Author: NeRD

Planetary Alignment Provides NASA Rare Opportunity to Study Uranus

NeRD

5 Min Read Planetary Alignment Provides NASA Rare Opportunity to Study Uranus Artist's illustration showing a distant star going out of sight as it is eclipsed by Uranus – an event known as a planetary stellar occultation. Credits: NASA/Advanced Concepts Laboratory When a planet’s orbit brings it between Earth and a distant star, it’s more than just a cosmic game of hide and seek. It’s an opportunity for NASA to improve its understanding of that planet’s atmosphere and rings. Planetary scientists call it a stellar occultation and that’s exactly what…

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First Results from the Eclipse Soundscapes Project: Webinar on May 7

NeRD

2 min read First Results from the Eclipse Soundscapes Project: Webinar on May 7 How do the sudden darkness and temperature changes of a solar eclipse impact life on Earth? The Eclipse Soundscapes project invited you to document changes in the environment during the week of the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse, using your own senses or an audiomoth sound recorder.  Thanks to your participation, the Eclipse Soundscapes team collected 25 terabytes of audio data during the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses. “It was really empowering for me to…

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Our galactic neighbor Andromeda has a bunch of satellite galaxies — and they’re weirdly pointing at us

NeRD

Our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31, or M31) appears to sport a lopsided arrangement of satellite galaxies that defy scientific models, stumping astronomers who are also trying to figure out why so many of this galaxy’s family members point in our direction. All but one of M31’s brightest 37 satellites are on the side of the Andromeda spiral that faces our Milky Way galaxy – the odd one out being Messier 110, which is easily visible in amateur images of the Andromeda Galaxy. “M31 is the only system that we…

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Watch SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule arrive at the ISS today

NeRD

NASA’s SpaceX 32nd Commercial Resupply Services Rendezvous and Docking – YouTube Watch On A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule is scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) this morning (April 22), and you can watch the orbital rendezvous live. Elon Musk‘s company launched its 32nd robotic resupply mission to the ISS for NASA early Monday morning (April 21), sending a Dragon freighter aloft from Florida’s Space Coast. If all goes according to plan, the Dragon’s off-Earth chase will end this morning around 8:20 a.m. EDT (1220 GMT), when the…

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SpaceX launches European reentry capsule on ‘Bandwagon-3’ rideshare mission

NeRD

SpaceX just sent a pioneering European capsule to the final frontier. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today (April 21) at 8:48 p.m. EDT (0048 GMT on April 22), on a rideshare mission that SpaceX calls Bandwagon-3. Among the payloads riding the Falcon 9 is Phoenix 1, a reentry capsule built by German company Atmos Space Cargo. If all goes to plan, Phoenix 1 will come back to Earth soon, splashing down in the Atlantic about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) off the…

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NASA’s SPHEREx Team To Ring New York Stock Exchange Bell

NeRD

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, is situated on a work stand ahead of prelaunch operations at the Astrotech Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Jan. 16, 2025. Credit: BAE Systems/Benjamin Fry Members of the team behind NASA’s newest space telescope will ring the New York Stock Exchange closing bell in New York City at 4 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 22. The team helped build, launch, and operates NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the…

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NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Images Asteroid Donaldjohanson

NeRD

4 min read NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Images Asteroid Donaldjohanson In its second asteroid encounter, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft obtained a close look at a uniquely shaped fragment of an asteroid that formed about 150 million years ago. The spacecraft has begun returning images that were collected as it flew approximately 600 miles (960 km) from the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025. The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This timelapse shows images captured approximately every 2 seconds beginning…

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Fuzzy Rings of a Dying Star

NeRD

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image of planetary nebula NGC 1514 to date thanks to its unique mid-infrared observations. Webb shows its rings as intricate clumps of dust. It’s also easier to see holes punched through the bright pink central region. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), Dave Jones (IAC) In this photo released on April 14, 2025, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope revealed the gas and dust ejected by a dying star at the heart of NGC 1514. Using mid-infrared data showed the…

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NASA Science, Cargo Launch on 32nd SpaceX Resupply Station Mission

NeRD

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:15 a.m. EDT on April 21 2025, on the company’s 32nd commercial resupply services mission for the agency to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA Following the successful launch of NASA’s SpaceX 32nd Commercial Resupply Services mission, new scientific experiments and supplies are bound for the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, carrying approximately 6,700 pounds of cargo to the orbiting laboratory for NASA, lifted off…

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