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2008

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  • Saturn's Crazy Christmas Tilt

    Dec. 22, 2008

    The planet Saturn is doing something rare and beautiful this holiday season. Find out what in today's story from Science@NASA.

  • Living with a Star

    Aug. 19, 2008

    What if you woke up one morning and found your whole planet had been swallowed by the atmosphere of a star? Don't laugh, it could happen to you, and NASA has a special program to deal with it.

  • Spooky Hurricane Science

    Sept. 12, 2008

    To improve hurricane forecasting, NASA engineers are spending time in a spooky room where 'no one can hear you scream.'

  • A Brief History of Solar Sails

    July 31, 2008

    Have you ever stared up at the night sky, felt a gentle breeze, and wished you could set sail for the stars? Get in line. Many great thinkers from history have had the same idea. This long-held fancy could soon become reality with one solar sail mission on the drawing board and another already on the launching pad, slated to blast off this summer.

  • Mercury as Never Seen Before

    Oct. 7, 2008

    NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury on Oct. 6th capturing amazing new images of never-before-seen terrain.

  • Discovered: Cosmic Raysfrom a Mysterious, Nearby Object

    Nov. 19, 2008

    An international team of researchers has discovered a puzzling surplus of high-energy electrons bombarding Earth from space. The source of these Cosmic Raysis unknown, but it must be close to the solar system and it could be made of dark matter.

  • The Day the World Didn't End

    Oct. 10, 2008

    Last month when scientists switched on the Large Hadron Collider, the world did not come to an end. In today's story, a particle physicist explains why not--and why Earth is safe from Black Holeswhen the collider is reactivated in the months ahead.

  • Phoenix Lands on Mars

    May 25, 2008

    NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed in the northern polar region of Mars Sunday to begin three months of examining a site chosen for its likelihood of having frozen water within reach of the lander's robotic arm.

  • NASA to Attempt Historic Solar Sail Deployment

    June 26, 2008

    This summer, NASA engineers will try to realize a dream older than the Space Age itself: the deployment of a working solar sail in Earth orbit. The name of the device is NanoSail-D and it is scheduled for launch onboard a SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket as early as July 29, 2008.

  • Mercury Flyby Sets Stage for New Discoveries

    Jan. 21, 2008

    Last week's historic flyby of Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft gathered 500 megabytes of data and more than a thousand high-resolution photos covering nearly six million square miles of previously unseen terrain.