We Worked On Apollo

Hail the Hexagon...

The full light of our sun allowed the Cassini spacecraft to capture this image of Saturn's hexagonal polar jet stream, but the sun does not provide much warmth. In addition to being low in the sky (just like summer at Earth's poles), the sun is nearly ten times as distant from Saturn as from Earth. This results in the sunlight being only about 1 percent as intense as at our planet. 

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 560,000 miles (900,000 kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 33 miles (54 kilometers) per pixel.

More info: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia21327/hail-the-hexagon

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10 Ways to Celebrate Pi Day with Us on March 14

On March 14, we will join people across the U.S. as they celebrate an icon of nerd culture: the number pi. 

So well known and beloved is pi, also written π or 3.14, that it has a national holiday named in its honor. And it’s not just for mathematicians and rocket scientists. National Pi Day is widely celebrated among students, teachers and science fans, too. Read on to find out what makes pi so special, how it’s used to explore space and how you can join the celebration with resources from our collection.

1—Remind me, what is pi?

Pi, also written π, is the Swiss Army knife of numbers. No matter how big or small a circle – from the size of our universe all the way down to an atom or smaller – the ratio of a circle’s circumference (the distance around it) to its diameter (the distance across it) is always equal to pi. Most commonly, pi is used to answer questions about anything circular or spherical, so it comes in handy especially when you’re dealing with space exploration.

2—How much pi do you need?

For simplicity, pi is often rounded to 3.14, but its digits go on forever and don’t appear to have any repeating patterns. While people have made it a challenge to memorize record-breaking digits of pi or create computer programs to calculate them, you really don’t need that many digits for most calculations – even at NASA. Here’s one of our engineers on how many decimals of pi you need.

3—Officially official.

Pi pops up in everything from rocket-science-level math to the stuff you learn in elementary school, so it’s gained a sort of cult following. On March 14 (or 3/14 in U.S. date format) in 1988, a physicist at the San Francisco Exploratorium held what is thought to be the first official Pi Day celebration, which smartly included the consumption of fruit pies. Math teachers quickly realized the potential benefits of teaching students about pi while they ate pie, and it all caught on so much that in 2009, the U.S. Congress officially declared March 14 National Pi Day. Here’s how to turn your celebration into a teachable moment.

4—Pi helps us explore space!

Space is full of circular and spherical features, and to explore them, engineers at NASA build spacecraft that make elliptical orbits and guzzle fuel from cylindrical fuel tanks, and measure distances on circular wheels. Beyond measurements and space travel, pi is used to find out what planets are made of and how deep alien oceans are, and to study newly discovered worlds. In other words, pi goes a long way at NASA.

5—Not just for rocket scientists.

No Pi Day is complete without a little problem solving. Even the math-averse will find something to love about this illustrated math challenge that features real questions scientists and engineers must answer to explore and study space – like how to determine the size of a distant planet you can’t actually see. Four new problems are added to the challenge each year and answers are released the day after Pi Day.

6—Teachers rejoice.

For teachers, the question is not whether to celebrate Pi Day, but how to celebrate it. (And how much pie is too much? Answer: The limit does not exist.) Luckily, our Education Office has an online catalog for teachers with all 20 of its “Pi in the Sky” math challenge questions for grades 4-12. Each lesson includes a description of the real-world science and engineering behind the problem, an illustrated handout and answer key, and a list of applicable Common Core Math and Next Generation Science Standards.

7—How Do We celebrate?

In a way, we celebrate Pi Day every day by using pi to explore space. But in our free time, we’ve been known to make and eat space-themed pies, too! Share your own nerdy celebrations with us here.

8—A pop-culture icon.

The fascination with pi, as well its popularity and accessibility have made it a go-to math reference in books, movies and television. Ellie, the protagonist in Carl Sagan’s book “Contact,” finds a hidden message from aliens in the digits of pi. In the original “Star Trek” series, Spock commanded an alien entity that had taken over the computer to compute pi to the last digit – an impossible task given that the digits of pi are infinite. And writers of “The Simpsons,” a show known for referencing math, created an episode in which Apu claims to know pi to 40,000 digits and proves it by stating that the 40,000th digit is 1.

9—A numbers game.

Calculating record digits of pi has been a pastime of mathematicians for millennia. Until the 1900s, these calculations were done by hand and reached records in the 500s. Once computers came onto the scene, that number jumped into the thousands, millions and now trillions. Scientist and pi enthusiast Peter Trueb holds the current record – 22,459,157,718,361 digits – which took his homemade computer 105 days of around-the-clock number crunching to achieve. The record for the other favorite pastime of pi enthusiasts, memorizing digits of pi, stands at 70,030.

10—Time to throw in the tau?

As passionate as people are about pi, there are some who believe things would be a whole lot better if we replaced pi with a number called tau, which is equal to 2π or 6.28. Because many formulas call for 2π, tau-enthusiasts say tau would provide a more elegant and efficient way to express those formulas. Every year on Pi Day, a small debate ensues. While we won’t take sides, we will say that pi is more widely used at NASA because it has applications far beyond geometry, where 2π is found most often. Perhaps most important, though, for pi- and pie-lovers alike is there’s no delicious homonym for tau.

Enjoy the full version of this article HERE. 

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NASA’s View of COVID-19

#COVID19 led to changes in human activities around the globe. We can see some of these changes from space. Some bodies of water have run clearer, emissions of pollutants have temporarily declined, and transportation and shipment of goods have decreased.

Along with our partner agencies – ESA and JAXA – we’re making satellite data available on the COVID-19 Earth Observation Dashboard, where you can explore some of the changes we can see from space.

But it’s not just what we can see. When the pandemic began, NASA engineers sprang into action to build ventilators, oxygen hoods and more to help save lives.

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Did you have an innate talent for math? Or did you struggle and practiced until you understood it? I wanted to become an aerospace engineer but after taking a class I decided psychology was more suited for me because I struggled with equations but thrived with the psychological terms

Anything you don’t know is hard until you learn it. There are a few geniuses in the world, but most people study and work hard to learn what they love. Even the smartest amongst you actually put in a lot of time to learn the things that they want, and no one is an exception. You have to put in the time.

Hello Dr Kate Rubins, why conduct your researches in space? What is there in space that you need for your research? Best regards.

Worlds That Will Make You Believe Star Wars is Real

The fantastical planets in Star Wars preceded our discovery of real planets outside our solar system…but fiction isn’t too far from the facts. When we send our spacecraft into the solar system and point our telescopes beyond, we often see things that seem taken right out of the Star Wars universe.

Is there a more perfect time than May the 4th to compare real worlds to the ones depicted in Star Wars? 

Probably not...so here are a few:

Mimas

Saturn’s moon, Mimas, has become known as the "Death Star" moon because of how its 80-mile wide Herschel crater creates a resemblance to the Imperial battle station, especially when seen in this view from our Cassini spacecraft. 

Kepler-452b

The most recently revealed exoplanet dubbed as Earth’s bigger, older cousin, Kepler-452b, might make a good stand-in for Coruscant — the high tech world seen in several Star Wars films whose surface is encased in a single, globe-spanning city. Kepler-452b belongs to a star system 1.5 billion years older than Earth’s! That would give any technologically adept species more than a billion-year jump ahead of us.

CoRoT-7b

At 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, CoRoT-7B is a HOT planet. Discovered in 2010 with France’s CoRoT satellite, it’s some 480 light-years away, and has a diameter 70% larger than Earth’s, with nearly five times the mass. Possibly the boiled-down remnant of a Saturn-sized planet, its orbit is so tight that its star looms much larger in its sky than our sun appears to us, keeping its sun-facing surface molten!  This scorching planet orbiting close to its star could be a good analog for planet Mustafar from Star Wars. 

Kepler-16b

Luke Skywalker’s home planet, Tatooine, is said to possess a harsh, desert environment, swept by sandstorms as it roasts under the glare of twin suns. Real exoplanets in the thrall of two or more suns are even harsher! Kepler-16b was the Kepler telescope’s first discovery of a planet in a “circumbinary” orbit (a.k.a, circling both stars, as opposed to just one, in a double star system). This planet, however, is likely cold, about the size of Saturn, and gaseous, though partly composed of rock.

OGLE-2005-BLG-390

Fictional Hoth is a frozen tundra that briefly serves as a base for the hidden Rebel Alliance. It’s also the nickname of real exoplanet OGLE-2005-BLG-390, a cold super-Earth whose surface temperature clocks in at minus 364 degrees Fahrenheit.

Kepler-22b

Kepler-22b, analog to the Star Wars planet Kamino…which was the birthplace of the army of clone soldiers, is a super-Earth that could be covered in a super ocean. The jury is still out on Kepler-22b’s true nature; at 2.4 times Earth’s radius, it might even be gaseous. But if the ocean world idea turns out to be right, we can envision a physically plausible Kamino-like planet.

Gas Giants

Gas giants of all stripes populate the real exoplanet universe; in Star Wars, a gas giant called Bespin is home to a “Cloud City” actively involved in atmospheric mining. Mining the atmospheres of giant gas planets is a staple of science fiction. We too have examined the question, and found that gases such as helium-3 and hydrogen could theoretically be extracted from the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. 

Exomoons

Endor, the forested realm of the Ewoks, orbits a gas giant. Exomoon detection is still in its infancy for scientists on Earth. However, a possible exomoon (a moon circling a distant planet) was observed in 2014 via microlensing. It will remain unconfirmed, however, since each microlensing event can be seen only once.

May the 4th be with you!

Discover more about exoplanets here: https://exoplanets.jpl.nasa.gov/

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We’re studying a new method of water recycling and carbon dioxide removal that relies on specific geometric shapes and fluid dynamics, rather than complex machinery, in an effort to help build better life support systems for spacecraft. The research could also teach us more about the water processing approaches we take on Earth. Here, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer, is working with the Capillary Structures for Exploration Life Support (Capillary Structures) investigation capillary sorbent hardware that is made up of 3D printed contractors that are supported by tubing, valves and a pump.

Learn more about how this highly interactive investigation works, and what we could learn from the results HERE.

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What Can We Learn from the Universe’s Baby Picture?

If you look at your baby photos, you might see hints of the person you are today — a certain look in the eyes, maybe the hint of your future nose or ears. In the same way, scientists examine the universe’s “baby picture” for clues about how it grew into the cosmos we know now. This baby photo is the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a faint glow that permeates the universe in all directions.

In late September, NASA plans to launch a balloon-based astronomical observatory from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, to study the universe’s baby picture. Meet PIPER! The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer will fly at the edge of our atmosphere to look for subtle patterns in the CMB.

The CMB is cold. Really, really cold. The average temperature is around minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit. It formed 380,000 years after the big bang, which scientists think happened about 13.8 billion years ago. When it was first discovered, the CMB temperature looked very uniform, but researchers later found there are slight variations like hot and cold spots. The CMB is the oldest light in the universe that we can see. Anything before the CMB is foggy — literally.

Credit: Rob van Hal

Before the CMB, the universe was a fog of hot, dense plasma. (By hot, we’re talking about 500 million degrees F.) That’s so hot that atoms couldn’t exist yet – there was just a soup of electrons and protons. Electrons are great at deflecting light. So, any light that existed in the first few hundred thousand years after the big bang couldn’t travel very far before bouncing off electrons, similar to the way a car’s headlights get diffused in fog.  

After the big bang, the universe started expanding rapidly in all directions. This expansion is still happening today. As the universe continued to expand, it cooled. By the time the universe reached its 380,000th birthday, it had cooled enough that electrons and protons could combine into hydrogen atoms for the first time. (Scientists call this era recombination.) Hydrogen atoms don’t deflect light nearly as well as loose electrons and the fog lifted. Light could now travel long distances across the universe.

The light we see in the CMB comes from the recombination era. As it traveled across the universe, through the formation of stars and galaxies, it lost energy. Now we observe it in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is less energetic than visible light and therefore invisible to our eyes. The first baby photo of the CMB – really, a map of the sky in microwaves – came from our Cosmic Background Explorer, which operated from 1989 to 1993.

Why are we so interested in the universe’s baby picture? Well, it’s helped us learn a lot about the structure of the universe around us today. For example, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe produced a detailed map of the CMB and helped us learn that the universe is 68 percent dark energy, 27 percent dark matter and just 5 percent normal matter — the stuff that you and stars are made of.

Right after the big bang, we’re pretty sure the universe was tiny. Really tiny. Everything we see today would have been stuffed into something smaller than a proton. If the universe started out that small, then it would have followed the rules of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics allows all sorts of strange things to happen. Matter and energy can be “borrowed” from the future then crash back into nothingness. And then cosmic inflation happened and the universe suddenly expanded by a trillion trillion times.

All this chaos creates a sea of gravitational waves. (These are called “primordial” gravitational waves and come from a different source than the gravitational waves you may have heard about from merging neutron stars and black holes.) The signal of the primordial gravitational waves is a bit like white noise, where the signal from merging dead stars is like a whistle you can pick up over the noise.

These gravitational waves filled the baby universe and created distinct patterns, called B-mode polarization, in the CMB light. These patterns have handedness, which means even though they’re mirror images of each other, they’re not symmetrical — like trying to wear a left-hand glove on your right hand. They’re distinct from another kind of polarization called E-mode, which is symmetrical and echoes the distribution of matter in the universe.

That’s where PIPER comes in. PIPER’s two telescopes sit in a hot-tub-sized container of liquid helium, which runs about minus 452 degrees F. It’ll look at 85 percent of the sky and is extremely sensitive, so it will help us learn even more about the early days of the universe. By telling us more about polarization and those primordial gravitational waves, PIPER will help us understand how the early universe grew from that first baby picture.

PIPER’s first launch window in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, is in late September. When it’s getting ready to launch, you’ll be able to watch the balloon being filled on the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website. Follow NASA Blueshift on Twitter or Facebook for updates about PIPER and when the livestream will be available.

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Happy Martian New Year!

For any planet, a year is the time it takes to make one orbit around the sun. Because Mars is farther away from the sun, it has to travel a greater distance than Earth. It takes Mars about twice as long as it does for Earth to make one circle around the sun…therefore, a year on Mars lasts twice as long.

On May 5, Mars passes solar longitude 0 as the sun crosses the equator on Mars. This is the vernal equinox and was chosen by planetary scientists as the start of a new year.

Mars has four seasons, roughly twice as long as those on Earth, but with more variation given Mars’ eccentric orbit and the fact its orbital speed varies more as a result.

Did you know that there’s a U.S. city named Mars? Mars, PA hosts an annual Mars New Year celebration and we’re participating in this two-day science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) event to inspire young people to pursue innovation and exploration.

More info on Mars, PA: http://www.marsnewyear.com/

Get updated images from the events in Mars, PA here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/sets/72157683457751005/

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How to Connect with NASA

We're the nation’s space agency, but that doesn’t mean you have to travel to the depths of the universe to stay connected with the awesome stuff we’re doing. There are actually some really easy ways to stay updated on all things space. Check them out:

Apps

We have lots of apps for smartphones and tablets that will make it easier than ever to stay connected to space. Here are a few to pique your interest:  

NASA App: Showcases a huge collection of the latest content, including images, videos, mission information, stories, space station sighting opportunities and more! Download: Apple/Android

NASA Spinoff App: This application profiles the best examples of technology that have been transferred from NASA research and missions into commercial products. From life-saving satellite systems to hospital robots, our technologies benefit society. Download: Apple

NASA 3DV App: The 3DV mobile app allows you to examine several of our Deep Space Exploration projects that will take our space program to asteroids, Mars and beyond! Download: Apple/Android

Spacecraft 3D: This augmented reality (AR) application lets you learn about and interact with a variety of spacecraft that are used to explore our solar system, study Earth and observe the universe. Download: Apple/Android

Competitions and Challenges

NASA Solve is an invitation to members of the public to contribute their time and expertise to solving problems and potentially winning prizes as a result of their work. This is a great way for individual members of the public to be a part of the nation’s space program. For a complete list of current challenges and competitions, visit THIS page.

Citizen Science

You don’t have to be a NASA employee to engage in the fun of interpreting scientific data and imagery from our many spacecraft and missions. As part of our Open Government plan, our goal is to promote transparency, participation and collaboration. By expanding the research base and using open innovation, we are all able to benefit from the accumulated findings. You can find data from our missions, research and activities HERE.

Email and Social Media

We have a wide-range of social media accounts here at NASA. Everything from Earth Science to the Mars Curiosity Rover, you can stay updated on many of our missions on many popular social media sites. For a full list of our accounts, visit THIS page.

If you’d like to get space news delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up for updates and manage preferences HERE.

NASA Socials

What is a NASA Social? We’re glad you asked! These programs provide opportunities for our social media followers to learn and share information about our missions, people and programs. NASA Social includes both special in-person events and social media credentials for individuals who share the news in a significant way. Social events provide the participants with the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at our facilities and events and speak with scientists engineers, astronauts and managers. Visit THIS page for a list of upcoming NASA Social opportunities.

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