NASA’s Artemis II Crew Uses Iceland Terrain for Lunar Training
16 Sep
Science & Technology

NASA’s Artemis II Crew Uses Iceland Terrain for Lunar Training

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NASA Space Technology Credits: NASA/Trevor Graff/Robert MarkowitzBlack and gray sediment stretches as far as the eye can see. Boulders sit on top of ground devoid of vegetation. Humans appear almost miniature in scale against a swath of shadowy mountains. At first glance, it seems a perfect scene from an excursion on the Moon’s surface … except the people are in hiking gear, not spacesuits.Iceland has served as a lunar stand-in for training NASA astronauts since the days of the Apollo missions, and this summer the Artemis II crew took its place in that long history. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, along with their backups, NASA astronaut Andre Douglas and CSA astronaut Jenni Gibbons, joined geology experts for field training on the Nordic island.“Apollo astronauts...
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NASA’s Webb Peers into the Extreme Outer Galaxy
12 Sep
Science & Technology

NASA’s Webb Peers into the Extreme Outer Galaxy

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NASA Space Technology This image shows a portion of the star-forming region, known as Digel Cloud 2S (full image below).Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Ressler (JPL)Astronomers have directed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to examine the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy. Scientists call this region the Extreme Outer Galaxy due to its location more than 58,000 light-years away from the Galactic Center. (For comparison, Earth is approximately 26,000 light-years from the center.)A team of scientists used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to image select regions within two molecular clouds known as Digel Clouds 1 and 2. With its high degree of sensitivity and sharp resolution, the Webb data resolved these areas, which are hosts to star clusters undergoing bursts of star formation, in unprecedented detail. Details of this data include...
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NASA’s newly unfurled solar sail has started ‘tumbling’ end-over-end in orbit, surprising observations show
06 Sep
Science & Technology

NASA’s newly unfurled solar sail has started ‘tumbling’ end-over-end in orbit, surprising observations show

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NASA Space Technology An artist's interpretation of NASA's fully-deployed Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) in orbit around Earth.(Image credit: NASA)A NASA spacecraft that recently unfurled a state-of-the-art solar sail in Earth orbit is "tumbling or wobbling" through space as it circles our planet, new observations show. NASA representatives told Live Science that the unusual motion was expected but did not explain exactly what is happening.The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) mission aims to test the efficacy of a new type of solar sail — a device potentially capable of propelling spaceships to faster-than-currently-available speeds using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight. Researchers hope that this type of technology could one day help propel humans to the edge of the solar system and beyond.The ACS3 spacecraft consists of a roughly 860-square-foot (80 square meters) foil...
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NASA’s Roman Space Telescope to Investigate Galactic Fossils
30 Aug
Science & Technology

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope to Investigate Galactic Fossils

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NASA Space Technology The universe is a dynamic, ever-changing place where galaxies are dancing, merging together, and shifting appearance. Unfortunately, because these changes take millions or billions of years, telescopes can only provide snapshots, squeezed into a human lifetime.However, galaxies leave behind clues to their history and how they came to be. NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have the capacity to look for these fossils of galaxy formation with high-resolution imaging of galaxies in the nearby universe.Astronomers, through a grant from NASA, are designing a set of possible observations called RINGS (the Roman Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey) that would collect these remarkable images, and the team is producing publicly available tools that the astronomy community can use once Roman launches and starts taking data. The RINGS survey is a preliminary concept that...
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