Month: April 2024

My formal 2024 solar eclipse apology

NeRD

Since April 8, when I witnessed a total eclipse of the sun, I’ve been feeling progressively more melancholy. It isn’t because I was underwhelmed, or because my vantage point wasn’t ideal, or because of some depressing epiphany I had while watching the moon turn our planet’s star into a wispy white halo. I’ve actually been struggling to find the right words to explain my sullenness all week. I’ve been scribbling random thoughts in my iPhone notes app as they’ve emerged. They’ve come up as I sat in a Lyft, ate…

Read More

Achoo! Baby star ‘sneezes’ tell astronomers a lot about their development

NeRD

Every new parent knows the cold anxiety that grips them when their baby sneezes for the first time. That’s when a litany of possible issues and ailments probably begin to irrationally race through your mind. Researchers now know baby stars also “sneeze,” but these infinitely more powerful post-natal sneezes launch gas, dust, and magnetic energy. In other words, they’re more useful to the cosmos than stressful.  These eruptions from so-called “protostars” are actually a vital part of stellar development, and can tell scientists a great deal about that stellar body’s evolution…

Read More

Altitude Chamber Gets Upgrade for Artemis II, Spacecraft Testing Begins 

NeRD

Before the Orion spacecraft is stacked atop NASA’s powerful SLS (Space Launch System) rocket ahead of the Artemis II mission, engineers will put it through a series of rigorous tests to ensure it is ready for lunar flight. In preparation for testing, teams at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida have made significant upgrades to the altitude chamber where testing will occur.   Several of the tests take place inside one of two altitude chambers in the high bay of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building at…

Read More

Media Get Close-Up of NASA’s Jupiter-Bound Europa Clipper

NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Members of the media visited a clean room at JPL April 11 to get a close-up look at NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and interview members of the mission team. The spacecraft is expected to launch in October 2024 on a six-year journey to the Jupiter system, where it will study the ice-encased moon Europa. NASA/JPL-Caltech Excitement is mounting as the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission gets readied for an October launch. Engineers at NASA’s…

Read More

A NASA spacecraft spotted something weird orbiting the moon. It was just a lunar neighbor (photos)

NeRD

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) snapped a perfectly timed photo as it crossed paths with another spacecraft orbiting the moon.  The LRO, which has been orbiting the moon for 15 years, captured several images of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s Danuri lunar orbiter as the two spacecraft, traveling in nearly parallel orbits, zoomed past each other in opposite directions during three orbits between March 5 and March 6, according to a statement from NASA.  Danuri, the Republic of Korea’s first moon-explorer, has been in lunar orbit since December 2022. At…

Read More

NASA’s PACE Data on Ocean, Atmosphere, Climate Now Available

NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s PACE satellite’s Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) detects light across a hyperspectral range, which gives scientists new information to differentiate communities of phytoplankton – a unique ability of NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite. This first image released from OCI identifies two different communities of these microscopic marine organisms in the ocean off the coast of South Africa on Feb. 28, 2024. The central panel of this image shows Synechococcus in pink and picoeukaryotes in green. The left panel of this…

Read More

Why Peter Higgs leaves a massive legacy in the field of physics

NeRD

On April 8, 2024, British theoretical physicist Peter Ware Higgs passed away at the age of 94. It was almost 12 years ago, on July 4, 2012, in a fairly inauspicious lecture hall located in Geneva, Switzerland, when Higgs became an iconic figure in modern science. That was the day it was announced that collisions between particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) facility — arguably the most ambitious and audacious science experiment ever — revealed the existence of the Higgs Boson. The discovery of the Higgs boson, named for…

Read More

See Jupiter close to a crescent moon (Mars near Saturn, too) in the ‘View a Planet Day’ night sky

NeRD

In an unofficial sense, I would like to dub today (April 10) as “View a Planet Day.”  In the early morning hours will be two planets that will appear very close to each other and then later that same day, in the early evening sky we’ll have a chance to see Jupiter hovering near to a slender waxing crescent moon, making for a rather eye-catching sight. And there will be other celestial objects out there to see and find as well among the brightest planets in the night sky. Here…

Read More

The Marshall Star for April 10, 2024

NeRD

19 Min Read The Marshall Star for April 10, 2024 NASA, Marshall Help Viewers Celebrate Total Solar Eclipse in Arkansas A group of Marshall and agency team members traveled to Russellville, Arkansas, to help viewers experience the April 8 total solar eclipse through the eyes of NASA. Science and communication experts from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Stennis Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, and NASA Headquarters provided educational outreach opportunities and participated in panel discussions in Russellville, which experienced an eclipse totality of 4 minutes, 12 seconds. Marshall Space Flight…

Read More

What happened when the moon ‘turned itself inside out’ billions of years ago?

NeRD

Over 4.2 billion years ago, the moon turned itself inside out to create the lunar surface that has become familiar to humanity.  Most scientists would agree the moon was created around 4.5 billion years ago, when another massive body in the solar system smashed into Earth, flinging molten material into space that coalesced as our natural satellite. How the birth of the moon proceeded after this violent start, however, has been described as “more of a choose-your-own-adventure novel” by a team of scientists from the University of Arizona’s Lunar and…

Read More