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The Nexus of Art and Science, Part 1

It’s always cool when you stumble across projects that cross different fields of study. We learned that students at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) worked with scientists during Spring of 2014 to produce five very short animations illustrating, or inspired by, results from the Fermi Gamma-ray Observatory. Fermi … Continue Reading →

Test Backplane Arrival

We’ve had a lot of exciting things going on with the James Webb Space Telescope here at NASA Goddard. A recent one was the arrival of this: Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn What’s inside the big white thing? It’s our the test version (called the pathfinder) of JWST’s backplane. What’s the backplane … Continue Reading →

NASA Social

In June we finally had the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) NASA Social, that we were supposed to have in January. It was such a lot of work planning it (in fact I often felt like I was a wedding planner!) but it was totally worth it. The event was … Continue Reading →

An Instrumental Milestone

Recently the James Webb Space Telescope mission hit another milestone. Not only are all four flight instruments here at NASA Goddard, but they were integrated into the structure that will hold them on the spacecraft – and they were just put into the giant vacuum chamber for a months long … Continue Reading →

Extrasolar

The idea of finding life forms on other planets, either inside or outside of our solar system, has always been a big deal. But these days it feels like we are closer than ever. Just the other day was this announcement that Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede, the largest moon in our … Continue Reading →

X-ray Detectors on the Move

Here at NASA Goddard, in Astrophysics, we have quite a large group that studies high-energy light – that is, X-rays and gamma-rays. Not only do our astrophysicists study the objects that emit light at these energies, some of them build the instruments to collect this astronomical data. One such astrophysicist … Continue Reading →

A Secondary Space Mirror

One of the cool things about the James Webb Space Telescope’s design is the giant boom that sticks out in front of the telescope. This structure is what holds the telescope’s secondary mirror. It’s the “small” round gold thing, visible in this artist’s conception. Credit: NASA Here’s what it looks … Continue Reading →

NASA at SXSW 2014

It’s that time of year again – for the South by Southwest music, film, & tech festival in Austin, Texas. As you might recall from last year, we had the giant full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope and a huge tent full of information about the mission. Credit: … Continue Reading →

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day from NASA Blueshift. We spotted this image go by on social media this morning and Rick Wiggins was kind enough to grant us permission to repost it. This is the Heart Nebula, or IC 1805. It’s about 7500 light years away from Earth, and can be located … Continue Reading →

Special Guest Blog: Things That Go “Pop” in the Night

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • February 11, 2014
  • Comments Off on Special Guest Blog: Things That Go “Pop” in the Night

We have an extra-special guest blog today! Nick Howes, astronomer at the Kielder Observatory in the UK, collaborator on a range of NASA programs and Pro-Am Programme Manager for the Faulkes Telescope Project, explains the significance of the new supernova detected in nearby galaxy Messier 82. Stars have a life … Continue Reading →

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