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HWO Could Find Irrefutable Signs Of Life On Exoplanets
Searching for habitable exoplanets will require decades of work, new technologies, and new ideas. A lot of that effort seems to coalescing around the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a proposed mission expected to launch in the early 2040s that would be capable of directly imaging potentially habitable worlds, and, importantly, detecting features about them that could prove whether or not they host life as we know it. A new paper by exobiology specialists in Europe and the US, led by Svetlana Berdyugina of ISROL in Locarno, Switzerland, details an observational plan with HWO that could definitely prove that life exists on another planet - if they’re able to find one where it does anyway.
Some Planets Are Bigger Than We Thought
More than 200 planets in the TESS catalogs may be bigger than originally estimated — putting initially Earth-size planets into the super-Earth category.
The post Some Planets Are Bigger Than We Thought appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
NASA Goddard Center Director Makenzie Lystrup Set to Depart
On Monday, NASA announced Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is set to leave the agency on Friday, Aug. 1.
As center director of Goddard, a role she has held since April 2023, Lystrup also was responsible for guiding the direction and management of multiple other NASA field installations including Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility in West Virginia, the White Sands Complex in New Mexico, and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas.
“Having served in a variety of science and aerospace civilian and government roles in her career, Makenzie has led development of, and/or contributed to a variety of NASA’s priority science missions including successful operations of our James Webb Space Telescope and Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, as well as development of the agency’s Roman Space Telescope, and more,” said Vanessa Wyche, acting NASA associate administrator. “We’re grateful to Makenzie for her leadership at NASA Goddard for more than two years, including her work to inspire a Golden Age of explorers, scientists, and engineers.”
Throughout her time at NASA, Lystrup led Goddard’s workforce, which consists of more than 8,000 civil servants and contractors. Before joining the agency, Lystrup served as senior director for Ball’s Civil Space Advanced Systems and Business Development, where she managed new business activities for NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other civilian U.S. government agencies as well as for academia and other science organizations. In addition, she served in the company’s Strategic Operations organization, based in Washington where she led Ball’s space sciences portfolio.
Prior to joining Ball, Lystrup worked as an American Institute of Physics – Acoustical Society of American Congressional Fellow from 2011 to 2012 where she managed a portfolio including technology, national defense, nuclear energy, and nuclear nonproliferation.
Lystrup also has served on boards and committees for several organizations to include the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, International Society for Optics and Photonic, the University of Colorado, and the American Astronomical Society. She was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow in 2019 for her distinguished record in the fields of planetary science and infrared astronomy, science policy and advocacy, and aerospace leadership. Lystrup also served as an AmeriCorps volunteer focusing on STEM education.
Lystrup holds a bachelor’s in physics from Portland State University and attended graduate school at University College London earning her doctorate in astrophysics. She was a National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Research Fellow spending time at the Laboratory for Atmospheric & Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado, and University of Liege in Belgium. As a planetary scientist and astronomer, Lystrup’s scientific work has been in using ground- and space-based astronomical observatories to understand the interactions and dynamics of planetary atmospheres and magnetospheres – the relationships between planets and their surrounding space environments.
Following Lystrup’s departure, NASA’s Cynthia Simmons will serve as acting center director. Simmons is the current deputy center director.
For more information about NASA’s work, visit:
-end-
Cheryl Warner / Kathryn Hambleton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov / kathryn.hambleton@nasa.gov
Katy Mersmann
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-377-1724
katy.mersmann@nasa.gov
NASA Goddard Center Director Makenzie Lystrup Set to Depart
On Monday, NASA announced Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is set to leave the agency on Friday, Aug. 1.
As center director of Goddard, a role she has held since April 2023, Lystrup also was responsible for guiding the direction and management of multiple other NASA field installations including Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility in West Virginia, the White Sands Complex in New Mexico, and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas.
“Having served in a variety of science and aerospace civilian and government roles in her career, Makenzie has led development of, and/or contributed to a variety of NASA’s priority science missions including successful operations of our James Webb Space Telescope and Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, as well as development of the agency’s Roman Space Telescope, and more,” said Vanessa Wyche, acting NASA associate administrator. “We’re grateful to Makenzie for her leadership at NASA Goddard for more than two years, including her work to inspire a Golden Age of explorers, scientists, and engineers.”
Throughout her time at NASA, Lystrup led Goddard’s workforce, which consists of more than 8,000 civil servants and contractors. Before joining the agency, Lystrup served as senior director for Ball’s Civil Space Advanced Systems and Business Development, where she managed new business activities for NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other civilian U.S. government agencies as well as for academia and other science organizations. In addition, she served in the company’s Strategic Operations organization, based in Washington where she led Ball’s space sciences portfolio.
Prior to joining Ball, Lystrup worked as an American Institute of Physics – Acoustical Society of American Congressional Fellow from 2011 to 2012 where she managed a portfolio including technology, national defense, nuclear energy, and nuclear nonproliferation.
Lystrup also has served on boards and committees for several organizations to include the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, International Society for Optics and Photonic, the University of Colorado, and the American Astronomical Society. She was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow in 2019 for her distinguished record in the fields of planetary science and infrared astronomy, science policy and advocacy, and aerospace leadership. Lystrup also served as an AmeriCorps volunteer focusing on STEM education.
Lystrup holds a bachelor’s in physics from Portland State University and attended graduate school at University College London earning her doctorate in astrophysics. She was a National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Research Fellow spending time at the Laboratory for Atmospheric & Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado, and University of Liege in Belgium. As a planetary scientist and astronomer, Lystrup’s scientific work has been in using ground- and space-based astronomical observatories to understand the interactions and dynamics of planetary atmospheres and magnetospheres – the relationships between planets and their surrounding space environments.
Following Lystrup’s departure, NASA’s Cynthia Simmons will serve as acting center director. Simmons is the current deputy center director.
For more information about NASA’s work, visit:
-end-
Cheryl Warner / Kathryn Hambleton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov / kathryn.hambleton@nasa.gov
Katy Mersmann
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-377-1724
katy.mersmann@nasa.gov
These 3 popular skywatching star clusters may be branches of the same family tree
NASA Shares How to Save Camera 370-Million-Miles Away Near Jupiter
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The north polar region of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io was captured by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno during the spacecraft’s 57th close pass of the gas giant on Dec. 30, 2023. A technique called annealing was used to help repair radiation damage to the camera in time to capture this image. Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Gerald Eichstädt
An experimental technique rescued a camera aboard the agency’s Juno spacecraft, offering lessons that will benefit other space systems that experience high radiation.
The mission team of NASA’s Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft executed a deep-space move in December 2023 to repair its JunoCam imager to capture photos of the Jovian moon Io. Results from the long-distance save were presented during a technical session on July 16 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nuclear & Space Radiation Effects Conference in Nashville.
JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera. The optical unit for the camera is located outside a titanium-walled radiation vault, which protects sensitive electronic components for many of Juno’s engineering and science instruments.
This is a challenging location because Juno’s travels carry it through the most intense planetary radiation fields in the solar system. While mission designers were confident JunoCam could operate through the first eight orbits of Jupiter, no one knew how long the instrument would last after that.
Throughout Juno’s first 34 orbits (its prime mission), JunoCam operated normally, returning images the team routinely incorporated into the mission’s science papers. Then, during its 47th orbit, the imager began showing hints of radiation damage. By orbit 56, nearly all the images were corrupted.
The graininess and horizontal lines seen in this JunoCam image show evidence that the camera aboard NASA’s Juno mission suffered radiation damage. The image, which captures one of the circumpolar cyclones on Jupiter’s north pole, was taken Nov. 22, 2023. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Long Distance Microscopic Repair
While the team knew the issue may be tied to radiation, pinpointing what, specifically, was damaged within JunoCam was difficult from hundreds of millions of miles away. Clues pointed to a damaged voltage regulator that is vital to JunoCam’s power supply. With few options for recovery, the team turned to a process called annealing, where a material is heated for a specified period before slowly cooling. Although the process is not well understood, the idea is that the heating can reduce defects in the material.
“We knew annealing can sometimes alter a material like silicon at a microscopic level but didn’t know if this would fix the damage,” said JunoCam imaging engineer Jacob Schaffner of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, which designed and developed JunoCam and is part of the team that operates it. “We commanded JunoCam’s one heater to raise the camera’s temperature to 77 degrees Fahrenheit — much warmer than typical for JunoCam — and waited with bated breath to see the results.”
Soon after the annealing process finished, JunoCam began cranking out crisp images for the next several orbits. But Juno was flying deeper and deeper into the heart of Jupiter’s radiation fields with each pass. By orbit 55, the imagery had again begun showing problems.
“After orbit 55, our images were full of streaks and noise,” said JunoCam instrument lead Michael Ravine of Malin Space Science Systems. “We tried different schemes for processing the images to improve the quality, but nothing worked. With the close encounter of Io bearing down on us in a few weeks, it was Hail Mary time: The only thing left we hadn’t tried was to crank JunoCam’s heater all the way up and see if more extreme annealing would save us.”
Test images sent back to Earth during the annealing showed little improvement the first week. Then, with the close approach of Io only days away, the images began to improve dramatically. By the time Juno came within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the volcanic moon’s surface on Dec. 30, 2023, the images were almost as good as the day the camera launched, capturing detailed views of Io’s north polar region that revealed mountain blocks covered in sulfur dioxide frosts rising sharply from the plains and previously uncharted volcanos with extensive flow fields of lava.
Testing LimitsTo date, the solar-powered spacecraft has orbited Jupiter 74 times. Recently, the image noise returned during Juno’s 74th orbit.
Since first experimenting with JunoCam, the Juno team has applied derivations of this annealing technique on several Juno instruments and engineering subsystems.
“Juno is teaching us how to create and maintain spacecraft tolerant to radiation, providing insights that will benefit satellites in orbit around Earth,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “I expect the lessons learned from Juno will be applicable to both defense and commercial satellites as well as other NASA missions.”
More About JunoNASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. Various other institutions around the U.S. provided several of the other scientific instruments on Juno.
More information about Juno is at:
News Media ContactDC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Deb Schmid
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org
2025-091
Share Details Last Updated Jul 21, 2025 Related Terms Explore More 6 min read 5 Things to Know About Powerful New U.S.-India Satellite, NISAR Article 1 day ago 6 min read Meet Mineral Mappers Flying NASA Tech Out West Article 2 weeks ago 3 min read NASA Aircraft, Sensor Technology, Aid in Texas Flood Recovery Efforts Article 2 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related TopicsMissions
Humans in Space
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NASA Shares How to Save Camera 370-Million-Miles Away Near Jupiter
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The north polar region of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io was captured by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno during the spacecraft’s 57th close pass of the gas giant on Dec. 30, 2023. A technique called annealing was used to help repair radiation damage to the camera in time to capture this image. Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Gerald EichstädtAn experimental technique rescued a camera aboard the agency’s Juno spacecraft, offering lessons that will benefit other space systems that experience high radiation.
The mission team of NASA’s Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft executed a deep-space move in December 2023 to repair its JunoCam imager to capture photos of the Jovian moon Io. Results from the long-distance save were presented during a technical session on July 16 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nuclear & Space Radiation Effects Conference in Nashville.
JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera. The optical unit for the camera is located outside a titanium-walled radiation vault, which protects sensitive electronic components for many of Juno’s engineering and science instruments.
This is a challenging location because Juno’s travels carry it through the most intense planetary radiation fields in the solar system. While mission designers were confident JunoCam could operate through the first eight orbits of Jupiter, no one knew how long the instrument would last after that.
Throughout Juno’s first 34 orbits (its prime mission), JunoCam operated normally, returning images the team routinely incorporated into the mission’s science papers. Then, during its 47th orbit, the imager began showing hints of radiation damage. By orbit 56, nearly all the images were corrupted.
The graininess and horizontal lines seen in this JunoCam image show evidence that the camera aboard NASA’s Juno mission suffered radiation damage. The image, which captures one of the circumpolar cyclones on Jupiter’s north pole, was taken Nov. 22, 2023. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Long Distance Microscopic RepairWhile the team knew the issue may be tied to radiation, pinpointing what, specifically, was damaged within JunoCam was difficult from hundreds of millions of miles away. Clues pointed to a damaged voltage regulator that is vital to JunoCam’s power supply. With few options for recovery, the team turned to a process called annealing, where a material is heated for a specified period before slowly cooling. Although the process is not well understood, the idea is that the heating can reduce defects in the material.
“We knew annealing can sometimes alter a material like silicon at a microscopic level but didn’t know if this would fix the damage,” said JunoCam imaging engineer Jacob Schaffner of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, which designed and developed JunoCam and is part of the team that operates it. “We commanded JunoCam’s one heater to raise the camera’s temperature to 77 degrees Fahrenheit — much warmer than typical for JunoCam — and waited with bated breath to see the results.”
Soon after the annealing process finished, JunoCam began cranking out crisp images for the next several orbits. But Juno was flying deeper and deeper into the heart of Jupiter’s radiation fields with each pass. By orbit 55, the imagery had again begun showing problems.
“After orbit 55, our images were full of streaks and noise,” said JunoCam instrument lead Michael Ravine of Malin Space Science Systems. “We tried different schemes for processing the images to improve the quality, but nothing worked. With the close encounter of Io bearing down on us in a few weeks, it was Hail Mary time: The only thing left we hadn’t tried was to crank JunoCam’s heater all the way up and see if more extreme annealing would save us.”
Test images sent back to Earth during the annealing showed little improvement the first week. Then, with the close approach of Io only days away, the images began to improve dramatically. By the time Juno came within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the volcanic moon’s surface on Dec. 30, 2023, the images were almost as good as the day the camera launched, capturing detailed views of Io’s north polar region that revealed mountain blocks covered in sulfur dioxide frosts rising sharply from the plains and previously uncharted volcanos with extensive flow fields of lava.
Testing LimitsTo date, the solar-powered spacecraft has orbited Jupiter 74 times. Recently, the image noise returned during Juno’s 74th orbit.
Since first experimenting with JunoCam, the Juno team has applied derivations of this annealing technique on several Juno instruments and engineering subsystems.
“Juno is teaching us how to create and maintain spacecraft tolerant to radiation, providing insights that will benefit satellites in orbit around Earth,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “I expect the lessons learned from Juno will be applicable to both defense and commercial satellites as well as other NASA missions.”
More About JunoNASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. Various other institutions around the U.S. provided several of the other scientific instruments on Juno.
More information about Juno is at:
News Media ContactDC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Deb Schmid
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org
2025-091
Share Details Last Updated Jul 21, 2025 Related Terms Explore More 6 min read 5 Things to Know About Powerful New U.S.-India Satellite, NISAR Article 16 hours ago 6 min read Meet Mineral Mappers Flying NASA Tech Out West Article 2 weeks ago 3 min read NASA Aircraft, Sensor Technology, Aid in Texas Flood Recovery Efforts Article 2 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related TopicsMissions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
GLOBE-Trotting Science Lands in Chesapeake with NASA eClips
2 min read
GLOBE-Trotting Science Lands in Chesapeake with NASA eClipsOn June 16-17, 2025, 50 students at Camp Young in Chesapeake, Virginia traded their usual summer routines for microscopes. The NASA eClips team from the National Institute of Aerospace Center for Integrative STEM Education (NIA-CISE) taught two engaging lessons focused on macroinvertebrates and plankton, with a surprising star of the show – mosquitoes!
Camp Young, a Title I camp program serving students from Norfolk Public Schools, provides year-round, environmental science-based learning. The NASA eClips’ visit reinforced their mission to help students explore their environment on the Elizabeth River while seeing its place in the Earth System.
The lessons, designed for students in grades 3 through 8, were inspired by NASA’s GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) program, which encourages people around the world to collect and share environmental data as ‘citizen scientists’. This is where mosquitos stole the show! The lesson focuses on how these tiny insects can serve as indicators of climate and habitat change. By identifying mosquito larvae and understanding their breeding environments, students contributed to the bigger picture of global health and environmental monitoring, right from their own backyard.
During this experience, Camp Young’s stunning waterfront on the Elizabeth River was turned into a living laboratory. With phytoplankton nets, petri dishes, and sample jars in hand, campers ventured into the field to collect real environmental data, bringing their findings back to a cabin-turned-classroom to analyze them with scientific tools, including microscopes provided by the NASA eClips team.
Rather than just reading about ecosystems and the kinds of scientific questions that arise within them, students got to experience them firsthand and experience real science in the field. “It’s one thing to talk about microscopic marine organisms,” one instructor noted, “but it’s another thing entirely when students can actually see them swimming in a droplet from the river.”
The NASA eClips project provides educators with standards-based videos, activities, and lessons to increase STEM literacy through the lens of NASA. It is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AB91A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
A student collects a stagnant water sample, looking for mosquito eggs and larvae. Share Details Last Updated Jul 21, 2025 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms Explore More 3 min read NASA Citizen Science and Your Career: Stories of Exoplanet Watch Volunteers
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Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA James Webb Space Telescope
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Perseverance Rover
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On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona…
Juno
NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016, the first explorer to peer below the planet’s dense clouds to…
GLOBE-Trotting Science Lands in Chesapeake with NASA eClips
2 min read
GLOBE-Trotting Science Lands in Chesapeake with NASA eClipsOn June 16-17, 2025, 50 students at Camp Young in Chesapeake, Virginia traded their usual summer routines for microscopes. The NASA eClips team from the National Institute of Aerospace Center for Integrative STEM Education (NIA-CISE) taught two engaging lessons focused on macroinvertebrates and plankton, with a surprising star of the show – mosquitoes!
Camp Young, a Title I camp program serving students from Norfolk Public Schools, provides year-round, environmental science-based learning. The NASA eClips’ visit reinforced their mission to help students explore their environment on the Elizabeth River while seeing its place in the Earth System.
The lessons, designed for students in grades 3 through 8, were inspired by NASA’s GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) program, which encourages people around the world to collect and share environmental data as ‘citizen scientists’. This is where mosquitos stole the show! The lesson focuses on how these tiny insects can serve as indicators of climate and habitat change. By identifying mosquito larvae and understanding their breeding environments, students contributed to the bigger picture of global health and environmental monitoring, right from their own backyard.
During this experience, Camp Young’s stunning waterfront on the Elizabeth River was turned into a living laboratory. With phytoplankton nets, petri dishes, and sample jars in hand, campers ventured into the field to collect real environmental data, bringing their findings back to a cabin-turned-classroom to analyze them with scientific tools, including microscopes provided by the NASA eClips team.
Rather than just reading about ecosystems and the kinds of scientific questions that arise within them, students got to experience them firsthand and experience real science in the field. “It’s one thing to talk about microscopic marine organisms,” one instructor noted, “but it’s another thing entirely when students can actually see them swimming in a droplet from the river.”
The NASA eClips project provides educators with standards-based videos, activities, and lessons to increase STEM literacy through the lens of NASA. It is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AB91A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
A student collects a stagnant water sample, looking for mosquito eggs and larvae. Share Details Last Updated Jul 21, 2025 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms Explore More 3 min read NASA Citizen Science and Your Career: Stories of Exoplanet Watch VolunteersDoing NASA Science brings many rewards. But can taking part in NASA citizen science help…
Article
5 days ago
4 min read NASA SCoPE Summer Symposium Celebrates Early Career Scientists and Cross-Team Collaboration
Article
6 days ago
4 min read Linking Satellite Data and Community Knowledge to Advance Alaskan Snow Science
Article
1 week ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Perseverance Rover
This rover and its aerial sidekick were assigned to study the geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient microbial…
Parker Solar Probe
On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona…
Juno
NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016, the first explorer to peer below the planet’s dense clouds to…
Try These Logic Puzzles from the International Logic Olympiad
In only its second year, the International Logic Olympiad is already booming as logic becomes more and more crucial in our ever changing world
When did our solar system's planets form? Discovery of tiny meteorite may challenge the timeline
Four-day working week may boost our health and performance at work
Four-day working week may boost our health and performance at work
The Day Earth Smiled
On July 19, 2013, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft had a rare opportunity to image Saturn and, far in the background, Earth. This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.
With the Sun’s powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini’s onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn’s orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
Before the mission ended in 2017, Cassini was already a powerful influence on future exploration. Lessons learned during Cassini’s mission are being applied in NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. The mission uses an orbital tour design derived from the way Cassini explored Saturn. Launched in 2024, Europa Clipper will reach Jupiter in April 2030 and make dozens of flybys of the planet’s icy moon to determine whether there are places below the surface that could support life.
Learn more about this unique image.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
The Day Earth Smiled
On July 19, 2013, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft had a rare opportunity to image Saturn and, far in the background, Earth. This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.
With the Sun’s powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini’s onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn’s orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
Before the mission ended in 2017, Cassini was already a powerful influence on future exploration. Lessons learned during Cassini’s mission are being applied in NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. The mission uses an orbital tour design derived from the way Cassini explored Saturn. Launched in 2024, Europa Clipper will reach Jupiter in April 2030 and make dozens of flybys of the planet’s icy moon to determine whether there are places below the surface that could support life.
Learn more about this unique image.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI