Latest NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Stories

GREENBELT, Md., Feb. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft is assembled and is undergoing environmental testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems facilities, near Denver, Colo. MAVEN is the next mission to Mars and will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) During the environmental testing phase, the orbiter will undergo a...

DENVER, Feb. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has completed the assembly of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. The orbiter is now undergoing environmental testing at the company's Space Systems facilities, near Denver, Colo. MAVEN is the next mission to Mars and will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. Photo and video of MAVEN:...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a clever reuse of hardware originally built to test parts of NASA's QuikScat satellite, the agency will launch the ISS-RapidScat instrument to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean-surface wind speed and direction. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The ISS-RapidScat instrument will help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring, and understanding of how...

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A NASA spacecraft is providing new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars that adds to an increasingly complex picture of the Red Planet's early evolution. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) The new information comes from researchers analyzing spectrometer data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which looked down on the floor of McLaughlin Crater. The Martian crater is 57...

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is driving toward a flat rock with pale veins that may hold clues to a wet history on the Red Planet. If the rock meets rover engineers' approval when Curiosity rolls up to it in coming days, it will become the first to be drilled for a sample during the Mars Science Laboratory mission. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The size of a car, Curiosity is inside Mars' Gale...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for decades. Now a team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest-known spiral, based on archival data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission. GALEX has since been loaned to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. (Logo:...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Kepler mission Monday announced the discovery of 461 new planet candidates. Four of the potential new planets are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's "habitable zone," the region in the planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Based on observations conducted from May 2009 to March 2011, the findings show a...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and the mobile application Foursquare have teamed up to help the public unlock its scientific curiosity with a new rover-themed Curiosity Explorer badge. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Users of the Foursquare social media platform can earn the badge by following NASA and checking in at a NASA visitor center or venue categorized as a science museum or planetarium. Upon earning the badge, users...

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The latest work assignment for NASA's long-lived Mars rover Opportunity is a further examination of an area where the robot just completed a walkabout. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "If you are a geologist studying a site like this, one of the first things you do is walk the outcrop, and that's what we've done with Opportunity," said Steve Squyres, the mission's principal investigator at Cornell...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region at the far reaches of our solar system that scientists feel is the final area the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Scientists refer to this new region as a magnetic highway for charged particles because our sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines. This...