• Air

The Impact of the Oil Price War On Methane Flaring Is Uncertain

• flaring
• greenhouse gas emissions
• methane gas
• NASA
• natural gas

With oil prices plummeting to 18-year lows, oil and gas companies are scaling back by cutting workers, halting infrastructure investments, and drastically reducing oil and gas production. But will the natural gas industry finally get their outrageous methane leaks under control?

Why This Matters:  Methane is the most potent greenhouse gas in terms of its short term impact.  The Trump Administration made flaring methane even easier.

• Cosmos

Curious About Mars? Check Out These Pics From NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity

• Curiosity
• Mars
• NASA
• Rover

Talk about some cool selfies!  Check out these photos that the Mars Rover took of itself and the Red Planet on February 26th.  According to CNN, the Rover made history by powering up its steepest hill to date, the Greenheugh Pediment, which is at a 31-degree tilt.  On the way up, the Rover’s drivers paused […]

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: The New Mars Rover Is Aptly Named Perseverance

• #Perseverance
• Mars
• NASA
• Rover

NASA asked school children nominate names for the new Mars rover and the agency announced the winner, Perseverance, late last week from among 28,000 nominations.  Alex Mather, a seventh-grader from Springfield, Va., submitted the winning entry and said he was inspired by a NASA Space Camp visit where he saw a giant model of a […]

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: NASA Needs YOU — To Name Its New Rover

• Mars
• NASA
• Rover

There is an important election happening right now!  You can vote to name NASA’s next Mars rover.  The Agency held an essay contest and invited students from around the country to propose a fitting name for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover and write a short essay about it.  The nine finalists are: Endurance, K-4, Oliver Jacobs […]

• Cosmos

Not Wanting to Miss a Thing, ESA is Officially On-Board to Blast Asteroids with NASA

• AIDA
• asteroid
• DART
• ESA
• NASA
• space

The European Space Agency has officially joined NASA on a mission to bust near-Earth asteroids through the AIDA space mission.

Humanity-destroying space objects aren’t just out of 90’s action flicks…

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: Mercury Transiting the Sun in 4K

• mercury
• NASA
• the Sun

ICYMI, on Monday the planet Mercury made one of its rare appearances transiting the Sun.  It won’t do that again until 2032, and that one won’t be visible in the U.S.  It was super hard to see, but NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) had several special cameras filming it and on Wednesday they released a […]

• Cosmos

One Spooky Thing: NASA’s Halloween-Themed Celestial Images

• NASA
• space

  This spooky season is out of this world! The above image isn’t a jack-o-lantern but rather an image that NASA captured of our sun. According to NASA, the face is the result of active regions of the sun burning more brightly than others. And the image below, though it looks a bit like an eerie, […]

• Cosmos

One Shrinking Thing: The Ozone Hole

• CFC
• NASA
• ozone hole

Video: NASA We know you weren’t losing sleep over this (unlike say the climate crisis), but there is a bit of good news this week.  NOAA and NASA announced that the ozone hole measured its smallest size ever for this time of year — typically when it is its largest.  The hole, which exists above […]

• Cosmos

First All-Female Spacewalk FINALLY Happening (this morning!)

• ISS
• NASA
• space walk

Earlier this spring, NASA astronauts were set to conduct the first all-female spacewalk until a lack of properly-fitting space suits cut the historic moment short. Now, finally, the spacewalk has been rescheduled for this morning with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir as they set out to repair a faulty battery charger on the International Space Station.

• Cosmos

One Outer Space Thing: What Does Mars Sound Like?

• InSight
• Mars
• NASA
• quakes

In case you were wondering, there is sound on Mars, and thanks to NASA’s InSight mission we can now hear it.

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: Mars 2020 Rover Busts a Move

• Mars
• Mars rover
• NASA

The 2020 Mars rover was recently seen showing off its dance moves, is this so the rover can dance with Britney on the Red Planet? Turns out the “break dancing” is a way for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to test the rover’s balance. As Space.com explained, engineers need to know the rover’s center […]

• People

Best of ODP: Interview with Kathy Sullivan, First Woman to Walk in Space

• astronaut
• NASA
• NOAA
• space walk
• STEM

This interview first appeared earlier this year, in honor of Women’s History Month.  I (Monica) had the pleasure of working with Kathy at NOAA during the Obama Administration.  With the 50th Anniversary of the NASA moon landing and spacewalk that we celebrated just a few weeks ago, this interview came to mind as a highlight […]