NASA’s extensive fleet of science assets, particularly those orbiting and roving Mars, have front row seats to image and study a once-in-a-lifetime comet flyby on Sunday, Oct. 19. Comet C/2013 A1, also known as comet Siding Spring, will pass within about 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of the Red Planet — less than half the distance […]
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere as never done before. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. “As the first orbiter dedicated to […]
A large x1.6 solar flare erupted from sunspot AR2158 on Wednesday afternoon, disrupting high frequency radio transmissions for over an hour as ultraviolet radiation bathed the upper atmosphere ionizing the upper layers. This second solar flare is the most powerful of the two that were emitted in as many days. The first significant flare one […]
After a decade-long journey chasing its target, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta, carrying three NASA instruments, became the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet. The last of a series of 10 rendezvous maneuvers that began in May, to adjust Rosetta’s speed and trajectory to gradually match those of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, occurred today (Aug. 6, […]