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Sep 15, 2022
DART’s Small Satellite Companion Takes Flight Ahead of Impact
The small satellite companion aboard NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has successfully separated from the main spacecraft, popping out of its spring-loaded box to capture valuable information about DART’s impact into an asteroid that will inform future planetary defense efforts. -
Sep 7, 2022
DART Sets Sights on Asteroid Target
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft recently got its first look at Didymos, the double-asteroid system that includes its target, Dimorphos. -
Aug 26, 2022
DART Team Confirms Orbit of Target Asteroid
Using some of the world’s most powerful telescopes, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) investigation team confirmed the orbit of Dimorphos around its parent asteroid, Didymos, and its expected location when the DART spacecraft impacts the moonlet next month. -
Aug 25, 2022
Webb Telescope Spots Carbon Dioxide in Exoplanet Atmosphere for First Time
A new study using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and that involved researchers from Johns Hopkins APL reports the detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet from another planetary system. The discovery underscores Webb’s impressive capabilities and promises exciting results when researchers later peer at smaller rocky planets across the galaxy. -
Aug 12, 2022
Parker Solar Probe Thriving Four Years After Launch
Four years after launch, Parker Solar Probe is operating exceptionally well, despite flying through some of the most extreme environments in the solar system, and is sending back more than twice the planned amount of science data. -
Jul 28, 2022
Parker Solar Probe Mission Earns International Academy of Astronautics Laurels Team Award
The International Academy of Astronautics presented its 2021 Laurels for Team Achievement Award to leaders of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission, recognizing the team’s efforts to create and operate humanity’s first mission to “touch the Sun.” -
Jul 18, 2022
Johns Hopkins APL Europa Clipper Team Marks a Month of Major Milestones
In June, the APL Europa Clipper team delivered two science instruments and a radiation sensor to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, marking the Lab’s latest significant contributions to NASA’s historic mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. -
Jul 12, 2022
EZIE Mission Jets into Next Development Stage
NASA has given Johns Hopkins APL the green light to begin detailed designs on the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) — a SmallSat mission to characterize the electric currents that link Earth’s aurora to the planet’s magnetosphere. -
Jun 22, 2022
Deep-Space Landslide Yields an Avalanche of Insight on Asteroid Structure
By studying a landslide on the asteroid Bennu, a team of scientists led by Johns Hopkins APL’s Mark Perry has gained new insight into the surface strength — or weakness — of so-called rubble-pile asteroids, the loose collections of smaller rocks and dust held together by their own gravity. -
Jun 21, 2022
CRISM Team Closing Operations with New Global Map of Mars
In a last hurrah for an imager entering its final months of operation, the CRISM team at Johns Hopkins APL is releasing a new near-global map of Mars produced by the instrument. The first of what will be thousands of pieces colored to convey the mineral composition of the Martian surface were released on Wednesday.