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Hubble monitors changing weather and seasons on Jupiter and Uranus
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA, on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has awarded a delivery order to BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems Inc. of Boulder, Colorado, to build spacecraft for the Lagrange 1 Series project as a part of NOAA’s Space Weather Next program.
The award made under the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition IV contract, has a total value of approximately $230.6 million with the period of performance running from February 2025 to February 2035. The work will take place at the awardee’s facility in Boulder.
The firm-fixed-price delivery order covers all phases of the Lagrange 1 Series project operations including developing up to two spacecraft, instrument integration, satellite-level testing, training and support for the spacecraft flight operations team, and mission operations support. Rapid IV contracts serve as a fast and flexible means for the government to acquire spacecraft and related components, equipment, and services in support of NASA missions and other federal government agencies.
The Space Weather Next program will maintain and extend space weather observations from various orbitally stable points such as Lagrange 1, which is about a million miles from Earth. The first Space Weather Next Lagrange 1 Series launch, planned in 2029, will be the first observatory under the program and will provide continuity of real-time coronal imagery and upstream solar wind measurements. Space Weather Next will provide uninterrupted data continuity when NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 mission comes to its end of operations.
Observations of the Sun and the near-Earth space environment are important to protecting our technological infrastructure both on the ground and in space. The spacecraft will provide critical data to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center which issues forecasts, warnings and alerts that help mitigate space weather impacts, including electric power outages and interruption to communications and navigation systems.
NASA and NOAA oversee the development, launch, testing, and operation of all the satellites in the Lagrange 1 Series project. NOAA is the program owner providing the requirements and funding along with managing the program, operations, data products, and dissemination to users. NASA and its commercial partners develop and build the instruments, spacecraft, and provide launch services on behalf of NOAA.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
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Karen Fox/Liz Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Jeremy Eggers
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
757-824-2958
jeremy.l.eggers@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 21, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Space Weather Heliophysics Joint Agency Satellite Division NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Science & Research Science Mission Directorate View the full article
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By NASA
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals clouds of gas and dust near the Tarantula Nebula, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light-years away.ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray The universe is a dusty place, as this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image featuring swirling clouds of gas and dust near the Tarantula Nebula reveals. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa, the Tarantula Nebula is the most productive star-forming region in the nearby universe, home to the most massive stars known.
The nebula’s colorful gas clouds hold wispy tendrils and dark clumps of dust. This dust is different from ordinary household dust, which may include bits of soil, skin cells, hair, and even plastic. Cosmic dust is often comprised of carbon or of molecules called silicates, which contain silicon and oxygen. The data in this image was part of an observing program that aims to characterize the properties of cosmic dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud and other nearby galaxies.
Dust plays several important roles in the universe. Even though individual dust grains are incredibly tiny, far smaller than the width of a single human hair, dust grains in disks around young stars clump together to form larger grains and eventually planets. Dust also helps cool clouds of gas so that they can condense into new stars. Dust even plays a role in making new molecules in interstellar space, providing a venue for individual atoms to find each other and bond together in the vastness of space.
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spies a Spiral That May Be Hiding an Imposter
The spiral galaxy UGC 5460 shines in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. UGC 5460 sits about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Jacobson-Galán, A. Filippenko, J. Mauerhan
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The sparkling spiral galaxy gracing this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is UGC 5460, which sits about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. This image combines four different wavelengths of light to reveal UGC 5460’s central bar of stars, winding spiral arms, and bright blue star clusters. Also captured in the upper left-hand corner is a far closer object: a star just 577 light-years away in our own galaxy.
UGC 5460 has hosted two recent supernovae: SN 2011ht and SN 2015as. It’s because of these two stellar explosions that Hubble targeted this galaxy, collecting data for three observing programs that aim to study various kinds of supernovae.
SN 2015as was as a core-collapse supernova: a cataclysmic explosion that happens when the core of a star far more massive than the Sun runs out of fuel and collapses under its own gravity, initiating a rebound of material outside the core. Hubble observations of SN 2015as will help researchers understand what happens when the expanding shockwave of a supernova collides with the gas that surrounds the exploded star.
SN 2011ht might have been a core-collapse supernova as well, but it could also be an impostor called a luminous blue variable. Luminous blue variables are rare stars that experience eruptions so large that they can mimic supernovae. Crucially, luminous blue variables emerge from these eruptions unscathed, while stars that go supernova do not. Hubble will search for a stellar survivor at SN 2011ht’s location with the goal of revealing the explosion’s origin.
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The Death Throes of Stars
Homing in on Cosmic Explosions
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Feb 21, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Spiral Galaxies Stars Supernovae Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hubble’s Galaxies
Reshaping Our Cosmic View: Hubble Science Highlights
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
During the Apollo program, when NASA sent humans to the Moon, those missions took several days to reach the Moon. The fastest of these was Apollo 8, which took just under three days to go from Earth orbit to orbit around the Moon.
Now it’s possible to save some fuel by flying different kinds of trajectories to the Moon that are shaped in such a way to save fuel. And those trajectories can take more time, potentially weeks or months, to reach the Moon, depending on how you do it.
Mars is further away, about 50 percent further away from the Sun than Earth is. And reaching Mars generally takes somewhere between seven to ten months, flying a relatively direct route.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission took about seven and a half months to reach Mars. And NASA’s MAVEN mission took about ten months to reach Mars.
Jupiter is about five times further away from the Sun than the Earth is. And so in order to make those missions practical, we have to find ways to reduce the fuel requirements. And the way we do that is by having the spacecraft do some flybys of Earth and or Venus to help shape the spacecraft’s trajectory and change the spacecraft’s speed without using fuel. And using that sort of approach, it takes between about five to six years to reach Jupiter.
So NASA’s Galileo mission, the first mission to Jupiter, took just a little over six years. And then NASA’s second mission to Jupiter, which was called Juno, took just under five years.
So to get to the Moon takes several days. To get to Mars takes seven to ten months. And getting to Jupiter takes between five and six years.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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