Pad Abort-1 Launch

Pad Abort 1 (PA-1) launched May 6 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. PA-1 is the first fully integrated flight test of the launch abort system being developed for the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

NASA Keeping Eyes in the Sky on the Gulf Oil Spill

NASA Keeping Eyes in the Sky on the Gulf Oil Spill Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, Expedition 23 flight engineer, photographed the tail end of the Mississippi Delta showing the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico on May 4, 2010. Part of the river delta and nearby Louisiana coast appear dark in the sunglint. This phenomenon is caused by sunlight reflecting off the water surface, in a mirror-like manner, directly back towards the astronaut observer onboard the International Space Station (ISS). The sunglint improves the identification of the oil spill which is creating a different water texture (and therefore a contrast) between the smooth and rougher water of the reflective ocean surface. Other features which cause a change in surface roughness that can be seen in sunglint are wind gusts, naturally occurring oils that will be gathered by and take the form of water currents or wave patterns, and less windy areas behind islands. Credit: NASA..

Finding the Right Asteroid for Astronauts to Land on

The Little Prince, who stood tall on his fictional house-sized asteroid B612, may soon have company. Since President Obama announced last month that NASA plans to send people to an asteroid by 2025 (SN: 5/8/10, p. 10), scientists have been scrambling to fill in the details. Before astronauts can embark on such a journey, they need to choose a destination......

X-ray discovery points to location of missing matter

11 May 2010
Using observations with ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have announced a robust detection of a vast reservoir of intergalactic gas about 400 million light years from Earth. This discovery is the strongest evidence yet that the 'missing matter' in the nearby Universe is located in an enormous web of hot, diffuse gas...

Neil Armstrong says Obama 'poorly advised' on space

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, said that President Barack Obama is "poorly advised" on space matters, renewing criticism of a plan to abandon a project to return US astronauts to the moon.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Armstrong said the Obama plan to end the Constellation program and cut other space efforts appeared to be made without input from NASA or the president's science adviser.