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New Hubble Images Provide Detailed Window on Jupiter's Dynamic Features

New maps of Jupiter, produced using images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, provide a detailed window on the giant planet's dynamic features. The views come as the agency prepares for its Juno mission to arrive at Jupiter in a little less than a year.

19 Oct 2015

Pathfinder Telescope Completes First Super-Cold Optical Test

Testing is crucial part of NASA's success on Earth and in space. So, as the actual flight components of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope come together, engineers are testing the non-flight equipment to ensure that tests on the real Webb telescope later goes safely and according to plan.

19 Oct 2015

Hubble Spots Rare Wave in Jupiter's North Equatorial Belt

Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have produced new maps of Jupiter -- the first in a series of annual portraits of the solar system's outer planets.

14 Oct 2015

NASA Mars Orbiter's Telescopic Camera Reveals Real Regions of Film's Mars Landings

Images from a NASA Mars orbiter's telescopic camera reveal details of real regions on Mars where a new Hollywood movie, "The Martian," places future astronaut adventures.

7 Oct 2015

Deployable Tower Assembly Plays Major Role in James Webb Space Telescope

Building a space telescope to see the light from the earliest stars of our universe is a pretty complex task. Although much of the attention goes to instruments and the giant mirrors on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, there are other components that have big jobs to do and that required imagination, engineering, and innovation to become a reality.

11 Sep 2015

AIAA Honors Herschel and Planck Project Teams with Space Systems Award

The Herschel and Planck project teams are this year's recipients of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space Systems Award. Both space missions were led by the European Space Agency (ESA), with important participation from NASA.

7 Sep 2015

Petal-Shaped Starshade Effectively Identifies Celestial Objects

Northrop Grumman engineers and astronomers demonstrated the ability of a petal-shaped starshade to clearly see celestial objects during two, weeklong series of engineering tests on Kitt Peak at the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope. This was the first time a starshade was tested against actual astronomical objects.

3 Sep 2015

NASA Goddard to Handle Mirror Assembly of James Webb Space Telescope Backplane

One of the most crucial pieces of the James Webb Space Telescope, the flight backplane, arrived on Aug. 25, on schedule for Webb's 2018 launch date at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for mirror assembly. The backplane is the "spine" of the telescope, responsible for holding its 18 hexagonal mirrors and instruments steady while the telescope is looking into deep space.

29 Aug 2015

NASA Reports Arrival of James Webb Space Telescope Backplane for Mirror Assembly

28 Aug 2015

IRIS and Hinode Help Understand Why Sun’s Corona is Hotter than its Surface

Modern telescopes and satellites have helped us measure the blazing hot temperatures of the sun from afar. Mostly the temperatures follow a clear pattern: The sun produces energy by fusing hydrogen in its core, so the layers surrounding the core generally get cooler as you move outwards--with one exception. Two NASA missions have just made a significant step towards understanding why the corona--the outermost, wispy layer of the sun's atmosphere --is hundreds of times hotter than the lower photosphere, which is the sun's visible surface.

27 Aug 2015