NASA News
Courtesy of Science Daily

Classic portrait of a barred spiral galaxy The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 helps astronomers learn more about our celestial home. Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:24:24 EST Surface of Mars an unlikely place for life after 600-million-year drought, say scientists Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet’s surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analyzing individual particles of Martian soil. Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:20:20 EST Hubble zooms in on a magnified galaxy Astronomers aimed Hubble at one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. Hubble's view of the distant background galaxy, which lies nearly 10 billion light-years away, is significantly more detailed than could ever be achieved without the help of the gravitational lens. Publ.Date : Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:08:08 EST Do black holes help stars form? The center of just about every galaxy is thought to host a black hole, some with masses of thousands of millions of Suns and consequently strong gravitational pulls that disrupt material around them. They had been thought to hinder the birth of stars, but now astronomers studying the nearby galaxy Centaurus A have found quite the opposite: a black hole that seems to be helping stars to form. Publ.Date : Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:43:43 EST NASA mission returns first video from moon's far side A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study. Publ.Date : Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:21:21 EST Sun delivered curveball of powerful radiation at Earth A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred Jan. 17, 2012, just days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection seen in nearly a decade, delivered a powerful radiation punch to Earth's magnetic field despite the fact that it was aimed away from our planet. Publ.Date : Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:24:24 EST Stellar nursery: A pocket of star formation A new view shows a stellar nursery called NGC 3324. It was taken using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The intense ultraviolet radiation from several of NGC 3324's hot young stars causes the gas cloud to glow with rich colors and has carved out a cavity in the surrounding gas and dust. Publ.Date : Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:43:43 EST IBEX probe glimpses interstellar neighborhood Space scientists have described the first detailed analyses of captured interstellar neutral atoms -- raw material for the formation of new stars, planets and even human beings. Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:08:08 EST NASA's THEMIS satellite sees a great electron escape When scientists discovered two great swaths of radiation encircling Earth in the 1950s, it spawned over-the-top fears about "killer electrons" and space radiation effects on Earthlings. The fears were soon quieted: the radiation doesn't reach Earth, though it can affect satellites and humans moving through the belts. Nevertheless, many mysteries about the belts -- now known as the Van Allen Radiation belts -- remain to this day. Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:37:37 EST Glimpses of the interstellar material beyond our solar system A great magnetic bubble surrounds the solar system as it cruises through the galaxy. The sun pumps the inside of the bubble full of solar particles that stream out to the edge until they collide with the material that fills the rest of the galaxy, at a complex boundary called the heliosheath. On the other side of the boundary, electrically charged particles from the galactic wind blow by, but rebound off the heliosheath, never to enter the solar system. Neutral particles, on the other hand, are a different story. They saunter across the boundary as if it weren't there, continuing on another 7.5 billion miles for 30 years until they get caught by the sun's gravity, and sling shot around the star. Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:01:01 EST IBEX spacecraft measures 'alien' particles from outside solar system Using data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft, an international team of researchers has measured neutral "alien" particles entering our solar system from interstellar space. A suite of studies provides a first look at the constituents of the interstellar medium, the matter between star systems, and how they interact with our heliosphere. Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:57:57 EST Sun unleashes an X1.8 class flare on Jan. 27, 2012 The sun unleashed an X1.8 class flare that began at 1:12 PM ET on January 27, 2012 and peaked at 1:37. The flare immediately caused a strong radio blackout at low-latitudes, which was rated an R3 on NOAA's scale from R1-5. The blackout soon subsided to a minor R1 storm. Models from NASA's Goddard Space Weather Center predict that the CME is traveling at over 1500 miles per second. It does not initially appear to be Earth-directed, but Earth may get a glancing blow. Publ.Date : Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:02:02 EST Mars-bound instrument detects solar burst's effects: RAD measures radiation from solar storm The largest solar particle event since 2005 hit Earth, Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft traveling in-between, allowing the onboard Radiation Assessment Detector to measure the radiation a human astronaut could be exposed to en route to the Red Planet. Publ.Date : Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:27:27 EST NuSTAR spacecraft arrives in California NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, mission arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Jan. 27 after a cross-country trip by truck from the Orbital Sciences Corporation's manufacturing plant in Dulles, Va. The mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 14. Publ.Date : Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:23:23 EST NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 planets NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form. Publ.Date : Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:59:59 EST Photo from NASA Mars orbiter shows wind's handiwork Some images of stark Martian landscapes provide visual appeal beyond their science value, including a recent scene of wind-sculpted features from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:06:06 EST Giant asteroid Vesta likely cold and dark enough for ice Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions of years, according to the first published models of Vesta's average global temperatures and illumination by the sun. Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:05:05 EST NASA's NuSTAR ships to Vandenberg for March 14 launch NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Jan. 24, 2012, to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:04:04 EST Durable NASA rover beginning ninth year of Mars work Eight years after landing on Mars for what was planned as a three-month mission, NASA's enduring Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is working on what essentially became a new mission five months ago. Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:36:36 EST Cassini sees the two faces of Titan's dunes A new analysis of radar data from NASA's Cassini mission, in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, has revealed regional variations among sand dunes on Saturn's moon Titan. The result gives new clues about the moon's climatic and geological history. Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:35:35 EST Solar Dynamics Observatory helps measure magnetic fields on the sun's surface A subset of data that helps map out the sun's magnetic fields was recently released from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Observations that measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields on the solar surface -- known as vector magnetograms -- play a crucial role in understanding how those fields change over time and trigger giant eruptions off the surface of the sun such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Publ.Date : Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:31:31 EST Planck space telescope warms up as planned The High Frequency Instrument aboard the Planck space telescope has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe. The sensor ran out of coolant on Jan. 14, as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy. Publ.Date : Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:12:12 EST Montana students pick winning names for moon craft Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Mont. Their winning entry, "Ebb and Flow," was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011. Publ.Date : Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:10:10 EST Voyager instrument cooling after heater turned off In order to reduce power consumption, mission managers have turned off a heater on part of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, dropping the temperature of its ultraviolet spectrometer instrument more than 23 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit). It is now operating at a temperature below minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature that the instrument has ever endured. This heater shut-off is a step in the careful management of the diminishing electrical power so that the Voyager spacecraft can continue to collect and transmit data through 2025. Publ.Date : Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:08:08 EST