NASA Archives

October 3, 2023October 3, 2023 by Matt Williams

Perseverance Watches a Dust Devil Whirl Past

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this Martian dust devil moving east to west at a clip of about 12 mph (19 kph) along “Thorofare Ridge” on Aug. 30. The video, which was sped up 20 times, is composed of 21 frames taken four seconds apart. It was enhanced in order to show maximal detail. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

On August 30th, 2023, on the 899th Martian day (sol 899) of its mission, NASA’s Perseverance rover spotted a dust devil while exploring the Jezero Crater. The images taken by one of the rover’s Navigation Cameras (NavCams) were used to make a video (shown below), which is composed of 21 frames taken four seconds apart and sped up 20 times. Similar to small, short-lived whirlwinds on Earth, these vertical columns of wind form when pockets of hot air near the surface rise quickly through cooler air above it. By studying them, scientists hope to learn more about Mars’ atmosphere and improve their weather models.

October 1, 2023October 1, 2023 by Matt Williams

Astronomers are Working to Put a Radio Telescope on the Far Side of the Moon by 2025

This artist’s rendering shows LuSEE-Night atop the Blue Ghost spacecraft scheduled to deliver the experiment to the far side of the moon. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

The Moon will be a popular destination for space programs worldwide in the coming years. By 2025, NASA’s Artemis III mission will land the first astronauts (“the first woman and first person of color”) onto the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo Era, over fifty years ago. They will be joined by multiple space agencies, as per the Artemis Accords, that will send European, Canadian, Japanese, and astronauts of other nationalities to the lunar surface. These will be followed in short order by taikonauts (China), cosmonauts (Russia), and vyomanauts (India), who will conduct similarly lucrative research and exploration.

Having facilities in orbit of the Moon, like the Artemis Base Camp, the International Lunar Research Station, and others, will enable all manner of scientific research that is not possible on Earth or in Earth orbit. This includes radio astronomy, which would be free of terrestrial interference on the far side of the Moon and sensitive enough to detect light from previously unexplored cosmological periods. This is the purpose of a pathfinder project known as the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) that will leave for the Moon next year and spend the next 18 months listening to the cosmos!

September 27, 2023September 27, 2023 by Matt Williams

NASA Opens the Lid on OSIRIS-REx's Sample Capsule

OSIRIS REx Asteroid Sample Return lid opening at Building 31 Astromaterials Curation Facility at the Johnson Space Center. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz

On Sunday, September 23rd, the Sample Retrieval Capsule (SRC) from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission landed in the Utah desert. Shortly thereafter, recovery teams arrived in helicopters, inspected and secured the samples, and flew them to the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR). On Monday, the sample canister was transferred to the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate (ARES) in Houston, Texas. Yesterday, on Tuesday, September 26th, NASA announced that the process of unsealing and removing the samples from the canister had begun with the removal of the initial lid.

September 24, 2023September 24, 2023 by Matt Williams

The OSIRIS-REx Capsule Has Landed! Asteroid Samples Returned!

The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023. Credit: NASA

The OSIRIS-REx mission has just completed NASA’s first sample-return mission from a near-Earth asteroid (NEA). The samples arrived at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) near Salt Lake City, where a team of engineers arrived by helicopter to retrieve the sample capsule. The samples will be curated by NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate (ARES) and Japan’s Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center (ESCuC). Analysis of the rocks and dust obtained from Bennu is expected to provide new insight into the formation and evolution of the Solar System.

September 23, 2023September 23, 2023 by Matt Williams

OSIRIS-REx Returns This Sunday!

An artist's concept of OSIRIS-REx obtaining a sample of asteroid Bennu for return to Earth. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/UofArizona

On September 8th, 2016, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) mission launched from Earth. Its primary mission was to rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu, a carbonaceous Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA), obtain samples from its surface, and return them to Earth for analysis. On December 3rd, 2018, the mission reached Bennu and spent the next two years searching for the optimal place to retrieve these samples. Tomorrow, on Sunday, September 24th, the mission will finally deliver these samples to Earth for analysis.

Last week, on Saturday, September 16th, the OSIRIS-REx mission was spotted by the ESA’s Optical Ground Station (OGS) 1-meter telescope on the island of Tenerife, Spain. The spacecraft was still 4.66 km million (2.9 million mi) from Earth, but well on its way to returning. This will be the last time OSIRIS-REx will be spotted by ground-based telescopes before it reaches Earth to deliver its sample and heads back out into space.

September 15, 2023September 15, 2023 by Matt Williams

NASA Confirms That 2023 was the Hottest Summer on Record

This map depicts global temperature anomalies for meteorological summer in 2023 (June, July, and August). It shows how much warmer or cooler different regions of Earth were compared to the baseline average from 1951 to 1980. Credit: NASA's Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

Yesterday, NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) announced that the summer of 2003 was the hottest on record. This year saw a massive heat wave that swept across much of the world and was felt in South America, Japan, Europe, and the U.S. This exacerbated deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii (predominantly on the island of Maui) and are likely to have contributed to severe rainfall in Italy, Greece, and Central Europe. This is the latest in a string of record-setting summers that are the direct result of anthropogenic climate change.

September 14, 2023October 8, 2023 by Alan Boyle

Following Up on Report, NASA Takes On a Bigger Role in UFO Research

The Milky Way spreads out in the sky over the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which experts say could play a role in the search for unidentified anomalous phenomena in the solar system. (Credit: Bruno C. Quint via Rubin Observatory)

In response to a new report from an independent panel, NASA says it has appointed a director in charge of research into UFOs — now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs — and will work with other agencies to widen the net for collecting UAP data.

“This is the first time that NASA has taken concrete action to seriously look into UAP,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today during a news briefing at NASA’s headquarters in Washington.

NASA initially kept the name of its UAP research director under wraps, but later in the day, the agency identified him as Mark McInerney, who has previously served as NASA’s liaison to the Department of Defense on the UAP issue.

Nelson downplayed the idea that aliens were behind any of the anomalous phenomena recorded to date, but he pledged to keep an open mind.

September 14, 2023September 17, 2023 by Matt Williams

Some Lunar Regolith is Better for Living Off the Land on the Moon

Artist's impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. Credit: NASA

Between now and the mid-2030s, multiple space agencies hope to send crewed missions to the Moon. of These plans all involve establishing bases around the Moon’s southern polar region, including the Artemis Base Camp and the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). These facilities will enable a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development,” according to the NASA Artemis Program mission statement. In all cases, plans for building facilities on the surface call for a process known as In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), where local resources are used as building materials.

This presents a bit of a problem since not all lunar soil (regolith) is well-suited for construction. Much like engineering and construction projects here on Earth, builders need to know what type of soil they are building on and if it can be used to make concrete. In a recent study, planetary scientist Kevin M. Cannon proposed a lunar soil classification scheme for space resource utilization. This could have significant implications for future missions to the Moon, where it would help inform the construction of bases, habitats, and other facilities based on soil type and location.

September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by Matt Williams

Every Night and Every Morning, the Moon Rumbles With Tiny Quakes

Artist's impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. How will they store power on the Moon? 3D printed batteries could help. Credit: NASA

The Moon was geologically active between 3.7 and 2.5 billion years ago, experiencing quakes, volcanic eruptions, and outgassing. Thanks to the Moon being an airless body, evidence of this past has been carefully preserved in the form of extinct volcanoes, lava tubes, and other features. While the Moon has been geologically inert for billions of years, it still experiences small seismic events due to tidal flexing (because of Earth’s gravitational pull) and temperature variations. These latter events happen regularly and are known as “moonquakes.”

Thanks to the Apollo missions, scientists have measured this activity using seismometers placed on the surface. In a recent NASA-funded study, a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) reexamined the seismic data with a machine-learning model. This revealed that moonquakes occur with precise regularity, coinciding with the Sun rising to its peak position in the sky and then slowly setting. In this respect, moonquakes are like a “Lunar Alarm Clock,” which could be useful for future missions and lunar settlers!

September 8, 2023September 8, 2023 by David Dickinson

Follow the Fall 2023 Return of Comet 103P Hartley

Comet Hartley — Comet 103/P Hartley encounters the Perseus Double Cluster in 2010. Image credit: Kevin Jung

Catch periodic cosmic interloper 103P Hartley while you can.

Periodic comets are like old friends, back for a visit. We have a get together with just such a denizen of the cometary league, as Comet 103P Hartley makes a favorable apparition in late 2023.