Latest Update
CryoSat-2 exceeding expectations
Today, participants at the Living Planet Symposium have been hearing about ESA's most recently launched mission, CryoSat-2. In orbit for almost three months, the satellite is in excellent health with scientists very encouraged by the first ice-thickness data presented at the symposium. Seven years of Mars Express – unusual structures at Magellan Crater
In the southwest of the Tharsis volcanic region on Mars is the large impact crater Magellan, named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), carried by ESA's Mars Express orbiter and operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), acquired images of unusual structures on the southern edge of the crater. The process by which these structures developed is not fully understood.
A Rover Gets Its Wheels
Mars rover Curiosity, the centerpiece of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is coming together for extensive testing prior to its late 2011 launch. This image taken June 29, 2010, shows the rover with the mobility system -- wheels and suspension -- in place after installation on June 28 and 29. Spacecraft engineers and technicians are assembling and testing the rover in a large cleanroom at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Curiosity's six-wheel mobility system, with a rocker-bogie suspension system, resembles the systems on earlier, smaller Mars rovers, but for Curiosity, the wheels will also serve as landing gear. Each wheel is half a meter (20 inches) in diameter. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA Updates Shuttle Target Launch Dates For Final Two Flights
NASA is targeting approximately 4:33 p.m. EDT on Nov. 1 for the launch of space shuttle Discovery's STS-133 mission and 4:19 p.m. EST on Feb. 26, 2011, for the liftoff of shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Slingshot
There are two possible explanations for this 'slingshot' in space: kickback by a triple black hole system, or the effects of gravitational waves produced after two supermassive black holes merged a few million years earlier. The discovery of this object comes from a large, multi-wavelength survey, known as the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS). This survey includes data from Chandra, HST, XMM- Newton, as well as ground-based observatories. Of the 2,600 X-ray sources found in COSMOS, only one -- named CID-42 and located in a galaxy about 3.9 billion light years away -- coincides with two very close, compact optical sources. Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Civano et al. Optical: NASA/STScI
The Dark Tower in Scorpius
In silhouette against a crowded star field
Fast Gas Bullet from Cosmic Blast N49
What is that strange blue blob on the far right?
