More than One Way to Make Amino Acids

 

Scientists have discovered amino acids, fundamental building blocks for life as we know it, in a meteorite where none were expected. The NASA-funded study could help astrobiologists understand the potential role of meteorites in the origin of life on the early Earth...

Mexico Quake Studies Uncover Surprises for California

New technologies developed by NASA and other agencies are revealing surprising insights into a major earthquake that rocked parts of the American Southwest and Mexico in April, including increased potential for more large earthquakes in Southern California...

Solstice Lunar Eclipse

 

Northern winter is beginning in a special way. On Dec. 21st, the winter solstice, a lunar eclipse will be visible across all of North America...

Building Blocks of Life Created in "Impossible" Place

 

Finding amino acids, a fundamental building block of life, in a meteorite where none were expected suggests that there is more than one way to make amino acids in space, which increases the chance for finding life elsewhere in the Universe...

NASA's Odyssey Spacecraft Sets Exploration Record on Mars

NASA's Mars Odyssey, which launched in 2001, begins its 3,340th day in Martian orbit at 8:55 p.m. EST Wednesday, becoming the longest-serving spacecraft at the Red Planet...

How Hard Are We Pushing The Land?

We may be becoming an ever more technologically advanced society, but we remain as dependent as ever on the natural world that surrounds us...

Hot Plasma Explosions Inflate Saturn's Magnetic Field

New Cassini findings show enormous clouds of hot plasma periodically bloom around Saturn and move like an unbalanced load of laundry on spin cycle...

Cassini Spots Potential Ice Volcano on Saturn Moon

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found possible ice volcanoes on Saturn's moon Titan that are similar in shape to those on Earth that spew molten rock...

Satellites Pinpoint Drivers of Urban Heat Islands in the Northea

Summer land surface temperature of cities in the Northeast were warmer than surrounding rural areas due to the urban heat island effect...

NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline

 

Hurtling toward interstellar space some 10.8 billion miles from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero...

NASA Names Waleed Abdalati As Agency's New Chief Scientist

Waleed Abdalati becomes the agency's chief scientist, effective Jan. 3. He'll serve as the principal adviser to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on agency science programs, strategic planning and the evaluation of related investments...

Global Eruption Rocks the Sun

 

A global eruption on the sun has shattered old ideas about solar activity. Researchers presented their surprising findings at a press conference today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco...

The Day the Algae Died

 

The P-T mass extinction may have been instigated by populations of algae dying. According to one group of scientists, this die-off of large numbers of relatively simple life forms caused a crash in the ocean's entire food web...

An Answer to Green Energy Could Be in the Air

 

NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore is part of the first federally-funded research effort to evaluate airborne wind capturing platforms...

NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

Researchers working in the harsh environment of Mono Lake, Calif. have discovered microorganisms able to thrive and reproduce using arsenic, changing the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth...