Author: NeRD

Chief Engineer Dr. Donald Mendoza

NeRD

“From my earliest childhood, flight had always captivated me. I lived out in the boonies and the farmlands, so I didn’t have neighbors to go and play with. If I wasn’t working, I was left to my own devices, and often, I would just be captivated by the wildlife and in particular, the birds of prey that I would see. “To me, they represented a freedom of some kind or another. These birds and the view they have — they can take in so much. So, from that point on,…

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Launch Your Creativity with These Space Crafts!

NeRD

9 min read Launch Your Creativity with These Space Crafts! In honor of the completion of our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s spacecraft — the vehicle that will maneuver the observatory to its place in space and enable it to function once there — we’re bringing you some space crafts you can complete at home! Join us for a journey across the cosmos, starting right in your own pantry.  Stardust Slime Did you know that most of your household ingredients are made of stardust? And so are you! Nearly every…

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Sols 4316-4317: Hunting for Sulfur

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 More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 4 min read Sols 4316-4317: Hunting for Sulfur This image was taken…

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Hubble Captures Stellar Nurseries in a Majestic Spiral

NeRD

Hubble Space Telescope Home Hubble Captures Stellar… Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble…

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NASA Hosts Two Workshops for Consultation on LEO Microgravity Strategy

NeRD

Sandra Connelly, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, left, Lori Glaze, acting deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, Robyn Gatens, director of the International Space Station at NASA Headquarters, and Carrie Olsen, manager of the Next Gen STEM project for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, discuss key takeaways at the conclusion of NASA’s LEO Microgravity Strategy Industry and Academia Workshop, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, at Convene in Washington. NASA’s LEO Microgravity Strategy effort aims to develop and document an objectives-based approach toward the next…

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How to watch SpaceX’s Crew-9 astronaut launch for NASA on Sept. 28

NeRD

SpaceX plans to launch the Crew-9 astronaut mission for NASA on Saturday (Sept. 28), and you can watch the action live online. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Crew Dragon spacecraft and its crew is scheduled to lift off from Space Launch Complex-40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday at 1:17 p.m. EDT (1717 GMT). You can watch the liftoff — the first crewed launch ever from SLC-40 — live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA. Crew-9, the ninth crew rotation mission for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program,…

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This exoplanet circling a dead star may mirror Earth’s fate — if our planet survives a dying sun, that is

NeRD

A planetary system anchored by a dead white dwarf star, located around 4,000 light-years away, has offered astronomers a possible glimpse into what our sun and Earth could look like in around 8 billion years.  However, this would only be Earth’s future if our planet manages to survive the sun’s eventual transformation into a swollen red giant. This transformation is expected to happen around 5 billion to 6 billion years from now, when the sun finally exhausts its fuel supply needed for nuclear fusion. That red giant phase will see…

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‘That’s weird’: James Webb Space Telescope spies a strange galaxy outshining its stars

NeRD

In a pocket of the universe teeming with galaxies, the James Webb Space Telescope has zeroed in on one blazing so brightly it outshines its stars. The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted the galaxy named GS-NDG-9422 — a realm that existed about one billion years after the Big Bang, and indeed one that may provide the missing link of galaxy evolution between the universe’s first stars and well-structured galaxies. GS-NDG-9422 “will help us understand how the cosmic story began,” Alex Cameron, an observational astronomer at the University of Oxford…

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NASA’s BioSentinel Studies Solar Radiation as Earth Watches Aurora

NeRD

Illustration of NASA’s BioSentinel spacecraft as it enters a heliocentric orbit. BioSentinel collected data during the May 2024 geomagnetic storm that hit Earth to learn more about the impacts of radiation in deep space. NASA/Daniel Rutter In May 2024, a geomagnetic storm hit Earth, sending auroras across the planet’s skies in a once-in-a-generation light display. These dazzling sights are possible because of the interaction of coronal mass ejections – explosions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun – with Earth’s magnetic field, which protects us from the radiation the…

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Pioneer of Change: America Reyes Wang Makes NASA Space Biology More Open

NeRD

4 min read Pioneer of Change: America Reyes Wang Makes NASA Space Biology More Open America Reyes Wang, the lead of the the Space Biology Biospecimen Sharing Program at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, stands beside a spacesuit display. Photo courtesy of America Reyes Wang As humans return to the Moon and push on toward Mars, scientists are ramping up research into the effects of space on the body to make sure astronauts stay healthy on longer missions. This research often involves spaceflight studies of rodents, insects,…

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