NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is receiving finishing touches at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, near the beaches of eastern central Florida for its launch. The spacecraft is set for launch aboard a Delta II rocket no earlier than June 3. The launch window runs from 11:45 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. EDT.
The most recent supernova in our Galaxy has been discovered by tracking the rapid expansion of its remains. This result, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and NRAO's Very Large Array, has implications for understanding how often supernovas explode in the Milky Way galaxy.
To prepare for a return to the moon, researchers are evaluating how dust deposits in the lungs in reduced gravity in order to assess the health risk of long-term exposure to lunar particles. The findings will influence the design of lunar bases and could also provide benefits for health care on Earth, such as improved delivery of aerosol medications to the lungs.
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to taste and sniff fistfuls of Martian soil and buried ice. The solar-powered robotic lander will manipulate a 2.35 meter arm (7.7 foot) to scoop up samples of underground ice and soil lying above the ice. Onboard laboratory instruments will analyze the samples. One research goal is to assess whether conditions at the site ever have been favorable for microbial life.
Satellite imagery obtained from NASA will help archaeologists peer into the ancient Mexican past. In a novel archaeological application, multi- and hyperspectral data will help build the most accurate and most detailed landscape map that exists of the southern state of Oaxaca, where the Zapotec people formed the first state-level and urban society in Mexico.
Satellites currently use radio waves to exchange data. Now the data rate has been increased a hundredfold by using lasers instead of radio signals. Two test satellites each carried a diode laser pump module. The data whizzed back and forth at the speed of light between German satellite TerraSAR-X and US satellite NFIRE, covering more than 5000 kilometers in space without any errors.
A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics finds that a much hotter climate could shut down the Earth's plate tectonics. While human-induced climate change couldn't generate the needed heat, volcanic activity or changes in the sun's luminosity could. The research, in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, may help explain why Venus swelters beneath a thick blanket of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.
For the first time, astronomers have detected in the ultraviolet the carbon monoxide molecule in a galaxy located almost 11 billion light-years away, a feat that had remained elusive for 25 years. This detection allows them to obtain the most precise measurement of the cosmic temperature at such a remote epoch.
The sun has powered almost everything on Earth since life began, including its climate. The sun also delivers an annual and seasonal impact, changing the character of each hemisphere as Earth's orientation shifts through the year. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, new forces have begun to exert significant influence on Earth's climate.
NASA engineers Thursday successfully completed the first series of tests in the early development of the J-2X engine that will power the upper stages of the Ares I and Ares V rockets, key components of NASA's Constellation Program. Ares I will launch the Orion spacecraft that will take astronauts to the International Space Station and then to the moon by 2020. The Ares V will carry cargo and components into orbit for trips to the moon and later to Mars.