• Titan Gets a Dune 'Makeover'

    Titan Gets a Dune 'Makeover'

    01.17.13 - 
    While most of Saturn's moons display their ancient faces pockmarked by thousands of craters, Titan – Saturn's largest moon – may look much younger than it really is because its craters are getting erased.

    Dunes of exotic, hydrocarbon sand are slowly but steadily filling in its craters, according to new research using observations from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

  • 2012 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend

    2012 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend

    01.15.13 - 
    NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures.

    With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record.

     Global Temp. Anomalies: 1880 to 2012

  • Ozone Study May Benefit Air Standards, Climate

    Ozone Study May Benefit Air Standards, Climate

    01.16.13 - 
    A new NASA-led study finds that when it comes to combating global warming caused by emissions of ozone-forming chemicals, location matters.

    By combining satellite observations of how much heat ozone absorbs in Earth's atmosphere with a model of how chemicals are transported in the atmosphere, the researchers discovered significant regional variability - in some places by more than a factor of 10 -- in how efficiently ozone trapped heat in Earth's atmosphere.

  • First Rock-Drilling Site Selected for Curiosity

    First Rock-Drilling Site Selected for Curiosity

    01.15.13 - 
    This view shows the patch of veined, flat-lying rock selected as the first drilling site for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. The rover's right Mast Camera (Mastcam), equipped with a telephoto lens, was about 16 feet (5 meters) away from the site when it recorded this mosaic's component images, between 3:10 and 3:33 in the afternoon of the 153rd Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Jan. 10, 2013).

      › Curiosity Mission Page  › Image of Drill Site

  • Resurrecting Mighty F-1 Engine Gas Generator

    Resurrecting Mighty F-1 Engine Gas Generator

    01.15.13 - 
    Engineers are mining the secrets of the F-1 -- an engine that last flew before these engineers were born -- and use it as inspiration for creating new advanced, affordable propulsion systems.

    NASA needs powerful propulsion elements for future launch vehicles, such as the evolved Space Launch System (SLS).

  • Robotic Refueling Activities Paused

    Robotic Refueling Activities Paused

    01.16.13 - 
    The Canadian Space Agency requested a temporary pause in the operations for the Robotic Refueling Mission on Tuesday evening. An intermittent difference in the software that controls Canadarm2 requires further analysis to ensure safe operations. Canadarm2 and the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or Dextre, has temporarily been placed in a safe configuration while engineering teams on the ground assess the data.

     Robotic Refueling Mission: Day 1

  • Students Operate Robotic Satellites on Station

    Students Operate Robotic Satellites on Station

    01.15.13 - 
    On Jan. 11, high school students from around the world competed in the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellite (SPHERES) Zero Robotics High School Tournament 2012.

    The competitors operated robotic satellites aboard the International Space Station using programs they wrote in preparation for the event. Finalists watched a live downlink from the space station as astronauts supervised the satellites.

  • Orion Teamwork Pays Off

    Orion Teamwork Pays Off

    01.14.13 - 
    Using its experienced workforce and state-of-the-art facilities, NASA's Kennedy Space Center is working with private companies to ensure the future of U.S. space exploration stays on course. Their goal is to prepare NASA's Orion spacecraft for its first launch, Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1, in 2014.

    By bringing contracted work to Kennedy, NASA provides a means to expedite Orion work to build and ship across the nation, from months to mere days.

  • Landsat Senses a Disturbance in the Forest

    Landsat Senses a Disturbance in the Forest

    01.14.13 - 
    A computer program provides, for the first time, the ability to find hidden patterns in Earth science data from the NASA and U.S. Geological Survey Landsat satellites.

    Scientists use this program to study and visualize small events that can cause big changes in an ecosystem, such as an obscured, slow-moving decline and recovery of trees in Pacific Northwest forests.

     25 Years in the Pacific Northwest Forest

  • Hubble Views a Dwarf Galaxy

    Hubble Views a Dwarf Galaxy

    01.14.13 - 
    NGC 5477, one of the dwarf galaxies in the Messier 101 group, is the subject of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Without obvious structure, but with visible signs of ongoing star birth, NGC 5477 looks much like an typical dwarf irregular galaxy.

    The bright nebulae that extend across much of the galaxy are clouds of glowing hydrogen gas in which new stars are forming.