NASA, Partners Test Artemis II Recovery Procedures

Members of NASA’s Exploration Ground System’s Landing and Recovery team and partners from the Department of Defense aboard the USS San Diego practice recovery procedures during Underway Recovery Test 11 (URT-11) off the coast of San Diego on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. The team works to secure the Crew Module Test Article and align it on its stand inside the ship’s well deck. URT-11 is the eleventh in a series of Artemis recovery tests, and the first time NASA and its partners put their Artemis II recovery procedures to the…

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ISS astronauts witness ‘spectacular’ auroras from space (photos)

Fresh aurora pictures from a NASA astronaut is making us green with envy. Earlier this month, International Space Station astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli captured absolutely stunning pictures of a flag-like green aurora stretching from the southern regions of the Earth far up into space. “The auroras from up here are spectacular,” NASA‘s Moghbeli told Space.com during a Wednesday (Feb. 21) ISS press conference about science. Of the green auroras Moghbeli saw on Feb. 15, she said it was one of her space mission highlights witnessing “some green, some red that just…

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James Webb telescope finds ancient galaxy larger than our Milky Way, and it’s threatening to upend cosmology

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has found a galaxy in the early universe that’s so massive, it shouldn’t exist, posing a “significant challenge” to the standard model of cosmology, according to the study authors. The galaxy, called ZF-UDS-7329, contains more stars than the Milky Way, despite having formed only 800 million years into the universe’s 13.8 billion-year life span. This means they were somehow born without dark matter seeding their formation, contrary to what the standard model of galaxy formation suggests. How this could have happened is unclear, but…

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‘A wonderful spectacle’: Photographer snaps rare solar eruption as ‘magnetic noose’ strangles the sun’s south pole

A gigantic plume of plasma recently exploded from the sun’s south pole, where solar eruptions almost never occur. The explosion, which a photographer captured in stunning detail, is another telltale sign that the sun is about to enter its most active phase — the solar maximum.  The rare phenomenon occurred on Feb. 17, when a solar flare exploded from a sunspot near the sun’s south pole, releasing a gigantic column of ionized gas, or plasma, that towered around 124,300 miles (200,000 kilometers) above the solar surface — around 15 times…

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SpaceX to launch 24 Starlink satellites from Florida today

SpaceX plans to launch 24 of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida today (Feb. 24), on the company’s 18th mission of 2024 already. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today during a four-hour window that opens at 4:59 p.m. EST (2159 GMT). You can watch the action live via SpaceX’s X account. Coverage will begin about five minutes before the window opens. Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night…

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Do you want to spend a year inside a mock Mars base for science? If so, NASA wants you.

Applications are open for NASA’s next year-long mock Mars mission, which simulates the challenges crews may face during future expeditions on the Red Planet.  The ground-based mission, called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog), consists of four volunteer crewmembers living and working inside an isolated 1,700-square-foot (158 square meters), 3D-printed habitat. Located at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Mars Dune Alpha habitat includes an adjoining 1,200-square-foot (111 square meters) enclosure used for simulated spacewalks.  “As NASA works to establish a long-term presence for scientific discovery and exploration…

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India plans to include a helicopter on its next Mars mission

India’s next Mars mission could include a helicopter that follows in the footsteps of NASA’s pioneering Ingenuity drone. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is currently working on the concept, which would fly along with an Indian Mars lander sometime around the start of the 2030s. India’s first mission to the Red Planet — the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also nicknamed “Mangalyaan” — launched in November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars in September 2014. The spacecraft conducted science in orbit around the Red Planet for eight years before contact…

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NASA Tech Contributes to Soft Moon Landing, Agency Science Underway

On Feb. 22, 2024, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander captures a wide field of view image of Schomberger crater on the Moon approximately 125 miles (200 km) uprange from the intended landing site, at approximately 6 miles (10 km) altitude. Credit: Intuitive Machines Editor’s note: This release was updated Feb. 23, 2024, to add an image from the news conference and participant titles. For the first time in more than 50 years, new NASA science instruments and technology demonstrations are operating on the Moon following the first successful delivery of…

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Hubble Views an Active Star-Forming Galaxy

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features IC 3476, a dwarf galaxy that lies about 54 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. While this image does not look very dramatic – we might say it looks almost serene – the actual physical events taking place in IC 3476 are highly energetic. In fact, the little galaxy is undergoing a process called ram pressure stripping that is driving unusually high levels of star formation in regions of the galaxy.  The gas and dust that permeates space exerts pressure on a galaxy as it moves.…

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White Papers

2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) White Paper, “Space Data Ethics: The Next Frontier in Responsible Leadership” White Paper, “Space Data Ethics: The Next Frontier in Responsible Leadership,” prepared by the Climate and Societal Benefits Subcommittee. This is a position paper in support of a recommendation to develop the principles of space data ethics.  Completed December 1, 2023.  View paper White Paper, “Enhancing Agricultural Resilience, Enabling Scalable Sustainability, and Ensuring Food Security through Space-based Earth Observations,” White Paper, “Enhancing Agricultural Resilience, Enabling Scalable Sustainability, and…

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