NASA

Celebrating Autism Acceptance Month Did you know an eclipse has sound? Thanks to innovative technology, guests can listen to the sonification of an eclipse using a LightSound box which converts data (light intensity) into sound. Guests are shown experiencing the October 2023 Annular Solar Eclipse at Space Center Houston using a sound machine box.  (Photo Courtesy, Aaron Rodriguez). Space Center Houston is a destination to explore the marvels of space and human spaceflight bringing people and space closer together, and this includes individuals with disabilities to fully immerse themselves in the wonders of space.   As a Certified Autism Center by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES), the science center is the first Autism-...

Saturn will have one of its best viewing opportunities of the year in the period surrounding Sunday, Aug. 14. Or it would, if the nearly Full Moon doesn’t spoil our fun. On that date, Saturn will reach opposition – the point where it lies directly opposite the Sun in our night sky – around midnight local time for most stargazers, with the constellation Capricornus behind it. Saturn will be visible for much of the night, rising above the southeastern horizon and lingering high in the southern sky. This will occur during Saturn’s perigee – its closest approach to Earth – making it even larger and brighter than usual. An illustration of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn, where it documented the ringed planet in 2017. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) But as previously noted the last blog, ...

In between the planets, stars and other bits of rock and dust, space seems pretty much empty. But the super-spread out matter that is there follows a different set of rules than what we know here on Earth. For the most part, what we think of as empty space is filled with plasma. Plasma is ionized gas, where electrons have split off from positive ions, creating a sea of charged particles. In most of space, this plasma is so thin and spread out that space is still about a thousand times emptier than the vacuums we can create on Earth. Even still, plasma is often the only thing out there in vast swaths of space — and its unique characteristics mean that it interacts with electric and magnetic fields in complicated ways that we are just beginning to understand. Five years ago, we launched a qu...

WASHINGTON — Astrobotic, a company that develops vehicles for space exploration missions, is making a strategic move into the defense sector with its Xogdor reusable rocket, designed to test payloads at the edge of space. Masten Space Systems, a company acquired by Astrobotic in 2022, started developing the suborbital Xogdor vehicle in 2021. The rocket, expected to debut in 2025, is funded by a NASA contract, “but we are also looking at applications to support the Department of Defense,” Sean Bedford, Astrobotic’s director of business development for propulsion systems, said in an interview last week at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Astrobotic’s existing Xodiac and Xombie suborbital rockets fly from Mojave, California, and the company is in discussions wit...

Space Center Houston’s Director of Collections and Curator, Paul Spana installs asteroid “Bennu” at the center’s OSIRIS-REx exhibition on Friday, March 1, 2024. NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft was a successful seven-year-long mission to the near-earth asteroid collecting particles of Bennu that will help tell scientists how the planets were formed and improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth. (Photo Courtesy, Aaron Rodriguez). HOUSTON, TX (March 1, 2024) – Space Center Houston, the official visitor center to NASA Johnson Space Center, is now home to an extraordinary piece of cosmic history – a pristine sample from asteroid Bennu brought back by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx missio...