May 6 – May 12, 2019 | Colorado Space News

Why This Martian Full Moon Looks Like Candy

These three views of the Martian moon Phobos were taken by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter using its infrared camera, THEMIS. Each color represents a different temperature range. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/SSI

May 12, 2019 – For the first time, NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter has caught the Martian moon Phobos during a full moon phase. Each color in this new image represents a temperature range detected by Odyssey’s infrared camera, which has been studying the Martian moon since September of 2017. Looking like a rainbow-colored jawbreaker, these latest observations could help scientists understand what materials make up Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. Read More

U.S. Air Force Welcomes Fifth Lockheed Martin-Built AEHF Satellite To Cape Canaveral For June Launch

AEHF-5 is hoisted by crane into its satellite ship container at Lockheed Martin’s satellite manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, California. After the satellite is securely packed into the container, it boards a US Air Force cargo plane where it will travel from California to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

May 12, 2019 – The U.S. Air Force is gearing up to launch the fifth global, anti-jam, protected communications satellite after its arrival in Florida. Lockheed Martin shipped the Air Force’s fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-5) satellite to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station ahead of its expected June launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. AEHF-5’s launch comes just eight months after AEHF-4 blasted off from the Cape on October 17, 2018. Read More

4th Space Operations Squadron Takes Control Of AEHF-4

Lt. Col. Armon Lansing (right), 4th Space Operations Squadron commander, accepts the key from Col. David Ashley, Space and Missile Center AEHF program manager, signifying the handoff of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency-4 satellite to the 4th SOPS at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, May 3, 2019. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force/Kathryn Calvert

May 12, 2019 – The 4th Space Operations Squadron accepted control of a new satellite in their constellation, Advanced Extremely High Frequency-4 from the Space and Missile Center and 14th Air Force in a satellite control authority ceremony at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, May 3. Read More

For InSight, Dust Cleanings Will Yield New Science

This is NASA InSight’s second full selfie on Mars. Since taking its first selfie, the lander has removed its heat probe and seismometer from its deck, placing them on the Martian surface; a thin coating of dust now covers the spacecraft as well. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

May 10, 2019 – The same winds that blanket Mars with dust can also blow that dust away. Catastrophic dust storms have the potential to end a mission, as with NASA’s Opportunity rover. But far more often, passing winds cleared off the rover’s solar panels and gave it an energy boost. Those dust clearings allowed Opportunity and its sister rover, Spirit, to survive for years beyond their 90-day expiration dates. Read More

Air Force Successfully Launches Satellites From New Zealand On Electron Rocket

May 10, 2019 – The U.S. Air Force and its mission partners successfully launched three Department of Defense research and development satellites on Huntington Beach-based Rocket Lab USA’s Electron rocket from Mahia, New Zealand at 11:00 p.m. PST, May 4, 2019 and 6:00 p.m. NZST May 5, 2019. Read More

New Clues About How Ancient Galaxies Lit Up The Universe

This deep-field view of the sky, taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, is dominated by galaxies – including some very faint, very distant ones – circled in red. The bottom right inset shows one of those distant galaxies, made visible thanks to a long-duration observation by Spitzer. The wide-field view also includes data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The Spitzer observations came from the GREATS survey, short for GOODS Re-ionization Era wide-Area Treasury from Spitzer. GOODS is itself an acronym: Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Spitzer/P. Oesch/S. De Barros/ I.Labbe

May 10, 2019 – NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed that some of the universe’s earliest galaxies were brighter than expected. The excess light is a byproduct of the galaxies releasing incredibly high amounts of ionizing radiation. The finding offers clues to the cause of the Epoch of Reionization, a major cosmic event that transformed the universe from being mostly opaque to the brilliant starscape seen today. Read More