Eagles of Space

NASA Names "Rolling Stones Rock" on Mars August 22, 2019 The team behind NASA's InSight lander has informally named a rock on Mars “Rolling Stones Rock” after the band. A little larger than a golf ball, the rock appeared to have rolled about 3 feet (1 meter) on Nov. 26, 2018, propelled by InSight's retrorockets as the spacecraft touched down to study the Red Planet's deep interior. In images taken by InSight the next day, several divots in the orange-red soil can be seen trailing "Rolling Stones Rock." It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll while landing a spacecraft on another planet.

he Rolling Stones took the stage at the Rose Bowl Stadium on Aug. 22, 2019, after actor Robert Downey Jr. announced to the crowd that a rock on Mars had been named for the band. Frontman Mick Jagger made these remarks about NASA and the rock during the concert that night in Pasadena, California, roughly three miles away from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). InSight’s retrorockets sent "Rolling Stones Rock" rolling about 3 feet (1 meter) as the spacecraft touched down on Mars on Nov. 26, 2018. It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll after landing a spacecraft on another planet. A little larger than a golf ball, the rock is about 2.2 inches (5.5 centimeters) in diameter and 1 inch (2.4 centimeters) in height. A series of divots marked its course after being set in motion by the landing.

NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope’s 33rd birthday with an ethereal image of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. Located approximately 960 light-years away in the Perseus interstellar cloud, Hubble’s colorful view unveils glowing gasses and pitch-black dust stirred up, colliding, and blown around by several hundred forming stars within the dark cloud.

The Hubble Space Telescope has taken over 1.5 million observations over the years. One of them is the breathtaking image of the star known as Earendel. The star is positioned along a ripple in spacetime that gives it extreme magnification, allowing it to emerge into view from its host galaxy, which appears as a red smear across the sky. With this observation, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has established an extraordinary new benchmark: detecting the light of a star that existed within the first billion years after the Universe’s birth in the Big Bang (at a redshift of 6.2) — the most distant individual star ever seen. In this video, Dr. Brian Welch explains this fascinating phenomenon of nature, and goes over how important Hubble is to exploring the mysteries of the universe.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has an impressive group of women who have worked and continue to work on the historic mission. From Astronauts and engineers to IT and ground testers, Hubble continues its important mission thanks to some truly amazing women. One of these inspiring women is Hubble (JOB) Colleen Townsley. Colleen works hard every day to ensure that Hubble remains at its peak capabilities. In this video Colleen quickly goes over what her job entails, lessons she learned along the way, and some of the things she’s passionate about.

Inspired by the Renaissance vision of Leonardo da Vinci, NASA is presently preparing its scientific return to Venus’ atmosphere and surface with a mission known as the “Deep Atmosphere of Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging” (DAVINCI). The DAVINCI mission will “take the plunge” into Venus’ enigmatic history using an instrumented deep atmosphere probe spacecraft that will carry five instruments for measuring the chemistry and environments throughout the clouds and to the surface, while also conducting the first descent imaging of a mountain system on Venus known as Alpha Regio, which may represent an ancient continent. In addition, the DAVINCI mission includes two science flybys of Venus during which it will search for clues to mystery molecules in the upper cloud deck while also measuring the rock types in some of Venus highland regions. All of these new and unique measurements will make the ‘exoplanet next door’ into a key place for understanding Earth and Venus sized exoplanets that may have similar histories to our sister planet. DAVINCI will pave the way for a series of missions by NASA and ESA in the 2030’s by opening the frontier as it searches for clues to whether Venus harbored oceans and how its atmosphere-climate system evolved over billions of years. DAVINCI’s science will address questions about habitability and how it could be “lost” as rocky planets evolve over time. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight center leads the DAVINCI Mission as the PI institution.

NASA Reports 2022 Tied for 5th Warmest Year on Record, Continuing a Trend Earth's global average surface temperature in 2022 tied with 2015 as the fifth warmest on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Continuing the planet's long-term warming trend, global temperatures in 2022 were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.89 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA's baseline period (1951-1980), scientists from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) reported. The past nine years have been the warmest years since modern recordkeeping began in 1880. This means Earth in 2022 was about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 1.11 degrees Celsius) warmer than the late 19th century average.

he Hubble Space Telescope has taken over 1.5 million observations over the years. One of them is the breathtaking Crab Nebula. With an apparent magnitude of 8.4 and located 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus, the Crab Nebula can be spotted with a small telescope and is best observed in January. The nebula was discovered by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731, and later observed by Charles Messier who mistook it for Halley’s Comet. Messier’s observation of the nebula inspired him to create a catalog of celestial objects that might be mistaken for comets.

Tropical Cyclone Freddy first made landfall along the east coast of Madagascar just north of the town of Mananjary on Feb. 21, 2023, as a Category 3 cyclone with average winds reported at ~81 mph (130 km/h) and gusts up to ~112 mph (180 km/h). After crossing over Madagascar Freddy continued westward over the Mozambique Channel before making landfall again along the east coast of Mozambique just south of Vilankulos as a moderate tropical storm with sustained winds estimated at 50 mph. Despite being weaker at landfall, Freddy caused widespread flooding across parts of Mozambique due to the storm stalling out near the coast after making landfall. Incredibly, Freddy drifted back out over the Mozambique Channel, nearly making landfall along the southwest coast of Madagascar. It then changed direction, re-intensified, weakened, re-intensified one last time, and made landfall once again on March 11 near Quelimane, Mozambique, as a Category 1 cyclone with sustained winds reported at 90 mph. Meteorologically, Freddy has been a remarkable storm, becoming the longest-lived tropical cyclone in recorded history, lasting over five weeks. Freddy originated from a weak area of low pressure that was embedded in a monsoon trough of low pressure stretching east-west across the Timor Sea between northern Australia and southern Indonesia. On Feb 6, 15 days before it would make its first landfall in Madagascar, both the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported the formation of Tropical Cyclone Freddy about 420 miles northwest of the northwest coast of Australia. In a rare but not unprecedented event, Freddy tracked across the entire Indian Ocean from east to west in almost a straight line with very little deviation in latitude. Along the way, Freddy underwent four separate rapid intensification cycles, the first southern hemisphere storm in history to do so. After hitting Mozambique the first time and re-emerging back over the Mozambique Channel, Freddy underwent at two additional rapid intensification cycles resulting from the competing effects of warm water, wind shear and dry air. Freddy was also the first storm to the reach the equivalent of Category 5 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale for 2023. In addition to being the longest-lived tropical cyclone in recorded history, Freddy set the record for having the highest accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) of any storm in history. ACE is an index used to measure the total amount of wind energy associated with a tropical cyclone over its lifetime. NASA’s IMERG satellite precipitation product is ideal for monitoring and studying tropical cyclones around the world, especially over the open ocean where ground-based observations are sparse. IMERG uses precipitation estimates from a constellation of satellites united by the GPM Core Observatory to generate maps of global precipitation updated every 30 minutes in near real-time. The above animation shows IMERG surface rainfall estimates associated with the passage of Tropical Cyclone Freddy across the Indian Ocean as well as Freddy’s corresponding track and intensity. The animation begins at on Feb. 6, 2023, just before Freddy is about to form northwest of Australia. Over the course of the storm’s history, IMERG reveals a variety of precipitation features and trends that relate closely to the variations in Freddy’s intensity. Tropical cyclones derive their energy from latent heating, which comes primarily from cloud condensation. Although essentially undetectable directly, the most significant latent heat release occurs within deep convective towers, which are associated with high cold cloud tops and areas of heavy rain at the surface. The IMERG animation illustrates this association between increased surface rain intensity and storm intensity - whenever Freddy undergoes a period of intensification, it is preceded by an increase in heavy rain. However, for the storm to really respond to the latent heating, that heating must occur near the storm’s center. For example, IMERG shows heavier rain on Feb. 8, but it is too far north of the center, and Freddy continues to weaken. Conversely, an absence of heavy rain near the center typically causes the storm to weaken. IMERG is also able to broadly resolve Freddy’s structure over the course of its lifetime, ranging from a highly asymmetrical rain field with most of the rain located on one side of the center, which occurs when the storm is weak or undergoing wind shear, to symmetrical when the storm is stronger, to having a full eye when the storm has an intense and well-developed circulation. IMERG shows that although heavy rain near the core of the storm is key to the storm maintaining or increasing in intensity, the highest overall rainfall totals are much more closely correlated to slow storm speed as evidenced by the extreme rainfall totals over Mozambique despite Freddy having weakened to a tropical storm.

To become United States' first-ever mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth, NASA OSIRIS-REx must make all the right moves to shoot the sample return capsule through a 'space hoop' to land within a 250 square mile patch in the Utah desert. NASA invited Deni Avdija from the NBA's Washington Wizards to demonstrate what it takes to make the perfect shot

Plasma makes up 99.9% of the visible universe, but what is it? This video discusses what plasma is, where it lives, and how NASA studies it.

Episode 3: Time Machines – Hubble has looked back billions of years in time to see some of the earliest galaxies in their infancy, and it has fundamentally changed what we know about the universe itself. Find out from Nobel Laureate John Mather and Hubble Senior Project Scientist Jennifer Wiseman how Hubble will work with the future James Webb Space Telescope to revolutionize our understanding of the universe even further. This series, Hubble – Eye in the Sky, takes you behind the scenes into the world of Hubble Space Telescope operations. Discover the strategies needed to run a bus-sized observatory as it speeds around Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, and find out how Hubble collects the incredible images and groundbreaking data that have transformed humanity’s vision of space. Witness the ingenuity that keeps such a complex and remote machine working to investigate the mysteries of the universe for more than 30 years.

Where will you be for the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses in the United States? NASA has released a new map that could help you decide. Based on observations from several NASA missions, the map details the path of the Moon’s shadow as it crosses the contiguous U.S.Two solar eclipses will cross the United States in 2023 and 2024. On October 14, 2023, an annular solar eclipse will create a “ring of fire” in the sky from Oregon to Texas. On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will darken the skies from Texas to Maine. On both dates, all 48 contiguous states in the U.S. will experience a partial solar eclipse.A map developed using data from a variety of NASA sources shows both eclipse paths as dark bands. Outside those paths, yellow and purple lines show how much of the Sun will become blocked by the Moon during the partial eclipses. Michala Garrison, a member of the Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, applied her background in geography and cartography to design the map, incorporating information from a variety of NASA sources. Earth elevation information came from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, while maps of the Moon’s shape were supplied by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The positions of the Sun, Moon, and Earth were found using software and data from NASA’s Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility. Garrison’s SVS colleague, Ernie Wright, used all of this information to calculate the location and shape of the Moon’s shadow. NASA’s Blue Marble – a global mosaic of satellite images assembled by the NASA Earth Observatory team – provided color for the land. And one particularly unique feature Garrison thought to add along the path of the 2024 total eclipse was nighttime imagery of Earth from NASA’s Black Marble – which shows city lights on the night side of the planet as imaged by the Suomi NPP spacecraft. One of Garrison’s goals for the map was to inspire people to get to the paths of the annular and total eclipses, which she didn’t do the last time the Moon’s shadow crossed the continental U.S.

Audio visualizer featuring audified data from NASA's THEMIS mission. Audified sound files provided by the HARP Citizen Science project.

On Oct. 14, 2023, an annular solar eclipse will cross North, Central, and South America. Visible in parts of the United States, Mexico, and many countries in South and Central America, millions of people in the Western Hemisphere can experience this eclipse. But what is an annular eclipse? Why does it happen? And why does it create a “ring of fire” in the sky?

Episode 2: An Unexpected Journey – With five servicing missions, upgraded instruments, and new ways of operating, Hubble is not the same telescope it was when it launched. Discover the innovative ways astronomers and engineers use Hubble today. This series, Hubble – Eye in the Sky, takes you behind the scenes into the world of Hubble Space Telescope operations. Discover the strategies needed to run a bus-sized observatory as it speeds around Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, and find out how Hubble collects the incredible images and groundbreaking data that have transformed humanity’s vision of space. Witness the ingenuity that keeps such a complex and remote machine working to investigate the mysteries of the universe for more than 30 years.

pisode 1: Driving the Telescope – Visit Hubble’s control center to learn about the challenges and techniques of performing extraordinarily detailed observations with an orbiting space telescope. Tour the rarely seen, life-size simulator at NASA that helps engineers and operators investigate problems and test new solutions before implementing them on the real telescope in space. This series, Hubble – Eye in the Sky, takes you behind the scenes into the world of Hubble Space Telescope operations. Discover the strategies needed to run a bus-sized observatory as it speeds around Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, and find out how Hubble collects the incredible images and groundbreaking data that have transformed humanity’s vision of space. Witness the ingenuity that keeps such a complex and remote machine working to investigate the mysteries of the universe for more than 30 years.

A new video miniseries explores the intricate world of operating the Hubble Space Telescope. In Hubble – Eye in the Sky, viewers get an inside look at the challenges of operating the telescope, along with an understanding of the groundbreaking discoveries that forever changed the way we view space. Leading scientists, engineers and a Nobel prize winner take us through the innovation and strategies that keep the telescope in prime condition. Starting on July 15, the first episode, “Driving the Telescope,” visits Hubble’s control center to find out how a telescope in space is managed and operated from Earth. The following two episodes will premiere on July 20 and 23. They explore the riveting discoveries, technological updates and “time machine” capabilities of Hubble.Positioned above Earth’s murky atmosphere, Hubble fundamentally changed the field of astronomy and our understanding of the universe.

This video celebrates the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17 by talking with Lunar Module Pilot Jack Schmitt about the significance of that mission, and how it laid the groundwork for future human exploration of the Moon. Jack also discusses how the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in 2009, has helped reinterpret Apollo-era data and given us new information about the lunar terrain that will help pave the way for the upcoming Artemis missions.

There’s an invisible monster on the loose! It’s barreling through intergalactic space fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. But don’t worry, luckily this beast is very, very far away! This potential supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000 light-year-long trail of newborn stars. The streamer is twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It’s likely the result of a rare, bizarre game of galactic billiards among three massive black holes.

Scientists with NASA’s InSight team share their excitement about ‘Rolling Stones Rock,’ which was named after The Rolling Stones.

Before The Rolling Stones took the stage at the Rose Bowl Stadium for a concert on Aug. 22, 2019, actor Robert Downey Jr. announced to the crowd that a rock on Mars had been named for the band by NASA's Mars InSight lander team. InSight's retrorockets sent "Rolling Stones Rock" rolling about 3 feet (1 meter) as the spacecraft touched down on Mars on Nov. 26, 2018. It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll after landing a spacecraft on another planet. A little larger than a golf ball, the rock is about 2.2 inches (5.5 centimeters) in diameter and 1 inch (2.4 centimeters) in height. A series of divots marked its course after being set in motion by the landing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of Caltech, manages InSight for NASA. JPL is located about three miles away from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

Preparing America For Deep Space Exploration Part II,NASA

Preparing America For Deep Space Exploration,NASA

NASA International Space Station playing football in space...