably clean and bright, as witnessed by New Horizons during its close pass through the Pluto system in July 2015.
Enceladus’ Jets: the Farther They Are, the Harder They Spray
A crowning achievement of the Cassini mission to Saturn is the discovery of water vapor jets spraying out from Enceladus‘ southern pole. First witnessed by the spacecraft in 2005, these icy geysers propelled the little 320-mile-wide moon into the scientific spotlight. After 22 flybys of Enceladus during its nearly twelve years in orbit around Saturn, Cassini has gathered enough data to determine…
Take a Ride with Alan Shepard Aboard Freedom 7
55 years ago today, at 9:35 a.m. EST on May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. became the first American to travel into space with the launch of his Freedom 7 vehicle atop a Mercury-Redstone rocket. Shepard reached an altitude of 116.5 miles during his 15-minute suborbital flight before splashdown in the Atlantic,…
A New Moon is Discovered in the Solar System
Turns out there is something new under the Sun, at least to us; on Tuesday, April 26 scientists announced the discovery of a new moon in the Solar System—but it’s not around Earth, or Jupiter, or Saturn, or any of the planets that you’ve long been familiar with. This new moon is orbiting a distant world even…
Ride Shotgun With John Young During His Apollo 16 Grand Prix
Take a ride across the Moon with Apollo 16 commander John Young in this video, a stabilized version of NASA 16mm film footage captured during the first EVA of the mission on April 21, 1972. In what’s called the “lunar Grand Prix” Young pilots the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV, across the dusty terrain of the…
Lights in the Dark 