Sols 4466-4468: Heading Into the Small Canyon

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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)

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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’

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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

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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

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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

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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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NASA leadership shakeup continues as agency settles into Trump’s 2nd term

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NASA continues to reshape its leadership tier. The agency announced a number of personnel moves on Monday (Feb. 24), including the selection of Vanessa Wyche as acting associate administrator. “Vanessa will bring exceptional leadership to NASA’s senior ranks, helping guide our workforce toward the opportunities that lie ahead,” NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro said in a statement on Monday. The associate administrator serves as NASA’s chief operating officer, overseeing its 18,000 employees and nearly $25 billion budget, agency officials wrote in the statement. Wyche succeeds Jim Free, who retired a…

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NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 to Discuss Space Station Mission, Upcoming Return

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The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission, including NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, pose for a photo aboard the International Space Station NASA Media are invited to hear from NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts during a news conference beginning at 11:55 a.m. EST, Tuesday, March 4, from the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore will discuss their return to Earth on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms,…

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NASA Names Stephen Koerner as Acting Director of Johnson Space Center

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Acting Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Steve Koerner. Credit: NASA/Norah Moran NASA has selected Stephen Koerner as acting director of Johnson Space Center. Koerner previously served as Johnson’s deputy director. “It is an honor to accept my new role as acting director for Johnson,” Koerner said. “Our employees are key to our nation’s human spaceflight goals. I am continually impressed with what our workforce accomplishes and am proud to be named the leader of such an incredible team dedicated to mission excellence.” Koerner previously served as deputy director of…

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NASA’s X-59 Completes Electromagnetic Testing

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3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s F-15D research aircraft is positioned adjacent to the X-59 during electromagnetic compatibility testing at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. Researchers activated the F-15D’s radar, C-band transponder, and radios at different distances from the X-59 to evaluate potential electromagnetic interference with the aircraft’s flight-critical systems, ensuring the X-59 can operate safely with other aircraft. These tests showed that the aircraft’s integration is maturing and cleared a major hurdle that moves it one step closer to first…

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