Author: NeRD

Sols 4520-4521: Prinzregententorte

NeRD

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 3 min read Sols 4520-4521: Prinzregententorte NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of its target area — including the layered rocks “Hale Telescope” and “Fan Palm” — using its Front Hazard Avoidance Camera on April 22, 2025…

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Navigation Technology

NeRD

4 Min Read Navigation Technology ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer sets up an Astrobee for the ReSWARM experiment. Credits: NASA Science in Space April 2025 Humans have always been explorers, venturing by land and sea into unknown and uncharted places on Earth and, more recently, in space. Early adventurers often navigated by the Sun and stars, creating maps that made it easier for others to follow. Today, travelers on Earth have sophisticated technology to guide them. Navigation in space, including for missions to explore the Moon and Mars, remains more of…

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Air Force Pilot, SkillBridge Fellow Helps NASA Research Soar

NeRD

Jeremy Johnson, a research pilot and aviation safety officer, poses in front of a PC-12 aircraft inside the hangar at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland on Thursday, April 17, 2025. Johnson flies NASA planes to support important scientific research and testing. Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna Jeremy Johnson laces his black, steel-toed boots and zips up his dark blue flight suit. Having just finished a pre-flight mission briefing with his team, the only thing on his mind is heading to the aircraft hangar and getting a plane in the air. As…

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Amateur astrophotographer captures a stunning galaxy 24 million light-years from Earth (photo)

NeRD

Astrophotographer Ron Brecher has captured a stunning deep sky image of the spiral galaxy M106, located 23.5 million light years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. Brecher imaged the distant galaxy for a little over 32 hours on nights spanning from March 27 to April 17, 2025. The finished portrait reveals the swirling arms of M106 focussed around an active, red-hued galactic core – an active star-forming region that is home to a ravenous supermassive black hole. “M106 is classified as a Seyfert galaxy, meaning it has an active nucleus,”…

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New moon of April 2025 sees Venus and Saturn join up in the sky this weekend

NeRD

The new moon occurs April 27, and a day later Venus and Saturn will make a close approach to each other (known as a conjunction) in the predawn sky. To make a new moon, you need to line up the sun, moon and Earth. From the earthbound observer’s viewpoint, the sun and moon are at the same celestial longitude, a projection of the Earth’s longitude lines on the sky. Most often the moon passes above or below the sun but at times it passes directly between the sun and Earth,…

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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 28 Starlink satellites, aces droneship booster landing (photos)

NeRD

SpaceX continues its steady pace of Starlink launches, ever growing the company’s orbital internet constellation. A Falcon 9 rocket launched SpaceX‘s Starlink 6-74 mission Thursday night, April 24, out of Florida’s Space Coast. Liftoff occurred at 9:52 p.m. ET (0152 GMT, April 25) from Launch Complex-40 (LC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Stacked 28-tall inside the Falcon 9 fairing, the newest additions to SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation headed toward low Earth orbit (LEO), powered by the Falcon 9’s nine first-stage Merlin engines. A closeup shot of the Falcon 9’s first-stage…

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NASA Tracks Snowmelt to Improve Water Management

NeRD

3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The C-20A aircraft, based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, flies over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California for the Dense UAVSAR Snow Time (DUST) mission on Feb. 28, 2025. The DUST mission collected airborne data about snow water to help improve water management and reservoir systems on the ground. NASA/Starr Ginn As part of a science mission tracking one of Earth’s most precious resources – water – NASA’s C-20A aircraft conducted a series of seven…

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NASA Marshall Fires Up Hybrid Rocket Motor to Prep for Moon Landings

NeRD

4 Min Read NASA Marshall Fires Up Hybrid Rocket Motor to Prep for Moon Landings NASA’s Artemis campaign will use human landing systems, provided by SpaceX and Blue Origin, to safely transport crew to and from the surface of the Moon, in preparation for future crewed missions to Mars. As the landers touch down and lift off from the Moon, rocket exhaust plumes will affect the top layer of lunar “soil,” called regolith, on the Moon. When the lander’s engines ignite to decelerate prior to touchdown, they could create craters…

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New York Stock Exchange Welcomes NASA’s SPHEREx Team

NeRD

The New York Stock Exchange welcomed team members from NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission to celebrate the launch of the agency’s newest astrophysics observatory to understand the origins and structure of the universe. Image courtesy of NYSE Group Members of NASA’s recently launched SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission team participated in the New York Stock Exchange’s closing bell ceremony in New York City on April 22. Michael Thelen, SPHEREx…

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All Hands for Artemis III

NeRD

A NASA spacesuit glove designed for use during spacewalks on the International Space Station is prepared for thermal vacuum testing inside a one-of-a-kind chamber called CITADEL (Cryogenic Ice Testing, Acquisition Development, and Excavation Laboratory) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Nov. 1, 2023.

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