Five Reasons You Wouldn’t Want To Live Near A Black Hole

How will the audio feed from Perseverance make its way back to Earth?

Say hello to the Carina Nebula 👋 

One of the largest panoramic images ever taken with our Hubble Space Telescope’s cameras, this image features a stunning 50-light-year-wide view of the intense central region of the Carina Nebula - a strange stellar nursery. The nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. The Carina Nebula lies within our own galaxy, about 7,500 light-years away. 

At the heart of the nebula is Eta Carinae — a system of two stars. The larger star, Eta Car A, is around 100 times as massive as the Sun and 5 million times as luminous! Stars of this size are extremely rare; our galaxy is home to hundreds of billions of stars, but only tens of them are as massive as Eta Car A.

This view of the Carina Nebula provided astronomers the opportunity to explore the process of star birth at a new level of detail. The hurricane-strength blast of stellar winds and blistering ultraviolet radiation within the cavity are now compressing the surrounding walls of cold hydrogen. This is triggering a second stage of new star formation. Hubble has also enabled scientists to generate 3-D models that reveal never-before-seen features of the interactions between the Eta Carinae star system.

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out of all the roles you've had in the past, which one do you feel has best prepared you to be a flight director?

Exercising in Space

Are you hoping to get to the gym more often in 2016? While you work out on Earth, here are a few ways that astronauts stay fit on the International Space Station.

Exercise is an important part of the daily routine for astronauts aboard the International Space Station to prevent bone and muscle loss, and to maintain cardiovascular health. On average, astronauts exercise two hours per day. The equipment they use in space is different than what we use on Earth.

Lifting 200 pounds on Earth may be a lot of work, but in microgravity a 200 pound dumbbell would not weigh anything. Therefore, free weights do not serve as a good strength training tool for the astronauts in space.  That means exercise equipment needs to be specifically designed for use in space so astronauts will receive the workout needed.

What Equipment Do They Use in Space?

Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED)

The ARED hardware uses adjustable resistance piston-driven vacuum cylinders along with a flywheel system to simulate free-weight exercises in normal gravity. It’s primary goal is to maintain muscle strength and bone mass in astronauts during long periods in space.

Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation System (CEVIS)

CEVIS is very similar to a mechanical bicycle. It’s bolted to the floor, and astronauts snap their shoes on to the pedals. A seat belt can be used to hold them in position, and they can change the resistance for varying levels of difficulty.

Russian Treadmill (BD-2)

BD-2 is the treadmill that is found in the Russian segment of the space station. It allows crew members to walk and run with a speed from 2.4 to 20 km/hr. 

Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT)

COLBERT is the second generation U.S. treadmill on the space station. It features data collection devices that will allow scientists and doctors to evaluate how effective the exercise is in reducing the amount of bone and muscle density loss due to microgravity exposure. It allows crew members to walk and run with a speed from 4.8 to 20 km/hr. 

Why is it called COLBERT? 

The treadmill’s name was selected after comedian Stephen Colbert took interest in our online naming poll for Node 3 of space station. He urged his viewers to submit the name “Colbert.” Although we ended up choosing the suggested name “Tranquillity” for the node, we designated its new treadmill “COLBERT” in honor of the name that received the most entries.

VELO Ergomoeter Bike (VB-3)

VB-3 is used for aerobic training, medical tests and pedaling regimes. It is located in the Russian segment of the space station. 

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INCOMING! Roving scientist to arrive on Mars. 

Save the date! One year from today, Feb. 18, 2021, our next rover is set to land on Mars. Get to know #Mars2020 now! Click here. 

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Are We Alone? How NASA Is Trying to Answer This Question.

One of the greatest mysteries that life on Earth holds is, “Are we alone?”

At NASA, we are working hard to answer this question. We’re scouring the universe, hunting down planets that could potentially support life. Thanks to ground-based and space-based telescopes, including Kepler and TESS, we’ve found more than 4,000 planets outside our solar system, which are called exoplanets. Our search for new planets is ongoing — but we’re also trying to identify which of the 4,000 already discovered could be habitable.

Unfortunately, we can’t see any of these planets up close. The closest exoplanet to our solar system orbits the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, which is just over 4 light years away. With today’s technology, it would take a spacecraft 75,000 years to reach this planet, known as Proxima Centauri b.

How do we investigate a planet that we can’t see in detail and can’t get to? How do we figure out if it could support life?

This is where computer models come into play. First we take the information that we DO know about a far-off planet: its size, mass and distance from its star. Scientists can infer these things by watching the light from a star dip as a planet crosses in front of it, or by measuring the gravitational tugging on a star as a planet circles it.

We put these scant physical details into equations that comprise up to a million lines of computer code. The code instructs our Discover supercomputer to use our rules of nature to simulate global climate systems. Discover is made of thousands of computers packed in racks the size of vending machines that hum in a deafening chorus of data crunching. Day and night, they spit out 7 quadrillion calculations per second — and from those calculations, we paint a picture of an alien world.

While modeling work can’t tell us if any exoplanet is habitable or not, it can tell us whether a planet is in the range of candidates to follow up with more intensive observations. 

One major goal of simulating climates is to identify the most promising planets to turn to with future technology, like the James Webb Space Telescope, so that scientists can use limited and expensive telescope time most efficiently.

Additionally, these simulations are helping scientists create a catalog of potential chemical signatures that they might detect in the atmospheres of distant worlds. Having such a database to draw from will help them quickly determine the type of planet they’re looking at and decide whether to keep observing or turn their telescopes elsewhere.

Learn more about exoplanet exploration, here. 

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What range/area will Perseverance be able to cover on the Martian surface? I'm assuming it's greater than the other rovers but by how much?

Space toilet, Radishes, and a Spacewalk in Virtual Reality

A rocket is launching to the International Space Station next week, carrying tons of science and supplies to the orbiting laboratory. It’s Northrop Grumman’s 14th (NG-14) commercial resupply cargo mission, and includes plant research, a new space toilet, and a special virtual reality camera designed to immerse you in a spacewalk. Let’s take a closer look at what’s on board, and how you can ask some of the scientists anything.

A new way to “boldly go” in space  

A new space toilet is heading to the space station. It’s smaller than the current toilets aboard the station, and includes a 3D printed titanium cover for its dual fan separator. These are just some of the upgrades that make it better suited for our deep space exploration missions. Engineers also gathered feedback from astronauts and set out to design more comfortable attachments that would make “boldly going” in space a more enjoyable experience. The toilet is being tested on the space station, and will also be used on a future Artemis mission. The new design will allow us to increase how much water we recover for use, because yep … yesterday’s coffee becomes tomorrow’s drinking water. See below for an opportunity to speak with the folks who made the new space toilet happen.  

Space plants are rad(ish)!  

Astronauts traveling to the Moon and Mars will need to grow food to supplement their diets. The latest in plant studies aboard the space station hopes to pack a crunch in that research. We’ll be growing radishes in a special plant chamber, and learning how light, water, atmosphere, and soil conditions affect the bulbous vegetables. Radishes are nutritious, grow quickly (roughly four weeks from sowing to harvest), and are genetically similar to Arabidopsis, a plant frequently studied in microgravity. What we learn could help optimize growth of the plants in space as well as provide an assessment of their nutrition and taste. See below for an opportunity to ask anything of the scientist and engineer behind this new crop.  

Immerse yourself in a spacewalk  

If going to space is on your bucket list, you might be closer than you think to checking that box. Felix & Paul Studios is creating an immersive 360 virtual reality film of a spacewalk that will put you right next to the astronauts as they go about their work on the outside of the space station … at 17,500 miles per hour. The new camera, specially designed to withstand the incredibly harsh environment of space, will be mounted on the station’s robotic arm so it can be maneuvered around the outside of the space station. Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël are the co-founders of the immersive entertainment studio, and have been producing a film aboard the space station – from Earth – for more than a year already. See below for a chance to ask them anything about what filming in space takes.  

You can join in the NG-14 Reddit Ask Me Anything on Friday, Sept. 25 to ask anything of these folks and their projects. Here’s the schedule:  

Space toilet (a.k.a the Universal Waste Management System): Melissa McKinley with NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems and Jim Fuller of Collins Aerospace, and program manager for UWMS at 12 p.m. EDT at https://www.reddit.com/r/space.

Radishes in space (a.k.a. Plant Habitat-02): Dr. Karl Hasenstein is the scientist behind the Plant Habitat-02, and Dave Reed knows the ins and outs of the Advanced Plant Habitat of the space station. Their Reddit AMA begins at 3 p.m. EDT at https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening.

Virtual reality spacewalk camera: Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël co-founders and creative directors of Felix & Paul Studios will be taking questions at 5 p.m. EDT on https://www.reddit.com/r/filmmakers.

These are just a few of the payloads launching aboard the NG-14 Cygnus cargo vehicle to the space station next week. Read about the cancer research, and new commercial products also heading to space and watch the video above to learn more. Launch is targeted for Tuesday, Sept. 29, with a five-minute launch window opening at approximately 10:26 p.m. EDT. Live coverage begins on NASA TV at 10 p.m. EDT.

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Other than joy, why do you do the things you do?

Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week...Halloween Edition!

This week, we're getting into the Halloween spirit with 10 spooktacular things to let your imagination run wild. 

It's not Halloween without our favorite scary characters, but what if they could stop bothering us Earthlings and go far, far away? We begin with where Dracula, Frankenstein, and other creepy creatures might choose to live if the galaxy were theirs to claim...

1. The dark (k)night.

The prince of darkness himself, Dracula, can finally seek sweet respite from the Sun. We think he'd love to live on a rocky planet named YZ Ceti d that orbits so close to its red star that it's tidally locked keeping one side of the planet in perpetual nighttime and the other side in perpetual daytime, with a brilliant red sky (though we can guess which side Dracula will prefer). 

2. Where art thou, werewolves? 

Home sweet home for our furry Full Moon friends might just be on Trappist-1, a planetary system with seven planets—and where standing on one planet would mean the other planets look like six moons (some as big as our Moon in the sky). 

3. Left in the dust. 

We couldn't think of anyone better to live on Proxima b than The Mummy. Hopefully this ancient monster can finally rest in peace on an exoplanet that scientists theorize is a desert planet once home to ancient oceans. 

4. Cloudy with a chance of Frankenstein.

One scientific experiment we'd like to conduct: whether Frankenstein would rather live on HAT-P-11b or Kepler-3b, theorized to have fierce thunderstorms and lightning. 

5. The walking dead. 

We're pretty confident that if zombies were to pick a planet, they'd want one that shares their love of death and destruction. We think they'd feel right at home on one of the pulsar planets, which are scorched by radiation because they orbit a dead star. 

6. Rest your weary bones. 

Skeletons need look no further: Osiris, an exoplanet that's so close to a star that it's "losing its flesh" as the star destroys it, seems like a perfect match. 

7. Enough of the scary stuff. 

For kids out there, turn pumpkin decorating into an out-of-this-world activity with space-themed stencils, from Saturn to the Sun. 

8. Spooky sounds. 

Cassini's radio emissions from Saturn could give creaky doors and howling winds a run for their money. Listen to the eerie audio recordings here and find more HERE.

9. Pumpkin-carve like a NASA engineer. 

NASA engineers design and build robots that can fly millions of miles to study other planets for a living—so on Halloween, they can't help but bring that creative thinking to the grand old tradition of pumpkin carving. Take a cue from their creations with these insider tips.

10. Detective for a day. 

From blades of ice on Pluto to a fuzzy, white "bunny" photographed on Mars, become a solar system sleuth and see if you can solve the stellar mysteries in this slideshow (then compare with how scientists cracked the case). 

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