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Payload For Vulcan’s First Flight Arrives For Launch Preparations
A privately owned lunar lander slated to fly aboard the first United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket arrived in Florida on Oct. 30 for launch preparations. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral SFS’s Space Launch Complex 41 is targeted for Dec. 24. Based on lighting and other conditions for the attempted lunar landing, ULA will have only…
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NASA’s Juno probe detects organic compounds on huge Jupiter moon Ganymede
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has detected salts and organic compounds on the surface of Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. The detection was made during a June 2021 flyby in which Juno analyzed Ganymede using its Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) spectrometer, an instrument designed to study the chemistry and interactions within Jupiter’s atmosphere and those of its…
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OSIRIS-REx flies on to explore second asteroid
TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) — After seven years in space, and over four billion miles traveled, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission delivered the first U.S. sample from asteroid Bennu. After all of that, the spacecraft will not retire! Instead, NASA extended the University of Arizona led mission so that the spacecraft can be used to study another near-Earth…
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What happens when two stars collide?
A collision of two stars in space is not something astronomers are used to seeing, even with powerful space telescopes trained on galaxies beyond our own. But with the help of these massive eyes on the universe, including the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists recently got to see what such a space explosion – a…
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New Telescopes to Study the Aftermath of the Big Bang
Astronomers are currently pushing the frontiers of astronomy. At this very moment, observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are visualizing the earliest stars and galaxies in the Universe, which formed during a period known as the “Cosmic Dark Ages.” This period was previously inaccessible to telescopes because the Universe was permeated by clouds…
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Remembering John Glenn’s historic return to space
John Glenn at age 77. Credit: NASA. With millions of visitors each year, George Bush Intercontinental Airport, located north of downtown Houston, Texas, is among the United States’ busiest aviation hubs. And in 1998, it brought together an elderly couple and an elderly astronaut, each about to embark on one more great adventure. Thirty-six years…
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Uranus aurora discovery promises new riches from James Webb Space Telescope
After more than 30 years scientists have finally been able to confirm that the icy planet Uranus has an infrared aurora. The discovery will provide insight into how magnetic fields on ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune behave and could even help astronomers use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to identify similar aurorae from…
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The science behind NASA’s ‘ghost hand’ image
A ghostly hand reaching out from space is actually a pulsar and its associated wind nebula, imaged by Chandra and IXPE. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./R. Romani et al. (Chandra); NASA/MSFC (IXPE); Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DECaPS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt) Two of NASA’s orbiting X-ray observatories have combined efforts this Halloween, imaging a ghost hand reaching out to…
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X-ray telescopes show ghostly ‘hand’ in space
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Two NASA X-ray space telescopes have joined together to show what looks like the bones of a hand floating in space! This “hand” is what is left of a giant star that collapsed on itself roughly 1500 years ago. When it did that, it formed an object called a neutron star.…
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JWST snaps silky new picture of the Crab Nebula
This image by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the Crab Nebula, the remnants of a supernova 6,500 light-years away. The supernova remnant is comprised of several different components, including doubly ionized sulfur (red-orange), ionized iron (blue), dust (yellow-white and green), and synchrotron emission (white). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University) Nearly…
