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Astrophysics

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite has released data from the first 57% of the sky surveyed during the mission. The satellite went into hibernation in early February 2011, but its discoveries include 20 comets, more than 33,000 asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, and 133 near-Earth objects. More...

The shuttle Atlantis released the Hubble Space Telescope at 08:57 EDT on 19 May 2009 after a successful servicing mission. More...

Heliophysics

NASA's launch of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft is currently scheduled for 26 June from Vandenberg AFB. More...

Voyager 1 has encountered a region of spacecraft at the edge of our solar system that scientists believe is the last region the spacecraft will have to cross prior to entering interstellar space. More...

NASA has officially renamed the recently launched Radiation Belt Storm Probes the Van Allen Probes in honor of the late Dr. James Van Allen. More...

Lunar and Planetary Science

Data returned by the Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate it passed into a zone of the heliosphere known as the depletion region, an area which shows some of the characteristics of interstellar space but is still dominated by the Sun's magnetic field. More information is available in the NASA Press Release.

Asteroid 1998 QE2 flew within 5.8 million km of Earth, making its closest approach at 20:59 UT (4:59 EDT) on 31 May. The asteroid is approximately 2.7 km across, and a small moon, roughly 600 meters across, has been discovered in orbit about 1998 QE2. More.....

Results from the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) mission during its cruise show that radiation levels for human explorers to Mars could be above acceptable limits with current shielding and propulsion systems. For more, see the May 30 NASA Press Release.