Month: April 2025

NASA’s new SPHEREx space telescope takes its 1st cosmic images: ‘The instrument team nailed it’

NeRD

You know how the James Webb Space Telescope is said to be revolutionizing astronomy because it can study wavelengths hidden to human eyes? Well, those wavelengths lie in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum — and on April 1, NASA announced its brand new infrared space telescope, SPHEREx, has officially opened its eyes to the cosmos as well. This first light, as it’s called, shows that all of the spacecraft’s systems are working just as expected. “Based on the images we are seeing, we can now say that the…

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New alien abduction film ‘Watch the Skies’ is giving us Swedish Spielberg vibes (video)

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Watch the Skies Exclusive Trailer (2025) – YouTube Watch On Not since the days of Erich von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods,” director Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and publisher Bob Guccione’s “Omni” magazine has there been this much interest in the study, history, and research of UFOs, an arena of curiosity branded as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). The latest entry into the mysterious mire of flying saucer mania is a new abduction thriller from Sweden called “Watch The Skies.” The ominous title is a nostalgic nod…

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‘I’d get on in a heartbeat’: Starliner astronauts would fly on Boeing spacecraft again despite malfunctions (video)

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NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore both say they’d ride on Boeing’s Starliner again, despite the issues the capsule had on its first crewed flight. Wilmore and Williams launched to the ISS on Starliner’s first astronaut mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), last June. Problems with the spacecraft’s thrusters prompted NASA and Boeing to extend CFT while engineers analyzed the problem on the ground, ultimately turning Williams and Wilmore’s planned eight-day mission aboard the space station into a nine-month saga. In late August, NASA decided to return Starliner…

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NASA Receives 10 Nominations for the 29th Annual Webby Awards

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2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This ultra high-definition video featuring an orange tabby cat named Taters, was streamed from nearly 19 million miles away via laser by NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment, marking a historic milestone for space communications. Jet Propulsion Laboratory Since it began in 1958, NASA has been charged by law with spreading the word about its work to the widest extent practicable. From typewritten press releases to analog photos and film, the agency has effectively moved into social media…

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NASA’s SPHEREx Takes First Images, Preps to Study Millions of Galaxies

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5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s SPHEREx, which will map millions of galaxies across the entire sky, captured one of its first exposures March 27. The observatory’s six detectors each captured one of these uncalibrated images, to which visible-light colors have been added to represent infrared wavelengths. SPHEREx’s complete field of view spans the top three images; the same area of the sky is also captured in the bottom three images. NASA/JPL-Caltech Processed with rainbow hues to represent a range of infrared wavelengths, the…

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Studying Ice for the Future of Flight

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NASA/Jordan Cochran Thomas Ozoroski, a researcher at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, takes icing accretion measurements in October 2024 as part of transonic truss-braced wing concept research. In the future, aircraft with long, thin wings supported by aerodynamic braces could help airlines save on fuel costs – but those same wings could be susceptible to ice buildup. In the historic Icing Research Tunnel at NASA Glenn, scientists and engineers are testing a concept for a transonic truss-braced wing. Their goal: to collect important data to inform the design of these…

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Ways Community College Students Can Get Involved With NASA

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4 Min Read Ways Community College Students Can Get Involved With NASA For many students, the path to a NASA career begins at a community college. These local, two-year institutions offer valuable flexibility and options to those aspiring to be part of the nation’s next generation STEM workforce. NASA offers several opportunities for community college students to expand their horizons, make connections with agency experts, add valuable NASA experiences to their resumes, and home in on the types of STEM roles that best fit their skills and interests. Below are…

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Sols 4495-4497: Yawn, Perched, and Rollin’

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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read Sols 4495-4497: Yawn, Perched, and Rollin’ NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of the upcoming “boxwork” structures to its west, using its Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI). The ChemCam instrument studies the…

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Discovery Alert: Four Little Planets, One Big Step

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Explore This Section Exoplanets Home Exoplanets Overview Exoplanets Facts Types of Exoplanets Stars What is the Universe Search for Life The Big Questions Are We Alone? Can We Find Life? The Habitable Zone Why We Search Target Star Catalog Discoveries Discoveries Dashboard How We Find and Characterize Missions People Exoplanet Catalog Immersive The Exoplaneteers Exoplanet Travel Bureau 5 Ways to Find a Planet Strange New Worlds Universe of Monsters Galaxy of Horrors News Stories Blog Resources Get Involved Glossary Eyes on Exoplanets Exoplanet Watch More Multimedia ExEP This artist’s concept…

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SpaceX launches private Fram2 astronauts on historic spaceflight over Earth’s poles

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SpaceX just launched the first-ever human spaceflight to circle Earth over its poles. The private Fram2 mission lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida today (March 31) at 9:46 p.m. EDT (0146 GMT on April 1), sending the Crew Dragon capsule “Resilience” into a polar orbit with a quartet of spaceflight rookies aboard. Fram2 is commanded Chun Wang of Malta, who is joined by vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen from Norway, pilot Rabea Rogge of Germany, and Australian medical officer and…

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