On January 22, a team of NASA scientists announced that they’ve solved the mystery of “missing energy” that was supposedly disappearing somewhere in the Earth’s atmosphere or out into space itself. The motivation for the NASA study came from the results of a 2010 article published in Science by Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo of [...]

For many Astronomers and star-gazers, discovering a planet like Earth is the stuff of science fiction. Today, that science fiction dream has become a reality, as NASA announced that its Kepler Mission has finally identified the first planet that is about two and a half times the size of Earth and in a similar Earth-like [...]

On September 8, 2011, NASA is planning to launch the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. Leading up to the launch, the space agency is also hosting a two-day “Tweetup” for 150 of its Twitter followers. GRAIL will consist of twin spacecrafts that will fly in tandem around the moon. NASA states the main [...]

On Thursday morning, July 21, the space shuttle Atlantis made the final journey back home to the surface of planet Earth. It was the 135th mission for NASA’s space shuttle program, and it also marked the end of a fascinating and innovative multi-decade adventure for America’s space agency. There are now a growing number of [...]

Last week, NASA’s DISCOVER-AQ air quality field campaign took to the skies over the Baltimore-Washington traffic corridor and northeast Maryland along Interstate 95. This flight was the third in what will be a series of flights to study the region this summer. The DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations [...]

Last week, NASA was abuzz with activity preparing for the final mission of the STS-135. These preparations led to the final launch of the Space Shuttle on Friday, July 8th. The historic launch is the end of a program that began with its first launch on April 12, 1981. Designed to be humanity’s first reusable [...]

For years, Google Maps and Google Earth has mesmerized the online community with wonderfully detailed satellite views of the forests, cities and towns just about anywhere on Earth. Announced on Tuesday, May 3rd, the ESRI software company, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), launched a full-scale release of global Landsat images [...]

We are all familiar Open Source Software (OSS) and many of us use this type of software every day. Software such as the Mozilla Firefox Internet browser, Ubuntu operating system, Gateway Anti-Virus, Winpooch and the list goes on. It has been estimated that the use of OSS packages saves consumers $60 billion per year. This [...]

NASA’s first space-based ocean measurement instrument is nearly ready to take flight. The agency is preparing to send its Aquarius satellite instrument into space, where it will test ocean water from high polar orbit, 408 miles above the surface of the Earth. The mission will provide scientists with key information about how salinity in our [...]

Earlier this month, the world celebrated 50 years of human spaceflight, and the anniversary of the first launch of a human, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into space. Gagarin was launched on April 12, 1961. When he returned, he was an international celebrity. He was also awarded many medals, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation’s [...]