Hank tells us about some developments that are being made in the dramatic area of laser tractor beams.

On June 14, 1914, the first patent for a liquid-fueled rocket design was granted to Dr. Robert Goddard, an American scientist and rocket pioneer. In the patent, Goddard described a rocket fueled with liquid propellants (liquid nitrous...

On April 26, 1962, Britain launched its first satellite, Ariel 1. This made the United Kingdom the third country to have a satellite in orbit after the U.S. and the Soviet Union — but they didn't launch it themselves. Ariel 1 launched on...

Learn how Hubble is measuring the expansion rate of the Universe in this new explainer from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.



Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flig
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NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will capture the equivalent of 100 high-resolution Hubble images in a single shot, imaging large areas of the sky more than 1,000 times faster than Hubble. In several months,...

Thousands of people, for almost two decades, accomplished the construction of the telescope element of the largest space telescope ever created. The optical and science segment of the James Webb Space Telescope stands...

Scientists using data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station have discovered X-ray surges accompanying radio bursts from the pulsar in the...

On April 15, a brief burst of high-energy light swept through the solar system, triggering instruments on many NASA missions. Now, multiple international science teams conclude that the blast came from a...

Astronomers using data from the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite have found a long-sought X-ray signal from NGC 4151, a galaxy that contains a supermassive black hole. The discovery promises a new way to unravel what's...

Global temperatures are rising, putting bird species across America in danger of extinction as their habitats change. To understand how temperature affects birds across the country, scientists at the University of...

NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, will make a daring attempt to “TAG” asteroid Bennu on Oct. 20 – touch its surface and collect a sample for return to Earth. Experience the sample...

Sound waves from the nascent universe, called baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs), left their imprint on the cosmos by influencing galaxy distribution. Researchers have explored this imprint back to...

On April 28, a supermagnetized stellar remnant known as a magnetar blasted out a simultaneous mix of X-ray and radio signals never observed before. The flare-up included the first fast radio burst (FRB) ever seen from within our Milky...

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be able to explore even more cosmic questions, thanks to a new near-infrared filter. The upgrade will allow the observatory to see longer wavelengths of light, opening...

Matter in the hearts of neutron stars – dense remnants of exploded massive stars – takes the most extreme form we can measure. Now, thanks to data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer...

Engineering students from California Polytechnic Institute brought their Webb Telescope deployment model to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The students demonstrated this detailed, robotic version of Webb for the NASA team building...

Watch as eight stars skirt a black hole 1 million times the mass of the Sun in these supercomputer simulations. As they approach, all are stretched and deformed by the black hole’s gravity. Some are completely...

Air pollution can appear as a gray or orange haze enveloping a city. What the naked eye can’t see are the hundreds of chemical reactions taking place to produce that pollution. NASA science can reveal a more...

University students and researchers working on a NASA mission orbiting a near-Earth asteroid have made an unexpected detection of a phenomenon 30,000 light-years away. Last fall, the student-built...

Scientist John Dorelli explains the MMS mission's orbit and why the four spacecraft fly in a tetrahedron formation. This complex arrangement enables scientists to gather data about magnetic reconnection in 3D.



On its...

On July 18, 2012, a fairly small explosion of light burst off the lower right limb of the sun. Such flares often come with an associated eruption of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection or CME -- but this one did not....

A team of astrophysicists has created a simulated image that shows how the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could conduct a mega-exposure similar to but far larger than Hubble’s celebrated Ultra-Deep Field...

In order to know how the universe will end, we must know what has happened to it so far. This is just one mystery NASA's forthcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission will tackle as it explores the distant...

Venus, our nearby “sister” planet, beckons today as a compelling target for exploration that may connect the objects in our own solar system to those discovered around nearby stars. Yet, humanity’s exploration of Venus...