Stories

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team led by researchers at Johns Hopkins APL confirmed the discovery of an exoplanet — a planet orbiting another star — orbiting a red dwarf star roughly 41 light-years away — and it’s almost exactly the size of Earth.

Scientists with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission think they have discovered the processes that give birth to streams of charged particles — called the solar wind — released from the Sun’s corona, or upper atmosphere.

Since NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft intentionally slammed into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Sept. 26 — altering its orbit by 33 minutes — the investigation team has been digging into the implications of how this planetary defense technique could be used in the future, if such a need should ever arise. DART team members provided a preliminary interpretation of their findings during the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting on Thursday, Dec. 15, in Chicago.

The eruption of the mostly submerged Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano on Jan. 15, 2022, was among the most powerful in the modern era, creating a massive planet-sized shockwave that reverberated around the globe for days. A new Johns Hopkins APL study shows for the first time that the explosion also blasted water vapor past the boundary of outer space.

Will Suero Amparo, an intern in APL’s Space Exploration Sector, aspires to become an astronaut. Now, working on the Dragonfly space exploration mission through the Dragonfly Student & Early Career Investigator Program, he is one step closer to that dream.

APL scientists and engineers will develop an infrared imaging instrument for Canada’s first lunar rover. Called LAFORGE, the instrument will be the first to fly to the lunar surface with the capability of measuring the low temperatures found in some shadowed regions.

The editors of Popular Science magazine have named NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) one of the top technology innovations of 2022. Designed, built and managed by Johns Hopkins APL, DART changed the orbit of a celestial body for the first time in human history, demonstrating the capability to defend the Earth from a potential future impact.

Johns Hopkins APL scientists are part of an international team that used NASA’s Webb Telescope to reveal the first comprehensive list of molecular ingredients in the atmosphere of a planet roughly 700 light-years away.

Analysis of data obtained over the past two weeks by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) investigation team shows the spacecraft’s kinetic impact with its target asteroid, Dimorphos, successfully altered the asteroid’s orbit. This marks humanity’s first time purposely changing the motion of a celestial object and the first full-scale demonstration of asteroid deflection technology.

After 10 months of flying in space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration – successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday, the agency’s first attempt to move an asteroid in space. Mission control at the Johns Hopkins APL announced the successful impact at 7:14 p.m. EDT.