Earth Observing-1 satellite is retired, leaving a legacy of spectacular imagery
After more than 16 years of operation, NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) spacecraft was decommissioned on March 30. The EO-1 satellite was a component of NASA's New Millennium Program to validate new technologies that could reduce costs and improve capabilities for future space missions. Aboard EO-1 was the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) instrument developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory as an alternative to the land-imaging sensor that was used by the Landsat Earth-observing program. Read more
A NASA satellite's detection of a faint yellow stain on an ancient glacier in the Canadian Arctic is being hailed as a major breakthrough in the search for life beyond Earth. The yellowish tinge on a remote patch of the Great White North is caused by microbes interacting with a sulphur spring bubbling up from below the ice of the Borup Fiord Pass on Ellesmere Island, Canada's northernmost major land mass. Read more