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Nustar
NuSTAR is a small NASA space observatory designed to detect the hard X-rays emitted by energy sources in the Universe like black holes, supernovae and active galaxies. These X-rays are even more energetic than those previously studied by the Chandra and XMM-Newton space telescopes. Operating two telescopes deployed at the end of a telescopic mast, NuSTAR is NASA’s 11th Small Explorer (SMEX) mission. It was launched by a Pegasus vehicle in June 2012.
The processes that cause supernova explosions are still only partly understood by astronomers. One of NuSTAR’s missions is to map young remnants of recent supernovae and the distribution of black holes, and to identify the highest-energy sources in our Milky Way Galaxy like supermassive black holes and active galaxies (magnetars).
NuSTAR is led by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The mission was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University (DTU) and ASI, the Italian space agency. The IRAP (Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie) helped to calibrate the telescopes’ optics with support from CNES.
Mission's news feed
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NASA’s MAVEN maps winds in the Martian upper atmosphere
Researchers have created the first map of wind circulation in the upper atmosphere of a planet besides Earth, using data from NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft that were collected during...
February 3, 2020
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MAVEN Used Mars’ Atmosphere to reach it’s final orbit
Maven used aerobreaking to tighten it’s orbit to act as a telecommunications relay.
April 25, 2019
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MAVEN entered orbit around the Red Planet on September 21, 2014
NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars' orbit at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21, completing an interplanetary...
September 25, 2014