A very large UFOs activity around the Sun - Browse Images NASA February 23, 2013.
Many UFOs separated from UFO Motherships 5:53 , 6:50 Official pictures NASA: LASCO C2, LASCO C3, SOHO STEREO Behind EUVI 195.You can see the different types of unidentified objects. Objects have different shapes and sizes. UFOs are in different points in space near the Sun. These objects have a material structure. Attention skeptics, religious fanatics and those who believe the tales NASA! Objects shown in the video are the real origin! This is not interference in the satellite, not broken pixels, not meteorites, not the solar particles and other qualifications that tries to convince NASA. Interference, broken pixels, meteorites, the charged particles can not have the correct complex geometries can not travel on different paths with the correct motion vector change! All objects - a UFO different forms and sizes!.These many UFO near our Sun are real unidentified objects. UFOs are of different sizes, different structures, different forms. Many UFOs are around some "energy" field. "UFOs are always near our sun. UFOs flying into the sun, and fly out of the sun. Many unidentified objects, fly up to the sun and to maneuver at high speeds. For all movement UFO can be seen in my previous file perennial surveys UFO near the Sun on this channel. In the early history of research, I was getting good quality images of the objects, but more than a year, NASA provides the public images of very poor quality. People questioned NASA. NASA responded that these UFOs - a speck of dust on the ...

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A very large UFOs activity around the Sun - Browse Images NASA February 23, 2013. - Video

Centennial, Colo., (Feb. 22, 2013) - NASA's Launch Services Program announced today that it selected United Launch Alliance's (ULA's) proven Delta II launch vehicle to launch the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission.

"United Launch Alliance is honored that NASA has selected the Delta II to launch this critical science mission," said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president, Mission Operations.

"While we achieve mission success one-launch-at-a-time, the ULA team has a long history of many successful missions launched on Delta II, including 50 missions for our NASA customer. In addition to the Delta II, the ULA team is also successfully launching a wide array of missions on the Atlas V and Delta IV systems. The Delta II launch system continues to offer excellent reliability and value to our customers and we look forward to launching the ICESat-2 mission together with the NASA team," said Sponnick.

The newly contracted mission is scheduled to launch in July of 2016 from Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

ULA's Delta II has launched the majority of NASA's critical science missions over the last decade including the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, Genesis, Phoenix Mars Lander, Stardust, and the twin GRAIL spacecraft.

ULA's next launch is the Atlas V SBIRS GEO-2 mission for the Air Force scheduled for March 19 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

ULA program management, engineering, test, and mission support functions are headquartered in Denver, Colo. Manufacturing, assembly and integration operations are located at Decatur, Ala., and Harlingen, Texas. Launch operations are located at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., and Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

For more information on ULA, visit the ULA Web site at http://www.ulalaunch.com, or call the ULA Launch Hotline at 1-877-ULA-4321 (852-4321). Join the conversation at http://www.facebook.com/ulalaunch and twitter.com/ulalaunch.

Contact: Jessica Rye, (321) 730-5646 (office), (321) 693-6250 (cell) jessica.f.rye@ulalaunch.com

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NASA Selects United Launch Alliance's Workhorse Delta II Rocket for ICESat-2 Mission

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden toured Friday a cutting-edge facility at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center where high-tech manufacturing is creating parts for a next-generation rocket that will launch astronauts to the most distant destinations ever.

NASA's National Center for Advanced Manufacturing Rapid Prototyping Facility is just one of the ways the agency is helping to revitalize America's manufacturing sector. According to a study by the Washington-area-based Tauri Group, the agency contributed $5 billion to U.S. manufacturing industry in 2012.

Specifically, the study found development of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) cumulatively had contributed about $930 million to the chemical, machinery, transportation equipment, fabricated metal, and computer and electronic product manufacturing sectors.

"Our team's innovative work here at Marshall and the NASA National Center for Advanced Manufacturing is just one example of how NASA is helping to reinvigorate America's manufacturing sector," Bolden said. "As NASA pushes the boundaries of exploration, our use of innovative techniques will allow us to build parts for everything from satellites to spacecraft more quickly and more affordably."

NASA is using additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3-D printing, to create a diverse portfolio of parts, from small satellites to rocket engines, at six of its centers. Additive manufacturing is a process that makes three-dimensional solid objects from a digital model. During his visit to Marshall, Bolden watched a type of additive manufacturing called selective laser melting create complex parts for the J-2X and RS-25 rocket engines without welding. Selective laser melting saves time and reduces the cost of creating component parts for what will be the largest launch vehicle ever built.

Bolden said The Tauri Group study shows the agency's technology investments are spurring America's manufacturing base.

"Last year, NASA invested a combined $17 million in advanced manufacturing in five NASA programs analyzed by a just-released study -- SLS, commercial crew, the James Webb Telescope, the International Space Station and the Space Technology Program," Bolden said. "These investments in innovation are enabling future space missions, bettering life on earth and benefiting America's economy."

For more information and a video on Marshall Space Flight Center's use of selective laser melting, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/selective_melting.html

For more information on NASA's Space Launch System, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/sls

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NASA Chief Tours Advanced Manufacturing Facility, Highlights Space Program's Contributions to Industry Sector

NASA commercial partner Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., successfully conducted an engine test of its Antares rocket Friday at the nation's newest launch pad.

The company fired dual AJ26 rocket engines for the full duration 29 seconds while the rocket was bolted down on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. Known as a "hot fire" test, it demonstrated the readiness of the rocket's first stage and launch pad fueling systems to support upcoming test flights.

"This pad test is an important reminder of how strong and diverse the commercial space industry is in our nation," said Phil McAlister, director of Commercial Spaceflight Development at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "A little more than one year after the retirement of the space shuttle, we had a U.S company resupplying the International Space Station. Now, another is taking the next critical steps to launch from America's newest gateway to low-Earth Orbit. Today marks significant progress for Orbital, MARS and the NASA team."

Orbital is building and testing its new rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. A demonstration flight of Antares and Cygnus to the space station is planned for later this year. After the successful completion of the COTS demonstration mission to the station, Orbital will begin conducting eight planned cargo resupply flights to the orbiting laboratory through NASA's $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract with the company.

Wallops, which has launched more than 16,000 rockets in its 67-year history, provided launch range support for the hot-fire test, including communications, data collection, range safety and area clearance.

NASA initiatives like COTS are helping to develop a robust U.S. commercial space transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit. NASA's Commercial Crew Program also is working with commercial space partners to develop capabilities to launch U.S. astronauts from American soil in the next few years.

For more information about the upcoming Orbital test flights, and links to NASA's COTS and Commercial Crew programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/orbital

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NASA Partner Orbital Tests Rocket, Newest U.S. Launch Pad

Award - Feb 21, 2013

Justification and Approval - Posted on Feb 21, 2013

General Information

NAIS Posted Date: Feb 21, 2013 FedBizOpps Posted Date: Feb 21, 2013 Noncompetitive Action: Yes Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No Contract Award Date: Dec 13, 2013 Contract Award Number: NNJ13HA07C Solicitation Number: NNJ13384713R Contract Award Amount: 356000 Contractor: City of El Paso, DBA: El Paso International Airport, 6701 Convair Road, El Paso, TX 79925-1099 Contractor DUNS Number: 038801429 Classification Code: X -- Lease or rental of facilities NAICS Code: 488119 - Other Airport Operations

Contracting Office Address

NASA - White Sands Test Facility, P.O. Box 20, Las Cruces, NM 88004-0020

Description

Point of Contact

Name: David L. Tellez Title: Contract Specialist Phone: 575-524-5133 Fax: 575-524-6793 Email: david.l.tellez@nasa.gov

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION LYNDON B. JOHNSON SPACE CENTER JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION PURSUANT TO 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(2) Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-2 LEASE OF AIRCRAFT HANGAR FACILITIES AT THE EL PASO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT NNJ12HA38C

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NASA JSC Award: Lease of AIrcraft Hangar Facilities at the El Paso International Airport

Sat, Feb 23, 2013

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has announced the creation of the Space Technology Mission Directorate. The directorate will be a catalyst for the creation of technologies and innovation needed to maintain NASA leadership in space while also benefiting America's economy.

The Space Technology Mission Directorate will develop the cross-cutting, advanced and pioneering new technologies needed for NASA's current and future missions, many of which also benefit America's aerospace industries, other government agencies, and address national needs. NASA will focus leadership responsibility for the existing Space Technology Program in the mission directorate, improving communication, management and accountability of critical technology investment activities across the agency. "A robust technology development program is vital to reaching new heights in space -- and sending American astronauts to new destinations like an asteroid and Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "A top priority of NASA is to invest in cross-cutting, transformational technologies. We focus on collaboration with industry and academia that advances our nation's space exploration and science goals while maintaining America's competitive edge in the new innovation economy."

Associate Administrator Michael Gazarik will head the organization. He previously served as the director of the Space Technology Program within the Office of the Chief Technologist. Serving as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Programs, James Reuther brings years of expertise in technology development, research and project management to oversee the nine programs within the mission directorate. Reuther previously served as deputy director of the Space Technology Program within the Office of the Chief Technologist. Dorothy Rasco, formerly the business manager of the Space Shuttle Program and the manager of the Space Shuttle Program Transition and Retirement, will join the directorate as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Management, assisting with the organizations strategic planning and management.

The Space Technology Mission Directorate will employ a portfolio approach, spanning a range of discipline areas and technology readiness levels. Research and technology development will take place within NASA centers, in academia, and industry, and leverage collaboration with other government and international partners.

NASA's Chief Technologist Mason Peck serves as the NASA administrator's principal advisor and advocate on matters concerning agencywide technology policy and programs. Peck's office will lead NASA's technology transfer and commercialization efforts, integrating, tracking, and coordinating all of NASA's technology investments across the agency. The Office of the Chief Technologist also will continue to develop strategic innovative partnerships, manage agency-level competitions and prize activities, as well as document and communicate the societal impacts of the agency's technology efforts.

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NASA Creates Space Technology Mission Directorate

Americas roving geologist on the Red Planet employed its drill on Mars for the first time and collected bits of powdered rock. Curiosity snapped a picture of the rock dust in the scoop with one of its own cameras.

Previous rovers have been able to study the surfaces of Martian rocks, but this is the first time a NASA rover has been able to study the interior of a rock, seeing geological traces that have been sealed away from harsh surface conditions.

Mars Curiosity engineer Louise Jandura told reporters during a phone conference on Wednesday that the maneuver is akin to unlocking a time capsule of evidence about the state of Mars going back 3 or 4 billion years.

Next, Curiosity will be analyzing the sample using several onboard instruments: the Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis, or Chimra; the Chemistry and Mineralogy device, or CheMin; and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, or SAM.

The sample taken comes from an area of veiny sedimentary rock that NASA has dubbed John Klein, after a Curiosity team member who died in 2011. In this part of the Martian plane, plates of bedrock are surrounded by soil, with spherical nodules and high-standing veins of material embedded in the rock.

All these features tell us the rocks in the area have a really rich geological history, Curiosity scientist Joel Hurowitz told reporters.

Preliminary data indicate the whitish powder from the rock drilling is likely calcium sulfate, although scientists wont know for sure until the full chemical analysis comes in.

The whitishness of the Martian rocks interior suggests that the inside of the rock didnt go through the oxidizing process that produces the Red Planets characteristic hue. Further geological data could show that ancient Mars looked very different from the crimson, rocky ball we see today.

One of the larger aspects of Curiositys mission is to investigate whether the environment on the Martian Gale Crater could have ever supported life. The mission has gone relatively smoothly since Curiositys seven minutes of terror descent last summer, which required precise timing and a newly developed sky crane to lower the rover to the surface.

The Curiosity team did encounter a small hiccup on this latest drilling operation -- software bugs caused the cleaning of the drill and the transference of the sample to take a bit longer than expected. But NASA scientists were able to work around the bugs, and Curiosity suffered no harm.

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NASA Rover Curiosity Is First Robot To Drill Into Martian Surface

A new video by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mercury is showing the closest planet to the sun like never before, revealing the rocky world as an oddly colorful planet.

Scientists created the new video of Mercury from space using images captured by NASA's Messenger spacecraft, which has been studying the small planet from orbit since 2011. The video shows a complete global map of Mercury as it spins on its axis and was assembled using thousands of photos into a single view.

"This view captures both compositional differences and differences in how long materials have been exposed at Mercury's surface," Messenger mission scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., explained in an image description. The laboratory oversees the Messenger mission for NASA. "Young crater rays, arrayed radially around fresh impact craters, appear light blue or white."

The colors of Mercury in the new video are actually enhanced to better differentiate between the different kinds of terrain on the planet, the researchers said. Altogether, the video shows 99 percent of the surface of Mercury with a resolution of about 1 kilometer per pixel.

"Medium- and dark-blue areas are a geologic unit of Mercury's crust known as the 'low-reflectance material,' thought to be rich in a dark, opaque mineral," Messenger scientists wrote. "Tan areas are plains formed by eruption of highly fluid lavas."

NASA's Messenger spacecraft (the name is short for the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) launched in 2004 and became the first spacecraft ever to orbit Mercurywhen it arrived at the planet in March 2011. The spacecraft's $446 million primary mission ended in 2012, and it is nearing the end of its first one-year mission extension.

During its two years orbiting Mercury, the Messenger spacecraft is expected to snap more than 168,000 photos of the planet, mission managers said.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter@mirikrameror SPACE.com@Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook&Google+.

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Colorful Map of Mercury Snapped by NASA Spacecraft (Video)

Planetary Society Hangout, Feb 21st, 2013 - Sequestration at NASA with Jon Morse
How will the sequester effect NASA #39;s programs and goals? How does the budgeting process normally work? How normal (or abnormal) a situation is this for planning budgets and reaching goals at the US Space Program? We answer all of these questions with Dr. Jon Morse, Professor of Physics at RPI and previous Director of Astrophysics at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC

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Planetary Society Hangout, Feb 21st, 2013 - Sequestration at NASA with Jon Morse - Video

asdfgfa - NASA
The official music video for "NASA" by asdfgfa. Go to http://www.asdfgfa.com for download more info! asdfgfa is Christopher Bowes. Guest guitar solo by Salad Cubes Ben.

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asdfgfa - NASA - Video

NASA (Live Instruments)

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NASA (Live Instruments) - Video

If i ran NASA
Made with KSP

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If i ran NASA - Video

PASADENA, Calif. - A NASA project that allows students to use a camera on a spacecraft orbiting Mars for research has received a new education prize from the journal Science.

NASA's Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP), a component of NASA's Science Mission Directorate education and outreach activities, enables students from fifth grade through college to take an image of the Red Planet's surface with a camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey. Students study the image to answer their research questions. After the image comes back to Earth, the students are some of the first people to see the picture and make their own discoveries.

Established in 2012, the journal's Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction encourages innovation and excellence in education by recognizing outstanding, inquiry-based science and design-based engineering education modules. A panel of scientists and teachers selected MSIP as one of 12 education projects from fields such as biology, chemistry, physics and Earth sciences.

Designed to fit within existing science curricula, MSIP targets required science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) objectives and standards for easy integration into classrooms. Authentic research is at the core of the award-winning project.

"At a time when the U.S. critically needs to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers, such student-led discoveries speak to the power of engaging students in authentic research in their classrooms today," said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Not only is the chance to explore Mars motivating, it shows students they are fully capable of entering challenging and exciting STEM fields."

Since MSIP began in 2002, more than 35,000 students across America have participated from public, private, urban, suburban and rural schools of all sizes, grade levels and student abilities. In 2010, a seventh-grade MSIP class in rural California discovered a previously unknown cave on Mars. A student presented their results at a major planetary science conference.

"The Mars Student Imaging Project is a perfect example of how NASA can use its missions and programs to inspire the next generation of explorers," said Leland Melvin, NASA associate administrator for education in Washington. "If we want our students to become tomorrow's scientists and engineers, we need to give them opportunities to do real-world -- or in this case, out-of-this-world -- scientific research, using all of the tools of 21st century learning."

MISP is a key component of NASA's Mars Public Engagement Program. The Mars Education Program at Arizona State University in Tempe, under the direction of Sheri Klug Boonstra, leads MSIP. Philip Christensen, principal investigator for the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) visible and infrared camera aboard Odyssey, is MSIP's mentor.

Orbiting Mars since 2001, Odyssey has operated longer than any spacecraft ever sent to Mars. The mission's longevity enables continued science from instruments on the orbiter, including the monitoring of seasonal changes on Mars from year to year. Odyssey also functions as a communication-relay service for NASA's Mars rovers.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Public Engagement Program and the Odyssey mission for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter. JPL and Lockheed Martin collaborate on operating the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

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NASA Student Mars Project Wins Education Award

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, dispatched to learn if the planet ever had ingredients for life, drilled its first bit of powder from inside a potentially water-formed ancient rock, scientists said on Wednesday.

The robotic geology station, which landed inside a giant impact basin on August 6 for a two-year mission, transferred about a tablespoon of rock powder from its drill into a scoop, pictures relayed by the rover Wednesday showed.

"We're all very happy to get this confirmation and relieved that the drilling was a complete success," Curiosity engineer Scott McCloskey of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told reporters on a conference call.

On February 8, the rover used its powerful drill, the first instrument of its type to be sent to Mars, to bore inside a flat, veined piece of bedrock, which appears to contain minerals formed by flowing water.

The sample, retrieved from at least 2 inches beneath the surface of the rock, will be sieved and portions of it processed inside two onboard science instruments.

The gray powder is strikingly different than the ubiquitous red dust that covers the planet's surface, a result of oxidation from solar ultraviolet radiation.

"Having a rock-drilling capability on a rover is a significant advancement," said Louise Jandura, chief engineer for Curiosity's sample system.

"It allows us to go beyond the surface layer of the rock, unlocking a kind of time capsule of evidence about the state of Mars going back 3 or 4 billion years," Jandura told reporters.

The drill is the last of Curiosity's 10 science instruments to be tested since the rover landed inside Gale Crater, located near the planet's equator.

The site was selected because of a three-mile (5-km) high mound of what appears to be layered sediments rising from the crater's floor.

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NASA Mars rover ready to eat, analyze rock powder

Landsat 5 has secured a new world record title for being the longest-operating Earth observation satellite after almost three decades in orbit.

Guinness World Records sent an email confirmation to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., informing space agency officials of the honor, NASA officials said in a statement.

Landsat 5,which will be retiredin the next few months, launched on March 1, 1984 and has long outlived its initial three-year mission. The satellite has circled Earth more than 150,000 times during its nearly 29 years in space, and has snapped more than 2.5 million images of the planet's surface along the way.

The Landsat 5 satellite is equipped with two main instruments for Earth observation: a multispectral scanner system and a thematic mapper. Similar tools were flown aboard its predecessor, Landsat 4. NASA announced the retirement of Landsat 5 in late December after the spacecraft suffered a failure in a spare gyroscopes. The satellite has three gyroscopes to maintain its position in orbit, but requires two working units to work properly, NASA officials said. [Earth From Space: Landsat Satellite Photo Legacy]

"This is the end of an era for a remarkable satellite, and the fact that it flew for almost three decades is a testament to the NASA engineers who launched it and the USGS team who kept it flying well beyond its expected lifetime," Anne Castle, Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, said in a statement.

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the entire Landsat program, a collaboration by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, which has helped scientists document the changing face of our planet and humans' impact on it, from ice loss to natural disasters to urban expansion. To date, NASA has launched eight Landsat satellites under the program, which is a joint effort with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Landsat 7, which launched in 1999, has also outlived its three-year design and remains operational. The program's eighth satellite, theLandsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), just launched on Feb. 11 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It rode a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket into orbit without any hitches.

Throughout its 29-year history in space, Landsat 5 faced its share of challenges, including battery and star tracker failures, as well as the loss of on-board data recording, NASA officials said. The satellite's flight control team found solutions to those issues, they added.

"The efforts of the Landsat team were heroic. Landsat 5 could not have lasted so long without the dedication and devotion of the USGS flight operations team that overcame a number of difficult technical challenges over the last 12 years," Jim Irons, LDCM project scientist, said in a statement from NASA on Feb. 10.

"Landsat 5 saved the Landsat program," Irons added. "This satellite's longevity preserved the Landsat program through the loss of Landsat 6 in 1993, preventing the specter of a data gap before the launch of Landsat 7 in 1999."

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NASA's Landsat 5 Satellite Sets New Guinness World Record

NASA has revealed the first radar video of an asteroid flyby that sent a space rock half the size of a football field buzzing by Earth last week.

The newasteroid flyby video, released today (Feb. 19), shows the asteroid 2012 DA14 as it headed away from Earth over the weekend. The asteroid zipped close by Earth on Friday (Feb. 15), when it approached closer to the planet than many communications satellites.

Before Friday's flyby, astronomers suspected asteroid 2012 DA14 was about 150 feet (45 meters) across. At its closest point, the asteroid came within 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers) of Earth, but never posed a threat of impacting the planet.

Based on the new radar observations, scientists now think asteroid 2012 DA14 is about 130 feet (40 m) wide at its largest point, NASA officials said in a statement.

The new video of the asteroid was made by combining radar observations of 2012 DA14 by NASA's Deep Space Network radio antenna in Goldstone, Calif. The 230-foot (70 meters) antenna captured 72 images of asteroid 2012 DA14, which was about 74,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) from Earth at the time, during observing windows on Friday and Saturday (Feb. 15 and 16). The images have a resolution of about 13 feet (4 m) per pixel. [See more photos of asteroid 2012 DA14]

"The images span close to eight hours and clearly show an elongated object undergoing roughly one full rotation," NASA officials explained. During that eight hours, asteroid 2012 DA14 moved even farther from Earth to a point about 195,000 miles (314,000 km) away.

Astronomers Lance Benner and Marina Brozovic at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., led the radar observing campaign for the asteroid flyby. They planned to conduct a series of follow-up observations on Feb. 18, 19 and 20.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered in February 2012 by amateur astronomers at the La Sagra Observatory in Spain. Its close flyby was determined soon afterward, and astronomers ultimately found that it posed no chance of hitting the Earth.

NASA scientists and astronomers around the world tracked asteroid 2012 DA14 as it approached Earth over the last week, with the space agency and several groups holding public webcasts to chronicle the space rock's close shave. It was the closest flyby of an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 that astronomers have known about in advance.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 came about 5,000 miles (8,046 km) closer to Earth than the fleet of communications satellites that fly in geosynchronous orbits about 22,400 miles (36,000 km) above the planet. NASA provided satellite operators with regular updates on the asteroid's position and path in case the satellites would have to be moved clear of the space rock.

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NASA Unveils 1st Radar Video of Asteroid Flyby

"Simply amazing," says NASA.

The bubbling tumult of the sun's surface regularly produces some pretty jaw-dropping sights, but it's rare that we get to see something like this -- and in motion to boot.

Last summer, an eruption on the sun's surface scored a solar weather hat trick, racking up all three of the major phenomenon scientists observe: a solar flare, a coronal mass ejection (CME), and coronal rain, "complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere," NASA explains. The solar flare in the video is not massive, by the sun's standards, but "moderately powerful," as NASA calls it. But what makes the show special is the coronal rain, charged plasma slowly dripping in fiery loops along the sun's magnetic fields.

NASA's (awesome) Solar Dynamics Observatory watched the whole event unfold, and the mission has now released the above video, showcasing those observations. Though the video seems to play as though in slow motion, it's actually quite sped up, covering a nearly 22-hour period from 12:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012. The footage is made up of frames taken once every 12 seconds, played at 30 framers per second, meaning that each second that passes in the video was six minutes in real time.

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NASA Releases Stunning Video of 'Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun'

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected key contributions to a 2022 European Space Agency (ESA) mission that will study Jupiter and three of its largest moons in unprecedented detail. The moons are thought to harbor vast water oceans beneath their icy surfaces.

NASA's contribution will consist of one U.S.-led science instrument and hardware for two European instruments to fly on ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. JUICE will carry 11 experiments developed by scientific teams from 15 European countries, the United States and Japan.

The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter for three years and travel past its moons Callisto and Europa multiple times, then orbit Ganymede, a moon larger than the planet Mercury. JUICE will conduct the first thorough exploration of Jupiter since NASA's Galileo mission from 1989-2003. By studying the Jupiter system, JUICE will look to learn more about the formation and evolution of potentially habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond.

"NASA is thrilled to collaborate with ESA on this exciting mission to explore Jupiter and its icy moons," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for Science in Washington. "Working together with ESA and our other international partners is key to enabling future scientific progress in our quest to understand the cosmos."

The solar-powered spacecraft will carry cameras and spectrometers, a laser altimeter and an ice-penetrating radar. The mission also will carry a magnetometer, plasma and particle monitors, and radio science hardware. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030.

"The selection of JUICE's instruments is a key milestone in ESA's flagship mission to the outer solar system, which represents an unprecedented opportunity to showcase leading European technological and scientific expertise," said Alvaro Gimenez Canete, ESA's director of science and robotic exploration.

NASA invited researchers in 2012 to submit proposals for NASA-provided instruments for the mission. Nine were reviewed, with one selected to fly. NASA agreed to provide critical hardware for two of the 10 selected European-led instruments. NASA's total contribution to the JUICE mission is $100 million for design, development, and operation of the instruments through 2033.

The NASA contributions are:

-- Ultraviolet Spectrometer: The principal investigator is Randy Gladstone of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. This spectrometer will acquire images to explore the surfaces and atmospheres of Jupiter's icy moons and how they interact with the Jupiter environment. The instrument also will determine how Jupiter's upper atmosphere interacts with its lower atmosphere below, and the ionosphere and magnetosphere above. The instrument will provide images of the aurora on Jupiter and Ganymede.

-- Radar for Icy Moon Exploration: The principal investigator is Lorenzo Bruzzone of Universita degli Studi di Trento in Italy. The U.S. lead is Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. Under the lead of Bruzzone and the Italian Space Agency, JPL will provide the transmitter and receiver hardware for a radar sounder designed to penetrate the icy crust of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto to a depth of about 5 miles (9 kilometers). This will allow scientists to see for the first time the underground structure of these tectonically complex and unique icy worlds.

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NASA Selects Science Instrument and Hardware for European Mission to Jupiter

Update: NASA's Johnson Space Center confirmed on Twitter that the station restored communication at about 11:30 a.m.

Previous story: The International Space Station lost communication with Houston's Mission Control on the ground Tuesday morning, NASA officials said.

Houston flight controllers were updating software onboard the station's flight computers at 8:45 a.m. when one of the station's data relay systems malfunctioned, according to an alert from NASA. Although a backup computer took over critical station functions from the primary computer, the station was not able to communicate with NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites. According to a statement, Mission Control Houston was able to communicate with the crew as the space station flew over Russia ground stations before 10 a.m. The crew then connected to a backup computer and began restoring communications with Houston.

The Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford told controllers in Houston that the station was fine and the crew was doing well.

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NASA software update cuts communication to space station

NASA, universities and private groups in the US are working on asteroid warning systems that can detect objects from space like the one that struck Russia last week with a blinding flash and mighty boom.

But the US space agency reiterated that events like the one in the Urals, which shattered windows and injured nearly 1,000 people, are rare.

"We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average," said Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

NASA estimates that before entering the Earth's atmosphere above Russia, the asteroid measured 17 meters (56 feet) in diameter and weighed 10 tons.

Fragments of the asteroid caused an explosion equivalent to 500,000 tons of TNT when they hit.

The same day, a 45-meter in diameter asteroid known as 2012 14 whizzed harmlessly past the Earth, its passage overshadowed by the bright arc drawn across the Russian sky that same day.

But had it hit ground, 2012 DA14 could have obliterated a large city.

Ten years ago, NASA would not have been able to detect 2012 DA14, said Lindsey Johnson, near earth object (NEO) project manager at NASA said recently.

But he said NASA has made progress on learning how to detect small asteroids.

Johnson said there are many of these objects flying around near the Earth -- say, half a million -- and they are hard to track because of their small size.

Originally posted here:

NASA scrambles for better asteroid detection