Iceberg Collision in Antarctica

An oblong iceberg roughly as big as Rhode Island called B-09B (center right in this image) collided with the edge of the Mertz Glacier in eastern Antarctica this month breaking away a new iceberg (top left) that is nearly as large at B-09B. This image from Feb. 20, 2010, is one of a series of [...]

Robot vs. Robot: Live In Washington and Across the Nation

NASA, in cooperation with local technology firms and sponsors, launches a nationwide series of high school robotics competitions that begin March 5 and 6 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place N.W., in Washington. The two-day event runs daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST. It is free and open [...]

Dunes of Mars

Dunes of sand-sized materials have been trapped on the floors of many Martian craters. This is one example, from a crater in Noachis Terra, west of the giant Hellas impact basin. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view on Dec. 28, 2009. The dunes here are [...]

Into the Heart of Darkness

Astronomers have long known that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A* for short), is a particularly poor eater. The fuel for this black hole comes from powerful winds blown off dozens of massive young stars that are concentrated nearby. These stars are [...]

NASA’s Shuttle Atlantis Moves to Launch Pad, Practice Liftoff Set

Reporters are invited to cover space shuttle Atlantis’ move to the launch pad on Oct. 13 and the STS-129 mission crew’s dress rehearsal activities Oct. 19 to Oct. 21 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Homecoming

Space shuttle Discovery sits atop the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft as it touched down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:05 p.m. EDT. The two-day return flight from Edwards Air Force Base in California began at 9:20 a.m. EDT Sept. 20. After three fueling stops that included an overnight stay in Louisiana, [...]

Flight of the X-15

A technician straps legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield into the cockpit of the X-15 rocket plane before an early test flight. The X-15’s maiden flight occurred on June 8, 1959, during which Crossfield was carried aloft in his sleek, black rocket plane beneath the wing of a B-52 from NASA’s Flight Research Center (now NASA [...]

Anatomy of a Busted Comet

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captured this image of comet Holmes in March 2008, five months after the comet suddenly erupted and brightened a millionfold…

NASA Satellite Detects Red Glow to Map Global Ocean Plant Health

Researchers have conducted the first global analysis of the health and productivity of ocean plants using a unique signal detected by NASA’s Aqua satellite. Ocean scientists can now remotely measure the amount of fluorescent red light emitted by phytoplankton and assess how efficiently these microscopic plants turn sunlight and nutrients into food through photosynthesis. Researchers [...]