The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is testing a series of large spacecraft rolls that will help it hunt for water. After nearly 20 years of operations, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is on a roll, performing a new maneuver to squeeze even more science out of the busy spacecraft as it circles the Red Planet. Engineers […]
NASA Citizen Scientists Find New Eclipsing Binary Stars
When two stars orbit one another in such a way that one blocks the other’s light each time it swings around, that’s an eclipsing binary. A new paper from NASA’s Eclipsing Binary Patrol citizen science project presents more than 10,000 of these rare pairs – 10,001 to be precise. These objects will help future researchers study […]
Meet the Space Ops Team: Derrick Bailey
Since childhood, Derrick Bailey always had an early fascination with aeronautics. Military fighter jet pilots were his childhood heroes, and he dreamed of joining the aerospace industry. This passion was a springboard into his 17-year career at NASA, where Bailey plays an important role in enabling successful rocket launches. Bailey is the Launch Vehicle Certification […]
NASA’s Webb Digs into Structural Origins of Disk Galaxies
Present-day disk galaxies often contain a thick, star-filled outer disk and an embedded thin disk of stars. For instance, our own Milky Way galaxy’s thick disk is approximately 3,000 light-years in height, and its thin disk is roughly 1,000 light-years thick. How and why does this dual disk structure form? By analyzing archival data from […]