Nomformation Blog

New time-lapse movies from NASA’s NEOWISE mission give astronomers the opportunity to see objects, like stars and black holes, as they move and change over time. The videos include previously hidden brown dwarfs, a feeding black hole, a dying star, a star-forming region, and a brightening star. They combine more than 10 years of NEOWISE observations and 18 all-sky images, enabling a long-term analysis and a deeper understanding of the universe. 0:44: Neowise all-sky scan animation 1:03: Feeding a Black Hole 1:14: A Pulsing star reaches the end of its life 1:21: Protostars in star-forming region; 1:34: A Brown dwarf moves across the sky 2:00: Unexplained stellar brightening The NEOWISE mission uses a space telescope to hunt for asteroids and comets, including those that could pose a threat to Earth. Launched in December 2009 as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, the space telescope was originally designed to survey the sky in infrared, detecting asteroids, stars, and some of the faintest galaxies in space. WISE did so successfully until completing its primary mission in February 2011. Observations resumed in December 2013, when the telescope was taken out of hibernation and repurposed for the NEOWISE project as an instrument to study near-Earth objects, or NEOs, as well as more distant asteroids and comets. For more information on the NEOWISE mission go to: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/neowise For more NEOWISE data go to: https://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech WISE-NEOWISE movies compiled by Dan Caselden

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is filling sample tubes with rocky material on the Red Planet as the agency works on the next steps to get them safely back to Earth. The Mars Sample Return campaign would bring samples collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth for detailed study. The campaign involves an international interplanetary relay team, including the European Space Agency (ESA). These samples could answer a key question: did life ever exist on Mars? Aaron Yazzie, who works on the Mars Sample Return campaign, explains the work being done at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to ensure the safe return of the sample tubes. For more information on Mars Sample Return, visit mars.nasa.gov/msr Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA is testing a new way of landing on Mars: by crashing into its surface. The Simplified High Impact Energy Landing Device (SHIELD) is a lander concept being tested at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It could one day provide a new way for low-cost missions to land on Mars. Rather than rely on parachutes or retrorockets, SHIELD would include a collapsible, accordion-like base to absorb the energy of a landing. A full-size prototype of the base was tested on August 12, 2022. The prototype was hurled at the ground from the top of a nearly 90-foot-tall (27-meter-tall) drop tower at JPL. A steel plate ensured the impact was even harder than what would be experienced on Mars. The design worked. After crushing against the steel plate at 110 mph (177 kph), several electronic components inside the SHIELD prototype, including a smartphone, survived the impact. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/California Academy of Sciences

The DART mission deployed a kinetic impactor to smack the small moon Dimorphos of the asteroid Didymos on the evening of Sept. 26. This was an on-orbit demonstration of asteroid deflection, a key test of NASA's kinetic impactor technology, designed to impact an asteroid to adjust its speed and path. This particular asteroid moon is NOT a threat to Earth, but technology is being explored to use it when we DO find a potentially hazardous asteroid. The Hubble Space Telescope captured these extraordinary views of the asteroid moon soon after the successful impact. For more information, visit https://nasa.gov/hubble. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Paul Morris: Lead Producer Music and Sound “The Beauty Beyond” by Jeremy Noel William Abbott [PRS] and Vasco [PRS] via Freshworx Music Limited [PRS] and Universal Production Music This video can be freely shared and downloaded at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14215. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, the music and some individual imagery may have been obtained with permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on such imagery may be found here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14215. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html. See more Hubble videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiuUQ9asub3Ta8mqP5LNiOhOygRzue8kN Follow NASA's Hubble Space Telescope: · Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NASAHubble · Twitter: https://twitter.com/NASAHubble · Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/NASAHubble · Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahubble --- If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/NASAGoddard Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Instagram http://www.instagram.com/nasagoddard · Twitter http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard · Twitter http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix · Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASAGoddard · Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc