It Takes A Nation To #LaunchAmerica!

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. 

A Spacecraft's Second Life: Our K2 mission

A critical failure that ended one mission has borne an unexpected and an exciting new science opportunity. The Kepler spacecraft, known for finding thousands of planets orbiting other stars, has a new job as the K2 mission.

Like its predecessor, K2 detects the tiny, telltale dips in the brightness of a star as an object passes or transits it, to possibly reveal the presence of a planet. Searching close neighboring stars for near-Earth-sized planets, K2 is finding planets ripe for follow-up studies on their atmospheres and to see what the planet is made of. A step up from its predecessor, K2 is revealing new info on comets, asteroids, dwarf planets, ice giants and moons. It will also provide new insight into areas as diverse as the birth of new stars, how stars explode into spectacular supernovae, and even the evolution of black holes.

K2 is expanding the planet-hunting legacy and has ushered in entirely new opportunities in astrophysics research, yet this is only the beginning.

Searching Nearby for Signs of Life

Image credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Scientists are excited about nearby multi-planet system known as K2-3. This planetary system, discovered by K2, is made of three super-Earth-sized planets orbiting a cool M-star (or red dwarf) 135 light-years away, which is relatively close in astronomical terms. To put that distance into perspective, if the Milky Way galaxy was scaled down to the size of the continental U.S. it would be the equivalent of walking the three-mile long Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. At this distance, our other powerful space-investigators – the Hubble Space Telescope and the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – could study the atmospheres of these worlds in search of chemical fingerprints that could be indicative of life. K2 expects to find a few hundred of these close-by, near-Earth-sized neighbors.

K2 won’t be alone in searching for nearby planets outside our solar system. Revving up for launch around 2017-2018, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) plans to monitor 200,000 close stars for planets, with a focus on finding Earth and Super-Earth-sized planets.

The above image is an artist rendering of Gliese 581, a planetary system representative of K2-3.

Neptune's Moon Dance

Movie credit: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/J. Rowe

Spying on our neighbors in our own solar system, K2 caught Neptune in a dance with its moons Triton and Nereid. On day 15 (day counter located in the top right-hand corner of the green frame) of the sped-up movie, Neptune appears, followed by its moon Triton, which looks small and faint. Keen-eyed observers can also spot Neptune's tiny moon Nereid at day 24. Neptune is not moving backward but appears to do so because of the changing position of the Kepler spacecraft as it orbits around the sun. A few fast-moving asteroids make cameo appearances in the movie, showing up as streaks across the K2 field of view. The red dots are a few of the stars K2 examines in its search for transiting planets outside of our solar system. An international team of astronomers is using these data to track Neptune’s weather and probe the planet’s internal structure by studying subtle brightness fluctuations that can only be observed with K2.

Dead Star Devours Planet

Image credit: CfA/Mark A. Garlick

K2 also caught a white dwarf – the dead core of an exploded star –vaporizing a nearby tiny rocky planet. Slowly the planet will disintegrate, leaving a dusting of metals on the surface of the star. This trail of debris blocks a tiny fraction of starlight from the vantage point of the spacecraft producing an unusual, but vaguely familiar pattern in the data. Recognizing the pattern, scientists further investigated the dwarf’s atmosphere to confirm their find. This discovery has helped validate a long-held theory that white dwarfs are capable of cannibalizing possible remnant planets that have survived within its solar system.

Searching for Far Out Worlds

NASA/JPL-Caltech

In April, spaced-based K2 and ground-based observatories on five continents will participate in a global experiment in exoplanet observation and simultaneously monitor the same region of sky towards the center of our galaxy to search for small planets, such as the size of Earth, orbiting very far from their host star or, in some cases, orbiting no star at all. For this experiment, scientists will use gravitational microlensing – the phenomenon that occurs when the gravity of a foreground object focuses and magnifies the light from a distant background star.

The animation demonstrates the principles of microlensing. The observer on Earth sees the source (distant) star when the lens (closer) star and planet pass through the center of the image. The inset shows what may be seen through a ground-based telescope. The image brightens twice, indicating when the star and planet pass through the observatory's line of sight to the distant star.

Full microlensing animation available HERE.

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

Do you ever feel despair at work just because of your colour? Are you constantly under pressure to prove your worth? And do you feel like a brand endorsement of the organisation you work for when they say "first African American space station crew member"? I understand it could also be a matter of pride for you. Why should origins be used as a leverage for the image of the company? In fact, why should it matter at all? I apologise if these questions are inappropriate. I'm not yet an adult.

Since I have no problems with who I am, I never feel despaired. If other people have a problem, then that’s their problem. I will never take on anyone else’s problem. I do the same work as my colleagues, and I don’t accept less.

Each year we hold a Day of Remembrance. Today, Jan. 25, we pay tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, as well as other NASA colleagues who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery. 

#NASARemembers

Learn more about the Day of Remembrance HERE. 

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

Juno: Inside the Spacecraft

Our Juno spacecraft was carefully designed to meet the tough challenges in flying a mission to Jupiter: weak sunlight, extreme temperatures and deadly radiation. Lets take a closer look at Juno:

It Rotates!

Roughly the size of an NBA basketball court, Juno is a spinning spacecraft. Cartwheeling through space makes the spacecraft’s pointing extremely stable and easy to control. While in orbit at Jupiter, the spinning spacecraft sweeps the fields of view of its instruments through space once for each rotation. At three rotations per minute, the instruments’ fields of view sweep across Jupiter about 400 times in the two hours it takes to fly from pole to pole.

It Uses the Power of the Sun

Jupiter’s orbit is five times farther from the sun than Earth’s, so the giant planet receives 25 times less sunlight than Earth. Juno will be the first solar-powered spacecraft we've designed to operate at such a great distance from the sun. Because of this, the surface area of the solar panels required to generate adequate power is quite large.

Three solar panels extend outward from Juno’s hexagonal body, giving the overall spacecraft a span of about 66 feet. Juno benefits from advances in solar cell design with modern cells that are 50% more efficient and radiation tolerant than silicon cells available for space missions 20 years ago. Luckily, the mission’s power needs are modest, with science instruments requiring full power for only about six out of each 11-day orbit.

It Has a Protective Radiation Vault

Juno will avoid Jupiter’s highest radiation regions by approaching over the north, dropping to an altitude below the planet’s radiation belts, and then exiting over the south. To protect sensitive spacecraft electronics, Juno will carry the first radiation shielded electronics vault, a critical feature for enabling sustained exploration in such a heavy radiation environment.

Juno Science Payload:

Gravity Science and Magnetometers – Will study Jupiter’s deep structure by mapping the planet’s gravity field and magnetic field.

Microwave Radiometer – Will probe Jupiter’s deep atmosphere and measure how much water (and hence oxygen) is there.

JEDI, JADE and Waves – These instruments will work to sample electric fields, plasma waves and particles around Jupiter to determine how the magnetic field is connected to the atmosphere, and especially the auroras (northern and southern lights).

JADE and JEDI

Waves

UVS and JIRAM – Using ultraviolet and infrared cameras, these instruments will take images of the atmosphere and auroras, including chemical fingerprints of the gases present.

UVS

JIRAM

JunoCam – Take spectacular close-up, color images.

Follow our Juno mission on the web, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr.

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

Boo-tiful Ring Galaxies

A ghoulish secret lurks within each of these gorgeous galaxies. Their rings are dotted with stellar graveyards!

These objects are called ring galaxies, and scientists think most of them form in monster-sized crashes. Not just any galaxy collision will do the trick, though. To produce the treat of a ring, a smaller galaxy needs to ram through the center of a larger galaxy at just the perfect angle.

The collision causes ripples that disturb both galaxies. The gravitational shock causes dust, gas, and stars in the larger galaxy’s disk to rush outward. As this ring of material plows out from the galaxy’s center, gas clouds collide and trigger the birth of new stars.

In visible light, the blue areas in the galaxies’ rings show us where young, hot stars are growing up. Faint, pink regions around the ring mark stellar nurseries where even younger stars set hydrogen gas aglow.

The newborn stars come in a mix of sizes, from smaller ones like our Sun all the way up to huge stars with tens of times the Sun’s mass. And those massive stars live large!

While a star like our Sun will last many billions of years before running out of fuel, larger stars burn much brighter and faster. After just a few million years, the largest stars explode as supernovae. When massive stars die, they leave behind a stellar corpse, either a neutron star or black hole.

When we turn our X-ray telescopes to these ring galaxies, we see telltale signs of stellar remnants dotted throughout their ghostly circles. The purple dots in the X-ray image above are neutron stars or black holes that are siphoning off gas from a companion star, like a vampire. The gas reinvigorates stellar corpses, which heat up and emit X-rays. These gas-thirsty remains are beacons lighting the way to stellar graveyards.

Spiral galaxies — like our home galaxy, the Milky Way — have curved arms that appear to sweep out around a bright center. The dust and gas in those spiral arms press together, causing cycles of star formation that result in a more even mix of new stars and stellar corpses scattered throughout our galaxy. No creepy ring of stellar corpses here!  

To visit some other eerie places in the universe, check out the latest additions to the Galaxy of Horrors poster series and follow NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook for news about black holes, neutron stars, galaxies, and all the amazing objects outside our solar system.

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

A Tiny Satellite Studies Stormy Layers

The gif above shows data taken by an experimental weather satellite of Hurricane Dorian on September 3, 2019. TEMPEST-D, a NASA CubeSat, reveals rain bands in four layers of the storm by taking the data in four different radio frequencies. The multiple vertical layers show where the most warm, wet air within the hurricane is rising high into the atmosphere. Pink, red and yellow show the areas of heaviest rainfall, while the least intense areas of rainfall are in green and blue.

How does an Earth satellite the size of a cereal box help NASA monitor storms? 

The goal of the TEMPEST-D (Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems Demonstration) mission is to demonstrate the performance of a CubeSat designed to study precipitation events on a global scale.

If TEMPEST-D can successfully track storms like Dorian, the technology demonstration could lead to a train of small satellites that work together to track storms around the world. By measuring the evolution of clouds from the moment of the start of precipitation, a TEMPEST constellation mission, collecting multiple data points over short periods of time, would improve our understanding of cloud processes and help to clear up one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate models. Knowledge of clouds, cloud processes and precipitation is essential to our understanding of climate change.

What is a CubeSat, anyway? And what’s the U for?

CubeSats are small, modular, customizable vessels for satellites. They come in single units a little larger than a rubix cube - 10cmx10cmx10cm - that can be stacked in multiple different configurations. One CubeSat is 1U. A CubeSat like TEMPEST-D, which is a 6U, has, you guessed it, six CubeSat units in it.

Pictured above is a full-size mockup of MarCO, a 6U CubeSat that recently went to Mars with the Insight mission. They really are about the size of a cereal box!

We are using CubeSats to test new technologies and push the boundaries of Earth Science in ways never before imagined. CubeSats are much less expensive to produce than traditional satellites; in multiples they could improve our global storm coverage and forecasting data.

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

Why do we explore? Simply put, it is part of who we are, and it is something we have done throughout our history. In "We Are the Explorers," we take a look at that tradition of reaching for things just beyond our grasp and how it is helping us lay the foundation for our greatest journeys ahead. So what are we doing to enable exploration? We’re building the Orion spacecraft is built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Orion will launch on NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System.

Also underway, is Astronaut Scott Kelly’s Year In Space. Kelly is living and working off the Earth, for the Earth aboard the station for a yearlong mission. Traveling the world more than 220 miles above the Earth, and at 17,500 mph, he circumnavigates the globe more than a dozen times a day conducting research about how the body adapts and changes to living in space for a long duration.

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.

Earth’s Land Ice by the Numbers

“At a glacial pace” used to mean moving so slowly the movement is almost imperceptible. Lately though, glaciers are moving faster. Ice on land is melting and flowing, sending water to the oceans, where it raises sea levels.

In 2018, we launched the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) to continue a global record of ice elevation. Now, the results are in. Using millions of measurements from a laser in space and quite a bit of math, researchers have confirmed that Earth is rapidly losing ice.

16 Years 

ICESat-2 was a follow-up mission to the original ICESat, which launched in 2003 and took measurements until 2009. Comparing the two records tells us how much ice sheets have melted over 16 years.

½ Inch

During those 16 years, melting ice from Antarctica and Greenland was responsible for just over a half-inch of sea level rise. When ice on land melts, it eventually finds its way to the ocean. The rapid melt at the poles is no exception.

400,000 Olympic Swimming Pools

One gigaton of ice holds enough water to fill 400,000 Olympic swimming pools. It’s also enough ice to cover Central Park in New York in more than 1,000 feet of ice.

200 Gigatons

Between 2003 and 2019, Greenland lost 200 gigatons of ice per year. That’s 80 million Olympic swimming pools reaching the ocean every year, just from Greenland alone.

118 Gigatons

During the same time period, Antarctica lost 118 gigatons of ice per year. That’s another 47 million Olympic swimming pools every year. While there has been some elevation gain in the continent’s center from increased snowfall, it’s nowhere near enough to make up for how much ice is lost to the sea from coastal glaciers.

10,000 Pulses

ICESat-2 sends out 10,000 pulses of laser light a second down to Earth’s surface and times how long it takes them to return to the satellite, down to a billionth of a second. That’s how we get such precise measurements of height and changing elevation.

These numbers confirm what scientists have been finding in most previous studies and continue a long record of data showing how Earth’s polar ice is melting. ICESat-2 is a key tool in our toolbox to track how our planet is changing.

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