IRIS: New NASA Spacecraft to Study Mysterious Region of Sun’s Atmosphere
Did you know that the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is much hotter than its surface? Scientists have been quite curious about a mysterious interface region of the Sun’s atmosphere that amplifies energy from about 5,800 degrees Kelvin on the surface, or photosphere, to around 1,000,000 degrees Kelvin in the corona. With Thursday’s launch of […]
NASA Wants to Speed Journey to Mars
NASA wants to shorten the journey to Mars. It took about eight months for its Mars rover, Curiosity, to reach the red planet. And now, the US space agency is looking for ways to cut the travel time for future manned missions there. Researchers in Washington State say that might be possible through a unique […]
Third Radiation Belt Discovered Around Earth
NASA scientists have discovered a third radiation belt briefly surrounded Earth for about a month before being blasted away by an interplanetary shock wave from the sun. Experts had long thought there were only two distinct regions of trapped radiation. But the third ring was spotted by twin Van Allen radiation probes NASA launched in 2012 […]
Moon May Have Formed From Earth’s Leftovers
The Earth and its moon started with a big bang, according to a new theory from NASA scientists, who believe both were born out of collisions between two massive developing planets.The new theory suggests the two giant planetary bodies, each about five times the size of Mars, collided with each other twice. After the first collision, […]
Rare Astronomical Event Occurs Tuesday in US
On Tuesday, June 5, people in most parts of the world have a good chance of witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event called the transit of Venus. It’s a planetary alignment which occurs when the planet Venus passes directly between the Earth and sun. For those of us here on Earth, it’ll look like a little […]
Water on the Moon
Looking up at the Moon from our blue planet Earth, it’s hard to see anything other than a barren landscape. Devoid of any life, it’s a visual study in dusty shades of gray. But recently scientists from Case Western Reserve University, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and Brown University have found that parts of the […]