Reach for the Stars and Understanding at NASA Goddard Wednesday

NASA Goddard extends its registration deadline through Tuesday for Reaching for the Stars: Space Exploration and Humanity's Quest to Understand Everything program.

NASA Goddard Goes Wild As Mars Rover Lands

Wave after wave of cheering, clapping, laughter and euphoria hits NASA Goddard as Curiosity lands safely.

  Mars rover fans spilled over onto the floor and stood along the walls at NASA Goddard's Visitor Center to watch Curiosity descend toward the Red Planet Monday. Despite the hour, with a 1:31 a.m. EDT projected landing time, some 357 observers showed up. As the moment approached, a mental tug of war played out among Goddard staff and friends as the worst of fears met with the best of hopes. Word from NASA was it would take hundreds of things going just right for the landing to be successful .  "If any one thing doesn't work just right, it's game over," Tom Rivellini NASA EDL engineer, had warned. "I'm so nervous," said intern Rachel Kronyak, an undergraduate at Penn State. Before her on a large screen, a live feed of the landing played …

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Goddard Shows Video of Largest Under-Ice Bloom Seen on Planet

NASA Goddard shows video capturing a massive Arctic under-ice plant bloom that stunned scientists, according to Goddard.

The discovery of massive Arctic marine plant life "stunned scientists, as an under-ice bloom of this size has never been seen anywhere on the planet," according to NASA Goddard, which recently posted video of the discovery. See the attached video. The mushrooming growth of these plants, called phytoplankton, is a consequence of the Arctic's warming climate, according to a NASA report. Sunlight is reaching the water under the sea because the ice on top is thinning and speeding up plant blooms where they had never been observed. Not only that, scientists think the melting pools have a magnifying glass effect—focusing sunlight into sea water, according to a CNN report, making phytoplankton—which are essential to all sea life—bloom better …

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Roosevelt Science Café Celebrates Greenbelt's 75th Anniversary

Events include science talks, music, and memorabilia from Greenbelt's early days.

Goddard Event: Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

The possibility for extraterrestrial life in our solar system is not limited only to Mars, but other “habitable” worlds might exist.

ACE Science Club Sets Imaginations and Microwaves Aglow

Kids learn to touch, explore and think in Jacob Tosado’s world of science wonder.

Thursday night, as the stifling, steamy humidity bathed Greenbelt, things started to heat up inside the Community Center at ACE Science Club. Or to be more precise, inside Jacob Tosado’s battered microwave oven, the one in which he created a plasma — the “fourth state” of matter. Six kids, aged 4 to 12, gathered campfire-like around Tosado, a physics graduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Thursday it was all boys, but of course girls and any other Greenbelt kids, 8 to 14, are welcome to participate in the twice-monthly club meetings. Tosado sparked a wooden kitchen match and propped it up in the center of the oven. He covered the flame with a glass chemistry-set beaker to collect hot gases. “Ready?” he asked. Are you…

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