The NASA Scientific Visualization Studio has released a brilliant animation that reveals its fleet of Earth observing satellites currently orbiting the planet. Nearly , including members of the A-Train satellite constellation and the International Space Station, can be observed running along their orbital paths. The latest addition to the list is the , which launched in January from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. (MORE: ) NASA's satellites create an image of Earth's daily operations by measuring a variety of components...

Sizzling new video shows the sun’s most powerful eruption of the year so far — and it was aimed directly at Earth. Image shows the bright flash on the left side of the sun, March 11, 2015. (NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory) NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which constantly monitors the sun, captured video and images of the. In the video you can see the bright burst of radiation unleashed from the sun. (MORE: ) The flare originated from the region of...

3, 2, 1, FIRE! NASA scientists made history on March 11 when they successfully fired up the world's largest solid rocket booster in Promontory, Utah. The Space Launch System 5-segment solid rocket booster illuminated the early morning sky with an ethereal orange blaze, the motor's roar breaking through the silence. NASA to bring the twin side-mounted boosters for the space launch system to life, Space.com reported. After the booster was ignited at 11:30 a.m. EST, it ran for two minutes.The...

In this handout, the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore of NASA, Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Elena Serova of Roscosmos on March 12, 2015, near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. (Bill Ingalls/NASA) After 167 days — almost half a year — three astronauts have . The view on the way down for NASA’s Barry Wilmore and Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova of the Russian Federal Space...

Four identical spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday as part of a billion-dollar NASA project to study the relationship between the magnetic fields of Earth and the sun. The launch of the unmanned Atlas rocket occurred late Thursday night, as scheduled. Less than two hours after the launch, the four observatories that make up NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission were flying free. "Just picture-perfect," launch manager Omar Baez said early Friday. "Everybody's cheering. ... Can't ask for any more."...

A NOAA model shows how far south the geomagnetic storm could create auroras. (NOAA Space Weather) Space forecasters say a large geomagnetic storm hit Earth sooner — and with more force — than they projected Tuesday morning. And it could have impacts into the Southern U.S. overnight. According to NOAA, the storm is courtesy of (CME) that left the sun Sunday, March 15 and reached Earth at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday. It ranked a class 4, which is considered severe...

Early Wednesday morning, the Northern Lights treated millions of Americans to a show in the northern United States. The light show was caused by what NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) called a "," Slate reported. It shot particles toward the Earth that were caught in the magnetic field, illuminating the skies in a brilliant display. (PHOTOS: ) The auroras glowed in green, purple and white, and were seen as far south as North Carolina, according to local reports and...

The Kepler satellite observes exoplanets by measuring the light curve of a star. When a planet moves in front of the star, brightness dips slightly. If this little dip occurs regularly, there may be a planet orbiting the star, obscuring its light. (ESO) Life on Earth exists becuase of . Without that star and the energy it gives off, we’d be what NASA once described as a “lifeless ball of ice-coated rock.” Luckily, we are far enough from it, and...

Friday, March 20 brings with it a celestial showcase, a trio of events that includes a new moon, at 5:36 a.m., a total solar eclipse, at 5:46 a.m. and the vernal equinox, at 6:45 p.m., all Eastern time. Let’s tackle these one at a time, with the rarest of the three first. Total Solar EclipseIf you happen to be on the Faroe Islands or the Svalbard Archipelago (Norwegian islands in the Atlantic Ocean), there’s a decent shot the total solar...

As the new moon passed in front of the sun in the early morning hours of March 20, a solar eclipse could be seen across Europe. Only two places, Denmark’s Faroe Islands and the Svalbard Archipelago in the Arctic, held the promise of the total eclipse — which lasted less than three minutes — but clouds and not-so-great weather hampered the view in at least one of these locales. “There was in the Faroe Islands,” The Guardian reported. “An estimated...

On March 18, 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov left his spaceship Voshkhod 2 for 20 minutes to become the first man ever to walk in space, according to NASA. With this spacewalk, the Soviets pulled ahead of the U.S. in the space race. It was a historic first, but it was also a near disaster. The secrecy of the Soviet space program required that very few people know about the plan for Leonov’s journey from the spacecraft. His family wasn’t...

NASA's Curiosity rover made an interesting discovery when it detected traces of nitrogen on the red planet's surface on Tuesday. The detection was made using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on the rover, NASA revealed in a press release. The in the form of nitric oxide and deemed 'biologically useful'. SAM heated various samples taken from the planet's surface, which likely , according to the BBC. (MORE: ) Nitrogen is key to the structure of life forms...