2 min read Hubble Sights a Galaxy with ‘Forbidden’ Light This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick This whirling image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. In addition to being a well-defined spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014 has an extremely energetic core known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and is categorized as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies, along with quasars, host one of…
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NASA’s Space Station Laser Comm Terminal Achieves First Link
3 Min Read NASA’s Space Station Laser Comm Terminal Achieves First Link NASA’s ILLUMA-T payload at Goddard Space Flight Center fully tested and integrated prior to its delivery to Kennedy Space Center. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center A NASA technology experiment on the International Space Station completed its first laser link with an in-orbit laser relay system on Dec. 5, 2023. Together, they complete NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system. NASA’s LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration) and the new space station demonstration, ILLUMA-T (Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit…
Read MoreNASA’s Webb Stuns With New High-Definition Look at Exploded Star
6 Min Read NASA’s Webb Stuns With New High-Definition Look at Exploded Star NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s new view of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University of Gent) Mysterious features hide in near-infrared light Like a shiny, round ornament ready to be placed in the perfect spot on a holiday tree, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) gleams in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. As part of the 2023 Holidays at…
Read MoreNASA Laser Reflecting Instruments to Help Pinpoint Earth Measurements
5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The best known use of GPS satellites is to help people know their location whether driving a car, navigating a ship or plane, or trekking across remote territory. Another important, but lesser-known, use is to distribute information to other Earth-viewing satellites to help them pinpoint measurements of our planet. NASA and several other federal agencies, including the U.S. Space Force, U.S. Space Command, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are improving the location accuracy of these…
Read MoreNASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Returns to Science Operations
3 min read NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Returns to Science Operations Hubble orbiting more than 300 miles above Earth as seen from the space shuttle. NASA Updated, Dec. 8, 2023 NASA restored the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope to science operations Friday, Dec. 8. The telescope had paused science observations Nov. 23 due to an issue with one of its gyros. The spacecraft is in good health and once again operating using all three of its gyros. Hubble’s two main cameras, Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, resumed…
Read MoreNASA Engineers Push Limits of Physics to Focus Light
A pair of precision-orbiting small satellites will attempt to capture the first views ever of small-scale features near the surface of the Sun that scientists believe drive the heating and acceleration of solar wind. Heliophysicist Dr. Doug Rabin at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said photon sieves, a technology that can focus extreme ultraviolet light, should be able to resolve features 10 to 50 times smaller than what can be seen today with the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s EUV imager. Photon sieves like this are cut from a…
Read MoreNASA Audio Specialist Named in Forbes 30 Under 30 List of Innovators
3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Katie Konans, NASA’s audio and podcasting lead at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is one of two NASA employees named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Class of 2024. The other agency honoree, Clare Luckey, is a systems engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Katie Konans is NASA’s audio and podcasting lead at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA/Rob Andreoli Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list is a selection of young,…
Read MoreHubble Celebrates 30th Anniversary of Servicing Mission 1
6 min read Hubble Celebrates 30th Anniversary of Servicing Mission 1 Astronaut F. Story Musgrave works in the space shuttle Endeavour’s cargo bay while the solar array panels on the Hubble Space Telescope are deployed during the final Servicing Mission 1 spacewalk. NASA In the pre-dawn hours on Dec. 2, 1993, the space shuttle Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a critical mission to repair NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble was designed to be serviced in space with components that astronauts can slide in and out of…
Read MoreHubble Views a Double Cluster of Glowing Galaxies
2 min read Hubble Views a Double Cluster of Glowing Galaxies This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Abell 3192 holds two independent galaxy clusters. ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Smith, H. Ebeling, D. Coe This Hubble image features a massive cluster of brightly glowing galaxies, first identified as Abell 3192. Like all galaxy clusters, this one is suffused with hot gas that emits powerful X-rays, and it is enveloped in a halo of invisible dark matter. All this unseen material – not to mention the many galaxies visible in this image –…
Read MoreNASA Researcher Honored by Goddard Tech Office for Earth Science Work
Earth science researcher Dr. Antonia Gambacorta earned the 2023 Goddard IRAD Technology Leadership award for pioneering new ways to measure lower layers of Earth’s atmosphere from space. The award from the chief technologist of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, recognizes Gambacorta’s work demonstrating how hyperspectral microwave sounding, the measurement of hundreds of thousands of wavelengths of microwave light, could dissect Earth’s atmospheric planetary boundary layer (PBL). She also conceptualized a microwave photonics radiometer instrument to reveal these measurements. NASA / Christopher Gunn The part of Earth’s atmosphere…
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