Is Pluto a planet? What defines a planet? Are other planets yet to be discovered?
Join Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, American Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Mark Sykes, Planetary Science Institute, as they square off in a debate of these questions during this free, one-hour webcast on Aug. 14, 2008, 4:30 p.m. EDT. The debate will be moderated by Ira Flatow, host of NPR’s “Science Friday,” and streamed live on the Web. Registration for the webcast is required by noon, Aug. 13, 2008.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the first mission in NASA's Vision for Space Exploration, a plan to return to the moon and then to travel to Mars and beyond. LRO will launch in late 2008 with the objectives to finding safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology.
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn’s moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.
When astronauts visit the Hubble Space Telescope later this year, they will perform history-making, on-orbit “surgery” on two important science instruments aboard the telescope. With the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) still in place in Hubble, spacewalkers will—for the first time ever—attempt to repair an instrument on orbit. In this case, they’ll be repairing two, and neither was designed to be fixed in space.
WASHINGTON -- Two studies based on data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed that the Red Planet once hosted vast lakes, flowing rivers and a variety of other wet environments that had the potential to support life.
AUG 5, 2008 -- Phoenix Mars mission scientists spoke today on research in progress concerning an ongoing investigation of perchlorate salts detected in soil analyzed by the wet chemistry laboratory aboard NASA's Phoenix Lander.
"Finding perchlorates is neither good nor bad for life, but it does make us reassess how we think about life on Mars," said Michael Hecht of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA), the instrument that includes the wet chemistry laboratory.
