Latest Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics Stories

NASA's recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is returning early images that confirm an unprecedented new capability for scientists to better understand our sun's dynamic processes. These solar activities affect everything on Earth.Some of the images from the spacecraft show never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the sun's surface. The spacecraft also has made the first high-resolution...

NASA will hold a news briefing and unveil initial images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, at 2 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 21, in the atrium of the Newseum. The Newseum is located at 555 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, in Washington. NASA Television and the agency's Web site will provide live coverage of the briefing.Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun and its dynamic behavior. The spacecraft will provide images with clarity ten...

A $32 million University of Colorado at Boulder instrument package set for launch Feb. 9 by NASA should help scientists better understand the violent effects of the sun on near-Earth space weather that can affect satellites, power grids, ground communications systems and even astronauts and aircraft crews.The CU-Boulder Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE, will fly on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory known as SDO, the space agency's first mission as part of its "Living...

NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite has captured five complete polar seasons of noctilucent (NLC) or "night-shining" clouds with an unprecedented horizontal resolution of 3 miles by 3 miles. Results show that the cloud season turns on and off like a "geophysical light bulb" and they reveal evidence that high altitude mesospheric "weather" may follow similar patterns as our ever-changing weather near the Earth's surface. These findings were...

GREENBELT, Md., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite has captured five complete polar seasons of noctilucent (NLC) or "night-shining" clouds with an unprecedented horizontal resolution of 3 miles by 3 miles. Results show that the cloud season turns on and off like a "geophysical light bulb," and they reveal evidence that high altitude mesospheric "weather" may follow similar patterns as our ever-changing weather near the Earth's...

Every 11 years, the sun undergoes a furious upheaval. Dark sunspots burst forth from beneath the sun's surface. Explosions as powerful as a billion atomic bombs spark intense flares of high-energy radiation. Clouds of gas big enough to swallow planets break away from the sun and billow into space. It's a flamboyant display of stellar power.So why can't we see any of it?Almost none of the drama of Solar Maximum is visible to the human eye. Look at the sun in the noontime sky...

NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which is toting an $8.7 million University of Colorado at Boulder instrument, will make its third and final flyby of Mercury on Sept. 29 -- a clever gravity-assist maneuver that will steer it into orbit around the rocky planet beginning in March 2011.The spacecraft will zip within 142 miles of the planet's surface at more than 100,000 miles per hour on Sept. 29, taking high-resolution color images of the surface terrain. MESSENGER also will be making ultraviolet...

The U.S. space agency says it has awarded a contract to the University of Colorado at Boulder for a total and spectral solar irradiance sensor. The approximately $42 million contract is for a key instrument for the future National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, to be known as NPOESS. NASA said the university's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics will be responsible for, among other things, the design, engineering analyses, hardware and software...

NASA has awarded a contract to the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics for the development of the Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor, or TSIS, a key instrument for the future National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, known as NPOESS. The total estimated value of the cost, no-fee contract is approximately $42 million. The contractor will be responsible for the design, engineering analyses, hardware and software...

BOULDER, Colo., June 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- This month marks a decade of success for NASA's QuikSCAT mission, one that continues to provide a wealth of information about Earth's climate since its launch June 19, 1999. Although QuikSCAT's mission life was designed for two years, the spacecraft continues to operate into its tenth year and its groundbreaking research is being used to help predict severe weather patterns, create wave-prediction models and to observe global climate change....