Topic: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) discovers stars at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy

February 28, 2015 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Astronomers using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have found a cluster of stars forming at the very edge of our Milky Way galaxy.

“A stellar nursery in what seems to be the middle of nowhere is quite surprising,” said Peter Eisenhardt, the project scientist for the WISE mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “But surprises turn up when you look everywhere, as the WISE survey did.”

The newfound young star clusters lie thousands of light-years below the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, a flat spiral disk seen in this artist’s conception. If alien lifeforms were to develop on planets orbiting these stars, they would have views of a portion, or all, of the galactic disk. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover takes powder sample from rock at Telegraph Peak

February 26, 2015 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’ Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its drill on Tuesday, February 24th to collect sample powder from inside a rock target called “Telegraph Peak.” The target sits in the upper portion of “Pahrump Hills,” an outcrop the mission has been investigating for five months.

The Pahrump Hills campaign previously drilled at two other sites. The outcrop is an exposure of bedrock that forms the basal layer of Mount Sharp. Curiosity’s extended mission, which began last year after a two-year prime mission, is examining layers of this mountain that are expected to hold records of how ancient wet environments on Mars evolved into drier environments.

This hole, with a diameter slightly smaller than a U.S. dime, was drilled by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover into a rock target called “Telegraph Peak.” (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA has launched Five Earth Missions in the last year

February 24, 2015 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Over the past 12 months NASA has added five missions to its orbiting Earth-observing fleet – the biggest one-year increase in more than a decade. NASA scientists will discuss early observations from the new missions and their current status during a media teleconference at 11:00am PST (2:00pm EST) Thursday, February 26th.

New views of global carbon dioxide, rain and snowfall, ocean winds, and aerosol particles in the atmosphere will be presented during the briefing.

Five new Earth science missions have joined NASA’s orbiting fleet since the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission one year ago. (NASA)

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NASA’s Terra Satellite takes image of Eastern United States under Arctic Freeze

February 21, 2015 |

Written by Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – NASA’s Terra satellite captured an image of the snow-covered eastern U.S. that looks like the states have been sitting in a freezer. In addition to the snow cover, Arctic and Siberian air masses have settled in over the Eastern U.S. triggering many record low temperatures in many states.

On February 19th at 16:40 UTC (11:40am EST), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured a picture of the snowy landscape.

NASA’s Terra satellite captured this picture of snow across the eastern United States on Feb. 19th at 16:20 UTC (11:20am EST). (NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team)

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NASA monitors Frigid Temperatures moving across Eastern United States

February 14, 2015 |

Written by Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – Some of the coldest air of the 2014-2015 winter season was settling over the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. on February 13th, 2015. That Arctic air mass brought wind chills from below zero to the single numbers from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic.

Despite the cold on the surface, infrared NASA satellite imagery revealed even colder temperatures in cloud tops associated with the air mass.

NOAA’s GOES-East satellite provided a visible and infrared picture of the clouds associated with the Arctic air mass, as they stretched from the eastern Dakotas to the Mid-Atlantic region.

This false-colored infrared image from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite at 7:29 UTC (2:29 a.m. EST) shows cloud top temperatures over New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire near 245K/-28C/-18F (greenish to blue shading). (NASA JPL, Ed Olsen)

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NASA reports NOAA to launch Deep Space Climate Observatory to measure the Sun’s Solar Wind

February 8, 2015 |

Written by Karen C. Fox
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – There’s a fascinating spot some 932,000 miles away from Earth where the gravity between the sun and Earth is perfectly balanced. This spot captures the attention of orbital engineers because a satellite can orbit this spot, called Lagrange 1 just as they can orbit a planet.

But the spot tantalizes scientists as well: Lagrange 1 lies outside Earth’s magnetic environment, a perfect place to measure the constant stream of particles from the sun, known as the solar wind, as they pass by.

In early February, the United States Air Force will launch a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite called Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, into orbit around this spot.

The solar arrays on NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory spacecraft, or DSCOVR, are unfurled in the Building 1 high bay at the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida, near Kennedy Space Center. (NASA/Ben Smegelsky)

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope takes photo of three moons transiting the face of Jupiter in rare conjunction

February 7, 2015 |

Written by Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD -Firing off a string of action snapshots like a sports photographer at a NASCAR race, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the rare occurrence of three of Jupiter’s largest moons racing across the banded face of the gas-giant planet: Europa, Callisto, and Io.

These so-called Galilean moons, named after the 17th century scientist Galileo Galilei, who discovered them with a telescope, complete orbits around Jupiter with durations ranging from 2 days to 17 days. They can commonly be seen transiting the face of Jupiter and casting shadows onto its cloud tops.

Hubble Captures Rare Triple-Moon Conjunction of Jupiter’s largest moons: Europa, Callisto, and Io. (NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

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NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory could help develop better Weather Forecasts

February 3, 2015 |

Written by Carol Rasmussen
NASA Earth Science News Team

Washington, D.C. – If you were trying to forecast tomorrow’s weather, you would probably look up at the sky rather than down at the ground. But if you live in the U.S. Midwest or someplace with a similar climate, one key to a better weather forecast may lie beneath your feet.

Precipitation and temperature are part of every weather forecast. Precipitation comes from clouds, clouds are formed of airborne water vapor, and vapor comes from evaporating soil moisture — so soil moisture governs precipitation.

NASA’s SMAP’s soil moisture measurements will help with forecasts of precipitation and temperature. (UCAR)

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NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna image shows Asteroid passing Earth today had it’s own Moon

January 27, 2015 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Scientists working with NASA’s 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of asteroid 2004 BL86. The images show the asteroid, which made its closest approach today (January 26th, 2015) at 8:19am PST (10:19am CST) at a distance of about 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers, or 3.1 times the distance from Earth to the moon), has its own small moon.

The 20 individual images used in the movie were generated from data collected at Goldstone on January 26th, 2015. They show the primary body is approximately 1,100 feet (325 meters) across and has a small moon approximately 230 feet (70 meters) across.

This GIF shows asteroid 2004 BL86, which safely flew past Earth on Jan. 26, 2015. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s SMAP instrument ready to measure Earth’s Soil Moisture

January 13, 2015 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – A new NASA satellite that will peer into the topmost layer of Earth’s soils to measure the hidden waters that influence our weather and climate is in final preparations for a January 29th dawn launch from California.

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission will take the pulse of a key measure of our water planet: how freshwater cycles over Earth’s land surfaces in the form of soil moisture.

The mission will produce the most accurate, highest-resolution global maps ever obtained from space of the moisture present in the top 2 inches (5 centimeters) of Earth’s soils.

Artist’s rendering of the SMAP instrument. (NASA)

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