News Releases

Discover magazine has named the MESSENGER mission one of the top 100 stories of 2011.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) was awarded a bronze Bicycle Friendly Business Award by the League of American Bicyclists in a ceremony on its Laurel, Md., campus today.

Since its launch a decade ago on Dec. 7, 2001, NASA’s TIMED (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics) spacecraft has collected more data on the upper atmosphere than any other satellite, and has provided an unprecedented look at the gateway between Earth and space.

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory.

NASA’s Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), twin spacecraft being built and tested at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., are about to enter a challenging series of tests designed to certify that they are ready for their August 2012 launch and two-year mission in Earth’s orbit.

Members of the MESSENGER team will present a broad range of findings from the spacecraft's orbital investigation of Mercury during the 2011 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which takes place this week, December 5-9, in San Francisco.

A consortium led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is proposing a geoscience program that would give scientists the first continuous real-time look at the Earth’s surface and atmosphere through a global network of sensors.

Images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show sand dunes and ripples moving across the surface of Mars at dozens of locations and shifting up to several yards. These observations reveal the planet’s sandy surface is more dynamic than previously thought.

MESSENGER was named a winner in Popular Science magazine's 24th annual "Best of What's New" in the Aviation and Space category.

In a finding of significance in the search for life beyond Earth, scientists have discovered what appears to be a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa — which could represent a new potential habitat for life.