Extrasolar Planets
ALMA Sheds Light on Planet-Forming Gas Streams 
© ESO
HD 142527
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have seen a key stage in the birth of giant planets for the first time.
Continue reading ALMA Sheds Light on Planet-Forming Gas Streams.
Radiation Health
Study Shows that Space Travel is Harmful to the Brain
As if space travel was not already filled with enough dangers, a new study out today in the journal PLOS ONE shows that cosmic radiation - which would bombard astronauts on deep space missions to places like Mars - could accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Galaxies
A Wanderer Dances the Dance of Stars and Space
The Hubble Space Telescope captured a spectacular image of the bright star-forming ring that surrounds the heart of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097. In this image, the larger-scale structure of the galaxy is barely visible: its comparatively dim spiral arms, which surround its heart in a loose embrace, reach out beyond the edges of this frame.
Mars
Mars Curiosity Rover Self-Portrait, Wide View
On the 84th and 85th Martian days of the NASA Mars rover Curiosity's mission on Mars (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture dozens of high-resolution images to be combined into self-portrait images of the rover.
International Space Station
International Space Station Crew Celebrates Christmas 
Aboard the orbiting International Space Station, Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford, Russian Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy, Evgeny Tarelkin and Roman Romanenko, NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn and Canadian Space Agency Chris Hadfield celebrated Christmas on the orbital laboratory Dec. 25, 2012 through song and downlink messages of cheer for flight controllers on the ground.
Mars
Curiosity Rover Report: Curiosity's Martian Holiday
Curiosity will spend the holidays at a location on Mars dubbed "Grandma's House."
International Space Station
A Message from the International Space Station to All Humankind
NASA Television shares this inspiring production by Italian videomaker, Giacomo Sardelli, about the International Space Station, its inhabitants, and its role in space exploration. Sardelli writes of the video, "I'm not the first one to use NASA's pictures taken from the International Space Station to craft a Timelapse video. You can find many of them on the Internet, that's where my inspiration came from. What I wanted to do, though, was to look beyond the intrinsic beauty of those pictures, and use them to tell a story and share the messages sent by the astronauts who worked on the station in the last 11 years."
Science
ScienceCasts: Christmas Sky Show
The Moon and Jupiter are converging for a heavenly sky show on Christmas 2012. Got a telescope? Something extra-special is happening on Jupiter that makes it an appealing target for backyard optics.
Asteroids
All Clear Given on Potential Impact of Asteroid 2011 AG5
NASA scientists have announced that new observations of 2011 AG5 show that this asteroid, once thought to have a worrisome potential to threaten Earth, no longer poses a significant risk of impact.
Saturn
A Backlit View Of Saturn
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has delivered a glorious view of Saturn, taken while the spacecraft was in Saturn's shadow. The cameras were turned toward Saturn and the sun so that the planet and rings are backlit.
Landsat
Mission Accomplished for Landsat 5
Today the U.S. Geological Survey announced that Landsat 5 will be decommissioned over the coming months, bringing to a close the longest-operating Earth observing satellite mission in history.
More top stories from December.
Recent Press Releases
Recent Status Reports
Featured Stories
Mars
Mars Curiosity Rover Self-Portrait, Wide View
On the 84th and 85th Martian days of the NASA Mars rover Curiosity's mission on Mars (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture dozens of high-resolution images to be combined into self-portrait images of the rover.
Hubble Space Telescope
NASA's Hubble Views a Cosmic Skyrocket
Resembling a Fourth of July skyrocket, Herbig-Haro 110 is a geyser of hot gas from a newborn star that splashes up against and ricochets off the dense core of a cloud of molecular hydrogen.
28th National Space Symposium
BRPH: The Old and the New in Spacecraft Facilities
Switching out a spacecraft maintenance facility is definitely not an easy task. Besides the obvious requirements to contain toxic fuels and provide enough power, there is also the work of deciding what previous structures will be useful to new contractors.
SpaceX
Dragon Cargo Resupply Mission Heads to Space Station
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) today successfully launched its Dragon spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on the first official cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The launch went off on schedule at 8:35 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Earth
New Views of Earth at Night
Scientists unveiled today an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than ever before.
NASA
This Week at NASA Recap: A New NASA Mars Rover and More
NASA will launch a new rover to Mars in 2020. That plan was among the science news NASA made at the 2012 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Science
ScienceCasts: Christmas Sky Show
The Moon and Jupiter are converging for a heavenly sky show on Christmas 2012. Got a telescope? Something extra-special is happening on Jupiter that makes it an appealing target for backyard optics.
NASA
This Year at NASA 2012
A look back at the year that was at NASA in 2012. Highlights include the successful landing of the Mars Curiosity rover, the flight of the SpaceX Dragon to the International Space Station and much more.
Space Launch System
NASA Solicitation: Space Launch System Advanced Development
NASA MSFC intends to issue a Draft NASA Research Announcement (NRA) on or about February 1, 2012, entitled "Space Launch System (SLS) Advanced Development" for comment by industry and academia.
European Space Agency
Mission accomplished for ATV Edoardo Amaldi
ESA's third Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo ferry, Edoardo Amaldi, completed the final part of its highly successful six-month servicing mission to the International Space Station by reentering the atmosphere today and burning up as planned over an uninhabited area of the southern Pacific ocean.
Education
SpaceX Dragon to Carry Student Experiments to ISS
Twenty-three microgravity experiments designed by participants of the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP) will become part of space history Oct. 7.
International Space Station
International Space Station Crew Celebrates Christmas
Aboard the orbiting International Space Station, Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford, Russian Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy, Evgeny Tarelkin and Roman Romanenko, NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn and Canadian Space Agency Chris Hadfield celebrated Christmas on the orbital laboratory Dec. 25, 2012 through song and downlink messages of cheer for flight controllers on the ground.
European Southern Observatory
A Pocket of Star Formation Within NGC 3324
NGC 3324 is located in the southern constellation of Carina (The Keel, part of Jason's ship the Argo) roughly 7500 light-years from Earth. It is on the northern outskirts of the chaotic environment of the Carina Nebula, which has been sculpted by many other pockets of star formation. A rich deposit of gas and dust in the NGC 3324 region fuelled a burst of starbirth there several millions of years ago and led to the creation of several hefty and very hot stars that are prominent in the new picture.
Space Medicine
Low blood pressure after returning from space
New research in the FASEB Journal suggests that a major cause of low blood pressure during standing is the compromised ability of arteries and veins to constrict normally and return blood back to the heart.
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