Author: NeRD

Commodity Classic Hyperwall Schedule

NeRD

Explore This Section Earth Home Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles Meeting Summaries News Science in the News Calendars In Memoriam More Archives 1 min read Commodity Classic Hyperwall Schedule NASA Science at Commodity Classic Hyperwall Schedule, March 2-4, 2025 Join NASA in the Exhibit Hall (Booth #839) for Hyperwall Storytelling by NASA experts. Full Hyperwall Agenda below. MONDAY, MARCH 3 11:30 – 12:00 PM NASA Earth Science at Work for American Agriculture Dr. Karen St. Germain 12:00 – 12:30 PM Connecting NASA Ag Resources in A Virtual Agricultural…

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NASA Installs Heat Shield on First Private Spacecraft Bound for Venus

NeRD

NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete Engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Bohdan Wesely, right, and Eli Hiss, left, complete a fit check of the two halves of a space capsule that will study the clouds of Venus for signs of life. Led by Rocket Lab of Long Beach, California, and their partners at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Rocket Lab’s Venus mission will be the first private mission to the planet. NASA’s role is to help the commercial space endeavor succeed by providing expertise in thermal protection…

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Intuitive Machines-2 Lifts Off

NeRD

NASA/Cory S Huston A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander (IM-2) soars upward after liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. The lander is set to land on the Moon on March 6. The NASA science and technology demonstrations aboard the lander will, once on the Moon, gather data to support future human missions. NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft, which launched as a rideshare with the IM-2 mission, also began its journey to lunar orbit, where it will map…

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NASA’s Hubble Provides Bird’s-Eye View of Andromeda Galaxy’s Ecosystem

NeRD

Explore Hubble 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 Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News…

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Sols 4466-4468: Heading Into the Small Canyon

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 4 min read Sols 4466-4468: Heading Into the Small Canyon NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity produced this image from its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. This image…

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SpaceX rocket launches private moon lander and NASA ‘trailblazer’ to hunt for lunar water (video)

NeRD

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The private Athena lunar lander is on its way to the moon. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off shortly after sunset this evening (Feb. 26), carrying Athena and NASA’s ride-along Lunar Trailblazer orbiter aloft against a darkening sky here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Athena — which was built by the Houston-based spaceflight company Intuitive Machines — carries 10 NASA science instruments, many of which are designed to hunt for signs of water ice. Lunar Trailblazer will do similar work from its higher perch.…

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These dwarf galaxies in the Hydra cluster are baffling scientists: ‘We found something we didn’t expect’

NeRD

Astronomers have discovered something surprising about the universe’s smallest and faintest class of galaxies: Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs). A research team studying these galaxies found that around half of the ones they investigated showed signs of motion that defy previous theories about the formation and evolution of such realms. In particular, the team found an unexpected rotational motion of stars within many of these dwarf galaxies. The scientists reached these findings while studying stellar motion in 30 UDGs in the Hydra galaxy cluster located over 160 million light-years away from us.…

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NASA Remembers Long-Time Civil Servant John Boyd

NeRD

Portrait of John Boyd, whose contributions to NASA spanned more than 70 years. Credit: NASA John Boyd, known to many as Jack and whose career spanned more than seven decades in a multitude of roles across NASA as well as its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), died Feb. 20. He was 99. Born in 1925, and raised in Danville, Virginia, he was a long-time resident of Saratoga, California. Boyd is being remembered by many across the agency, including Dr. Eugene Tu, director, NASA’s Ames Research Center in…

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Fourth Launch of NASA Instruments Planned for Near Moon’s South Pole

NeRD

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands vertical on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center ahead of Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative and Artemis campaign. SpaceX Sending instruments to the Moon supports a growing lunar economy on and off Earth, and the next flight of NASA science and technology is only days away. NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative is a lunar delivery service that sends NASA science and technology instruments to various geographic…

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Milky Way on the Horizon

NeRD

The Milky Way appears beyond Earth’s horizon in this celestial photograph captured on Jan. 29, 2025, by NASA astronaut Don Pettit using a camera with low light and long duration settings pointed out a window on the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft. The International Space Station was orbiting 265 miles above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile just before sunrise.

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