Kepler discovers smallest planet yet
NASA’s Kepler mission scientists have discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found around a star similar to our sun. The planets are located in a system called Kepler-37, about 210 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. The smallest planet, Kepler-37b, is slightly larger than our moon, measuring …
Hubble images a ‘Rose of Galaxies’
In celebration of the anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 1990 deployment into space, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., pointed Hubble’s eye to an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disk that is tidally distorted …
Space News Briefs – January 2013
NPP satellite reveals new composite image of Earth at night Scientists have unveiled an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and NOAA satellite, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than ever before. …
NASA Spinoffs from Apollo
With the success of the Apollo program, NASA delivered great progress in the fields of rocketry and aeronautics, as well as the fields of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering. Lesser known accomplishments are some of the many spinoffs that came from the Apollo program—partnerships created between NASA and industry to commercialize the technologies developed for …
Hubble image of Carina Nebula, NGC 3372
Shown here is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth — and death — is taking place within the Milky Way Galaxy. This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope along with ground-based observations. …
Teach Briefs – January 2013
Host a conversation with crewmembers aboard the ISS NASA is now accepting proposals from U.S. schools, museums, science centers and community youth organizations to host an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, or ARISS, contact between May 1 and Nov 1, 2013. To maximize these radio contact opportunities, NASA is looking for organizations that …