We Just Identified More Than 200 New (Potential) Planets

The Kepler space telescope is our first mission capable of identifying Earth-size planets around other stars. On Monday, June 19, 2017, scientists from many countries gathered at our Ames Research Center to talk about the latest results from the spacecraft, which include the identification of more than 200 potential new worlds! Here’s what you need to know:

We found 219 new planet candidates.

All of these worlds were found in a patch of sky near the Cygnus constellation in our Milky Way galaxy. Between 2009 and 2013, Kepler searched more than 200,000 stars in the region for orbiting planets. The 219 new planet candidates are part of the more than 4,000 planet candidates and 2,300 confirmed planets Kepler has identified to date.

Ten of these worlds are like our own.

Out of the 219 new planet candidates, 10 are possibly rocky, terrestrial worlds and orbit their star in the habitable zone – the range of distances from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of a rocky planet.

Small planets come in two sizes.

Kepler has opened up our eyes to the existence of many small worlds. It turns out a lot of these planets are either approximately 1.5 times the size of Earth or just smaller than Neptune. The cool names given to planets of these sizes? Super Earths and mini-Neptunes.

Some of the new planets could be habitable.

Water is a key ingredient to life as we know it. Many of the new planet candidates are likely to have small rocky cores enveloped by a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, and some are thought to be ocean worlds. That doesn’t necessarily mean the oceans of these planets are full of water, but we can dream, can’t we?

Other Earths are out there.

Kepler’s survey has made it possible for us to measure the number of Earth-size habitable zone planets in our galaxy. Determining how many planets like our own that exist is the big question we’ll explore next.

The hunt for new planets continues.

Kepler continues to search for planets in different regions of space. With the launch of our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2018, we’re going to search for planets nearest the sun and measure the composition of their atmospheres. In the mid-2020s, we have our sights on taking a picture of small planets like Earth with our Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

*All images of planets are artist illustrations.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Tags

space star stars galaxy earth nasa neptune planet kepler tess Milkyway discovery SolarSystem exoplanet jameswebb cygnus WFIRST planetarysystem

Follow NASA’s Artemis I Moon Mission: Live Tracker, Latest Images, and Videos

On Nov. 16, 2022, the Artemis I mission officially began with the launch of the Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System rocket. The rocket and spacecraft lifted off from historic Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Now, the Orion spacecraft is about halfway through its journey around the Moon. Although the spacecraft is uncrewed, the Artemis I mission prepares us for future missions with astronauts, starting with Artemis II.

Stay up-to-date with the mission with the latest full-resolution images, mission updates, on-demand and live video.

A cross-section of the white, cylindrical Orion spacecraft dominates the left side of the screen. A rectangular solar array snaked with multicolored wires extends up and out to 2 o'clock, and four bell-shaped auxiliary thrusters point down from the body of the spacecraft. The small crescent Moon is isolated in the black of space in the distance beyond and below the solar array. Credit: NASA

Imagery:

Find full-resolution images from the Orion spacecraft as they are released here.

Launch imagery can be found here. When Orion splashes down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11, the images will be available here, as well!

Videos:

This playlist contains informational videos, as well as upcoming and past live events, about Artemis I.

You can watch a livestream of the Artemis I mission here. (Just a note: the livestream may cut off during moments when the Orion team needs higher bandwidth for activities.)

Keep yourself updated on the upcoming broadcasts of Artemis milestones with the NASA TV schedule.

An animation shows the Orion spacecraft flying in space with the Moon in the far distance in the left side of the image. The text on the image reads:
Mission Time: 9 days, 7 hrs, 56 min
Orion is 233,784 miles from Earth, 57,639 miles from the Moon, cruising at 2,420 miles per hour.
P: (40690, -207007, -109608)
V: (2411, -52, -200)
O: 285º, 143.7º, 134.4º

Trackers:

Our Artemis I Tracker uses live telemetry data streamed directly from Mission Control Center in Houston to show Orion position, attitude, solar array positions, and thruster firings throughout the mission.

“Eyes on the Solar System” shows Orion's position along the Artemis I trajectory and in relation to other NASA spacecraft and objects in the solar system.

“DSN Now” shows which antenna on Earth’s Deep Space Network is communicating with Orion.

Updates:

Read up on where Orion is and what’s next in the Artemis I mission with the Mission Blog.

Thank you so much for following with us on this historic mission. Go Artemis!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Tags

space Youtube moon artemis science nasa orion technology sls LunarMission SpaceLaunchSystem MegaMoonRocket NASAMoonSnap

1K notes View Post

nasa

3 years ago

Questions coming up from….

@monicagellar: Is it open for international students?

@Anonymous: How should high school students get involved?

@Anonymous: Can I apply if my subjects are physics and chemistry in college

@unsuspicious-nobody: Do you have plans to repeat this/do something similar for students in the future?

Tags

space students science nasa international space station women in stem stem international students answertime SPOCSAT

825 notes View Post

nasa

7 years ago

How Humans Change Space Itself

It’s no surprise that humans influence the surface of our planet, but our reach can go farther than that. Humans affect space, too.

We know storms from the sun can naturally change the space environment around Earth, which can have an impact on satellites and power grids.

Scientists now know that Cold War era nuclear tests in the 1950s caused similar effects.

Particles around Earth are organized into layers known as radiation belts. These 1950s tests created a temporary extra layer of radiation closer to Earth.

The effects of this could be seen all around the world. Aurora appeared at the equator instead of the poles, utility grids in Hawaii were strained, and in some cases, satellites above test sites were affected.

Some types of communications signals can also affect Earth’s radiation belts.

Very low-frequency waves, or VLFs, are used for radio communications. They are often used to communicate with submarines, because these waves can penetrate deep into the ocean.

The waves can also travel far into the space environment around Earth. When these waves are in space, they affect how high-energy particles move, creating a barrier against natural radiation.

The outer edge of this radio-wave barrier corresponds almost exactly the inner edge of Earth’s natural radiation belts – meaning it could be human activity that at least partly shapes this natural radiation around Earth.

For more NASA sun and space research, visit www.nasa.gov/sunearth and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Tags

sun earth communications satellites Spaceweather

2K notes View Post

nasa

2 years ago

12 Great Gifts from Astronomy

This is a season where our thoughts turn to others and many exchange gifts with friends and family. For astronomers, our universe is the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve learned so much about it, but every question we answer leads to new things we want to know. Stars, galaxies, planets, black holes … there are endless wonders to study.

In honor of this time of year, let’s count our way through some of our favorite gifts from astronomy.

Our first astronomical gift is … one planet Earth

So far, there is only one planet that we’ve found that has everything needed to support life as we know it — Earth. Even though we’ve discovered over 5,200 planets outside our solar system, none are quite like home. But the search continues with the help of missions like our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). And even you (yes, you!) can help in the search with citizen science programs like Planet Hunters TESS and Backyard Worlds.

This animated visualization depicts Earth rotating in front of a black background. Land in shades of tan and green lay among vast blue oceans, with white clouds swirling in the atmosphere. The image is watermarked with the text “Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio” and “visualization.”

Our second astronomical gift is … two giant bubbles

Astronomers found out that our Milky Way galaxy is blowing bubbles — two of them! Each bubble is about 25,000 light-years tall and glows in gamma rays. Scientists using data from our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered these structures in 2010, and we're still learning about them.

This image captures the majestic “Fermi bubbles” that extend above and below our Milky Way galaxy, set against the black background of space. A glowing blue line horizontally crosses the center of the image, showing our perspective from Earth of our galaxy’s spiral arms and the wispy clouds of material above and below it. Cloudy bubbles, colored deep magenta to represent Fermi’s gamma-ray vision, extend above and below the galactic plane. These bubbles are enormous, extending roughly half of the Milky Way's diameter and filling much of the top and bottom of the image. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration.”

Our third astronomical gift is … three types of black holes

Most black holes fit into two size categories: stellar-mass goes up to hundreds of Suns, and supermassive starts at hundreds of thousands of Suns. But what happens between those two? Where are the midsize ones? With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, scientists found the best evidence yet for that third, in between type that we call intermediate-mass black holes. The masses of these black holes should range from around a hundred to hundreds of thousands of times the Sun’s mass. The hunt continues for these elusive black holes.

This cartoon depicts two black holes as birds, with a small one representing a stellar-mass black hole on the left and an enormous one representing a supermassive black hole on the right. These two birds appear on a tan background and flap their wings, and then a circle with three question marks pops up between them to represent the intermediate-mass black holes that scientists are hunting for. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Our fourth and fifth astronomical gifts are … Stephan’s Quintet

When looking at this stunning image of Stephan’s Quintet from our James Webb Space Telescope, it seems like five galaxies are hanging around one another — but did you know that one of the galaxies is much closer than the others? Four of the five galaxies are hanging out together about 290 million light-years away, but the fifth and leftmost galaxy in the image below — called NGC 7320 — is actually closer to Earth at just 40 million light-years away.

$A group of five galaxies that appear close to each other in the sky: two in the middle, one toward the top, one to the upper left, and one toward the bottom. Four of the five appear to be touching. One is somewhat separated. In the image, the galaxies are large relative to the hundreds of much smaller (more distant) galaxies in the background. All five galaxies have bright white cores. Each has a slightly different size, shape, structure, and coloring. Scattered across the image, in front of the galaxies are a number of foreground stars with diffraction spikes: bright white points, each with eight bright lines radiating out from the center. The image is watermarked with the text “Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI.”$

Our sixth astronomical gift is … an eclipsing six-star system

Astronomers found a six-star system where all of the stars undergo eclipses, using data from our TESS mission, a supercomputer, and automated eclipse-identifying software. The system, called TYC 7037-89-1, is located 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus and the first of its kind we’ve found.

This diagram shows the sextuple star system TYC 7037-89-1, a group of six stars that interact with each other in complex orbits. The stars are arranged in pairs: System A, System B, and System C, each of which is shown as having one larger white star and one smaller yellow star. The two stars of System A, in the upper left, are connected by a red oval and labeled "1.3-day orbit." The two stars of System C, just below System A, are connected by a turquoise oval and labeled "1.6-day orbit." Additionally, these two systems orbit each other, shown as a larger blue oval connecting the two and labeled "A and C orbit every 4 years." On the other side of the image, in the bottom right, the two stars of System B are connected by a green oval and labeled "8.2-day orbit." Lastly, Systems A, B and C all interact with System B orbiting the combined A-C system, shown as a very large lilac oval labeled "AC and B orbit every 2,000 years." A caption at the bottom of the image notes, "Star sizes are to scale, orbits are not." The image is watermarked with the text “Illustration” and “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Our seventh astronomical gift is … seven Earth-sized planets

In 2017, our now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope helped find seven Earth-size planets around TRAPPIST-1. It remains the largest batch of Earth-size worlds found around a single star and the most rocky planets found in one star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on a planet’s surface.

Further research has helped us understand the planets’ densities, atmospheres, and more!

his animated image shows an artist's concept of the star TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf, and the seven Earth-size planets orbiting it. TRAPPIST-1 is large and glows bright orange, while the planets are smaller and in shades of cool gray-blue. The image is highly stylized to look like glowing balls sitting on a shiny surface, and neither the sizes nor distances are to scale. The planets closer to TRAPPIST-1 have droplets of water standing on the surface around them, indicating that they may have liquid water. Planets further away have frost around them, indicating that those are more likely to have significant amounts of ice, especially on the side that faces away from the star. Our view pans across the system, from the center outward, and faint tan rings depict the orbits of each planet. The image is watermarked with the text “Illustration” and “Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC).”

Our eighth astronomical gift is … an (almost) eight-foot mirror

The primary mirror on our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is approximately eight feet in diameter, similar to our Hubble Space Telescope. But Roman can survey large regions of the sky over 1,000 times faster, allowing it to hunt for thousands of exoplanets and measure light from a billion galaxies.

Our ninth astronomical gift is … a kilonova nine days later

In 2017, the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and European Gravitational Observatory’s Virgo detected gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars. Less than two seconds later, our telescopes detected a burst of gamma rays from the same event. It was the first time light and gravitational waves were seen from the same cosmic source. But then nine days later, astronomers saw X-ray light produced in jets in the collision’s aftermath. This later emission is called a kilonova, and it helped astronomers understand what the slower-moving material is made of.

This animated illustration shows what happened in the nine days following a neutron star merger known as GW170817, detected on Aug. 17, 2017. In the first part of the animation, a pair of glowing blue neutron stars spiral quickly towards each other and merge with a bright flash. The merger creates gravitational waves (shown as pale arcs rippling out from the center), a near-light-speed jet that produced gamma rays (shown as brown cones and a rapidly-traveling magenta glow erupting from the center of the collision), and a donut-shaped ring of expanding blue debris around the center of the explosion. A variety of colors represent the many wavelengths of light produced by the kilonova, creating violet to blue-white to red bursts at the top and bottom of the collision. In the second part of the animation, we see the collision as it would appear from Earth, looking like a burst of red light in the lower left and a huge umbrella-shaped cascade of blue light in the upper right, representing X-rays. The image is watermarked with the text “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab” and “Illustration.”

Our tenth astronomical gift is … NuSTAR’s ten-meter-long mast

Our NuSTAR X-ray observatory is the first space telescope able to focus on high-energy X-rays. Its ten-meter-long (33 foot) mast, which deployed shortly after launch, puts NuSTAR’s detectors at the perfect distance from its reflective optics to focus X-rays. NuSTAR recently celebrated 10 years since its launch in 2012.

This animation shows an artist’s concept of the NuSTAR X-ray observatory orbiting above the blue marble of Earth and deploying its 10-meter-long (33 foot) mast shortly after launch in 2012. NuSTAR is roughly cylindrical, with a shiny silver covering and a pair of blue solar panels on each of its sides. As we pan around the spacecraft, silver scaffolding extends from inside, separating the ends of the telescope to the right distance to begin observing the universe in X-rays. The image is watermarked with the text “Illustration” and “Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.”

Our eleventh astronomical gift is … eleven days of observations

How long did our Hubble Space Telescope stare at a seemingly empty patch of sky to discover it was full of thousands of faint galaxies? More than 11 days of observations came together to capture this amazing image — that’s about 1 million seconds spread over 400 orbits around Earth!

This animated image zooms into the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, showing how a tiny patch of “empty” sky turned out to contain about 10,000 galaxies. The sequence begins with a starry backdrop, then we begin to zoom into the center of this image. As we travel, larger and brighter objects come into view, including dazzling spiral and elliptical galaxies in reds, oranges, blues, and purples. The image is watermarked with the text “Credit: NASA, G. Bacon and Z. Levay (STScI).”

Our twelfth astronomical gift is … a twelve-kilometer radius

Pulsars are collapsed stellar cores that pack the mass of our Sun into a whirling city-sized ball, compressing matter to its limits. Our NICER telescope aboard the International Space Station helped us precisely measure one called J0030 and found it had a radius of about twelve kilometers — roughly the size of Chicago! This discovery has expanded our understanding of pulsars with the most precise and reliable size measurements of any to date.

In this simulation of a pulsar’s magnetic fields, dozens of thin lines dance around a central gray sphere, which is the collapsed core of a dead massive star. Some of these lines, colored orange, form loops on the surface of the sphere. Others, colored blue, arc away from two spots on the lower half of the sphere and vanish into the black background. The image is watermarked with the text “Simulation” and “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Stay tuned to NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with what’s going on in the cosmos every day. You can learn more about the universe here.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Tags

space stars universe gravity science nasa galaxies astronomy astrophysics international space station hubble space telescope cosmos james webb space telescope black holes spaceblr exoplanets

1K notes View Post

nasa

7 years ago

A magnetic power struggle of galactic proportions - new research highlights the role of the Sun’s magnetic landscape in the development of solar eruptions that can trigger space weather events around Earth.

Using data from our Solar Dynamics Observatory, scientists examined an October 2014 Jupiter-sized sunspot group, an area of complex magnetic fields, often the site of solar activity. This was the biggest group in the past two solar cycles and a highly active region. Though conditions seemed ripe for an eruption, the region never produced a major coronal mass ejection (CME) - a massive, bubble-shaped eruption of solar material and magnetic field - on its journey across the Sun. It did, however, emit a powerful X-class flare, the most intense class of flares. What determines, the scientists wondered, whether a flare is associated with a CME?

The scientists found that a magnetic cage physically prevented a CME from erupting that day. Just hours before the flare, the sunspot’s natural rotation contorted the magnetic rope and it grew increasingly twisted and unstable, like a tightly coiled rubber band.

Credits: Tahar Amari et al./Center for Theoretical Physics/École Polytechnique/NASA Goddard/Joy Ng

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Tags

space gif sun hot fire green science nasa solar flare eruption SolarSystem magnetic

2K notes View Post

nasa

6 years ago

Distance: Hazard Far From Home

A human journey to Mars, at first glance, offers an inexhaustible amount of complexities. To bring a mission to the Red Planet from fiction to fact, our Human Research Program has organized some of the hazards astronauts will encounter on a continual basis into five classifications.

The third and perhaps most apparent hazard is, quite simply, the distance.

Rather than a three-day lunar trip, astronauts would be leaving our planet for roughly three years. Facing a communication delay of up to 20 minutes one way and the possibility of equipment failures or a medical emergency, astronauts must be capable of confronting an array of situations without support from their fellow team on Earth.

Once you burn your engines for Mars, there is no turning back so planning and self-sufficiency are essential keys to a successful Martian mission. The Human Research Program is studying and improving food formulation, processing, packaging and preservation systems.

While International Space Station expeditions serve as a rough foundation for the expected impact on planning logistics for such a trip, the data isn’t always comparable, but it is a key to the solution.

Exploration to the Moon and Mars will expose astronauts to five known hazards of spaceflight, including distance from Earth. To learn more, and find out what our Human Research Program is doing to protect humans in space, check out the "Hazards of Human Spaceflight" website. Or, check out this week’s episode of “Houston We Have a Podcast,” in which host Gary Jordan further dives into the threat of distance with Erik Antonsen, the Assistant Director for Human Systems Risk Management at the Johnson Space Center.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Tags

space moon human research earth nasa astronauts mars hazard explore deep distance program spacetravel

2K notes View Post

nasa

8 years ago

Solar System: Life Among the Stars

Let us lead you on a journey of our solar system. Here are some things to know this week:

1. Amateur" Means "One Who Loves"

We release thousands of breathtaking solar system images every year and not all of them are the exclusive result of work by scientists. Amateur image processors around the world take raw data from deep space missions and turn it into striking visuals.

Amateur images from Cassini

Get current unprocessed images

2. Prepare to Weigh Anchor

OSIRIS-REx, our first spacecraft destined to rendezvous with, study and return a sample of an asteroid, will launch. The mission to asteroid Bennu will yield the largest sample returned from space since the Apollo era. Tune in four our media briefing about OSIRIS-REx for 2 p.m. EDT on Aug. 17.

Learn more and tune in.

3. Out for a Walk

Join us for live coverage on Aug. 19 as our astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins install a new gateway for American commercial crew spacecraft at the International Space Station.

Live coverage of the spacewalk.

4. The Weather Out There

Aug. 17 marks 50 years since the launch of Pioneer 7, a robotic spacecraft that lived up to its name by exploring the solar magnetic field, the solar wind and cosmic rays in deep space. Along with Pioneers 6, 8, and 9, the spacecraft formed a ring of solar weather stations spaced along Earth's orbit. Measurements by the craft were used to predict solar storms for organizations ranging from commercial airlines to power companies.

Learn more.

5. Destination: The Red Planet

The European Space Agency's ExoMars/Trace Gas Orbiter mission to Mars performed a critical engine burn to keep it on course. The maneuver was a success, and ExoMars remains on target for an October arrival.

Learn more.

Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Tags

space mars ISS OSIRIS-REx

1K notes View Post

nasa

2 years ago

5 Years, 8 Discoveries: NASA Exoplanet Explorer Sees Dancing Stars & a Star-Shredding Black Hole

TESS images build in vertical strips of four individual squares. Each square shows a small section of sky. They come together to form a flattened look at Earth’s sky as seen through the TESS telescope. It is an area shown in black-and-white with the bright, dusty Milky way curving through the center of the image. The north and south ecliptic poles lie at the top and bottom of the image. The Andromeda galaxy is the small, bright oval near the upper right edge. The Large Magellanic Cloud can be seen along the bottom edge just left of center. Above and to the left of it shine the Small Magellanic Cloud and the bright star cluster 47 Tucanae. Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (University of Maryland College Park)

This all-sky mosaic was constructed from 912 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) images. Prominent features include the Milky Way, a glowing arc that represents the bright central plane of our galaxy, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds – satellite galaxies of our own located, respectively, 160,000 and 200,000 light-years away. In the northern sky, look for the small, oblong shape of the Andromeda galaxy (M 31), the closest big spiral galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. The black regions are areas of sky that TESS didn’t image. Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (University of Maryland College Park)

On April 18, 2018, we launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS. It was designed to search for planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets – and to discover worlds for our James Webb Space Telescope, which launched three years later, to further explore. TESS images sections of sky, one hemisphere at a time. When we put all the images together, we get a great look at Earth’s sky!

In its five years in space, TESS has discovered 326 planets and more than 4,300 planet candidates. Along the way, the spacecraft has observed a plethora of other objects in space, including watching as a black hole devoured a star and seeing six stars dancing in space. Here are some notable results from TESS so far:

An infographic with a blue line drawing of the TESS spacecraft is headlined, “TESS, By the Numbers”. It is followed by large numbers with explanations: 329 exoplanets discovered, 4,300 plus exoplanet candidates; 1,500 research papers; 93 percent of sky observed; 5 years in space; 251 terabytes of image data; 467,768 objects observed at high precision; 50 nations contributing science. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

During its first five years in space, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has discovered exoplanets and identified worlds that can be further explored by the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

1. TESS’ first discovery was a world called Pi Mensae c. It orbits the star Pi Mensae, about 60 light-years away from Earth and visible to the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere. This discovery kicked off NASA's new era of planet hunting.

2. Studying planets often helps us learn about stars too! Data from TESS & Spitzer helped scientists detect a planet around the young, flaring star AU Mic, providing a unique way to study how planets form, evolve, and interact with active stars.

A vintage style travel poster shows giant flares from a giant, bright young star in oranges, reds and bright yellow burst from the star, affecting a nearby planet. You can see the planet’s atmosphere being blasted away by the energy. It says, Located less than 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii is among the youngest planetary systems ever observed by astronomers, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums! You’ve heard of the “terrible twos”? Well, AU Mic is in the midst of its terrible 22 … millions! This devilish young system holds planet AU Mic b captive inside a looming disk of ghostly dust and ceaselessly torments it with deadly blasts of X-rays and other radiation, thwarting any chance of life… as we know it! Beware! There is no escaping the stellar fury of this system. The monstrous flares of AU Mic will have you begging for eternal darkness. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ubicado a menos de 32 años luz de la Tierra, AU Microscopii se encuentra entre los sistemas planetarios más jóvenes jamás observados por los astrónomos, ¡y su estrella tiene unas brutales rabietas! ¿Has oído hablar de los "terribles dos años"? Pues AU Mic está en medio de sus terribles 22… ¡millones de años! Este sistema joven diabólico mantiene cautivo a su planeta, AU Mic b, dentro de un disco de polvo fantasmal y lo atormenta incesantemente con explosiones mortales de rayos X y otras radiaciones, frustrando cualquier posibilidad de vida ... ¡tal como la conocemos! ¡Cuidado! No hay escapatoria a la furia estelar de este sistema. Las llamaradas monstruosas de AU Mic te harán rogar por la oscuridad eterna. Crédito de imagen: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Located less than 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii is among the youngest planetary systems ever observed by astronomers, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums. This devilish young system holds planet AU Mic b captive inside a looming disk of ghostly dust and ceaselessly torments it with deadly blasts of X-rays and other radiation, thwarting any chance of life… as we know it! Beware! There is no escaping the stellar fury of this system. The monstrous flares of AU Mic will have you begging for eternal darkness. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

3. In addition to finding exoplanets on its own, TESS serves as a pathfinder for the James Webb Space Telescope. TESS discovered the rocky world LHS 3844 b, but Webb will tell us more about its composition. Our telescopes, much like our scientists, work together.

4. Though TESS may be a planet-hunter, it also helps us study black holes! In 2019, TESS saw a ‘‘tidal disruption event,’’ otherwise known as a black hole shredding a star.

An animated illustration shows a tidal disruption, which occurs when a passing star gets too close to a black hole and is torn apart into a stream of gas. Some of the gas eventually settles into a structure around the black hole called an accretion disk. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a stream of gas. The tail of the stream escapes the system, while the rest of it swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

5. In 2020, TESS discovered its first Earth-size world in the habitable zone of its star – the distance from a star at which liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Earlier this year, a second rocky planet was discovered in the system.

In an animation, four planets are shown orbiting a red dwarf star labeled TOI 700. Planets b and c orbit well within a region overlaid in green and labeled optimistic habitable zone and overlaid in yellow and labeled optimistic habitable zone. Planet d orbits consistently in the conservative habitable zone, while planet e moves between the conservative and optimistic habitable zone. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

You can see the exoplanets that orbit the star TOI 700 moving within two marked habitable zones, a conservative habitable zone, and an optimistic habitable zone. Planet d orbits within the conservative habitable zone, while planet e moves within an optimistic habitable zone, the range of distances from a star where liquid surface water could be present at some point in a planet’s history. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

6. Astronomers used TESS to find a six-star system where all stars undergo eclipses. Three binary pairs orbit each other, and, in turn, the pairs are engaged in an elaborate gravitational dance in a cosmic ballroom 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.

This diagram depicts six stars that interact with each other in complex orbits. The stars are arranged in pairs: Systems A, B, and C, are each shown with one larger white star and one smaller orange star. The two stars of System A, in the upper left, are connected by a red oval and labeled "1.3-day orbit." The two stars of System C, just below System A, are connected by a teal oval and labeled "1.6-day orbit." These two systems orbit each other, shown as a larger blue oval connecting the two and labeled "A and C orbit every 4 years." In the bottom right of the image, the two stars of System B are connected by a green oval and labeled "8.2-day orbit." System B orbits the combined AC system, shown as a very large lilac oval labeled "AC and B orbit every 2,000 years." A caption at the bottom of the image notes, "Star sizes are to scale, orbits are not." The image is watermarked with “Illustration” and “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.” Credit: NASA

7. Thanks to TESS, we learned that Delta Scuti stars pulse to the beat of their own drummer. Most seem to oscillate randomly, but we now know HD 31901 taps out a beat that merges 55 pulsation patterns.

An animation shows a bright blue-white star pulsing with vibrations. In a cutaway that reveals the star’s inner workings, waves are represented by blue arrows and they radiate from the center outward to the star’s surface and back again.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Sound waves bouncing around inside a star cause it to expand and contract, which results in detectable brightness changes. This animation depicts one type of Delta Scuti pulsation — called a radial mode — that is driven by waves (blue arrows) traveling between the star's core and surface. In reality, a star may pulsate in many different modes, creating complicated patterns that enable scientists to learn about its interior. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

8. Last is a galaxy that flares like clockwork! With TESS and Swift, astronomers identified the most predictably and frequently flaring active galaxy yet. ASASSN-14ko, which is 570 million light-years away, brightens every 114 days!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Tags

space tech stars planets science nasa astronomy astrophysics technology black holes spaceblr exoplanets

2K notes View Post

nasa

9 years ago

Record Number of Americans Apply to #BeAnAstronaut

On Dec. 14, 2015, we announced that astronaut applications were open on USAJOBS. The window for applications closed on Feb. 18. We’re happy to announce that we have received more than 18,300 applications from excited individuals from around the country, all hoping to join the 2017 astronaut class. This surpasses the more than 6,100 received in 2012 for the most recent astronaut class, and the previous record - 8,000 applicants in 1978.

So you applied to be an astronaut...now what?

Since the applications closed on Feb. 18, many people are curious to know…what’s next? Let us help you navigate the selection process:

Now that we have received all the applications, we will review them to determine the “Highly Qualified” applicants. This process will take place through summer 2016.

What is a “Highly Qualified” Applicant?

The diversity of experiences is what separates the highly qualified from qualified. Experience that demonstrates good leadership, fellowship and decision making are beneficial.

Between fall 2016 and spring 2017, interviewees will be brought to Johnson Space Center for evaluation. This process will help us determine the finalists, which takes place in spring 2017.

Finally, in summer 2017, the Astronaut Candidate Class of 2017 is announced! These candidates will report to Johnson Space Center starting in August 2017.

To view the full astronaut candidate selection process timeline, visit: http://astronauts.nasa.gov/content/timeline.htm

*Note that the high volume of applications received, dates in the timeline could be adjusted.

Why do we need more astronauts?

We are continuing human spaceflight on the International Space Station, which has a continuous crew of six people on board. The Boeing and SpaceX commercial crew spacecraft that will travel to the station both have seats for four astronauts (the current Soyuz spacecraft, on which astronauts travel, only has three). This will add a seventh astronaut to the orbiting laboratory, and enable us to do more science!

How many astronauts will be selected?

The exact number will be determined by mission requirements, but current analysis shows about 8 - 14 astronauts will be needed. The final number will depend on updates to program plans, budgets, etc.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Tags

space nasa astronaut candidates applications astronautapplications

883 notes View Post

End of content

No more pages to load