Stories

APL’s Ralph Lorenz is part of an international science team performing the first analysis of acoustics on Mars, releasing a new study that details how fast sound travels through the Red Planet’s extremely thin, mostly carbon-dioxide atmosphere and how Mars might sound to human ears.

As he ties up a decades-long career in the space domain, former APL Space Exploration Sector head Mike Ryschkewitsch has been recognized with the National Space Club and Foundation’s Norman J. Baker Astronautics Engineer Award.

Seven years ago, scientists made the surprising discovery of oxygen coming from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, throwing into question much of what they thought they knew about the early solar system. But a new study led by Johns Hopkins APL researchers reveals new details that suggest not everything about that discovery is as it seems.

Representatives from a host of federal, state and local agencies convened recently at APL for the fourth iteration of a Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise to assess our nation’s ability to respond effectively to a (simulated) asteroid impact threat to Earth.

APL has been named No. 3 on Fast Company’s 2022 World’s Most Innovative Space Companies list for building and managing NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has captured a series of visible light images of Venus, and this data from the Johns Hopkins APL-built spacecraft is adding to scientists’ understanding of the planet likened as Earth’s twin.

A new analysis examining elemental data from a NASA mission more than a decade ago pins down comets as the source of water ice and volatile elements near the Moon’s South Pole. The finding sheds light on another piece of the Earth-Moon system’s history and underscores the use of the Moon’s ices for revealing that story.

A new NASA mission led by Johns Hopkins APL researcher and engineer James Mason will use specially developed imaging technology to capture the first complete images and video of some of the Sun’s most powerful explosions and unveil the physical mechanisms that drive them.

Two planetary scientists from Johns Hopkins APL’s Space Exploration Sector were selected to join NASA’s VIPER mission, the agency’s first-ever lunar rover that will explore the Moon’s south pole and investigate the water ice there.

An analysis of large salt deposits on Mars, led by Johns Hopkins APL researcher Ellen Leask, indicates that ponds of liquid water existed on the red planet for about a billion years longer than previously believed.