NASA Hurricane Watch: Sandy
NASA's TRMM satellite revealed Hurricane Sandy's heavy rainfall and the storm is expected to couple with a powerful cold front and Arctic air to bring that heavy rainfall to the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. Some forecasters are calling this combination of weather factors "Frankenstorm" because of the close proximity to Halloween.
Dragon to Release From International Space Station
Dragon, the world’s first commercial cargo craft to visit the International Space Station, will be unberthed and released from the Harmony node Sunday morning. Williams and Hoshide will monitor the Dragon as ground controllers use the station’s robotic arm Canadarm2 to grapple the cargo craft. After its release, Dragon will return to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean for recovery off the coast of southern California. NASA TV coverage begins Sunday at 7 a.m. EDT.
Assessing Drop-Off to Curiosity's Observation Tray
Mars rover Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the mission's 78th sol (Oct. 24, 2012) to view soil material on the rover's observation tray. The observations will help assess movement of the sample on the tray in response to vibrations from sample-delivery and sample-processing activities of mechanisms on the rover's arm.
› Video: 'Working with Curiosity's ChemCam Laser'
Exoplanet 'Back From the Dead'
A second look at data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reanimating the claim that the nearby star Fomalhaut hosts a massive exoplanet. The study suggests that the planet, named Fomalhaut b, is a rare and possibly unique object that is completely shrouded by dust.
Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus and lies 25 light-years away.
IceBridge Mission: Antarctic 2012
After two no-fly days for aircraft maintenance and weather, IceBridge surveyed the Ronne Ice Shelf grounding line and took high-altitude measurements of four glaciers in West Antarctica.
These missions gathered critical ice elevation and thickness data.