Month: April 2024

What’s left of the 2024 solar eclipse lives in our hearts

NeRD

For a few moments this year, the sun was a lime green portal for Vicki Stirm. It happened while she was standing among tens of thousands of people on an asphalt racetrack in Indiana, on the same day our moon briefly stopped our star from illuminating our world. The ocean of onlookers around her had been watching a total solar eclipse unfold through paper glasses shaped like what you might’ve gotten as a child before a 3D movie, similarly meant to prime the human eye for a new layer of…

Read More

NASA to Host a Pair of Briefings for Starliner Crew Flight

NeRD

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams prepare for their mission in the company’s Starliner spacecraft simulator at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credits: NASA/Robert Markowitz NASA will host two media opportunities on Thursday, April 25, in preparation for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station. The mission is targeting launch at 10:34 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 6, from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will lift…

Read More

Uranus and Neptune aren’t made of what we thought, new study hints

NeRD

Astronomers have long believed that the ice giants Uranus and Neptune are rich in frozen water. However, a new study suggests they may also have tons of methane ice. The findings could help solve a puzzle about how these icy worlds formed. Much about Uranus and Neptune remains unknown. These ice giant worlds have had just a single spacecraft visitor, Voyager 2, which flew past them in the 1980s. As a result, scientists have only a hazy idea of the ice giants’ compositions — for example, that they contain significant…

Read More

Exotic ‘Einstein ring’ suggests that mysterious dark matter interacts with itself

NeRD

A fresh analysis of a remarkably massive yet compact galaxy from the early universe suggests that dark matter interacts with itself. The galaxy, JWST-ER1, which formed just 3.4 billion years after the Big Bang, was first spotted last October in images snapped by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). At over 17 billion light-years from Earth, JWST-ER1g is the farthest-ever example of a perfect “Einstein ring” — an unbroken circle of light around the galaxy, a result of light rays from a distant, unseen galaxy being bent due to the…

Read More

Media Invited to NASA’s 30th Anniversary of International Rover Competition

NeRD

3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Students from Alabama A&M University compete during NASA’s 2023 Human Exploration Rover Challenge. The 2024 competition takes place Friday and Saturday, April 19-20, 2024, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center’s Aviation Challenge course in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA/Charles Beason NASA will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Human Exploration Rover Challenge when the competition returns to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center’s Aviation Challenge Course in Huntsville, Alabama, Friday, April 19, and Saturday, April 20. The event is free and open…

Read More

My NASA Data Milestones: Eclipsed by the Eclipse!

NeRD

2 min read My NASA Data Milestones: Eclipsed by the Eclipse! The My NASA Data (MND) project supports grades 3rd through 12th-grade students and teachers across the globe in analyzing and interpreting NASA mission data. MND provides student and teacher materials, including teacher-facing lesson plans, student-facing lessons and interactives, and NASA data via an easy-to-access interface. Having recently celebrated over 1 million digital engagements in the 2023 fiscal year, MND was excited and amazed to experience a record-breaking 1 million visitors from March 10 – April 10, 2024 -– a…

Read More

The 2024 solar eclipse was a teachable moment in more ways than one

NeRD

POTSDAM, N.Y. — At first, it seemed like every other college orientation session happening in universities across the country. A handful of prospective students, my teenage daughter Zadie included, listened intently on the eighth floor of the administration building here while an admissions official shared all the amenities that the State University of New York Potsdam has to offer. In the back of the room, near me, were current university students ready to share their college life experiences. A two-hour tour lay ahead for all of us.  But throughout the…

Read More

Iconic British meteorite ‘Winchcombe’ found to have a smashing past

NeRD

The Winchcombe meteorite, which fell to the ground in Gloucestershire in the U.K. after blazing a trail through the night sky on Feb. 28, 2021, came from an asteroid that had been heavily altered by water as well as smashed apart and reformed multiple times. That’s the conclusion of a detailed analysis of the meteorite, fragments of which were found scattered in fields near the village of Winchcombe, and even on one family’s driveway. It was the first meteorite fall in the U.K. to be retrieved since 1991. Thanks to…

Read More

Object that slammed into Florida home was indeed space junk from ISS, NASA confirms

NeRD

The mysterious object that crashed through the roof of a Florida home last month did indeed come from the International Space Station (ISS), NASA has confirmed. That home, in the seaside city of Naples, belongs to Alejandro Otero. Shortly after the March 8 incident, Otero said he thought the offending object was part of a cargo pallet packed with 5,800 pounds (2,630 kilograms) of aging batteries jettisoned from the ISS in March 2021.  And he was right, according to a new NASA analysis of the object, which was performed at…

Read More