Image credit: NASA Ames/Wendy Stenzel
For four years, the Kepler spacescraft continuously and simulatenously observed and collected data on more than 150,000 stars. Its mission– to determine if Earth-size planets orbiting in the habitable zone of stars like our sun are common or rare.
The stability of Kepler’s pointing is measured in degrees, arcminutes, arcseconds and milli-arcseconds. To put that into perspective, the image compares the measurements using a movie theatre screen, a small bag of popcorn, a kernel of corn and a grain of salt.
During the four years of science operations, the pointing precision of the spacecraft was controlled to within a few milli-arcseconds. That is the equivalent of keeping your gaze steady on a grain of salt from a quarter mile away.
The next time you’re asked to pass the salt think of the Kepler space telescope, and share its story.
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NASA will preview the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission at this weekend’s NASCAR races at Richmond International Raceway.
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NASA’s Human Research Program will fund 11 ground-based research proposals using beams of high-energy, heavy ions to simulate space radiation to better understand the risks this radiation poses to humans.
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NASA has chosen 96 ideas it regards as most promising from more than 400 submitted in response to its June request for information (RFI) about protecting Earth from asteroids and finding an asteroid humans can explore.
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NASA’s schedule of events, including news conferences and live television coverage related to the Friday, Sept. 6 launch of the agency’s next lunar mission, is now available.
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NASA has narrowed to four the number of potential landing sites for the agency’s next mission to the surface of Mars, a 2016 lander to study the planet’s interior.
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NASA satellite imagery showed strong thunderstorms circled Tropical Storm Toraji’s center as the storm approached southern Japan today.
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While people in the United States were celebrating Labor Day weekend, the Eastern Pacific Ocean’s Tropical Storm Kiko came and went.
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The Sunday Experiment is a free afternoon for children of all ages and their families to discover NASA Goddard’s exciting missions on Sept. 15, 2013.
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