Tag: JPL
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Curiosity discovers pure sulfur rocks, continues to explore Mount Sharp on Mars
On May 30, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, currently exploring Gale Crater on the red planet, drove over a small rock on the Martian surface. The rock cracked open while driving over the rock, revealing its interior composition. Scientists on Curiosity’s team were stunned to find yellow sulfur crystals within the rock — the first time…
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Smashing into an asteroid shows researchers how to better protect Earth
On a fall evening in 2022, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory were busy with the final stages of a planetary defense mission. As Andy Rivkin, one of the team leaders, was getting ready to appear in NASA’s live broadcast of the experiment, a colleague posted a photo of a pair of…
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As Europa Clipper nears October launch date, scientists anticipate groundbreaking results
Later this year, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center with one of the most highly-anticipated and monumental planetary science missions of the decade — Europa Clipper. The mission will see the spacecraft travel to the smallest of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Europa, to investigate the…
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New study finds that DART changed both orbit and shape of Dimorphos asteroid
On Sept. 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into the side of the 170-meter-wide asteroid Dimorphos to test future asteroid deflection tactics in the event an asteroid was threatening Earth. Following impact, DART teams confirmed that the spacecraft’s collision with the asteroid had successfully deflected the asteroid by a small amount…
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Juno measures oxygen production on Europa
Using NASA’s Juno spacecraft, scientists have calculated the rate of oxygen production on Jupiter’s moon Europa — the first time any spacecraft had directly measured charged oxygen and hydrogen particles from the moon’s atmosphere. From these measurements, the team determined the rate of oxygen production to be much lower than estimated in previous studies. Europa,…
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Humanity’s most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch
Voyager 1 is still alive out there, barreling into the cosmos more than 15 billion miles away. However, a computer problem has kept the mission’s loyal support team in Southern California from knowing much more about the status of one of NASA’s longest-lived spacecraft. The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected…
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Juno discovers salts and organic compounds on Ganymede’s surface
After a flyby of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, in 2021, Juno and a team of scientists have discovered the presence of mineral salts and organic compounds on the surface of the icy moon. The new findings will allow scientists to better understand where Ganymede came from and the composition of its deep subsurface ocean. For…
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NASA decides not to launch two already-built asteroid probes
Two small spacecraft should have now been cruising through the Solar System, on their way to study unexplored asteroids, but after several years of development and nearly $50 million in expenditures, NASA announced Tuesday the probes will remain locked inside a Lockheed Martin factory in Colorado. That’s because the mission, called Janus, was supposed to…
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InSight’s importance: Seismic measurements, new terrain highlight ground-breaking mission
NASA’s InSight lander, formally known as the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport mission, wrapped a four-year scientific expedition on Mars in December 2022 after the lander succumbed to low power levels. Throughout its mission, InSight studied Mars extensively, collecting a plethora of ground-breaking science on the planet’s interior and exterior geologic…
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InSight Principal Investigator talks Mars lander’s final days
On Dec. 21, 2022, NASA announced that its InSight lander mission on Mars had ended after efforts to regain contact with the spacecraft failed. InSight did not respond to communications beginning on Dec. 18, 2022. The end of the mission capped an intrepid science mission that lasted just over four years, which was two years…