A telescope launched July 11 aboard a NASA sounding rocket has captured the highest-resolution images ever taken of the sun’s million-degree atmosphere called the corona. The clarity of the images can help scientists better understand the behavior of the solar atmosphere and its impacts on Earth’s space environment. “These revolutionary images of the sun demonstrate…

NASA selected 15 experiments to be funded through its most recent research announcement for opportunities in space biology research. Ten of these experiments will be conducted aboard the International Space Station in the near future. Five others will be ground-based studies. NASA’s Space Biology Program will fund the proposals to investigate how cells, plants and…

REDONDO BEACH, Calif. – The spacecraft that will carry NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to its orbit nearly a million miles from Earth has completed a Critical Design Review for the structure that supports Webb’s data link to NASA’s ground station. Northrop Grumman is under contract to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.,…

Fifty years ago, a small weather satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. It was the first in a series that would later become known as the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, spanning 41 successful launches over a half-century, with two satellites still remaining to be sent into space. All were…

NASA’s newest set of X-ray eyes in the sky, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, has caught its first look at the giant black hole parked at the center of our galaxy. The observations show the typically mild-mannered black hole during the middle of a flare-up. “We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the…

Scientists using NASA satellite data and climate models have projected drier conditions likely will cause increased fire activity across the United States in coming decades. Other findings about U.S. wildfires, including their amount of carbon emissions and how the length and strength of fire seasons are expected to change under future climate conditions, were also…

Texas space aficionados hope rockets will someday be launched into orbit from a beachside site near the U.S.-Mexico border, but a tight state budget and a previously frustrated attempt to land such a spaceport could complicate efforts. Backers of a proposal to build a launch site at Boca Chica Beach, about 25 miles east of…

NASA has released a summary report on findings from a panel that investigated the unsuccessful 2011 launch of the agency’s Glory spacecraft. The satellite, designed to improve our understanding of Earth’s climate, was lost March 4, 2011, when it failed to reach orbit after launch aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket from Vandenberg…