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Aug 25, 2022
Webb Telescope Spots Carbon Dioxide in Exoplanet Atmosphere for First Time
A new study using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and that involved researchers from Johns Hopkins APL reports the detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet from another planetary system. The discovery underscores Webb’s impressive capabilities and promises exciting results when researchers later peer at smaller rocky planets across the galaxy. -
Aug 12, 2022
Parker Solar Probe Thriving Four Years After Launch
Four years after launch, Parker Solar Probe is operating exceptionally well, despite flying through some of the most extreme environments in the solar system, and is sending back more than twice the planned amount of science data. -
Jul 28, 2022
Parker Solar Probe Mission Earns International Academy of Astronautics Laurels Team Award
The International Academy of Astronautics presented its 2021 Laurels for Team Achievement Award to leaders of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission, recognizing the team’s efforts to create and operate humanity’s first mission to “touch the Sun.” -
Jul 18, 2022
Johns Hopkins APL Europa Clipper Team Marks a Month of Major Milestones
In June, the APL Europa Clipper team delivered two science instruments and a radiation sensor to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, marking the Lab’s latest significant contributions to NASA’s historic mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. -
Jul 12, 2022
EZIE Mission Jets into Next Development Stage
NASA has given Johns Hopkins APL the green light to begin detailed designs on the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) — a SmallSat mission to characterize the electric currents that link Earth’s aurora to the planet’s magnetosphere. -
Jun 22, 2022
Deep-Space Landslide Yields an Avalanche of Insight on Asteroid Structure
By studying a landslide on the asteroid Bennu, a team of scientists led by Johns Hopkins APL’s Mark Perry has gained new insight into the surface strength — or weakness — of so-called rubble-pile asteroids, the loose collections of smaller rocks and dust held together by their own gravity. -
Jun 21, 2022
CRISM Team Closing Operations with New Global Map of Mars
In a last hurrah for an imager entering its final months of operation, the CRISM team at Johns Hopkins APL is releasing a new near-global map of Mars produced by the instrument. The first of what will be thousands of pieces colored to convey the mineral composition of the Martian surface were released on Wednesday. -
Jun 17, 2022
NASA’s DART Captures One of Night Sky’s Brightest Stars
On its journey to collide with an asteroid in the world’s first planetary defense test mission, NASA’s DART captured images of the nearby and very bright star Vega in a test of how light scatters off of the spacecraft’s camera DRACO and other internal parts. -
Jun 17, 2022
NASA’s DART Snaps Vega While Journeying to Didymos
On its journey to collide with an asteroid in the world’s first planetary defense test mission, NASA’s DART captured images of the nearby and very bright star Vega in a test of how light scatters off of the spacecraft’s camera DRACO and other internal parts. -
Jun 13, 2022
Why Phaethon Turned Blue — and How Other Small Sun-Diving Bodies Might, Too
Asteroid Phaethon’s bizarrely blue color has long been a planetary science puzzle, but a study co-authored by Johns Hopkins APL’s Carey Lisse may have finally untangled the chemical process that gave the asteroid its azure hue.