A NASA Mars rover mission set to launch in 2020 will rely on a special parachute to slow the spacecraft down as it enters the Martian atmosphere at over 12,000 mph (5.4 kilometers per second). Preparations for this mission have provided, for the first time, dramatic video of the parachute opening at supersonic speed. The Mars 2020 mission will seek signs of ancient Martian life by investigating evidence in place and by caching drilled sample...

Space may seem empty, but it's actually a dynamic place populated with near-invisible matter, and dominated by forces, in particular those created by magnetic fields. Magnetospheres - the magnetic fields around most planets - exist throughout our solar system. They deflect high-energy, charged particles called cosmic rays that are spewed out by the Sun or come from interstellar space. Along with atmospheres, they happen to pro...

Some exoplanets shine brighter than others in the search for life beyond the solar system. NASA research proposes a novel approach to sniffing out exoplanet atmospheres. It takes advantage of frequent stellar storms—which hurl huge clouds of stellar material and radiation into space—from cool, young dwarf stars to highlight signs of habitable exoplanets.

  Two NASA teams want to deploy a highly compact, sensitive thermometer that could characterise comets and even assist in the redirection or possible destruction of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, tested NASA's first 3D printed rocket engine prototype part made of two different metal alloys through an innovative advanced manufacturing process. NASA has been making and evaluating durable 3D printed rocket parts made of one metal, but the technique of 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, with more than one metal is more difficult.

NASA called, and the Webb telescope responded. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope recently completed its Ground Segment Test Number 1 (GSEG-1), for the first time confirming successful end-to-end communication between the telescope and its mission operations center. GSEG-1, which completed on June 20, tested all of the communications systems required to support the telescope's launch, commissioning and normal operations once it is in orbit.

It was midafternoon, but it was dark in an area in Boulder, Colorado on Aug. 3, 1998. A thick cloud appeared overhead and dimmed the land below for more than 30 minutes. Well-calibrated radiometers showed that there were very low levels of light reaching the ground, sufficiently low that researchers decided to simulate this interesting event with computer models. Now in 2017, inspired by the event in Boulder, NASA scientists will explore the moon...

For most viewers, the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse will last less than two and half minutes. But for one team of NASA-funded scientists, the eclipse will last over seven minutes. Their secret? Following the shadow of the Moon in two retrofitted WB-57F jet planes. Amir Caspi of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and his team will use two of NASA’s WB-57F research jets to chase the darkness across America on Aug...

  There are no mechanics on Mars, so the next best thing for NASA's Curiosity rover is careful driving. A new algorithm is helping the rover do just that. The software, referred to as traction control, adjusts the speed of Curiosity's wheels depending on the rocks it's climbing.

  How do you get a robot to recognise a surprise? That's a question Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers are pondering, especially as AI begins to change space research. A new article in the journal Science: Robotics offers an overview of how AI has been used to make discoveries on space missions.

Just like early explorers, NASA Twins Study investigators are venturing into new territory. Conducting human omics research on twin astronauts as part of the One Year Mission that took place aboard the International Space Station is one such venture. As technology evolves so does the research. NASA is evaluating more efficient and innovative research techniques to prepare for the journey to Mars.

NASA hopes to send a manned mission to Mars in the mid-2030s. On a planet where temperatures can fall to -125ºC generating energy presents a key challenge and new techniques are about to be tested. The best equipment needs the people to use it, so resilience experiments are also under way. To tackle the challenge of energy generation, NASA will test two-meter high reactors, developed as part of the ‘Kilopower’ project, in th...

  Only days after celebrating its first anniversary in Jupiter orbit, NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly directly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the gas giant's iconic, 10,000m wide (16,000km wide) storm. This will be humanity's first up-close and personal view of the gigantic feature - a storm monitored since 1830 and possibly existing for more than 350 years.

Burned Area Emergency Response teams— they may be one of most important parts of wildfires that you've probably never heard of. As the last flames of a raging wildfire are being contained, these BAER crews begin safeguarding lives, property, and natural resources threatened by additional perils that fires create. "Wildfire reduces or removes vegetation and ground cover protecting forest soils," said Mary Ellen Miller, a research engine...

In each life a little rain must fall, but in space, one of the biggest risks to astronauts’ health is radiation 'rain'. NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP) is simulating space radiation on Earth following upgrades to the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. These upgrades help researchers on Earth learn more about the effects of ionising space radiation, to hel...

One of the busiest work stations on the International Space Station got a major upgrade recently, and it already has saved dozens of hours on a variety of experiments for crew members aboard the orbiting laboratory. The Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) is a sealed and enclosed work area installed in the U.S. Destiny lab on the space station, and is about the size of a 70-gallon fish tank.

  Nearly 50 years after British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell discovered the existence of rapidly spinning neutron stars, NASA will launch the world’s first mission devoted to studying these unusual objects. The agency also will use the same platform to carry out the world’s first demonstration of X-ray navigation in space.

Early science results from NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter portray the largest planet in our solar system as a complex, gigantic, turbulent world, with Earth-sized polar cyclones, plunging storm systems that travel deep into the heart of the gas giant, and a mammoth, lumpy magnetic field that may indicate it was generated closer to the planet’s surface than previously thought.

An instrument originally developed to search for organic molecules on Mars is being repurposed to potentially hunt for life on a handful of moons in the outer solar system that appear to host oceans, geysers and vents of ice volcanoes. Will Brinckerhoff, a NASA scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, helped build a mass spectrometer for the European Space Agency’s 2020 ExoMars Rover mission.

Our Cold War history is now offering scientists a chance to better understand the complex space system that surrounds us. Space weather - which can include changes in Earth's magnetic environment - are usually triggered by the sun's activity, but recently declassified data on high-altitude nuclear explosion tests have provided a look at the mechansisms that set off perturbations in that magnetic system.