Month: April 2024

The next full Moon is the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, the Pesach or Passover Moon

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19 min read The next full Moon is the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, the Pesach or Passover Moon The next full Moon is the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, the Pesach or Passover Moon, the Hanuman Jayanti Festival Moon, and Bak Poya.  The next full Moon will be Tuesday evening, April 23, 2024, appearing opposite the Sun (in Earth-based longitude) at 7:49 PM EDT. This will be on Wednesday from the time zones of the UK, Ireland, and Portugal eastward across…

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SWOT Satellite Helps Gauge the Depth of Death Valley’s Temporary Lake

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Water depths in Death Valley’s temporary lake ranged between about 3 feet (or 1 meter, shown in dark blue) to less than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters, light yellow) from February through early March. By measuring water levels from space, SWOT enabled research to calculate the depth. NASA/JPL-Caltech Data from the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission helped researchers to calculate the depth of water in this transient freshwater body. California’s Death Valley, the driest place in North America, has hosted an ephemeral lake since late 2023. A NASA-led analysis…

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Seeing the Solar Eclipse from 223,000 Miles Away

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This spectacular image showing the Moon’s shadow on Earth’s surface was acquired during a 20-second period starting at 2:59 p.m. EDT (18:59:19 UTC) on April 8, 2024, by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse from hundreds of thousands of miles away. The camera suite aboard the LRO usually retrieves high resolution black and white images of the Moon’s surface; these images provide knowledge of polar illumination conditions, identify potential resources, hazards, and enable safe landing site selection.…

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Nuclear fusion reactor in South Korea runs at 100 million degrees C for a record-breaking 48 seconds

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South Korea’s “artificial sun” has set a new fusion record after superheating a plasma loop to 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius) for 48 seconds, scientists have announced.  The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor broke the previous world record of 31 seconds, which was set by the same reactor in 2021.The breakthrough is a small but impressive step on the long road to a source of near-unlimited clean energy.  Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars…

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1st female ISS program manager looks ahead to new spaceships, space stations (exclusive)

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Dana Weigel, the first woman to helm the International Space Station program manager, says she’s excited to oversee so much commercial space activity on the orbiting complex. Weigel officially took helm of the International Space Station (ISS) program manager position on Sunday (April 7), succeeding Joel Montalbano. She was previously deputy ISS program manager and has 20 years of experience in numerous high-profile NASA roles. Working directly alongside Montalbano in management since 2021, she said, “I’ve gotten a lot of experience with the challenges that are there,” Weigel told Space.com…

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This little robot can hop in zero-gravity to explore asteroids

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A three-legged robot named SpaceHopper could help combat the challenges of exploring low-gravity environments, such as those found on asteroids or moons.  The SpaceHopper program was first launched two and a half years ago as a student research project at ETH Zurich university in Switzerland. And recently, researchers tested the hopping robot in a simulated zero-gravity environment during a European Space Agency parabolic flight, according to a statement from the university. The robot consists of a triangular body with an articulated leg at each corner. Each of these three legs…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 106 — Space Potpourri!

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On Episode 106 of This Week In Space, Rod and Tariq take you on a tour of the coolest space places on Earth. Most you can visit; some are more problematic, but many are must-sees for we, the True Believers! They will tell you where they are, what’s there to see, and — where possible — how to get inside without getting arrested. Rod and Tariq also do a solar eclipse recap from our varied — and somewhat frustrating — experiences earlier this week. Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space. Get episodes ad-free…

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Tiny black holes left over from the Big Bang may be prime dark matter suspects

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When it comes to primordial black holes being dark matter suspects, their alibi may be falling apart. Tiny black holes, created seconds after the birth of the universe, may survive longer than expected, reigniting a suspicion that primordial black holes could account for dark matter, the universe’s most mysterious stuff. Dark matter currently represents one of the most pressing problems in physics. That is because, despite making up an estimated 85% of the matter in the cosmos, dark matter remains effectively invisible to our eyes because it doesn’t interact with…

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‘You could feel the energy and wonder’: Despite clouds, totality wows crowds during solar eclipse in Syracuse

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Syracuse, N.Y. — On Monday morning (April 8), a crowd began gathering on the lawn of the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology (MOST), hoping to witness a total solar eclipse. “I’ve seen a number of partial [solar] eclipses, but this is my first total eclipse,” said Lindsay Hays, a program scientist in the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. “So I’m very excited for it.” Hays answered questions from eclipse viewers as a part of the museum’s Solar Eclipse Festival, which lasted from 12 p.m. to 4…

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The NRP Post

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Current partners are encouraged to share their stories with NASA and our local communities. If partners do not have the time to prepare a story for the NRP post, the NRP team encourages partners to submit their latest press release and it can be included in the Post! Please submit your stories and high quality photos (including captions) to: theodore.r.triano@nasa.gov.  NRP Post Archives 2022 Issue 1 – IN THIS ISSUE Credits: Editor, Layout & Design by Ted Triano 4 | CMU Designed Satellite Launched Into Low-Earth Orbit Brandon Lucia’s lab developed the…

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