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A giant-impacts phase in the evolution of planetary systems can explain the observations of close-in giant planets with eccentric orbits. As planetary systems evolve, gravitational interactions between planets can fling some of them into eccentric elliptical orbits around the host star, or even out of the system altogether. Smaller planets should be more susceptible to this gravitational scattering, yet many gas giant exoplanets have been observed with eccentric orbits very different from the roughly circular orbits of the planets in our own solar system....

Through the investigation of insect surfaces, Penn State researchers have detailed a previously unidentified nanostructure that can be used to engineer stronger, more resilient water repellent coatings. The results of this research were published today (July 17) in Science Advances. With an enhanced ability to repel droplets, this design could be applied to personal protective equipment (PPE) to better resist virus-laden particles, such as COVID-19, among other applications. “For the past few decades, conventionally designed water repellent surfaces have usually been based on plants, like lotus leaves,” said Lin Wang, a doctoral student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State and the lead author of the paper....

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s polar-orbiting satellite emerged from the chamber after completing its thermal vacuum testing. This test is meant to show that the spacecraft and all of its instruments will perform successfully when exposed to the harsh environments of space. “I can absolutely say with 100% certainty that the observatory is working great,” said JPSS Flight Project Manager Andre Dress at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland....

The Curiosity is the size of a car or small SUV and weighs approximately a ton, with a scientific payload that’s ten times more massive than the instruments carried by previous rovers. A few of the tools the mobile lab is equipped with include cameras, a robotic arm, a drill, and a laser that can vaporize tiny segments of rock that can then be studied by onboard instruments. “The MSL rover is essentially like a geologist in a self-contained laboratory,” says Wanda Harding, the MSL’s mission manager for the Launch Services Program, “and the capabilities that exist are probably the next best thing to sending a human to do the same job....

Under this letter contract, with a potential value of $49.5 million, NASA will provide initial funding and authorization to Northrop Grumman to order long-lead items to support building the twin boosters for the next six SLS flights. Northrop Grumman will be able to make purchases as the details of the full contract are finalized within the next year. The full Boosters Production and Operations Contract is expected to support booster production and operations for SLS flights 4-9....

In previous studies, eye movements and vision were only affected at blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) approaching the legal limit for driving (0.08% BAC), in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. New research published in The Journal of Physiology however found for the first time that hand-eye coordination is dramatically more sensitive to alcohol with some measures of coordination impaired by more than 20% at BAC levels as low as 0.015%. In particular, the ability to process visual motion, which is crucial for hand-eye coordination in driving and other activities, is compromised after consuming the equivalent of less than half a serving of beer, for a person around 75 kilograms (165 pounds) in weight....

Using the Pleiades supercomputer, NASA scientists are simulating asteroid impacts to help identify possible life-threatening events. When an asteroid struck the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013, the blast from the asteroid’s shock wave broke windows and damaged buildings as far away as 58 miles (93 kilometers), injuring more than 1,200 people. In support of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, researchers are creating 3D models and using one of NASA’s most powerful supercomputers to produce simulations of hypothetical asteroid impact scenarios....

After analyzing powdered rock samples collected from the surface of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover, scientists have announced that several of the samples are rich in a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes. While the finding is intriguing, it doesn’t necessarily point to ancient life on Mars, as scientists have not yet found conclusive supporting evidence of ancient or current biology there, such as sedimentary rock formations produced by ancient bacteria, or a diversity of complex organic molecules formed by life....

An analysis of a rock sample collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and carbon — some of the key chemical ingredients for life — in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month. “A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington....

NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission, set for launch in June 2022, aims to deepen researchers’ understanding of these fine particles of soil, silt, and clay from Earth’s deserts and, ultimately, how they affect our planet’s climate. Using image spectrometer technology developed at JPL, EMIT will map the surface composition of minerals in Earth’s dust-producing regions, helping climate scientists better understand the impact of airborne dust particles in heating and cooling Earth’s atmosphere....

The laboratory, having built and helped launch the first U.S. satellite into space, wanted to explore not only the moon, but nearby planets. But as this hour-long episode documents, JPL would be humbled by a string of failures that threatened the lab’s very future. “We didn’t know what we were doing,” one veteran JPL engineer confides in the program, “and there was no one around to tell us.” Ironically, a successful (although barely so) flyby of Venus by Mariner 2 would give the United States its first “First in Space....

Coming less than a year after the announcement of the first circumbinary planet, Kepler-16b, NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered multiple transiting planets orbiting two suns for the first time. This system, known as a circumbinary planetary system, is 4,900 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. This discovery proves that more than one planet can form and persist in the stressful realm of a binary star and demonstrates the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy....

NASA TV live launch coverage will start approximately 35 minutes before launch on December 7, at 3:30 a.m. EST: https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

As LRO crossed the lunar south pole heading north at 3,579 mph (1,600 meters per second), the shadow of the Moon was racing across the United States at 1,500 mph (670 meters per second). A few minutes later, LRO began a slow 180-degree turn to look back at Earth, capturing an image of the eclipse very near the location where totality lasted the longest. The spacecraft’s Narrow Angle Camera began scanning Earth at 2:25:30 p....

Although it’s understood that water ice exists below the lunar regolith (broken rock and dust), scientists don’t yet know whether surface ice frost covers the floors inside cold, dark craters. NASA is sending Lunar Flashlight, a small satellite (or SmallSat) no larger than a briefcase to find out. Swooping low over the lunar South Pole, it will use lasers to shed light on these dark craters – much like a prospector looking for hidden treasure by shining a flashlight into a cave....

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Late on August 16, 2020, the Sun released a burst of light and energy known as a solar flare. This B1-class solar flare – the second smallest class of flare – peaked at 1:26p.m. EDT. Solar flares, which are abrupt outbursts of energy and light on the solar surface, are often accompanied by CMEs. B-class flares – or “background” flares – were originally the lowest class of flare before lower level A-class flares were observed....

In fact, asteroseismologists – stellar astronomers who study seismic waves (or “starquakes”) in stars that appear as changes in brightness – often provide critical information for finding the properties of newly discovered planets. This teamwork enabled the discovery and characterization of the first planet identified by TESS for which the oscillations of its host star can be measured. The planet – TOI 197.01 (TOI is short for “TESS Object of Interest”) – is described as a “hot Saturn” in a recently accepted scientific paper....

Although there are telltale signs that a volcano is likely to erupt in the near future – an uptick in seismic activity, changes in gas emissions, and sudden ground deformation, for example – accurately predicting such eruptions is notoriously hard. This is, in part, because no two volcanoes behave in exactly the same way and because few of the world’s 1,500 or so active volcanoes have monitoring systems in place....

This remote KBO was one of two identified as potential destinations and the one recommended to NASA by the New Horizons team. Although NASA has selected 2014 MU69 as the target, as part of its normal review process the agency will conduct a detailed assessment before officially approving the mission extension to conduct additional science. “Even as the New Horizon’s spacecraft speeds away from Pluto out into the Kuiper Belt, and the data from the exciting encounter with this new world is being streamed back to Earth, we are looking outward to the next destination for this intrepid explorer,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and chief of the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency headquarters in Washington....