Latest Space science Stories

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA has selected 11 science proposals for evaluation as potential future science missions. The proposals outline prospective missions to study the Earth's atmosphere, the sun, the Milky Way galaxy, and Earth-like planets around nearby stars. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The selections were made from responses to Announcements of Opportunity for Explorer Missions and Explorer Missions of Opportunity...

  A green thumb and a little flair as a gourmet chef may be among the key skills for the first men and women who travel to the Red Planet later this century, according to a scientist who reported Sunday August 28 on preparations for the first manned missions to Mars. Speaking at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Maya R. Cooper said that provisioning the astronauts with food stands as one of the greatest challenges in scripting the first...

A CSIRO study has shown why the lights are going out in the Universe. The Universe forms fewer stars than it used to, and a CSIRO study has now shown why - the galaxies are running out of gas. Dr. Robert Braun (CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science) and his colleagues used CSIRO’s Mopra radio telescope near Coonabarabran, NSW, to study far-off galaxies and compare them with nearby ones. Light (and radio waves) from the distant galaxies has taken time to travel to us, so we see the...

NASA said on Tuesday that the sun unleashed the biggest solar flare in four years. The NOAA GOES satellite measured an X6.9 flare on August 9, 2011 at 3:48 a.m. EDT The bursts of radiation cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to harm humans on the ground, but it can disrupt GPS and communications signal, according to NASA. "It was a big flare," Joe Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center told CBS...

American government scientists are warning users of satellite, telecommunication, and electrical equipment to be prepared for potential disruptions due to the recent occurrence of solar flares in the sun, Reuters reported on Saturday.Earlier last week, three coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were released by the sun following solar flares -- the first on August 2 and two others the following day. The initial CME arrived at Earth on August 4, around 5pm EDT, while the remaining two combined and...

Gas giant may hold keys to understanding solar system formation, evolutionSeveral University of Colorado Boulder faculty and students are participating in NASA's Juno Mission to Jupiter, now slated for launch Aug. 5 from Florida's Kennedy Space Center and which is expected to help steer scientists toward the right recipe for planet-making.The primary goal of the mission is to understand the origin and evolution of the massive gas planet, said CU-Boulder Professor Fran Bagenal of the...

The book "Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters" features tactile diagrams of the lunar surfaceNASA has unveiled a new book for blind and visually impaired readers at a media event and reception hosted by the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) at 6 p.m. PDT on July 18 at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.The book "Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters" was created with the NLSI and features tactile diagrams of the lunar surface designed to educate the blind and visually impaired about...

MOFFET FIELD, Calif., July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA has released a new book for visually impaired people to experience the wonders of the moon. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Called "Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters," the 17-page book features Braille and tactile diagrams of the lunar surface, craters and peaks. The book was created and funded by NASA's Lunar Science Institute (NLSI), at Moffett Field, Calif. The author is David Hurd, a space...

By Dauna Coulter - Science@NASAJuly 6, 2011: NASA's Dawn spacecraft is closing in on Vesta, and from now until the ion-powered spacecraft goes into orbit in mid-July, every picture of the giant asteroid will be the best one ever taken. What will researchers do with this unprecedented clarity?"For starters," says Dawn chief engineer Marc Rayman, "we're going to look for an asteroid moon."You might think of asteroids as isolated bodies tumbling alone through space, but it's...

The sun and the solar system's rocky inner planets, including the Earth, may have formed differently than previously thought, according to UCLA scientists and colleagues analyzing samples returned by NASA's Genesis mission.The data from Genesis, which collected material from the solar wind blowing from the sun, reveal differences between the sun and planets with regard to oxygen and nitrogen, two of the most abundant elements in our solar system, the researchers report in two studies in the...