var w = window.innerWidth APOD: 2022 January 1 - The Full Moon of 2021 Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Current Moon Phase GSFC Is it possible to observe this comets motion. This year the peak coincides with the new moon, making for great viewing conditions, provided the skies are clear. Generally speaking, getting a spacecraft to Sun-Earth L2 is fairly straightforward, but Webbs architecture added a wrinkle. Big water news from Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus. Watch a special episode of NASA Science Live at 3 p.m. EST today to learn more about whats next for the James Webb Space Telescope. New reports on December 20 also indicate its tail is slightly bigger. With Artemis, we will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon and establish long-term lunar exploration in preparation for human missions to Mars. Older people walking less than 2,000 steps a day at higher risk of heart attack, Hubble Space Telescope took on your birthday. Searching for January 4 on the NASA Hubble birthday site reveals an incredible image of Saturn taken in infrared by Hubble in 1998, which would have been Newton's 355th birthday. That is the first star Webb will point at to gather engineering data to start the mirror alignment process. On Sept.25, 2135, an asteroid called Bennu will make a close flyby of Earth. BREVARD, Fla. An international crew of three astronauts and a cosmonaut launched from Kennedy Space Center early Thursday, kicking off a roughly six-month science mission to the International Space Station. They will spend six months on the International Space Station. Privacy Policy and Important Notices. } In this starry panorama At Sun-Earth L2, the Sun and Earth (and Moon, too) are always on one side of space, allowing Webb to keep its telescope optics and instruments perpetually shaded. external galaxies Our planets gravity will tweak Bennus path, making it a challenge to calculate its future trajectory. Privacy Policy and Important Notices This animation, from Cassini's navigation team, shows the spacecraft's final orbits in 2016 and 2017. Cooling of the telescope and instruments will also continue over the next month, with the near-infrared instruments ultimately reaching 37-39 kelvins. $('body').css('overflow','') Authors & editors: Comet leonard is brightening more than expected! The giant planet stands alone, low in the western sky after sunset in February. the most distant Full Moon in December. Discover the cosmos! Nr du bruger vores websites og apps, bruger vi, at godkende brugere, trffe sikkerhedsforanstaltninger og forebygge spam og misbrug samt til, at mle din brug af vores websites og apps, at vise personligt tilpassede annoncer og personligt tilpasset indhold baseret p interesseprofiler, at mle effektiviteten af personligt tilpassede annoncer og personligt tilpasset indhold samt til, at udvikle og forbedre vores produkter og tjenester. Other space-based observatories including WMAP, Herschel, and Planck orbit Sun-Earth L2 for the same reasons. $('.webgl_module_container iframe').css({'height': "", 'width': '1px', 'max-width': '100%', 'min-width': '100%'}) Enter the month and date below to find out! This may not be the most exciting period of Webbs commissioning, but thats OK. We can take the time. This video details the spacecraft's approach and orbit insertion. Utilizing thrust every three weeks or so from small rocket engines aboard Webb will keep it orbiting L2, looping around it in a halo orbit once every six months. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. The James Webb Space Telescope is the worlds largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. Last Updated: Jan 14, 2022. near a perigee or closest approach Arranged by moonth, Please check back to hear more status updates, in-depth explanations of Webbs science and technology, and even some fun team anecdotes! Eta Carinae and the reddish glow of the Great Carina Nebula shine along January begins with a new moon on the 2nd. NASA and SpaceX previously tried to launch Crew-6 on Monday, Feb. 27, but an issue with the system that ignites the Falcon 9 rocket's Merlin main engines forced teams to stand down and troubleshoot. cross arm on the left. The team also commanded actuators that guide Webbs fine steering mirror to make minor movements, confirming they are working as expected. The best way would be with a small telescope. Now, Mars is slowly returning to view after passing behind the Sun over the past few months. And although were not hearing reports of people viewing the comet with the unaided eye Comet Leonard is still a good binocular comet. Bottom line: Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) discovered on January 3, 2021 is heading inward toward its January 3, 2022, perihelion. Jupiter makes its exit, Venus at peak brightness, and the star-forming cloud next door. Poet Laureate Ada Limn is crafting a new poem dedicated to NASAs Europa Clipper mission. The deployments could not have gone more perfectly. This artist's concept shows "tides" on Titan raised by Saturn's gravity, as detected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The team is committed to keeping you informed even through the often slow and meticulous parts of this commissioning process. Impressive solar filament eruption - January 20, 2023. Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, the United Arab Emirates' Sultan Alneyadi, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will launch in a . The Seven Sisters meet the evening star, Mars continues its getaway, and unpacking the Moon illusion. L4 and L5 are stable in that each location is like a shallow depression or bowl atop the middle of a long, tall ridge or hill. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Design & Development: 3 - Charon, Through the Eyes of Scientists - Meet Thomas Valdez, Venus' Squishy' Outer Shell May Be Resurfacing the Planet, NASA Administrator Selects New Head of Science, Poem by U.S. This image taken by the Mastcam-Z camera aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover on Jan. 20, 2022, shows that the rover successfully expelled the remaining large fragments of cored rock from a sample tube held in the drill at the end of its robotic arm. function toggleFullscreenMessage(){ Having left the evening skies last month, Venus is now rising before the Sun as the "Morning Star." The South Celestial Pole Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Next up: HD 84406! Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says. This will likely affect the full timeline for Webb's deployment. Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Editors Note: This post was updated to clarify the strength vs. stiffness of beryllium. We heard on December 15, and again around December 19-20, that the comet had brightened more than expected. Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) 2021s best and brightest comet is now in the evening sky for Northern Hemisphere observers. They make great gifts. Asteroid 33012EddieIrizarry, a 7.8 km space rock, has been named in his honor. Each mirror now needs to be deployed out by 12.5 millimeters (about half an inch) to get the pegs clear from the sockets. This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on Jan. 6, 2019, was created by combining two images taken by the NavCam 1 imager aboard NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. U.S. Now that the telescope is structurally fully deployed with the secondary mirror tripod and both primary mirror wings in place the three-month process of aligning all of Webbs telescope optics into a precise system can now commence. (MTU) & Historical Date: February 1, 2022. Jupiter makes its exit, Venus at peak brightness, and the star-forming cloud next door. }, 300) Have you ever seen a meteorite streaking across the sky? This enables them to get cold for infrared sensitivity, yet still access nearly half the sky at any given moment for observations. The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on the night of January 2nd and the morning of the 3rd. At the bottom are the Large and Small Magellanic clouds, During the days that were slowly deploying the mirrors, those mirrors are also continuing to slowly cool off as they radiate heat away into the cold of space. Comet Leonard will round the sun at perihelion on January 3, 2022, at a distance of about 56 million miles (0.6 AU, or 90 million km). The novelty and variety of science that this observatory can produce requires thousands of things to be checked ahead of time. This video shows the intriguing Occator Crater on Ceres, home to the dwarf planet's brightest area. May and November So pour me another, its good for my health Yes, if youre a careful observer and willing to spend some time. Im not ready to put the book on the shelf, Thanks to the Webb team for everything you have done and continue to do., Bill Ochs, Webb project manager, NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. Analog to Polaris the north pole star, but where exactly is it? I'm Preston Dyches from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that's What's Up for this month. Onboard were NASA's Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, the United Arab Emirates' Sultan Alneyadi, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. 3 - Charon, NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Flight Over Occator Crater, Venus' Squishy' Outer Shell May Be Resurfacing the Planet, NASA Administrator Selects New Head of Science, Poem by U.S. $('body').css('overflow','') Then compare the telescopic view five or 10 minutes later to detect the comets motion. Thus, those big 12.5-millimeter moves for each segment are split up into many, many short moves that happen one actuator at a time. This is the last of the major deployments on the observatory, and its completion will set the stage for the remaining five and a half months of commissioning, which consist of settling into stable operating temperature, aligning the mirrors, and calibrating the science instruments. That's the nebula. A service of: Using six motors that deploy each segment approximately half the length of a paper clip, these actuators clear the mirrors from their launch restraints and give each segment enough space to later be adjusted in other directions to the optical starting position for the upcoming wavefront alignment process. at the center of all the southern star trail arcs. (Imagine Webb holding its mirrors tucked up close to its telescope structure, keeping them extra safe during the vibrations and accelerations of launch.) You should be able to see a few meteors on the couple of nights before and after as well. By the way, astronomer Greg Leonard discovered this comet as 2021 began, giving it its name. L1, L2, and L3 are meta-stable locations with saddle-shaped gravity gradients, like a point on the middle of a ridgeline between two slightly higher peaks wherein it is the low, stable point between the two peaks, but it is still a high, unstable point relative to the valleys on either side of the ridge. The solar-powered lander has run out of energy after more than four years of science on the Red Planet. Today, at 1:17 p.m. EST, NASAs James Webb Space Telescope completed all of its large-scale deployments with the extension and latching of its starboard primary mirror wing. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. & Michigan Tech. } At 110 feet in height, Terran 1 is about half the height of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance's Atlas V. But Relativity says the rocket is mostly 3D printed 85% by mass. }) With the departure of Saturn and Venus over the past two months, Jupiter is the only bright planet left in our twilight skies in February, and it's on its way out! Across the top of the frame are the stars and nebulae along the plane NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 mission launches from Kennedy Space Center in Florida with three astronauts and a cosmonaut on Thursday, March 2, 2023. The Webb mission operations team has given the go-ahead to move forward with the extension of its starboard primary mirror panel. January begins with a new moon on the 2nd. // console.log("received message", event) NASA by Caltech. Scientists have completed the longest-ever study tracking temperatures in Jupiters upper atmosphere where its signature colorful striped clouds form. The smallest is You can find out what image of space Nasa took on your birthday at the Nasa website, with a section dedicated to the Hubbles photos. Use this tool to see the current Moon phase and to plan ahead for other Moon views. Venus may be losing heat from geologic activity in regions called coronae, possibly like early tectonic activity on Earth. ET on December 17 (02:08 UTC on December 18). So, why did the Ariane not give Webb more energy and why did Webb need course correction? The big news for Webb this week was the final insertion into orbit around the second Lagrange point. observations we will soon be sharing! And through a telescope, it's a sight you'll never forget. This blog will be updated weekly, and sometimes more often. if($full.length > 0){ Bill Dunford In the meantime, there are several smaller deployments in the next couple of weeks, which constitute the beginning of a several-month phase of aligning the telescopes optics. My name is Mana. distance from Kolkata, India, planet Earth. also slid into Earth's shadow heads the Southern Cross near top Webb, welcome home! said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Current Moon Phase If the Ariane had given Webb even a little bit too much energy than needed to get it to L2, it would be going too fast when it got there and would overshoot its desired science orbit. Then share the results with your friends on social media using #Hubble30. Design & Development: // console.log("received message", event) Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency)and theCanadian Space Agency. Its exceptionally close pass of bright Venus (2.6 million miles, or 4.2 million km) happened on December 17-18. The dashboard displays the next five Earth approaches to within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers or 19.5 times the distance to the moon); an object larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object. And, as recent activity shows, theres always the possibility of brightness outbursts as Comet Leonard draws nearer and nearer the sun. You'd have to go back four years, to March of 2018, to find twilight skies with no bright planets. The dashboard displays the date of closest approach, approximate object diameter, relative size and distance from Earth for each encounter. For the first few weeks of mirror alignment, the team will keep the instrument trained on the star while they make microscopic adjustments to the mirror segments; ultimately that collection of 18 blurry dots will become a focused image of a single star. ASD at Then five months of commissioning will include 1) further cooling of the entire observatory, and of the Mid-Infrared Instrument in particular, 2) checking and then aligning the secondary and 18 mirror segments into a single coherent optical system, first with the NIRCam instrument and then with all instruments individually and in parallel, and 3) calibrating of each of the four instruments and their many scientific modes. For example, searching for January 1 will bring up an image of Galaxy Leo IV one of a dozen dwarf galaxies near the Milky Way which was taken in 2012. Watch live as NASA and SpaceX target 12:34 a.m. EST Thursday, March 2, for the launch of the Crew-6 mission from Florida's Kennedy Space Center with a team of three astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut. Editor: Gary Daines. The Artemis missions will build a community on the Moon, driving a new lunar economy and inspiring a new generation. A stunning image . EarthSky 2022 lunar calendars now available! By Thaddeus Cesari, Webb science writer, NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The timeline will . Dragon is slated to dock with the ISS at 1:17 a.m. during 2021's two lunar eclipses. The team also turned on the High-Gain Antenna, enabling downlink to Earth through the Deep Space Network using the Ka radio band. On January 5th, look to the southwest after sunset to find the crescent Moon in a close pairing with brilliant Jupiter. Bill Dunford That deployment is still expected to take place over at least two days. In the next two weeks, we will move each of the 18 primary mirror segments, and the secondary mirror, out of their launch positions. Webbs orbit will allow it a wide view of the cosmos at any given moment, as well as the opportunity for its telescope optics and scientific instruments to get cold enough to function and perform optimal science. But its brightness in our skies varies, depending on how far it is from Earth and on its phase. While we still have a long way to go before getting the science, the engineering feats that have been accomplished, on Earth and now in space, are awe-inspiring. MORE : Nasas new space telescope snaps first image: a star that exploded in the 17th century, MORE : Nasa has some concerns about Elon Musk launching 30,000 satellites, Follow Metro across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Get your need-to-know NASA Official: Phillip Newman } This site is maintained by the Planetary Science Communications team at, Cassini's last X- and S-band radio signals, Final Orbits: Cassini Grand Finale (Animation), Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Jupiter Impact (Visualization), Destination Dwarf Planet: Dawn Approaches Ceres, NASA Scientist for a Day 2019-2020: Target No. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind. (There's a short period, though, in April and May when you might be able to spot Mercury as it pops briefly above the horizon.). So these initial deployments are by far the largest moves Webbs mirror actuators will ever make in space. } The Dragon capsule, meanwhile, previously flew three missions: Demo-2 in 2020, Crew-2 in 2021, and Axiom's private Ax-1 mission last year. GSFC ), we are all overjoyed with the incredible successes of the observatory to date. Privacy Policy and Important Notices On Monday, Jan. 24, engineers plan to instruct NASAs James Webb Space Telescope to complete a final correction burn that will place it into its desired orbit, nearly 1 million miles away from the Earth at what is called the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2 for short. The six Apollo landing sites are revealed chronologically as the phase and libration of the Moon is shown throughout the Apollo era. Its been much-anticipated, and its turning out to be quite a fine object for viewing! The largest Full Moon is NASA astronaut Raja Chari, who flew the Crew-3 mission in November 2021, said during the agency's broadcast the issue was narrowed down to oxidation of lines that carry TEA-TEB, or triethylaluminium and triethylborane, to the pad. New year, new Moon; midnight meteors; and Mars rises. The 18 radius of curvature (ROC) actuators were moved from their launch position as well. In 2020, the Hubble Space Telescope achieves its 30th year in orbit, wrote Nasa in a series of blog posts dedicated to the telescope. The calendar month, This animation shows the last 30 seconds of Cassini's X- and S-band radio signals as they disappeared from mission control on Sept. 15, 2017. We are now on the verge of aligning the mirrors, instrument activation and commissioning, and the start of wondrous and astonishing discoveries.. Seeking skywatching highlights in June 2020? That event, called solar conjunction, took place back in October. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Finally, our ops team and ground system have done a fantastic job of executing the commissioning timeline, and all those rehearsals have paid off. When NIRCam reaches 120 kelvins (approximately -244 degrees Fahrenheit, or -153 degrees Celsius), Webbs optics team will be ready to begin meticulously moving the 18 primary mirror segments to form a single mirror surface. This mid-course correction burn inserted Webb toward its final orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, nearly 1 million miles away from the Earth. After the last wing deployment, more than one person made comments like, it seemed so simple; did we overstate the complexity and difficulty of the deployments? The perfection of the deployment execution and the subsequent activities reflects directly on how hard everyone worked and the diligence and sacrifice it took on the part so many people. $(window).resize(function(){ Driving around today, the song Book On The Shelf came on, and this verse (particularly the third line, and I changed the fifth line) just shouted the JWST team to me. And that means the first week of the month is ideal for stargazing, because the few days before and after the new moon are the darkest. southern cross, Alpha Crucis, points toward the South Celestial Pole, The APOD, also known as Astronomy Picture of the Day Calendar is a website provided by NASA and Michigan Technological University and was launched in 1995. What did NASA see on my birthday Our universe is a fascinating place filled with stars and mysterious elements. Learn more. Across the top of the frame are the stars and nebulae along the plane of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Scripts sent from the Mission Operations Center will direct this process under human supervision, slowly and steadily moving one actuator at a time, taking turns between segments. To view any and every point in the sky over the course of time requires merely waiting a few months to travel farther around the Sun and reveal more of the sky that was previously behind the Sun. Authors & editors: The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Botes, which includes the bright star Arcturus. (But they can appear anywhere in the sky!) Stay up to date with all of NASA's missions to explore the solar system and beyond at nasa.gov. $full.find('iframe').css({'height': h, 'width': w, 'min-width': '', 'max-width': ''}) The team chose a bright star (magnitude 6.7 at a distance of about 260 light-years, as measured by Gaia). (MTU) & NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will make history's first attempt at powered flight on another planet. New year, new Moon; midnight meteors; and Mars rises. They are a testament to the hard work and expertise of the international Webb team. "Much appreciated call for the scrub the other night," Bowen,previously a space shuttle astronaut, said just before Thursday's liftoff. And that means the first week of the month is ideal for stargazing because the few days before and after the new moon are the darkest. Poet Laureate Ada Limn is crafting a new poem dedicated to NASAs Europa Clipper mission. The mission operations teams next major step is to turn off instrument heaters. It will make its closest approach to the sun, or perihelion, on Jan. 12, and will then whip past Earth. The Orion Nebula is an enormous cloud of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born. Like planets, comets do move in front of the star background. He loves public outreach and has published multiple astronomy articles for EarthSky, as well as for newspapers in Puerto Rico. Nature provides us with sky events seen once in a lifetime, Comet Leonard is one of these. For insight on what to expect in the months ahead and how to follow along, we hear from Alexandra Lockwood, project scientist for Webb science communications at the Space Telescope Science Institute: Words cant describe the pride and excitement the Webb team is feeling right now. Clicking on the encounter date will display a Web page with details about that object. U. NASA Web The Ka-band and the High-Gain Antenna will eventually allow the observatory to send all of the science images and data down to the ground for astronomers around the world to analyze and make discoveries. NASA / What's Up: January 2022. CNN . its final destination, a million miles from Earth, last month. With about two minutes left on the . A line from Gamma Crucis through the blue star at the bottom of the At full speed, it takes about a day to move all the segments by just 1 millimeter. ET, a Falcon 9 rocket vaulted off pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center with NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 mission, the seventh flight under contract between the agency and California-based company. Researchers have explored this imprint back t Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. $('.webgl_module_container').toggleClass('full') } So enjoy the crescent Venus that is the planet at its brightest. fullHeightWidthIframe() The dashboard displays the next five Earth approaches to within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers or 19.5 times the distance to the moon); an object larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object. You can find out what image of space Nasa took on your birthday at the Nasa website, with a section dedicated to the Hubble's photos. Credit: NASA. Toss a note in a bottle and hope that it helps The cutting-edge process means rockets can be built in weeks instead of months or years and uses fewer parts. Work on the deployment of Webbs sunshield mid-booms went late into the night yesterday. It's an absolute miracle of engineering and I just feel so lucky that I get to fly on this amazing machine," he said. Engineers first commanded actuators 126 devices that will move and shape the primary mirror segments, and six devices that will position the secondary mirror to verify that all are working as expected after launch. images all combined at the same pixel scale. Your submission has been received! The average distance between Earth and the moon is about 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers). So Comet Leonard is the best comet weve had this year. #Comet Leonard C/2021 A1 2022 January 22: The Full Moon and the Dancer 2022 January 21: Young Star Jet MHO 2147 2022 January 20: NGC 7822 in Cepheus 2022 January 19: M31: The Andromeda Galaxy 2022 January 18: From Orion to the Southern Cross 2022 January 17: Chamaeleon Dark Nebulas 2022 January 16: A Retreating Thunderstorm at Sunset 2022 January 15: Galileo's Europa Sound waves from the nascent universe, called baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs), left their imprint on the cosmos by influencing galaxy distribution. But rest assured that this summer will sizzle with the hot (nay cold?) As part of this effort, the motors made over a million revolutions this week, controlled through 20 cryogenic electronics boxes on the telescope. fullHeightWidthIframe() Poet Laureate Ada Limn Will Ride to Europa on NASA Spacecraft, NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After Years of Science, 40-Year Study Finds Mysterious Patterns in Temperatures at Jupiter, Juno Explores Jovian Moons During Extended Mission. NASA and SpaceX previously tried to launch Crew-6 on Monday, Feb. 27, but an issue with the system that ignites the Falcon 9 rocket's Merlin main engines forced teams to stand down and troubleshoot. & Michigan Tech. Bookmark this post. While all Lagrange points are gravitational balance points, not all are completely stable. These movements will take at least ten days, after which engineers can begin the three-month process of aligning the segments to perform as a single mirror. The geocentric phase, libration, position angle of the axis, and apparent diameter of the Moon throughout the year 2020. And that means the first week of the month is ideal for stargazing because the few days before and . Furthermore, to limit the amount of heat put into Webbs very cold mirrors from the actuator motors, each actuator can only be operated for a short period at a time. function fullHeightWidthIframe(){ function toggleFullscreenMessage(){ if(event.data == "toggle_fullscreen"){ Nasas new space telescope snaps first image: a star that exploded in the 17th century, Nasa has some concerns about Elon Musk launching 30,000 satellites, Do not sell or share my personal information. Jupiter's Great Red Spot, seen here in an amazing mosaic composite image from artist and filmmaker Michael Benson, is a massive cyclone about twice the size of Earth. The Sun as seen in multiple wavelengths of light by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory over four days in August 2018. Comet Leonard will round the sun at perihelion on January 3, 2022, at a distance of about 56 million miles (0.6 AU, or 90 million km). The comet, named C/2022 E3 (ZTF), is currently passing through the inner solar system. The team has selected the star HD 84406 as its target to begin this process. It still might become the brightest comet of 2021! This week, we have started the process of moving the mirror segments (all primary plus secondary) out of their stowed launch positions. At 12:34 a.m. $('body').css('overflow','hidden') This still from a movie shows an image taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft layered on a digital terrain model of an unusual hill containing a dark-rayed impact crater and nearby dark deposit on asteroi Venus may be losing heat from geologic activity in regions called coronae, possibly like early tectonic activity on Earth. SpaceX and NASA have called off an astronaut launch to the International Space Station after an issue with the rocket's ground system was detected.