Notícies d'astronomia

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden spoke with teachers and middle school students during the kick off of NASA's Summer of Innovation program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., Thursday, June 10, 2010. Through the program, NASA will engage thousands of middle school students and their teachers in stimulating math and science-based education programs with the goal of increasing the number of future scientists, mathematicians and engineers. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

University students and professors from across the country and Puerto Rico will converge on NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia this month to learn how to build small experiments that can be launched on sounding rockets. This is part of a week-long workshop, known as RockOn!, that begins June 19.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden kicked off the agency's new Summer of Innovation initiative Thursday while at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calf.

This image shows the west-facing side of an impact crater in the mid-latitudes of Mars' northern hemisphere. Like many mid-latitude Martian craters, this one has gullies along its walls that are composed of alcoves, channels and debris aprons. The origins of these gullies have been the subject of much debate; they could have been formed by flowing water, liquid carbon dioxide or dry granular flows. Many of the other features observed in and around this crater are indicative of an ice-rich terrain, which may lend credence to the water formation hypothesis for these gullies. The most notable of these features is scalloped terrain in and around the crater. This type of terrain has been interpreted as a sign of surface caving, perhaps due to sublimation of underlying ice. Sublimation is the process of a solid changing directly to a gas. Another sign of ice is the presence of parallel lines and pitted material on the crater floor. Parallel linear cracks are also observed along the crater wall over the gullies, which could be due to thermal contraction of ice-rich material. together, these features are evidence for ice-rich material having been deposited in this region during different climatic conditions, material that has subsequently begun to melt and/or sublimate under current conditions. More recently, wind-blown deposits have accumulated around the crater, as evidenced by the parallel ridges dominating the landscape. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the image on April 13, 2010. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and German Aerospace Center (DLR) Executive Board Chairman Johann-Dietrich Wörner signed an agreement Thursday during a bilateral meeting in Berlin to extend the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission through the end of its on-orbit life, which is expected in 2015.

NASA has selected 18 innovative technology proposals for negotiation of Phase 2 contract awards in the Small Business Technology Transfer program, or "STTR." The selected projects have a total value of approximately $11 million. The contracts will be awarded to 18 high technology firms that are partnering with 15 universities in 12 states.

In this image, engineers test the RL-10 engine in NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center's Propulsion Systems Laboratory. Developed by Pratt & Whitney, the engine was designed to power the Centaur second-stage rocket. Centaur was responsible for sending the Surveyor spacecraft on its mission to land on the moon and to explore the surface in the early stages of the Apollo Program. Image Credit: NASA

NASA has selected Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., to launch the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph spacecraft known as IRIS.

NASA awards Smart Global Solutions JV LLC of Silver Spring, Md., the Sponsored Research and Education Support Services (SRESS) contract.

A NASA video program aimed at helping high school students learn more about science, technology, engineering and mathematics(STEM) has won an Emmy, one of the best-known awards in regional television.

Expedition 23 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineers T.J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi landed their Soyuz-17 spacecraft in Kazakhstan Tuesday, June 1, wrapping up a five-and-a-half-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

NASA's first dedicated oceanographic field campaign goes to sea June 15 to take an up-close look at how changing conditions in the Arctic are affecting the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems that play a critical role in global climate change.

NASA is inviting members of the public to send electronic images of their faces into orbit aboard one of the final remaining space shuttle missions.

Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, orbiting 220 miles above Earth, will discuss living and working in space with students gathered at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, N.Y., on Thursday, June 10. The call between the students and International Space Station crew member will take place at about 11 a.m. EDT.

NASA Chief Technologist, Congressman Fattah Visit X-Car Team At West Philadelphia High School Monday

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke will present an update about the Presidential Task Force on Space Industry Work Force and Economic Development at 10 a.m. EDT on Friday, June 4.

El ensamblaje de un genoma que puede "reprogramar" las células de una especie relacionada es sólo el primer paso de un largo camino.

La noche del 3 de junio, Anthony Wesley, desde Australia, registró un nuevo impacto sobre el planeta gigante Júpiter. Wesley es un astrónomo aficionado.

Hurricanes, air quality, and Arctic ecosystems are among the research areas to be investigated during the next five years by new NASA airborne science missions announced today.

NASA has awarded the software engineering support contract at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to Columbus Technologies and Services, Inc. of Pasadena, Calif.