NASA: Solar System Exploration News

A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon.

NASA will host a Science Update at 1 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, to discuss new analysis from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft of material from outside our solar system and the interstellar boundary region that surrounds our home in space.

Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Montana. Their winning entry, "Ebb and Flow," was selected as part of a nation-wide school contest that began in October 2011.

NASA will host a news conference at 1 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Jan. 17, to announce the names selected from a nationwide student contest for twin spacecraft that will study the moon in unprecedented detail.

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have solved a longstanding mystery on the type of star, or so-called progenitor, which caused a supernova seen in a nearby galaxy.

The second of NASA’s two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit.

The first of two NASA spacecraft to study the moon in unprecedented detail has entered lunar orbit.

NASA's twin spacecraft to study the moon from crust to core are nearing their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit.

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST on Wednesday, Dec. 28, to preview twin spacecraft being placed in orbit around the moon on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

In 2011, NASA began developing a heavy-lift rocket for the human exploration of deep space, helped foster a new era of commercial spaceflight and technology breakthroughs, fully utilized a newly complete space station and made major discoveries about the universe we live in, many of which will benefit life on Earth.

NASA has named physicist and former astronaut John Grunsfeld as the new associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. Grunsfeld will take the reins of the office effective Jan. 4, 2012. He succeeds Ed Weiler, who retired from NASA on Sept. 30.

NASA's car-sized Curiosity rover has begun monitoring space radiation during its 8-month trip from Earth to Mars. The research will aid in planning for future human missions to the Red Planet.

For three days this week, a small part of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will simulate a human mission to an asteroid. Reporters are invited to observe what the mission might entail.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory.

NASA researchers will present new findings on a wide range of Earth and space science topics at the 2011 fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

NASA has elected to exercise the first of two available contract options for procurement of an additional Tracking Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) from Boeing Satellite Systems, Inc. of El Segundo, Calif.

NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory.

NASA has updated the news conferences, events and operating hours for the press site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., for the agency's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover launch.

News conferences, events and operating hours for the Press Site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., are set for the agency's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover launch.