13 Reasons To Have An Out-of-This-World Friday (the 13th)
13 Reasons to Have an Out-of-This-World Friday (the 13th)
1. Not all of humanity is bound to the ground
Since 2000, the International Space Station has been continuously occupied by humans. There, crew members live and work while conducting important research that benefits life on Earth and will even help us eventually travel to deep space destinations, like Mars.
2. We’re working to develop quieter supersonic aircraft that would allow you to travel from New York to Los Angeles in 2 hours
We are working hard to make flight greener, safer and quieter – all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently. Seventy years after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 aircraft, we’re continuing that supersonic X-plane legacy by working to create a quieter supersonic jet with an aim toward passenger flight.
3. The spacecraft, rockets and systems developed to send astronauts to low-Earth orbit as part of our Commercial Crew Program is also helping us get to Mars
Changes to the human body during long-duration spaceflight are significant challenges to solve ahead of a mission to Mars and back. The space station allows us to perform long duration missions without leaving Earth’s orbit.
Although they are orbiting Earth, space station astronauts spend months at a time in near-zero gravity, which allows scientists to study several physiological changes and test potential solutions. The more time they spend in space, the more helpful the station crew members can be to those on Earth assembling the plans to go to Mars.
4. We’re launching a spacecraft in 2018 that will go “touch the Sun”
In the summer of 2018, we’re launching Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft that will get closer to the Sun than any other in human history. Parker Solar Probe will fly directly through the Sun’s atmosphere, called the corona. Getting better measurements of this region is key to understanding our Sun.
For instance, the Sun releases a constant outflow of solar material, called the solar wind. We think the corona is where this solar wind is accelerated out into the solar system, and Parker Solar Probe’s measurements should help us pinpoint how that happens.
5. You can digitally fly along with spacecraft…that are actually in space…in real-time!
NASA’s Eyes are immersive, 3D simulations of real events, spacecraft locations and trajectories. Through this interactive app, you can experience Earth and our solar system, the universe and the spacecraft exploring them. Want to watch as our Juno spacecraft makes its next orbit around Juno? You can! Or relive all of the Voyager mission highlights in real-time? You can do that too! Download the free app HERE to start exploring.
6. When you feel far away from home, you can think of the New Horizons spacecraft as it heads toward the Kuiper Belt, and the Voyager spacecraft are beyond the influence of our sun…billions of miles away
Our New Horizons spacecraft completed its Pluto flyby in July 2015 and has continued on its way toward the Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft continues to send back important data as it travels toward deeper space at more than 32,000 miles per hour, and is ~3.2 billion miles from Earth.
In addition to New Horizons, our twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-37-year journey since their 1977 launches, they are each much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between the stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago.
7. There are humans brave enough to not only travel in space, but venture outside space station to perform important repairs and updates during spacewalks
Just this month (October 2017) we’ve already had two spacewalks on the International Space Station...with another scheduled on Oct. 20.
Spacewalks are important events where crew members repair, maintain and upgrade parts of the International Space Station. These activities can also be referred to as EVAs – Extravehicular Activities. Not only do spacewalks require an enormous amount of work to prepare for, but they are physically demanding on the astronauts. They are working in the vacuum of space in only their spacewalking suit.
8. Smart people are up all night working in control rooms all over NASA to ensure that data keeps flowing from our satellites and spacecraft
Our satellites and spacecraft help scientists study Earth and space. Missions looking toward Earth provide information about clouds, oceans, land and ice. They also measure gases in the atmosphere, such as ozone and carbon dioxide and the amount of energy that Earth absorbs and emits. And satellites monitor wildfires, volcanoes and their smoke.
9. A lot of NASA-developed tech has been transferred for use to the public
Our Technology Transfer Program highlights technologies that were originally designed for our mission needs, but have since been introduced to the public market. HERE are a few spinoff technologies that you might not know about.
10. We have a spacecraft currently traveling to an asteroid to collect a sample and bring it back to Earth
OSIRIS-REx is our first-ever mission that will travel to an asteroid and bring a sample of it back to Earth. Currently, the spacecraft is on its way to asteroid Bennu where it will survey and map the object before it “high-fives” the asteroid with its robotic arm to collect a sample, which it will send to Earth.
If everything goes according to plan, on Sept. 24, 2023, the capsule containing the asteroid sample will make a soft landing in the Utah desert.
11. There are Earth-sized planets outside our solar system that may be habitable
To date, we have confirmed 3,000+ exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system that orbit a Sun-like star. Of these 3,000, some are in the habitable zone – where the temperature is just right for liquid water to exist on the surface.
Recently, our Spitzer Space Telescope revealed the first known system of SEVEN Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these plants are firmly in the habitable zone, and could have liquid water on the surface, which is key to life as we know it.
12. Earth looks like art from space
In 1960, the United States put its first Earth-observing environmental satellite into orbit around the planet. Over the decades, these satellites have provided invaluable information, and the vantage point of space has provided new perspectives on Earth.
The beauty of Earth is clear, and the artistry ranges from the surreal to the sublime.
13. We’re building a telescope that will be able to see the first stars ever formed in the universe
Wouldn’t it be neat to see a period of the universe’s history that we’ve never seen before? That’s exactly what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to do…plus more!
Specifically, Webb will see the first objects that formed as the universe cooled down after the Big Bang. We don’t know exactly when the universe made the first stars and galaxies – or how for that matter. That is what we are building Webb to help answer.
Happy Friday the 13th! We hope it’s out-of-this-world!
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More Posts from Nasa and Others
Benefits To Humanity
How does research in space help life on Earth? That’s a great question! It seems crazy that a laboratory orbiting about 200 miles over us can have a benefits on science on the ground. Here are a few ways that research aboard the International Space Station benefits humanity:
Improve Human Health
The space station has supported research that supports areas such as aging, trauma, disease and the environment. Advances in human health have been gained from the unique microgravity environment.
For example, crew aboard the station experience issues such as bone loss while in space. Learning about the causes and understanding the treatments can help the elderly or people prone to Osteoporosis here on Earth.
Are you Asthmatic? Crew aboard the space station use a tool that could be used for Asthma patients. The lightweight, easy-to-use device is used to monitor levels of asthma control and the efficiency of medication. This leads to more accurate dosing, reduced attacks and improved quality of life.
Drinkable water on the space station isn’t something just sitting in water bottles waiting to be consumed. Since storage and weight are limited in transporting things to space, crew members must recycle old, dirty water and reuse it day after day. The technology they use for this on the space station, can also be used in at-risk areas on Earth that don’t have access to clean water.
Earth Observations
The International Space Station has a unique vantage point for observing Earth’s ecosystems. A wide variety of payloads can be attached to the station’s exterior to collect data on things like: global climate, environmental change and natural hazards.
Farming from Space
Farmers can leverage images from the International Space Station to grow crops. The camera captures frequent images of Earth in visible and infrared light, that helps farmers monitor crop growth for disease or fertility differences.
From NASA to Napa. Some of the research on the space station has even provided benefits to the wine industry on Earth! Solutions for growing crops in space translates really well to solutions for mold prevention in wine cellars and other confined spaces on Earth.
For many other ways that research on the International Space Station benefits life on Earth, go HERE.
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How Gravity Warps Light
Gravity is obviously pretty important. It holds your feet down to Earth so you don’t fly away into space, and (equally important) it keeps your ice cream from floating right out of your cone! We’ve learned a lot about gravity over the past few hundred years, but one of the strangest things we’ve discovered is that most of the gravity in the universe comes from an invisible source called “dark matter.” While our telescopes can’t directly see dark matter, they can help us figure out more about it thanks to a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.
The Gravity of the Situation
Anything that has mass is called matter, and all matter has gravity. Gravity pulls on everything that has mass and warps space-time, the underlying fabric of the universe. Things like llamas and doughnuts and even paper clips all warp space-time, but only a tiny bit since they aren’t very massive.
But huge clusters of galaxies are so massive that their gravity produces some pretty bizarre effects. Light always travels in a straight line, but sometimes its path is bent. When light passes close to a massive object, space-time is so warped that it curves the path the light must follow. Light that would normally be blocked by the galaxy cluster is bent around it, producing intensified — and sometimes multiple — images of the source. This process, called gravitational lensing, turns galaxy clusters into gigantic, intergalactic magnifying glasses that give us a glimpse of cosmic objects that would normally be too distant and faint for even our biggest telescopes to see.
Hubble “Sees” Dark Matter
Let’s recap — matter warps space-time. The more matter, the stronger the warp and the bigger its gravitational lensing effects. In fact, by studying “lensed” objects, we can map out the quantity and location of the unseen matter causing the distortion!
Thanks to gravitational lensing, scientists have measured the total mass of many galaxy clusters, which revealed that all the matter they can see isn’t enough to create the warping effects they observe. There’s more gravitational pull than there is visible stuff to do the pulling — a lot more! Scientists think dark matter accounts for this difference. It’s invisible to our eyes and telescopes, but it can’t hide its gravity!
The mismatch between what we see and what we know must be there may seem strange, but it’s not hard to imagine. You know that people can’t float in mid-air, so what if you saw a person appearing to do just that? You would know right away that there must be wires holding him up, even if you couldn’t see them.
Our Hubble Space Telescope observations are helping unravel the dark matter mystery. By studying gravitationally lensed galaxy clusters with Hubble, astronomers have figured out how much of the matter in the universe is “normal” and how much is “dark.” Even though normal matter makes up everything from pickles to planets, there’s about five times more dark matter in the universe than all the normal matter combined!
WFIRST Will Escalate the Search
One of our next major space telescopes, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), will take these gravitational lensing observations to the next level. WFIRST will be sensitive enough to use weak gravitational lensing to see how clumps of dark matter warp the appearance of distant galaxies. By observing lensing effects on this small scale, scientists will be able to fill in more of the gaps in our understanding of dark matter.
WFIRST will observe a sky area 100 times larger than Hubble does, but with the same awesome image quality. WFIRST will collect so much data in its first year that it will allow scientists to conduct in-depth studies that would have taken hundreds of years with previous telescopes.
WFIRST’s weak gravitational lensing observations will allow us to peer even further back in time than Hubble is capable of seeing. Scientists believe that the universe’s underlying dark matter structure played a major role in the formation and evolution of galaxies by attracting normal matter. Seeing the universe in its early stages will help scientists unravel how it has evolved over time and possibly provide clues to how it may continue to evolve. We don’t know what the future will hold, but WFIRST will help us find out.
This science is pretty mind-bending, even for scientists. Learn more as our current and future telescopes plan to help unlock these mysteries of the universe...
Hubble: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html WFIRST: https://wfirst.gsfc.nasa.gov/
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HBCU Students Make Moves with NASA Tech
In September 2023, students at HBCUs participated in a hackathon at the National HBCU Week Conference, where they used NASA’s technologies to create solutions to problems that affect Black communities. The winning team, Team Airtek, proposed a nano-sensor array for medical diagnoses that would give students on HBCU campuses a non-invasive, non-intensive way to test themselves for precursors for diseases and illnesses like diabetes and COVID.
The hackathon they participated in is a modified version of the full NASA Minority University Research and Education Project Innovation and Tech Transfer Idea Competition (MITTIC) that takes place each fall and spring semester at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
No matter what you’re studying, you can join the MITTIC competition and come up with new and innovative tech to help your community and the world.
MITTIC could be the beginning of your career pathway: Teams can go on exclusive NASA tours and network with industry experts. Show off your entrepreneurial skills and your team could earn money—and bragging rights.
Don’t wait too long to apply or to share with someone who should apply! The deadline for proposals is Oct. 16, 2023. Apply here: https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/nasamittic.
Get to Know the 9 Astronauts Set to #LaunchAmerica
Our Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry to develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit!
As we prepare to launch humans from American soil for the first time since the final space shuttle mission in 2011, get to know the astronauts who will fly with Boeing and SpaceX as members of our commercial crew!
Bob Behnken
Bob Behnken served as Chief of the NASA Astronaut Office from July 2012 to July 2015, where he was responsible for flight assignments, mission preparation, on-orbit support of International Space Station crews and organization of astronaut office support for future launch vehicles. Learn more about Bob.
Eric Boe
Eric Boe first dreamed of being an astronaut at age 5 after his parents woke him up to watch Neil Armstrong take his first steps onto the lunar surface. Learn more about Eric.
Josh Cassada
Josh Cassada holds a Master of Arts Degree and a Doctorate in Physics with a specialty in high energy particle physics from the University of Rochester, in Rochester, New York. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013, and his first spaceflight will be as part of the Commercial Crew Program. Learn more about Josh.
Chris Ferguson
Chris Ferguson served as a Navy pilot before becoming a NASA astronaut, and was commander aboard Atlantis for the final space shuttle flight, as part of the same crew as Doug Hurley. He retired from NASA in 2011 and has been an integral part of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner program. Learn more about Chris.
Victor Glover
Victor Glover was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013 while working as a Legislative Fellow in the United States Senate. His first spaceflight will be as part of the Commercial Crew Program. Learn more about Victor.
Mike Hopkins
Mike Hopkins was a top flight test engineer at the United States Air Force Test Pilot School. He also studied political science at the Università degli Studi di Parma in Parma, Italy, in 2005, and became a NASA astronaut in 2009. Learn more about Mike.
Doug Hurley
In 2009, Doug Hurley was one of the record-breaking 13 people living on the space station at the same time. In 2011, he served as the pilot on Atlantis during the final space shuttle mission, delivering supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station. Now, he will be one of the first people to launch from the U.S. since that last shuttle mission. Learn more about Doug.
Nicole Mann
Nicole Mann is a Naval Aviator and a test pilot in the F/A-18 Hornet. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013, and her first spaceflight will be as part of the Commercial Crew Program. Learn more about Nicole.
Suni Williams
Suni Williams has completed 7 spacewalks, totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes. She’s also known for running. In April 2007, Suni ran the first marathon in space, the Boston Marathon, in 4 hours and 24 minutes. Learn more about Suni.
Boeing and SpaceX are scheduled to complete their crew flight tests in mid-2019 and April 2019, respectively. Once enabled, commercial transportation to and from the International Space Station will empower more station use, more research time and more opportunities to understand and overcome the challenges of living in space, which is critical for us to create a sustainable presence on the Moon and carry out missions deeper into the solar system, including Mars!
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We’re With You When You Fly
Did you know that "We’re With You When You Fly”? Thanks to our advancements in aeronautics, today’s aviation industry is better equipped than ever to safely and efficiently transport millions of passengers and billions of dollars worth of freight to their destinations. In fact, every U.S. Aircraft flying today and every U.S. air traffic control tower uses NASA-developed technology in some way. Here are some of our objectives in aeronautics:
Making Flight Greener
From reducing fuel emissions to making more efficient flight routes, we’re working to make flight greener. We are dedicated to improving the design of airplanes so they are more Earth friendly by using less fuel, generating less pollution and reducing noise levels far below where they are today.
Getting you safely home faster
We work with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide air traffic controllers with new tools for safely managing the expected growth in air traffic across the nation. For example, testing continues on a tool that controllers and pilots can use to find a more efficient way around bad weather, saving thousands of pounds of fuel and an average of 27 minutes flying time per tested flight. These and other NASA-developed tools help get you home faster and support a safe, efficient airspace.
Seeing Aviation’s Future
Here at NASA, we’re committed to transforming aviation through cutting edge research and development. From potential airplanes that could be the first to fly on Mars, to testing a concept of a battery-powered plane, we’re always thinking of what the future of aviation will look like.
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Craving some summer Sun? We're inviting people around the world to submit their names to be placed on a microchip that will travel to the Sun aboard Parker Solar Probe!
Launching summer 2018, Parker Solar Probe will be our first mission to "touch" a star. The spacecraft - about the size of a small car - will travel right through the Sun's atmosphere, facing brutal temperatures and radiation as it traces how energy and heat move through the solar corona and explores what accelerates the solar wind and solar energetic particles.
Send your name along for the ride at go.nasa.gov/HotTicket! Submissions will be accepted through April 27, 2018.
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Take a Virtual Tour of NASA
Welcome to NASA! Today, we’re taking you behind-the-scenes for a virtual tour looking at our cutting-edge work and humanity’s destiny in deep space!
Starting at 1:30 p.m., we will host a series of Facebook Live events from each of our 10 field centers across the country. Take a look at where we’ll be taking you…
Glenn Research Center 1:30 p.m. EDT
Our Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, OH will host a tour of its Electric Propulsion Lab. This lab is where we test solar propulsion technologies that are critical to powering spacecraft for our deep-space missions. The Electric Propulsion Laboratory houses two huge vacuum chambers that simulate the space environment.
Marshall Space Flight Center 1:50 p.m. EDT
Our Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL will host a tour from a Marshall test stand where structural loads testing is performed on parts of our Space Launch System rocket. Once built, this will be the world’s most powerful rocket and will launch humans farther into space than ever before.
Stennis Space Center 2:10 p.m. EDT
Our Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, MS will take viewers on a tour of their test stands to learn about rocket engine testing from their Test Control Center.
Armstrong Flight Research Center 2:30 p.m. EDT
Our Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, CA will host a tour from their aircraft hangar and Simulator Lab where viewers can learn about our X-Planes program. What’s an X-Plane? They are a variety of flight demonstration vehicles that are used to test advanced technologies and revolutionary designs.
Johnson Space Center 2:50 p.m. EDT
Our Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX will take viewers on a virtual exploration trip through the mockups of the International Space Station and inside our deep-space exploration vehicle, the Orion spacecraft!
Ames Research Center 3:10 p.m. EDT
Our Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley will bring viewers into its Arc Jet Facility, a plasma wind tunnel used to simulate the extreme heat of spacecraft atmospheric entry.
Kennedy Space Center 3:30 p.m. EDT
Our Kennedy Space Center in Florida will bring viewers inside the Vehicle Assembly Building to learn about how we’re preparing for the first launch of America’s next big rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Langley Research Center 3:50 p.m. EDT
Our Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia will bring viewers inside its 14-by-22-foot wind tunnel, where aerodynamic projects are tested.
Goddard Space Flight Center 4:10 p.m. EDT
Our Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD will discuss the upcoming United States total solar eclipse and host its tour from the Space Weather Lab, a large multi-screen room where data from the sun is analyzed and studied.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4:30 p.m. EDT
Our Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA will bring viewers to the Spacecraft Assembly Facility to learn about robotic exploration of the solar system.
So, make sure to join us for all or part of our virtual tour today, starting at 1:30 p.m. EDT! Discover more about the work we’re doing at NASA and be sure to ask your questions in the comment section of each Facebook Live event!
Additional details and viewing information available HERE.
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Commander Callie Continues Moon Mission in NASA’s Second Graphic Novel
You followed fictional astronaut, Callie Rodriguez, on her journey to the Moon in our First Woman graphic novel, “Issue No. 1: From Dream to Reality.”
In the brand new “Issue No. 2: Expanding our Universe,” find out how Callie and her robotic sidekick RT escape the lunar lava tunnel and what challenges await them on the lunar surface.
See Callie and her new crewmates work together as a team and navigate the unexpected as they take on a challenging mission to deploy a next-generation telescope on the far side of the Moon. Now available digitally in English at nasa.gov/CallieFirst and in Spanish at nasa.gov/PrimeraMujer!
Along with the new chapter, the First Woman app – available in the Apple and Google Play stores – has been updated with new immersive, extended reality content. Explore the lunar surface and learn about the real technologies we’re building to make living and working on the Moon – and eventually, Mars – possible.
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Countdown to Calving at Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf
Cracks growing across Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf are poised to release an iceberg with an area about twice the size of New York City, (about 604 square miles). It is not yet clear how the remaining ice shelf will respond following the break, posing an uncertain future for scientific infrastructure and a human presence on the shelf that was first established in 1955.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Kathryn Hansen, with image interpretation by Chris Shuman (NASA/UMBC).
The above image, from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows the area on January 23, 2019. The crack along the top of the image—the so-called Halloween crack—first appeared in late October 2016 and continues to grow eastward from an area known as the McDonald Ice Rumples. The rumples are due to the way ice flows over an underwater formation, where the bedrock rises high enough to reach into the underside of the ice shelf. This rocky formation impedes the flow of ice and causes pressure waves, crevasses, and rifts to form at the surface.
The more immediate concern is the rift visible in the center of the image. Previously stable for about 35 years, this crack recently started accelerating northward as fast as 4 kilometers per year.
Calving is a normal part of the life cycle of ice shelves, but the recent changes are unfamiliar in this area. The edge of the Brunt Ice Shelf has evolved slowly since Ernest Shackleton surveyed the coast in 1915, but it has been speeding up in the past several years.
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NASA Science Show & Tell
This week, we’re at one of the biggest science conferences in the country, where our scientists are presenting new results from our missions and projects. It’s called the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting.
Here are a few of the things we shared this week...
The Sun
A few months into its seven-year mission, Parker Solar Probe has already flown far closer to the Sun than any spacecraft has ever gone. The data from this visit to the Sun has just started to come back to Earth, and scientists are hard at work on their analysis.
Parker Solar Probe sent us this new view of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. The image was taken by the mission’s WISPR instrument on Nov. 8, 2018, and shows a coronal streamer seen over the east limb of the Sun. Coronal streamers are structures of solar material within the Sun's atmosphere, the corona, that usually overlie regions of increased solar activity. The fine structure of the streamer is very clear, with at least two rays visible. Parker Solar Probe was about 16.9 million miles from the Sun's surface when this image was taken. The bright object near the center of the image is Mercury, and the dark spots are a result of background correction.
Hurricane Maria
Using a satellite view of human lights, our scientists watched the lights go out in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. They could see the slow return of electricity to the island, and track how rural and mountainous regions took longer to regain power.
In the spring, a team of scientists flew a plane over Puerto Rico’s forests, using a laser instrument to measure how trees were damaged and how the overall structure of the forests had changed.
Earth’s Ice
Our scientists who study Antarctica saw some surprising changes to East Antarctica. Until now, most of the continent’s melting has been on the peninsula and West Antarctica, but our scientists have seen glaciers in East Antarctica lose lots of ice in the last few years.
Our ICESat-2 team showed some of their brand new data. From the changing height of Antarctic ice to lagoons off the coast of Mexico, the little satellite has spent its first few months measuring our planet in 3D. The laser pulses even see individual ocean waves, in this graph.
Scientists are using our satellite data to track Adélie penguin populations, by using an unusual proxy -- pictures of their poop! Penguins are too small to be seen by satellites, but they can see large amounts of their poop (which is pink!) and use that as a proxy for penguin populations.
Asteroid Bennu
Our OSIRIS-REx mission recently arrived at its destination, asteroid Bennu. On approach, data from the spacecraft’s spectrometers revealed chemical signatures of water trapped in clay minerals. While Bennu itself is too small to have ever hosted liquid water, the finding indicates that liquid water was present at some time on Bennu’s parent body, a much larger asteroid.
We also released a new, detailed shape model of Bennu, which is very similar to our ground-based observations of Bennu’s shape. This is a boon to ground-based radar astronomy since this is our first validation of the accuracy of the method for an asteroid! One change from the original shape model is the size of the large boulder near Bennu’s south pole, nicknamed “Benben.” The boulder is much bigger than we thought and overall, the quantity of boulders on the surface is higher than expected. Now the team will make further observations at closer ranges to more accurately assess where a sample can be taken on Bennu to later be returned to Earth.
Jupiter
The Juno mission celebrated it’s 16th science pass of #Jupiter, marking the halfway point in data collection of the prime mission. Over the second half of the prime mission — science flybys 17 through 32 — the spacecraft will split the difference, flying exactly halfway between each previous orbit. This will provide coverage of the planet every 11.25 degrees of longitude, providing a more detailed picture of what makes the whole of Jupiter tick.
Mars
The Mars 2020 team had a workshop to discuss the newly announced landing site for our next rover on the Red Planet. The landing site...Jezero Crater! The goal of Mars 2020 is to learn whether life ever existed on Mars. It's too cold and dry for life to exist on the Martian surface today. But after Jezero Crater formed billions of years ago, water filled it to form a deep lake about the same size as Lake Tahoe. Eventually, as Mars' climate changed, Lake Jezero dried up. And surface water disappeared from the planet.
Interstellar Space
Humanity now has two interstellar ambassadors. On Nov. 5, 2018, our Voyager 2 spacecraft left the heliosphere — the bubble of the Sun’s magnetic influence formed by the solar wind. It’s only the second-ever human-made object to enter interstellar space, following its twin, Voyager 1, that left the heliosphere in 2012.
Scientists are especially excited to keep receiving data from Voyager 2, because — unlike Voyager 1 — its plasma science instrument is still working. That means we’ll learn brand-new information about what fills the space between the stars.
Learn more about NASA Science at science.nasa.gov.
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