Space : Science World Report

Mar 29, 2012 11:16 AM EDT

Earth Observatory: Remembering El Chichon

Thirty years ago this week, a volcano in Mexico's Chiapas state roused from six hundred years of slumber and devastated the lush landscape around it. Once thought to be dormant or extinct, El ChichÃ³n wiped out nine villages and killed an estimated 1,900 people with three eruptions in little over ...

Mar 29, 2012 11:03 AM EDT

New Research Reveals Deep-ocean Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion

Compelling evidence of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep-sea corals will be published online in the Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week beginning 26 March 2012.

Mar 29, 2012 09:34 AM EDT

Getting to the Moon on Drops of Fuel

The first prototype of a new, ultra-compact motor that will allow small satellites to journey beyond Earth's orbit is just making its way out of the EPFL laboratories where it was built. The goal of the micro motor: to drastically reduce the cost of space exploration.

Mar 29, 2012 09:18 AM EDT

Engineers Set Their Sights on Asteroid Deflection

Pioneering engineers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing an innovative technique based on lasers that could radically change asteroid deflection technology.

Mar 29, 2012 06:44 AM EDT

Scientists Pin Down Historic Sea Level Rise

The collapse of an ice sheet in Antarctica up to 14,650 years ago might have caused sea levels to rise between 14 and 18 meters (46-60 feet), a study showed on Wednesday, data which could help make more accurate climate change predictions.

Mar 28, 2012 04:50 PM EDT

NASA Space Network to Begin New Design Phase for Ground Segment

The Space Network Ground Segment Sustainment effort successfully completed its Key Decision Point - B review at NASA allowing the project to proceed into Phase B of its lifecycle, the Mission Definition Phase. During this next phase, lasting approximately eight months, the network will hold its Prel...

Mar 28, 2012 03:31 PM EDT

New Evidence that Comets Deposited Building Blocks of Life on Primordial Earth

New research reported here today at the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) provides further support for the idea that comets bombarding Earth billions of years ago carried and deposited the key ingredients for life to spring up on the planet.

Mar 28, 2012 01:41 PM EDT

NRL Scientists Optimize Arctic Sea Ice Data Products

Scientists from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Marine Geosciences Division are assisting NASA, the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) and the European Space Agency (ESA) in developing more accurate monitoring and sustainable forecasting of Arctic sea ice.

Mar 28, 2012 11:32 AM EDT

WHOI Researchers, Collaborators Receive $1.4 Million Grant to Study Life in Ocean's Greatest Depths

A team of scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), University of Hawaii, Whitman College and international colleagues will conduct the first systematic study of life in the deepest marine habitat on Earth-ocean trenches, which are regions of the sea floor ranging from 19,685 ...

Mar 28, 2012 09:51 AM EDT

NASA's TWINS and IBEX spacecraft observe solar storm from inside and Outside Earth's Magnetosphere

For the first time, instrumentation aboard two NASA missions operating from complementary vantage points watched as a powerful solar storm spewed a two million-mile-per-hour stream of charged particles and interacted with the invisible magnetic field surrounding Earth, according to a paper published...

Mar 28, 2012 09:15 AM EDT

Earth Observatory: A Barrage of a Launch

Five sounding rockets streaked into the pre-dawn sky on March 27, 2012, leaving trails of milky white clouds in a little understood part of the atmosphere. The first rocket was launched to the cusp of space at 4:58 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, and the subsequent launches occurred at 80 second interva...

Mar 28, 2012 09:02 AM EDT

Mars-Bound NASA Craft Adjusts Path, Tests Instruments

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, halfway to Mars, adjusted its flight path today for delivery of the one-ton rover Curiosity to the surface of Mars in August.