Space News Archive - June 20, 2012
NASA's Earth-observing fleet of satellites provides a worldwide and unbiased view with standardized scientific data -- information crucial for tracking the health of the world's forests.
Titan appears to be strung like a bead on Saturn’s rings, which cast shadows onto the southern hemisphere of the gas giant in this beautiful image from Cassini.
Working on the high seas can be lonely separated from friends and family for weeks at a time. Communications via satellite close this gap by providing the means to stay in touch. Now, with ESA’s support, contacting shore is easier.
Water held in soil plays an important role in the climate system. The dataset released by ESA is the first remote-sensing soil moisture data record spanning the period 1978 to 2010 – a predecessor of the data now being provided by ESA’s SMOS mission.
Black holes in the early universe needed a few snacks rather than one giant meal to fuel their quasars and help them grow, according to observations from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes.
NASA's flagship Pleiades supercomputer just received a boost to help keep pace with the intensive number-crunching requirements of scientists and engineers working on some of the agency's most challenging missions.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will speak with astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, commander of the 16th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) mission, and her fellow crewmate Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency at 4:10 p.m. EDT Wednesday, June 20 as they perform their final "spacewalk" of the mission, 63 feet below the ocean's surface.
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, making final preparations for a July launch to the International Space Station, will be available for live satellite interviews from 6 to 7 a.m.
Wednesday June 20, 2012 is the longest day of the year; the one day with more sunlight hours than any other day in the calendar year; it is also the first day of summer and is known as the Summer Solstice.
ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has taken the most detailed image so far of a spectacular part of the stellar nursery called NGC 6357.
