Stars Burst Into Life In Carina 

New Science from our Mission to Touch the Sun

In August 2018, our Parker Solar Probe mission launched to space, soon becoming the closest-ever spacecraft from the Sun. Now, scientists have announced their first discoveries from this exploration of our star!

The Sun may look calm to us here on Earth, but it’s an active star, unleashing powerful bursts of light, deluges of particles moving near the speed of light and billion-ton clouds of magnetized material. All of this activity can affect our technology here on Earth and in space.

Parker Solar Probe’s main science goals are to understand the physics that drive this activity — and its up-close look has given us a brand-new perspective. Here are a few highlights from what we’ve learned so far.

1. Surprising events in the solar wind

The Sun releases a continual outflow of magnetized material called the solar wind, which shapes space weather near Earth. Observed near Earth, the solar wind is a relatively uniform flow of plasma, with occasional turbulent tumbles. Closer to the solar wind’s source, Parker Solar Probe saw a much different picture: a complicated, active system. 

One type of event in particular drew the eye of the science teams: flips in the direction of the magnetic field, which flows out from the Sun, embedded in the solar wind. These reversals — dubbed “switchbacks” — last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes as they flow over Parker Solar Probe. During a switchback, the magnetic field whips back on itself until it is pointed almost directly back at the Sun.

The exact source of the switchbacks isn’t yet understood, but Parker Solar Probe’s measurements have allowed scientists to narrow down the possibilities — and observations from the mission’s 21 remaining solar flybys should help scientists better understand these events. 

2. Seeing tiny particle events

The Sun can accelerate tiny electrons and ions into storms of energetic particles that rocket through the solar system at nearly the speed of light. These particles carry a lot of energy, so they can damage spacecraft electronics and even endanger astronauts, especially those in deep space, outside the protection of Earth’s magnetic field — and the short warning time for such particles makes them difficult to avoid.

Energetic particles from the Sun impact a detector on ESA & NASA’s SOHO satellite.

Parker Solar Probe’s energetic particle instruments have measured several never-before-seen events so small that all trace of them is lost before they reach Earth. These instruments have also measured a rare type of particle burst with a particularly high number of heavier elements — suggesting that both types of events may be more common than scientists previously thought.

3. Rotation of the solar wind

Near Earth, we see the solar wind flowing almost straight out from the Sun in all directions. But the Sun rotates as it releases the solar wind, and before it breaks free, the wind spins along in sync with the Sun’s surface. For the first time, Parker was able to observe the solar wind while it was still rotating – starting more than 20 million miles from the Sun.

The strength of the circulation was stronger than many scientists had predicted, but it also transitioned more quickly than predicted to an outward flow, which helps mask the effects of that fast rotation from the vantage point where we usually see them from, near Earth, about 93 million miles away. Understanding this transition point in the solar wind is key to helping us understand how the Sun sheds energy, with implications for the lifecycles of stars and the formation of protoplanetary disks.

4. Hints of a dust-free zone

Parker also saw the first direct evidence of dust starting to thin out near the Sun – an effect that has been theorized for nearly a century, but has been impossible to measure until now. Space is awash in dust, the cosmic crumbs of collisions that formed planets, asteroids, comets and other celestial bodies billions of years ago. Scientists have long suspected that, close to the Sun, this dust would be heated to high temperatures by powerful sunlight, turning it into a gas and creating a dust-free region around the Sun.

For the first time, Parker’s imagers saw the cosmic dust begin to thin out a little over 7 million miles from the Sun. This decrease in dust continues steadily to the current limits of Parker Solar Probe’s instruments, measurements at a little over 4 million miles from the Sun. At that rate of thinning, scientists expect to see a truly dust-free zone starting a little more than 2-3 million miles from the Sun — meaning the spacecraft could observe the dust-free zone as early as 2020, when its sixth flyby of the Sun will carry it closer to our star than ever before.

These are just a few of Parker Solar Probe’s first discoveries, and there’s plenty more science to come throughout the mission! For the latest on our Sun, follow @NASASun on Twitter and NASA Sun Science on Facebook.

NGC 6334, Cat’s Paw

Cepheus Skyscape

Enchanted Moon II by Nima Shayesteh

Wolf Moon by miguel aviles - Art of Visuals Collective

Moon on the horizon, Santa Barbara | California (by A. Klioutchnikov)

And unfortunately I can’t find credit for the final photo.

Making a Spectacle of Star Formation in Orion

Looking like a pair of eyeglasses only a rock star would wear, this nebula brings into focus a murky region of star formation. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this dusty nebula with its infrared vision, showing stellar infants that are lost behind dark clouds when viewed in visible light.

Best known as Messier 78, the two round greenish nebulae are actually cavities carved out of the surrounding dark dust clouds. The extended dust is mostly dark, even to Spitzer’s view, but the edges show up in mid-wavelength infrared light as glowing, red frames surrounding the bright interiors. Messier 78 is easily seen in small telescopes in the constellation of Orion, just to the northeast of Orion’s belt, but looks strikingly different, with dominant, dark swaths of dust. Spitzer’s infrared eyes penetrate this dust, revealing the glowing interior of the nebulae.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Spitzer

shit man this got me emotional

Uranus taken by Voyager 2 on January 11 1986. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill

A universe in motion seen from the International Space Station during a night pass over Earth.

(@ wonderofscience on Twitter)

Timelapse created from images courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center(ISS061-E-110520-111341 eol.jsc.nasa.gov).

Everyone (Even You!) Can Use Satellite Data

At NASA we’re pretty great at putting satellites and science instruments into orbit around Earth. But it turns out we’re also pretty great at showing people how to get and use all that data.

One of the top ways you can learn how to use NASA data is our ARSET program. ARSET is our Applied Remote Sensing Training program and it helps people build skills that integrate all these Earth science data into their decision making.

ARSET will train you on how to use data from a variety of Earth-observing satellites and instruments aboard the International Space Station.

Once you take a training, you’ll be in GREAT company because thousands of people have taken an ARSET training.

We hold in person and online trainings to people around the world, showing them how to use NASA Earth science data. Trainings are offered in air quality, climate, disaster, health, land, water resources and wildfire management.

For example, if you’re trying to track how much fresh drinking water there is in your watershed, you can take an ARSET training and learn how to find satellite data on how much precipitation has fallen over a certain time period or even things like the ‘moistness’ of soil and the quality of the water.

Best yet, all NASA Earth observing data is open and freely available to the whole world! That’s likely one of the reasons we’ve had participants from 172 of the approximately 190 countries on Earth.

Since its beginning 10 years ago, ARSET has trained more than 30 thousand people all over the world. They’ve also worked with people from more than 7,500 different organizations and that includes government agencies, non-profit groups, advocacy organizations, private industry.

And even though 2019 is ARSET’s 10th birthday – we’ve only just begun. Every year about 60% of the organizations and agencies we train are new to the program. We’re training just about anyone who is anyone doing Earth science on Earth! 

Join us, learn more about how we train people to use Earth observing data here, and heck, you can even take a training yourself: https://arset.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

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

More than Just Dust in the Wind

From space, we can see a swirling brown mass making its way across the Atlantic – dust from the Sahara Desert – the largest hot desert in the world. It’s a normal phenomenon. Every year, winds carry millions of tons of dust from North Africa, usually during spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

June 2020 has seen a massive plume of dust crossing the ocean. It’s so large it’s visible from one million miles away in space.

Dust clouds this large can affect air quality in regions where the dust arrives. The particles can also scatter the Sun’s light, making sunrises and sunsets more vibrant.

Dust particles in the air are also known as aerosols. We can measure aerosols, including dust, sea salt and smoke, from satellites and also use computer models to study how they move with the wind.

Following the transport of dust from space shows us how one of the driest places on Earth plays a role in fertilizing the Amazon rainforest. There are minerals in Saharan dust, like phosphorous, that exist in commercial fertilizers, helping seed the rainforest.

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