First of NASA's GRAIL spacecraft enters Moon orbit

The first of two NASA spacecraft to study the moon in unprecedented detail has entered lunar orbit.NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)-A spacecraft successfully completed its planned main engine burn at 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST) today. As of 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST), GRAIL-A is in an orbit of 56 miles by 5,197 miles (90 kilometers by 8,363 kilometers) around the moon that takes approximately 11.5 hours to complete."My resolution for the new year is to unlock lunar mysteries...

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Voyager Instrument Cooling After Heater Turned off

It is now operating at a temperature below minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature that the instrument has ever endured. This heater shut-off is a step in the careful management of the diminishing electrical power so that the Voyager spacecraft can continue to collect and transmit data through 2025.At the moment, the spectrometer continues to collect and return data. It was originally designed to operate at temperatures as low as minus 35 degrees Celsius...

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2012 Lunar Extreme Program and Workshop for Bay Area High School Teachers and Students

Dynamic Response of the Environment At the Moon – is one of several teams comprising the NASA Lunar Science Institute. The purpose of DREAM is to investigate the response of the lunar environment to the harsh and ever-changing conditions in space, including extreme events such as solar storms and impacts. DREAM is looking for two teams of high school teachers and students (4-6 students per teacher) in the Bay Area of California who would like to participate in the Lunar Extreme Program for...

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Fastest Rotating Star Found in Neighboring Galaxy

The massive, bright young star, called VFTS 102, rotates at a million miles per hour, or 100 times faster than our sun does. Centrifugal forces from this dizzying spin rate have flattened the star into an oblate shape and spun off a disk of hot plasma, seen edge on in this view from a hypothetical planet. The star may have "spun up" by accreting material from a binary companion star. The rapidly evolving companion later exploded as a supernova. The whirling star lies 160,000 light-years away in...

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