Personally, I don't think there's intelligent life on other planets. Why should other planets be any different from this one?

— Bob Monkhouse

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NASA Glenn Joins COSI’s Big Science Celebration

NASA News - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 8:01am
At COSI’s Big Science Celebration on Sunday, May 4, 2025, a young visitor uses one of NASA Glenn Research Center’s virtual reality headsets to immerse herself in a virtual environment. Credit: NASA/Lily Hammel 

NASA’s Glenn Research Center joined the Center for Science and Industry (COSI) Big Science Celebration on the museum’s front lawn in Columbus, Ohio, on May 4. This event centered on science activities by STEM professionals, researchers, and experts from Central Ohio — and despite chilly, damp weather, it drew more than 20,000 visitors. 

At COSI’s Big Science Celebration on Sunday, May 4, 2025, a young visitor steps out of the rain and into NASA Glenn Research Center’s booth to check out the Graphics and Visualization Lab’s augmented reality fluid flow table that allows users to virtually explore a model of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Lily Hammel 

NASA’s 10-by-80-foot tent housed a variety of information booths and hands-on demonstrations to introduce guests to the vital research being performed at the Cleveland center. Popular attractions included a mini wind tunnel and multiple augmented and virtual reality demonstrations. Visitors also engaged through tangram puzzles and a cosmic selfie station. NASA Glenn’s astronaut mascot made several appearances to the delight of young and old alike.   

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Categories: NASA

Savudrija Star Trails

APOD - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 8:00am

Savudrija Star Trails


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Looking for a last-minute Father's Day gift? These Bushnell binoculars are brilliant value with this $60 price cut

Space.com - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 7:24am
Get the Bushnell 10x42mm Trophy at its best price this year — a fantastic pair of budget binoculars for skywatching on the go.
Categories: Astronomy

The arid air of Death Valley may actually be a valuable water source

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 6:00am
An innovative device extracted a small glassful of water from the air of Death Valley desert over one day
Categories: Astronomy

The arid air of Death Valley may actually be a valuable water source

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 6:00am
An innovative device extracted a small glassful of water from the air of Death Valley desert over one day
Categories: Astronomy

Why Some Animals Live for Days and Others Live for Decades

Scientific American.com - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 6:00am

Could the spectrum of animal lifespans hold clues about the science of aging?

Categories: Astronomy

Cosmic rings reveal new planet being born | Space photo of the day for June 11, 2025

Space.com - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 6:00am
Star RIK 113 is busy making a new planet in its protoplanetary disk as seen in this new image from the Very Large Telescope.
Categories: Astronomy

June's Strawberry Moon treats skywatchers to a rare low-riding show (photos)

Space.com - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 5:52am
Here are the best photos of the lowest full moon in over a decade.
Categories: Astronomy

Astronomers see the 1st stars dispel darkness 13 billion years ago at 'Cosmic Dawn'

Space.com - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 5:00am
The CLASS telescope array has taken a fresh look at the infant universe to hunt for polarized light in the Cosmic Microwave Background that resembles light bouncing off a cosmic car hood.
Categories: Astronomy

ESA Impact: Pick of our spring space snaps

ESO Top News - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 3:30am

ESA Impact: Pick of our spring space snaps

Categories: Astronomy

Propellant leak delays SpaceX launch of private Ax-4 astronaut mission to the ISS

Space.com - Wed, 06/11/2025 - 12:13am
SpaceX is standing down from the planned June 11 launch of the Ax-4 private astronaut mission due to a liquid oxygen leak in its Falcon 9 rocket. No new target date has been announced.
Categories: Astronomy

Titan May be the Liveliest Place in the Solar System

Universe Today - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 10:14pm

Titan has no liquid water whatsoever on its surface. But it does have liquids. Seas, lakes, streams, rivers…of methane and ethane.

Categories: Astronomy

This Massive Gas Giant Orbiting a Tiny Red Dwarf Tests Our Planet Formation Theories

Universe Today - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 10:14pm

The discovery of a Saturn-sized gas giant orbiting a small red dwarf is urging astronomers to reconsider their theories of planet formation. Core accretion theory is the most widely accepted explanation for planetary formation. It describes how planet formation begins with tiny dust grains gathering together and forming planetary cores that grow larger through accretion. It explains much of what we see in our Solar System and others. This discovery introduces some doubt.

Categories: Astronomy

NASA’s CODEX Captures Unique Views of Sun’s Outer Atmosphere

NASA News - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 6:15pm
For the first time, scientists can observe temperature changes in the Sun’s outer atmosphere thanks to new technology introduced by NASA’s CODEX instrument. This animated, color-coded heat map shows temperature changes over the course of a couple days, where red indicates hotter regions and purple indicates cooler ones. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX Key Points:
  • NASA’s CODEX investigation captured images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, showcasing new aspects of its gusty, uneven flow.
  • The CODEX instrument, located on the International Space Station, is a coronagraph — a scientific tool that creates an artificial eclipse with physical disks — that measures the speed and temperature of solar wind using special filters.
  • These first-of-their-kind measurements will help scientists improve models of space weather and better understand the Sun’s impact on Earth.

Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is not a homogenous, steady flow of material, but an area with sputtering gusts of hot plasma. These images will help scientists improve their understanding of how the Sun impacts Earth and our technology in space.

“We really never had the ability to do this kind of science before,” said Jeffrey Newmark, a heliophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the principal investigator for CODEX. “The right kind of filters, the right size instrumentation — all the right things fell into place. These are brand new observations that have never been seen before, and we think there’s a lot of really interesting science to be done with it.”

The Sun continuously radiates material in the form of the solar wind. The Sun’s magnetic field shapes this material, sometimes creating flowing, ray-like formations called coronal streamers. In this view from NASA’s CODEX instrument, large dark spots block much of the bright light from the Sun. Blocking this light allows the instrument’s sensitive equipment to capture the faint light of the Sun’s outer atmosphere. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX

NASA’s CODEX is a solar coronagraph, an instrument often employed to study the Sun’s faint corona, or outer atmosphere, by blocking the bright face of the Sun. The instrument, which is installed on the International Space Station, creates artificial eclipses using a series of circular pieces of material called occulting disks at the end of a long telescope-like tube. The occulting disks are about the size of a tennis ball and are held in place by three metal arms.

Scientists often use coronagraphs to study visible light from the corona, revealing dynamic features, such as solar storms, that shape the weather in space, potentially impacting Earth and beyond.

NASA missions use coronagraphs to study the Sun in various ways, but that doesn’t mean they all see the same thing. Coronagraphs on the joint NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission look at visible light from the solar corona with both a wide field of view and a smaller one. The CODEX instrument’s field of view is somewhere in the middle, but looks at blue light to understand temperature and speed variations in the background solar wind.
 
In this composite image of overlapping solar observations, the center and left panels show the field-of-view coverage of the different coronagraphs with overlays and are labeled with observation ranges in solar radii. The third panel shows a zoomed-in, color-coded portion of the larger CODEX image. It highlights the temperature ratios in that portion of the solar corona using CODEX 405.0 and 393.5 nm filters. NASA/ESA/SOHO/KASI/INAF/CODEX

“The CODEX instrument is doing something new,” said Newmark. “Previous coronagraph experiments have measured the density of material in the corona, but CODEX is measuring the temperature and speed of material in the slowly varying solar wind flowing out from the Sun.”

These new measurements allow scientists to better characterize the energy at the source of the solar wind.

The CODEX instrument uses four narrow-band filters — two for temperature and two for speed — to capture solar wind data. “By comparing the brightness of the images in each of these filters, we can tell the temperature and speed of the coronal solar wind,” said Newmark.

Understanding the speed and temperature of the solar wind helps scientists build a more accurate picture of the Sun, which is necessary for modeling and predicting the Sun’s behaviors.

“The CODEX instrument will impact space weather modeling by providing constraints for modelers to use in the future,” said Newmark. “We’re excited for what’s to come.”

by NASA Science Editorial Team
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md

CODEX is a collaboration between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) with additional contribution from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF).

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Last Updated

Jun 10, 2025

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Categories: NASA

NASA’s CODEX Captures Unique Views of Sun’s Outer Atmosphere

NASA - Breaking News - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 6:15pm
For the first time, scientists can observe temperature changes in the Sun’s outer atmosphere thanks to new technology introduced by NASA’s CODEX instrument. This animated, color-coded heat map shows temperature changes over the course of a couple days, where red indicates hotter regions and purple indicates cooler ones. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX Key Points:
  • NASA’s CODEX investigation captured images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, showcasing new aspects of its gusty, uneven flow.
  • The CODEX instrument, located on the International Space Station, is a coronagraph — a scientific tool that creates an artificial eclipse with physical disks — that measures the speed and temperature of solar wind using special filters.
  • These first-of-their-kind measurements will help scientists improve models of space weather and better understand the Sun’s impact on Earth.

Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is not a homogenous, steady flow of material, but an area with sputtering gusts of hot plasma. These images will help scientists improve their understanding of how the Sun impacts Earth and our technology in space.

“We really never had the ability to do this kind of science before,” said Jeffrey Newmark, a heliophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the principal investigator for CODEX. “The right kind of filters, the right size instrumentation — all the right things fell into place. These are brand new observations that have never been seen before, and we think there’s a lot of really interesting science to be done with it.”

The Sun continuously radiates material in the form of the solar wind. The Sun’s magnetic field shapes this material, sometimes creating flowing, ray-like formations called coronal streamers. In this view from NASA’s CODEX instrument, large dark spots block much of the bright light from the Sun. Blocking this light allows the instrument’s sensitive equipment to capture the faint light of the Sun’s outer atmosphere. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX

NASA’s CODEX is a solar coronagraph, an instrument often employed to study the Sun’s faint corona, or outer atmosphere, by blocking the bright face of the Sun. The instrument, which is installed on the International Space Station, creates artificial eclipses using a series of circular pieces of material called occulting disks at the end of a long telescope-like tube. The occulting disks are about the size of a tennis ball and are held in place by three metal arms.

Scientists often use coronagraphs to study visible light from the corona, revealing dynamic features, such as solar storms, that shape the weather in space, potentially impacting Earth and beyond.

NASA missions use coronagraphs to study the Sun in various ways, but that doesn’t mean they all see the same thing. Coronagraphs on the joint NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission look at visible light from the solar corona with both a wide field of view and a smaller one. The CODEX instrument’s field of view is somewhere in the middle, but looks at blue light to understand temperature and speed variations in the background solar wind.
 
In this composite image of overlapping solar observations, the center and left panels show the field-of-view coverage of the different coronagraphs with overlays and are labeled with observation ranges in solar radii. The third panel shows a zoomed-in, color-coded portion of the larger CODEX image. It highlights the temperature ratios in that portion of the solar corona using CODEX 405.0 and 393.5 nm filters. NASA/ESA/SOHO/KASI/INAF/CODEX

“The CODEX instrument is doing something new,” said Newmark. “Previous coronagraph experiments have measured the density of material in the corona, but CODEX is measuring the temperature and speed of material in the slowly varying solar wind flowing out from the Sun.”

These new measurements allow scientists to better characterize the energy at the source of the solar wind.

The CODEX instrument uses four narrow-band filters — two for temperature and two for speed — to capture solar wind data. “By comparing the brightness of the images in each of these filters, we can tell the temperature and speed of the coronal solar wind,” said Newmark.

Understanding the speed and temperature of the solar wind helps scientists build a more accurate picture of the Sun, which is necessary for modeling and predicting the Sun’s behaviors.

“The CODEX instrument will impact space weather modeling by providing constraints for modelers to use in the future,” said Newmark. “We’re excited for what’s to come.”

by NASA Science Editorial Team
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md

CODEX is a collaboration between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) with additional contribution from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF).

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Details

Last Updated

Jun 10, 2025

Related Terms
Categories: NASA

Jiawen Galaxy Projector Light review

Space.com - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 5:00pm
It's more of an ambient light projector than a star projector, but the Jiawen Galaxy Projector Light is seriously impressive given its budget price.
Categories: Astronomy

Summer Game Fest 2025: The biggest space & sci-fi game reveals and announcements

Space.com - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 5:00pm
Another summer, another series of hot gaming showcases. These are the space and sci-fi video games that caught our attention during this year's events.
Categories: Astronomy

How RFK, Jr.’s Dismissal of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Will Affect U.S. Vaccine Access

Scientific American.com - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 4:50pm

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., abruptly removes all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). An epidemiologist explains how this will affect people’s health and vaccine access

Categories: Astronomy