Topic: Naval Research Laboratory

NASA, ESA’s Solar Orbiter Returns First Data, Snaps Closest Pictures of the Sun

July 20, 2020 |

Greenbelt, MD – The first images from ESA/NASA’s Solar Orbiter are now available to the public, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun.

Solar Orbiter is an international collaboration between the European Space Agency, or ESA, and NASA, to study our closest star, the Sun. Launched on February 9th, 2020 (EST), the spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June.

This image shows a view of the Sun captured with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on ESA/NASA’s Solar Orbiter on May 30, 2020. They show the Sun’s appearance at a wavelength of 17 nanometers, which is in the extreme ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum. (Solar Orbiter/EUI Team (ESA & NASA); CSL, IAS, MPS, PMOD/WRC, ROB, UCL/MSSL)

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NASA announces Biggest Black Hole Explosion on record discovered

February 28, 2020 |

Huntsville, AL – The biggest explosion seen in the universe has been found. This record-breaking, gargantuan eruption came from a black hole in a distant galaxy cluster hundreds of millions of light years away.

“In some ways, this blast is similar to how the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 ripped off the top of the mountain,” said Simona Giacintucci of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and lead author of the study. “A key difference is that you could fit fifteen Milky Way galaxies in a row into the crater this eruption punched into the cluster’s hot gas.”

Evidence for the biggest explosion seen in the Universe comes from a combination of X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton, and the Murchison Widefield Array and Giant Metrewave Telescope, as shown here. The eruption is generated by a black hole located in the cluster’s central galaxy, which has blasted out jets and carved a large cavity in the surrounding hot gas. (X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/NRL/S. Giacintucci, et al., XMM-Newton: ESA/XMM-Newton; Radio: NCRA/TIFR/GMRT; Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF)

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NASA halts Parker Solar Probe Launch, New Launch Date is Sunday, August 12th

August 11, 2018 |

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – The launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft was scrubbed today due to a violation of a launch limit, resulting in a hold. There was not enough time remaining in the window to recycle.

The launch is planned for Sunday, August 12th, 2018 from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The forecast shows a 60 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for launch. The launch time is 2:31am CDT.

NASA scrubs Saturday morning launch of the Parker Solar Probe due to a glitch with the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy Rocket. (NASA)

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NASA to study Neutron stars for groundbreaking Space Navigation Technology

April 8, 2013 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – Neutron stars have been called the zombies of the cosmos. They shine even though they’re technically dead, occasionally feeding on neighboring stars if they venture too close.

Interestingly, these unusual objects, born when a massive star extinguishes its fuel and collapses under its own gravity, also may help future space travelers navigate to Mars and other distant destinations.

This artist’s rendition shows the NICER/SEXTANT payload that NASA recently selected as its next Explorer Mission of Opportunity. The 56-telescope payload will fly on the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory gives insight into how Coronal Mass Ejections form

February 4, 2013 |

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

Greenbelt, MD – On July 18th, 2012, a fairly small explosion of light burst off the lower right limb of the sun. Such flares often come with an associated eruption of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection or CME – but this one did not.

Something interesting did happen, however. Magnetic field lines in this area of the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, began to twist and kink, generating the hottest solar material – a charged gas called plasma – to trace out the newly-formed slinky shape.

On July 19th, 2012, SDO captured images of a solar flare in numerous wavelengths. The 131 Angstrom wavelength, shown here in the middle and colorized in teal, portrays particularly hot material on the sun, at 10 million Kelvin, which is why the incredibly hot flare shows up best in that wavelength. The 131 wavelength was also able to show kinked magnetic fields known as a flux rope that lay at the heart of a coronal mass ejection (CME), which also erupted at the same time as the flare. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory spacecrafts spot something new on the Sun

April 10, 2012 |

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

Greenbelt, MD – One day in the fall of 2011, Neil Sheeley, a solar scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., did what he always does – look through the daily images of the sun from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

But on this day he saw something he’d never noticed before: a pattern of cells with bright centers and dark boundaries occurring in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. These cells looked somewhat like a cell pattern that occurs on the sun’s surface — similar to the bubbles that rise to the top of boiling water — but it was a surprise to find this pattern higher up in the corona, which is normally dominated by bright loops and dark coronal holes.

The changes of a coronal cell region as solar rotation carries it across the solar disk as seen with NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft. The camera is fixed on the region (panning with it) and shows the plumes changing to cells and back to plumes again -- based on the observatory's perspective -- during the interval June 7th-14th, 2011. (Credit: NASA/STEREO/NRL)

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