August 20th, 2008 by 
gnugent Black holes are sometimes huge cosmic beasts, billions of times the mass of our sun, and sometimes petite with just a few times the sun’s mass.
More than 300 students have swelled JPL’s ranks this summer, hailing from high schools, community colleges, four-year universities and graduate schools across the country.
Cassini has pinpointed precisely where the icy jets erupt from the surface of Saturn’s geologically active moon Enceladus.
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has taken the first-ever image of a single particle of Mars’ ubiquitous dust, using its atomic force microscope.
Shortly after 9:03 p.m. Pacific Time, the Cassini spacecraft began
sending data to Earth following a close flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
To commemorate Hubble’s 100,000th orbit on Aug. 10, scientists used a JPL-designed and -built camera onboard the space telescope snapped this dazzling region of a nebula 170,000 light-years away.
Vibration of the screen above a laboratory oven on NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander on Saturday got enough soil into the oven begin analysis of the sample.
Fractures, or “tiger stripes,” where icy jets erupt on Saturn’s
moon Enceladus will be the target of a close flyby by the Cassini
spacecraft on Monday, Aug. 11.
Mission scientists today discussed their current investigation into percholate salts detected in Martian soil. The salts are neither good nor bad for life, said one scientist, but do make us reassess how we think about life on Mars.
Scientists are analyzing results from soil samples delivered several weeks ago to science instruments on NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander to understand the landing site’s soil chemistry and mineralogy.
Laboratory tests aboard NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander
have identified water in a soil sample.
This week’s magnitude 5.4 earthquake in Southern California marks another demonstration of an ongoing experiment by a NASA/Department of Energy-funded research team to forecast the location of large earthquakes in California.
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On 14 August, Rosetta conducted a successful trajectory correction manoeuvre using data obtained from the Agency’s first-ever optical tracking of an asteroid target, (2867) Steins. Images from the spacecraft’s cameras were used to calculate the asteroid’s location and optimise its trajectory for fly-by next month.
Yesterday evening, an Ariane5ECA launcher lifted off from Europes Spaceport at Kourou, in French Guiana, on its mission to place two telecommunications satellites into geostationary transfer orbits.
Miniaturised ceramic gas sensors, originally developed for measuring oxygen levels for spacecraft re-entry vehicles, enables improved human breath measurement apparatus, better control of heater combustion thereby reducing pollution, and higher safety in fuel cell manufacturing.
Heading toward its first target-asteroid, (2867) Steins, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has started using its cameras to visually track the asteroid and eventually determine its orbit with more accuracy.
Earth observation satellite data have never been in more demand than today as missions have demonstrated their ability to enable better understanding and improved management of the Earth and its environment.